Mr. Mercedes

Holly is twitching Hodges’s arm. ‘Don’t do it. You’ll spook him and he’ll set it off. I know he will.’

‘She could be right,’ Jerome says, and then (perhaps recalling his trainee status) adds, ‘Sir.’

Gallison is looking at them with alarm. ‘Spook who? Set off what?’

Hodges remains fixed on the custodian. ‘They carry what? Walkies? Radios?’

‘Radios, yuh. They have …’ He pulls his earlobe. ‘You know, things that look like hearie-aids. Like the FBI and Secret Service wear. What’s going on here? Tell me it’s not a bomb.’ And, not liking what he sees on Hodges’s pale and sweating face: ‘Christ, is it?’

Hodges walks past him into the cavernous storage area. Beyond the attic-like profusion of props, flats, and music stands, there’s a carpentry shop and a costume shop. The music is louder than ever, and he’s started to have trouble breathing. The pain is creeping down his left arm, and his chest feels too heavy, but his head is clear.

Brady has either gone bald or mowed it short and dyed what’s left. He may have added makeup to darken his skin, or colored contacts, or glasses. But even with all that, he’d still be a single man at a concert filled with young girls. After the heads-up he gave Windom, Hartsfield still would have attracted notice and suspicion. And there’s the explosive. Holly and Jerome know about that, but Hodges knows more. There were also steel ball bearings, probably a shitload. Even if he wasn’t collared at the door, how could Hartsfield have gotten all that inside? Is the security here really that bad?

Gallison grabs his left arm, and when he shakes it, Hodges feels the pain all the way up to his temples. ‘I’ll go myself. Grab the first security guy I see and have him radio for Windom to come down here and talk to you.’

‘No,’ Hodges says. ‘You will not do that, sir.’

Holly Gibney is the only one of them seeing clearly. Mr Mercedes is in. He’s got a bomb, and it’s only by the grace of God that he hasn’t triggered it already. It’s too late for the police and too late for MAC Security. It’s also too late for him.

But.

Hodges sits down on an empty crate. ‘Jerome. Holly. Get with me.’

They do. Jerome is white-eyed, barely holding back panic. Holly is pale but outwardly calm.

‘Going bald wouldn’t have been enough. He had to make himself look harmless. I might know how he did that, and if I’m right, I know his location.’

‘Where?’ Jerome asks. ‘Tell us. We’ll get him. We will.’

‘It won’t be easy. He’s going to be on red alert right now, always checking his personal perimeter. And he knows you, Jerome. You’ve bought ice cream from that damn Mr Tastey truck. You told me so.’

‘Bill, he’s sold ice cream to thousands of people.’

‘Sure, but how many black people on the West Side?’

Jerome is silent, and now he’s the one biting his lips.

‘How big a bomb?’ Gallison asks. ‘Maybe I should pull the fire alarm?’

‘Only if you want to get a whole shitload of people killed,’ Hodges says. It’s becoming progressively difficult to talk. ‘The minute he senses danger, he’ll blow whatever he’s got. Do you want that?’

Gallison doesn’t reply, and Hodges turns back to the two unlikely associates God – or some whimsical fate – has ordained should be with him tonight.

‘We can’t take a chance on you, Jerome, and we certainly can’t take a chance on me. He was stalking me long before I even knew he was alive.’

‘I’ll come up from behind,’ Jerome says. ‘Blindside him. In the dark, with nothing but the lights from the stage, he’ll never see me.’

‘If he’s where I think he is, your chances of doing that would be fifty-fifty at best. That’s not good enough.’

Hodges turns to the woman with the graying hair and the face of a neurotic teenager. ‘It’s got to be you, Holly. By now he’ll have his finger on the trigger, and you’re the only one who can get close without being recognized.’

She covers her abused mouth with one hand, but that isn’t enough and she adds the other. Her eyes are huge and wet. God help us, Hodges thinks. It isn’t the first time he has had this thought in relation to Holly Gibney.

‘Only if you come with me,’ she says through her hands. ‘Maybe then—’

‘I can’t,’ Hodges says. ‘I’m having a heart attack.’

‘Oh great,’ Gallison moans.

‘Mr Gallison, is there a handicapped area? There must be, right?’

‘Sure. Halfway down the auditorium.’

Not only did he get in with his explosives, Hodges thinks, he’s perfectly located to inflict maximum casualties.

He says: ‘Listen, you two. Don’t make me say this twice.’

35

Thanks to the emcee’s introduction, Brady has relaxed a bit. The carnival crap he saw being offloaded during his reco

The lead singer, the one with all the hair, is finishing a syrupy ballad on his knees. He holds the last note, head bowed, emoting his faggy ass off. He’s a lousy singer and probably already overdue for a fatal drug overdose, but when he raises his head and blares, ‘How ya feelin out there?’ the audience goes predictably batshit.

Brady looks around, as he has every few seconds – checking his perimeter, just as Hodges said he would – and his eyes fix on a little black girl sitting a couple of rows up to his right.

Do I know her?

‘Who are you looking for?’ the pretty girl with the stick legs shouts over the intro to the next song. He can barely hear her. She’s gri

‘Friend of mine!’ Brady shouts back.

Thinking, As if I had any.

As if.

36

Gallison leads Holly and Jerome away to … well, to somewhere. Hodges sits on the crate with his head lowered and his hands planted on his thighs. One of the roadies approaches hesitantly and offers to call an ambulance for him. Hodges thanks him but refuses. He doesn’t believe Brady could hear the warble of an approaching ambulance (or anything else) over the din ’Round Here is producing, but he won’t take the chance. Taking chances is what brought them to this pass, with everyone in the Mingo Auditorium, including Jerome’s mother and sister, at risk. He’d rather die than take another chance, and rather hopes he will before he has to explain this shit-coated clusterfuck.

Only … Janey. When he thinks of Janey, laughing and tipping his borrowed fedora at just the right insouciant angle, he knows that if he had it to do over again, he’d likely do it the same way.

Well … most of it. Given a do-over, he might have listened a little more closely to Mrs Melbourne.

She thinks they walk among us, Bowfinger had said, and the two of them had had a manly chuckle over that, but the joke was on them, wasn’t it? Because Mrs Melbourne was right. Brady Hartsfield really is an alien, and he was among them all the time, fixing computers and selling ice cream.

Holly and Jerome are gone, Jerome carrying the .38 that belonged to Hodges’s father. Hodges has grave doubts about sending the boy into a crowded auditorium with a loaded gun. Under ordinary circumstances he’s a beautifully levelheaded kid, but he’s not apt to be so levelheaded with his mom and sis in danger. Holly needs to be protected, though. Remember you’re just the backup, Hodges told the boy before Gallison led them away, but Jerome made no acknowledgement. He’s not sure Jerome even heard him.