Cat & Mouse

Sampson’s eyes narrowed. I knew the look-sharp, comprehending. “Yeah, and you had no part in any of the hinky shit, right?”

“Maybe I did offer a suggestion about why the setup might be attractive to Thomas Pierce, to his huge ego. Or why he might be cocky enough to get caught.”

Sampson rolled his eyes back into his forehead, the way he’d been doing since we were about ten years old. “Yeah, maybe you did. By the way, he’s an even bigger pain in the ass than you are to work with. Anal as shit, to coin a phrase.”

We waited on the side street in Princeton as night blanketed the university town. It was déjà vu all over again. John Sampson and Alex Cross on stakeout duty.

“You still love me,” Sampson said and grinned. He doesn’t get giddy too often, but when he does-watch out. “You do love me, sugar?”

I put my hand high on his thigh. “Sure do, big fellow.”

He punched me in the shoulder-hard. My arm went numb. My fingers tingled. The man can hit.

“I want to put the hurt on Thomas Pierce! I’m going to put the hurt on Pierce!” Sampson yelled out in the car.

“Put the hurt on Thomas Pierce,” I yelled with him. “And Mr. Smith, too!”

“Put the hurt on Mr. Smith and Mr. Pierce,” we sang in unison, doing our imitation of the Bad Boys movie.

Yeah!

We were back. Same as it ever was.

Chapter 106

THOMAS PIERCE felt that he was invincible, that he couldn’t be stopped.

He waited in the dark, trancelike, without moving. He was thinking about Isabella, seeing her beautiful face, seeing her smile, hearing her voice. He stayed like that until the living room light was switched on and he saw Simon Conklin.

“Intruder in the house,” Pierce whispered. “Sound familiar? Ring any bells for you, Conklin?”

He held a.357 Magnum pointed directly at Conklin’s forehead. He could blow him right out the front door and down the porch stairs.

“What the-?” Conklin was blinky-eyed in the bright light. Then his dark eyes grew beady and hard. “This is unlawful entry!” Conklin screamed. “You have no right to be here in my house. Get the hell out!”

Pierce couldn’t hold back a smile. He definitely got the humor in life, but sometimes he didn’t take enough pleasure in it. He got up out of the chair, holding the gun perfectly still in front of him.

There wasn’t much space to move in the living room, which was filled with tall stacks of newspapers, books, clippings, and magazines. Everything was categorized by date and subject. He was pretty sure that not-so-Simple Simon had an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“Downstairs. We’re going to your basement,” he said. “Down to the cellar.”

The light was already on downstairs. Thomas Pierce had gotten everything ready. An old cot was set up in the center of the crowded basement room. He had cleared away stacks of survivalist and sci-fi books to make room for the cot.

He wasn’t sure, but he thought Conklin’s obsession had to do with the end of the human race. He hoarded books, journals, and newspaper stories that supported his pathological idea. The cover of a science journal was taped to the cellar wall. It read: “Sex Changes in Fish-A Look at Simultaneous and Sequential Hermaphrodites.”

“What the hell?” Simon Conklin yelled when he saw what Pierce had done.

“That’s what they all say,” Thomas Pierce said and shoved him. Conklin stumbled down a couple of stairs.

“You think I’m afraid of you?” Conklin whirled and snarled. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Pierce nodded his head once and cocked an eyebrow. “I hear you, and I’m gong to straighten that out right now.”

He shoved Conklin hard again and watched him tumble down the rest of the stairs. Pierce walked slowly down toward the heap. “You starting to get afraid of me now?” he asked.

He whacked Conklin with the side of the Magnum and watched as blood spit from Simon Conklin’s head. “You starting to get afraid now?”

He bent down and put his mouth close to Conklin’s hairy ear.

“You don’t understand very much about pain. I know that about you,” he whispered. “You don’t have much in the way of guts either. You were the one in the Cross house, but you couldn’t kill Alex Cross, could you? You couldn’t kill his family. You punked out at his house. You blew it. That’s what I already know.”

Thomas Pierce was enjoying the confrontation, the satisfaction of it. He was curious about what made Simon Conklin tick. He wanted to “study” Conklin, to understand his humanity. To know Simon Conklin was to know something about himself.

He stayed in Conklin’s face. “First, I want you to tell me that you’re the one who snuck into Alex Cross’s house. You did it! Now just tell me you did it. What you say here will not be held against you, and will not be used in a court of law. It’s just between us.”

Simon Conklin looked at him as if he were a complete madman. How perceptive.

“You’re crazy. You can’t do this. This won’t matter in court,” Conklin squealed.