So two months after his mother's funeral and the sale of their Kearney house, and one month after he had dropped out of the university with no forwarding address, Hansen had returned to his hometown in the middle of the night, waited for Mrs. Berkstrom to come out to her station wagon in the dim light of the Nebraska winter morning, and shot her twice in the head with the M1, dumping the carbine in the Platte River on his way east.

He had discovered his taste for raping and killing young girls when he was twenty-three, after the failure—through no fault of his own—of his first marriage. Since then, James B. Hansen had been married seven times, although he saved real sexual satisfaction for his episodes with the young, teenage girls. Wives were good cover and part of whatever identity he was inhabiting at any given time, but their middle-aged flab and used, tired bodies held no excitement for Hansen. He considered himself a connoisseur of virgins. And terrorized virginity was precisely the bouquet and aroma of the fine wine he most enjoyed. James B. Hansen knew that the cultural revulsion from pedophilia was just another example of people pulling away furthest from what they wanted most. From time immemorial, men had wanted the youngest and freshest girls in which to plant their seed—although Hansen never planted his seed anywhere, being careful to wear condoms and latex gloves since DNA typing had become so prevalent. But where other men fantasized and masturbated, James B. Hansen acted and enjoyed.

More than once, Hansen could have found it convenient to add «gay» to his repertoire of chameleon identities, but he drew the line at that. He was no pervert.

Knowing the psychopathology of his own preferences, Hansen avoided stereotypical—and criminal "typable" — behaviors. He was now out of the age range of the average serial killer. He resisted the urge to harvest more than one kill a year. He could afford to fly whenever he wanted and took great care in spreading the victims around the country, with no geographical connection to his home location at any given time. He took no souvenirs except for photographs, and these were sealed away in his locked titanium case inside an expensive safe in his locked gun room in the basement of this house. Only he was allowed to go there. If the police found his souvenir case, then his current identity was long since blown. If his current wife or son somehow got into the room and got into the safe and found the case and somehow opened it… well, they were always expendable.

But that would not happen.

Hansen knew now that John Wellington Frears, the African-American violinist from his Chicago days two decades ago and father of Number Nine, was in Buffalo. He knew now that Frears had thought he'd seen him at the airport—which at first amazed and disturbed Hansen since he had undergone five plastic-surgery operations since Chicago and would not have recognized himself from those days—but he also knew that no one at police headquarters had given any credence at all to Frears's flutterings and sputterings. James B. Hansen was officially as dead as little Crystal Frears, and the Chicago P.D. had the dental records and photos of the charred corpse—complete with a partially identifiable Marine Corps tattoo James B. Hansen had sported—to prove it. And there was no question in his mind that others could not see any physical resemblance between the current iteration of James B. Hansen and that of his old Chicago-era persona.

Hansen had not heard the hullabaloo behind him at the airport—his hearing had been damaged slightly by too many years of practice shooting without ear protection—and did not learn about it right away at work because he had taken two days of vacation after his Florida business trip. It was always Hansen's practice to spend a day or two away from work and family after his annual Special Visit.

When Hansen did hear about Frears, his first impulse was to drive to the Airport Sheraton and blow the overrated fiddler away. He had driven to the Sheraton, but once again the cool, analytical part of his genius-level intellect prevailed. Any murder of Frears in Buffalo would lead to a homicide investigation, which would bring up the man's crank report of his airport spotting, which might involve the Chicago P.D. and some reopening of the Crystal Frears case.

Hansen considered waiting for the old black man to go back to his lonely life in New York and to his upcoming concert tour. Hansen had already downloaded the full itinerary of that tour and he thought that Denver would be a good place for a botched mugging to occur. A fatal shooting. A modest obituary in The New York Times. But that plan had problems: Hansen would have to travel to follow Frears on tour, and travel always left records; a murder in another town would mean that Hansen could have no connection with the homicide investigation. Finally, Hansen simply did not want to wait. He wanted Frears dead. Soon. But he needed someone else to be the obvious suspect—someone else not only to take the fall, but to take a bullet while resisting arrest.

Now Hansen went back into the house and moved from guest to guest laughing, telling easy stories, chuckling at his own mortality looming at the age of fifty—in truth, he had never felt stronger or smarter or more alive—all the while moving toward the kitchen and Donna.

His pager vibrated.

Hansen looked at the number. "Shit." He didn't need these clowns screwing up his birthday. He went up to his bedroom to retrieve his cell phone—his son was on the computer and tying up the house line—and punched in the number.

"Where are you?" he asked. "What's up?"

"We're right outside your house, sir. We were in the area and have some news but didn't want to interrupt your birthday party."

"Good thinking," said Hansen. "Stay where you are." He pulled on a cashmere blazer and went down and out through a gauntlet of backslappings and well wishes. The two were waiting by their car at the end of the drive, hunkered against the falling snow and stamping their feet to stay warm.

"What happened to your vehicle?" asked Hansen. Even with only the glow from his distant porch lights, Hansen could make out the vandalism.

"Fucking homeboys tagged us when we—" began Detective Brubaker.

"Hey," said Hansen. "Watch the language." He detested obscenity and vulgarity.

"Sorry, Captain," said Brubaker. "Myers and me were following down a lead this morning when the locals spray-painted the car. We—"

"What is this important news that couldn't wait until Monday?" interrupted Hansen. Brubaker and Myers were dishonest, venial cops, associates of that murdered, crooked cop Hathaway, whom the entire department shed crocodile tears for the previous fall. Hansen detested crooked cops even more than he detested obscene language.

"Curly died," said Myers.

Hansen had to think for a second. "Henry Pruitt," he said. One of the three Attica ex-cons found on the I-90. "Did he ever regain consciousness?"

"No, sir," said Brubaker.

"Then what are you bothering me for?" There had been no real evidence on the triple killing, and none of the witnesses' descriptions from the restaurant had matched any of the other's. The uniformed cop who had been sapped remembered nothing and had become the laughingstock of his division.

"We had a thought," said Detective Myers.

Hansen restrained himself from making the obvious comment. He waited.

"A guy we had a run-in with today is an Attica ex-con," said Brubaker.

"A fourth of the population of our fair city has either been in Attica or is related to someone in Attica," said Hansen.

"Yeah, but this perp probably knew the Stooges," said Myers. "And he had a motive for offing them."

Hansen stood in the snow and waited. Some of his guests were beginning to drive off. The cocktail party had been a casual buffet affair, and only a few of his closest friends were staying for dinner.