بخش 03 - فصل 04

4 Hodges has been checking the Blue Umbrella site frequently, and he’s reading the Mercedes

Killer’s follow-up message only minutes after Brady hit SEND. Hodges is grinning, a big one that smooths his skin and makes him almost handsome. Their relationship has been officially established: Hodges the fisherman, Mr. Mercedes the fish. But a wily fish, he reminds himself, one capable of making a sudden lunge and snapping the line. He will have

to be played carefully, reeled toward the boat slowly. If Hodges is able to do that, if he’s patient, sooner or later Mr. Mercedes will agree to a meeting. Hodges is sure of it. Because if he can’t nudge me into offing myself, that leaves just one alternative, and that’s murder. The smart thing for Mr. Mercedes to do would be to

just walk away; if he does that, the road ends. But he won’t. He’s pissed, but that’s only part of it, and the small part, at that. Hodges wonders if Mr. Mercedes knows just how crazy he is. And if he knows there’s one nugget of hard information here. I think all that TV you watch has rotted your brain.

Up to this morning, Hodges has only suspected that Mr. Mercedes has been watching his house; now he knows. Motherfucker has been on the street, and more than once. He grabs his legal pad and starts jotting possible followup messages. It has to be good, because his fish feels the hook. The pain of it makes him

angry even though he doesn’t yet know what it is. He needs to be a lot angrier before he figures it out, and that means taking a risk. Hodges must jerk the line to seat the hook deeper, despite the risk the line may break. What . . . ? He remembers something Pete Huntley said at lunch, just a remark in passing, and the answer comes to him.

Hodges writes on his pad, then rewrites, then polishes. He reads the finished message over and decides it will do. It’s short and mean. There’s something you forgot, sucka. Something a false confessor couldn’t know. Or a real confessor, for that matter . . . unless Mr. Mercedes checked out his rolling murder weapon from stem to stern before

climbing in, and Hodges is betting the guy didn’t. If he’s wrong, the line snaps and the fish swims away. But there’s an old saying: no risk, no reward. He wants to send the message right away, but knows it’s a bad idea. Let the fish swim around in circles a little longer with that bad old hook in his mouth. The question is

what to do in the meantime. TV never had less appeal for him. He gets an idea–they’re coming in bunches this morning–and pulls out the bottom drawer of his desk. Here is a box filled with the small flip-up pads he used to carry with him when he and Pete were doing street interviews. He never expected

to need one of these again, but he takes one now and stows it in the back pocket of his chinos. It fits just right.