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Chapter 5

Pendergast scurried on down the street, consulting the Corn Rock map in his head, which came complete with mileage from hither to yon, courtesy of a recent perusal of Mapquest. He had looked unblinking at the map for one minute. Then he had blinked, as though taking a mental picture of the burg; a picture that would be ready for instant recall until, or perhaps beyond, his dying day. He decided to stay on the main drag, no pun intended.

He was no more than two blocks from the convenience store when another vehicle eased to a stop beside him. Again he stopped and peered into the interior. This time it was a red pick-up. Apparently Alice was not as hard to surprise as Pendergast. She gasped.

“Hey, I thought you might get off at eleven,” said the baby’s father, idiotic smile crookedly in place. “Thought I might give you a ride to...er, thank you for what you did for my son.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Pendergast Aliced, resuming his scurry. What was wrong with these people? Hadn’t any of them ever seen a desirable woman before?

“No, really. I saw that guy try to pick you up—well, both those guys. And I saw that cop—”

Alice stopped. “Are you stalking me, sir?”

“No! I was just...watching, to see where you...I mean, I was just—”

Alice drew herself up to her full height. “I think you’d better cease and desist, sir, before I call my boyfriend. He’s a top FBI agent and he’ll kick you so hard your next incarnation will have a sore ass. Now leave me alone!” Her voice bordered on hysteria.

Pendergast began breathing exercises to get her under control as he watched the pickup squeal off down the street. Was this an entire community of sexual deviants? There were cases in the literature... He scurried on down the street, slower now. The whole thing was becoming quite tiresome. He’d come here for some excitement, perhaps the chance to pop—er, arrest an escalating pervert. Not to attract such a slew of would-be perverts that the real one would have to take a number. He considered changing his disguise but then caught sight of himself in a reflective store window and, fluffing his wig, nixed the idea.

This time it was a BMW convertible that pulled over beside him. He sighed, bent, and beheld the ER doctor who’d ignored Alice Pearl all shift, much to her displeasure. She gave an interior squeal of vindicated joy and purred, “Why, hello, Dr. Bennett.”

“Hello,” said the doctor from beneath his manly mustache. “Need a lift?”

Pendergast spotted Cody Pruitt’s Mustang lining up for the next pit stop and decided to take the good doctor up on his offer. It would appear that the evening’s efforts were for nil, anyway, and after beating the concrete hospital floors for over eight hours in ghastly mass-produced running shoes, his feet were hurting. And he was at least a mile from the garage where the Camry was parked.

“Thank you, doctor.” Alice Pearl sashayed to the BMW and inserted her tush into the bucket seat. “I was taking a walk, but my car’s in the hospital garage. I would appreciate it if you would be so kind—”

“Sure, Ms. Pearl.” The doctor’s trained, competent hands spun the wheel, and the BMW U-turned back toward the hospital. He glanced over at Pendergast. “I want to welcome you to our hospital. I can tell you’re going to be a real asset.”

“Thank you very much.” Pendergast smiled. At last, a gentleman! Perhaps he could even impart more information about the Slasher. “I wanted to see more of your fair town,” he Aliced, “but I suppose it was reckless of me to take a walk at night with this Slasher person still lurking about.”

“Indeed it was! But never fear, Dr. Bennett to the rescue.” The doctor’s trained, competent right hand reached over and patted Alice’s knee.

Pendergast’s eyes narrowed a millimeter. “Dr. Bennett, I’m curious about this Slasher person. Does he—?”

“Now, that’s no subject for a sweet little thing like you to be thinking about on such a marvelous night,” drawled Dr. Bennett. “I think we should put the top down.”

“Sure. Whatever you want. Tell me, does the Slasher—?”

“Tell you what.” Bennett took his eyes off the road to wink at Alice. “I’ll put my top down if you’ll pull yours up.”

“If I’ll what?”

“Come on, honey, I saw how you looked at me all night in the ER! Nothing to be ashamed of! All the newbies want a piece of Dr. Bennett.”

Pendergast stared at the doctor, speechless. Having worked with cops for years, he knew they were among the randiest species alive, but apparently they had nothing on doctors. This doctor, anyway. And Alice had not looked at Bennett all night! As if!

The doctor must have taken Alice’s silence for acquiescence, because he reached over and gently pinched one of her delectable foam boobies. Before Pendergast even knew it, his hand had formed the Tibetan Claw of Death, shot out, and locked onto the good doctor’s crotch. The car screeched to a halt. Bennett merely screeched.

“Good sir,” Alice addressed the doctor. “I understand you are a man who faces great pressures and disappointments on a daily basis in your work. I know what that can do to a person, so I will give you the benefit of a doubt and surmise that you’re just not yourself this evening. But let me inform you that if you touch me again, you will need to change your name from Dr. Bennett to Dr. Broke It. Do you understand me, sir?”

“Ohhhhhh, you’re soooooooo hot!” the good doctor moaned.

“Oh, ewwwww!” Alice released Bennett’s crotch and leaped from the car. “You’re disgusting!”

“I can be whatever you want me to be, Alice!” Bennett allowed the BMW to troll along beside Alice as she flounced toward the hospital. “I’m trained in anatomy! I know a woman’s body! I know how to give you pleasure!”

“I’d rather die!” Alice picked up her flounce to a trot, and Pendergast, sore feet and all, allowed her her pique and her rapid departure. She deserved it.

The BMW finally roared off down the street. Pendergast had not the time to even breathe a sigh of relief before a white Montero, emitting a thin squeal of tires, U-turned and purred to a stop beside him. Pendergast stopped but could not bring himself to look inside the vehicle. Who would it be this time? The redneck? The ancient ER security guard? The frigging mayor?

“Alice!” called Jo Bright from inside the Montero. “What are you doing out here?”

“Oh!” Alice let out a small yelp of pleased surprise. Thank all the Fates, a female. “Just taking a walk, Mi—Jo. But I could use a lift back to my car.”

“Hop in.”

He hopped, but the Montero continued to idle at the curb while Jo Bright gave him the once-over. “You look like you’ve had a rough night.”

“Oh, it’s been simply horrible!” Ye Gods, was Alice on the brink of tears? The poor dear! Apparently she wasn’t as adept at trading her heretofore sheltered life for dangerous missions as was Constance.

“Oh, Alice! You didn’t run into the Slasher, did you?”

“No! Everyone else but!”

“Oh, poor thing.” Jo Bright reached over and put an arm around Alice Pearl. “Oh, poor baby.” Jo Bright put her other arm around Alice Pearl. “Oh, poor—”

Pendergast stiffened and disentangled himself, hard to do while holding down the stiffness with an elbow. Dammit, he knew he should’ve worn the form shapers! First dangling practically into the cop’s hands and now standing at rigid attention like a guilty perp in a lineup. He tried to meld with the passenger door. He had never before encountered so many hands intent on touching him! Not even at Herkmoor. At least he’d expected it there, knowing himself to be the fairest con of all.

Jo Bright finally stepped on the gas, heading back toward the hospital, albeit at the pace of an arthritic snail. “Lucky for you, the Slasher must’ve been worn out by Miss Congeniality.”

She was referring to the young woman who’d given everyone in the ER a raging headache with her shrill, cawing voice and her insistence that they had all practically conspired with the Slasher to make her life hell for the evening. They’d all known they were in trouble when Mark Smart, one of the more compassionate paramedics, had, upon entering the ER through the automatic double doors at the ambulance entrance, glanced around at the crew and rolled his eyes from his relatively safe position at the head of the stretcher. Sue Cox, bearing the brunt of the caws because she was in the woman’s sightline, had no such opportunity. She wasn’t even trying to calm the woman or defend herself from all the accusations anymore, having ridden in the back of the ambulance with the patient. She was merely hurrying along as fast as possible, obviously intent on dropping the patient off to brutalize someone else for a while. The patient had started with Jo Bright. “Don’t just stand there! Get your ass over here and help me!”

Jo Bright, veteran of many drunk, disorderly, or just plain mean Patients of Incidents Past, was not deterred by the woman’s tone, choice of words, nor volume. Neither, apparently, was Alice Pearl. They both hurried over and, counting, “One, two, three,” lifted the woman from the ambulance stretcher to the ER gurney. During the lift, the woman began to struggle, managing to bare her pantyless ass to the entire world, thus giving her something else to caw about. “First that deviant steals my underwear, then you morons show my female parts to everyone in this dog pound of a hospital! And I’m still bleeding! Why don’t you do something about that? I’m bleeding!”

Jo Bright glanced at the bandaid that covered the tiny wound on the woman’s neck, noted the miniscule spot of blood that had soaked through the center of it, and said, “You are not bleeding, ma’am. Can you tell me your name, where you are, and what year it is?”

“My name is Monica Tilly, I’m in a dog pound, and it’s two-thousand-and-fucking-seven! Why don’t you stop these ridiculous questions and do something for me?”

“Ms. Tilly,” Alice Pearl interjected, in her sweetest tone, “Nurse Bright is only trying to—”

“And don’t you placate me, you little red-headed slut!”

Jo Bright watched Alice’s mouth fall open, saw her look down at herself as though checking to be sure everything was where it should be. Alice Pearl looked so sadly perplexed, and such a flush sprang to the sweet thing’s cheeks, that Jo Bright suddenly wanted to throttle the loud-mouthed shrew on the gurney. Wanted to take her bandage scissors and open up the teensy little scrape and show her what real bleeding was. Wanted to grab a needle and stick it in her eye and watch the blob of shit-brown jelly-ball run down her cheek like a—Good Lord! What’s wrong with me??? Unbeknownst to her, most everyone in the ER was also royally pissed at the woman’s treatment of the lovely Alice Pearl, and were entertaining their own violent fantasies, including young Cody Pruitt, the mustachioed Dr. Bennett, and the quickly mesmerized Mark Smart.



Alice Pearl collected herself quickly. “Madam, if you will permit me...” She reached out and touched the woman’s neck near the bandaid. Smoothed the woman’s brown hair back. “How terrible for you, Ms. Tilly. How perfectly awful, for a refined lady like yourself to be subjected to such an outrage. You must have been so frightened. I cannot imagine.”

As Alice Pearl stroked the woman’s hair, Jo Bright watched with her eyes squinted half-shut in an ecstasy of jealous rage. Unbeknownst to her, most everyone else in the ER wore the same expression, for the same reason, including young Cody Pruitt, the mustachioed Dr. Bennett, and the quickly mesmerized Mark Smart.

Monica Tilly froze with her mouth open to caw more unthinkable insults. She sat that way for a long beat, then tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks and she began to blubber. Unfortunately, she blubbered at the same decibel level that she cawed. “Oh, I am so sorry! So sorry for speaking to you that way!” She held Alice Pearl’s long hand against her cheek and sobbed. “You are the only person in this dog pound who has any sympathy, any compassion! I’m so sorry I called you a sl...a sl...I’m sorry!”

“Now, now,” murmured Alice Pearl, trying and failing to take back her hand. “Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances.”

Monica Tilly stared up into Alice Pearl’s wide blue eyes and actually kissed the long white captive hand. Jo Bright had suppressed an elated guffaw as she saw Alice Pearl suppress a shudder.

Now she maneuvered the Montero toward Corn Rock Hospital, though driving was difficult when her eyes kept trying to turn back toward the vision in the passenger seat. Jo Bright still couldn’t believe she was reacting this way to another woman but, being of sound and open mind, had decided that, since it seemed uncontrollable, she might as well enjoy it. “Ms. Tilly was lucky. I saw two of the other victims when they came in. They were hurt much worse, though not really that bad, but they were terrified. This guy must be pretty scary.”

“I’m sure.”

Jo Bright glanced at her passenger again, to find her sitting calmly, staring straight ahead, lovely chest rising and falling slowly. Her hands rested on her knees, index fingers meeting thumbs in small circles. Jo Bright thought that Alice Pearl must’ve had a pretty scary evening, herself, and wondered what had happened to necessitate this level of control.

She turned into the garage, spotted the Camry, and slowed to a stop behind it. Alice Pearl looked at her with somewhat luminous, slightly spaced-out blue eyes. “Thank you kindly, Ms—Jo, for the ride. I shall see you tomorrow.”

“Sure, Alice—see you tomorrow.”

Alice inclined her lovely head, opened her door, and almost seemed to float from the vehicle and across the pavement to the Camry. Jo pulled forward slowly, giving her time to get safely into the vehicle, and was almost around the corner when a red light began flashing and reflecting off the surrounding windshields and various colorful paint jobs, giving the garage the appearance of a NASCAR Studio 54. She braked and watched an ambulance pull to a stop near Alice’s Camry.

“Hey, there! Want to ride home in style?”

She heard Alice scream something unintelligible.

“But there’s a stretcher in the back. We—I mean you—can—”

The Camry squealed backward, nearly taking off the ECNALUBMA fender, did a seemingly impossible reverse 180, and screamed out of the garage through the entrance, leaving an astounded Jo Bright and a heartsick Mark Smart in its wake.

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