"I'm going to check that."

"Check your ass off, Ruffe. By the way, you got something wrong in your story. I didn't have a straight razor to cut their throats. I used a box cutter. But. As soon as you wrote about the straight razor, I got a hard-on. I said, I gotta get me one of those things. Now I got one. Got an old leather strop to sharpen it up, and I'm learning how to do that. Next guy I do, I'm gonna do with the razor."

"Jesus Christ." Ignace swallowed. "He's not here. It's just me, old Charlie Pope."

"You gotta… let me, Jesus Christ." Ignace was flabbergasted. He'd never been at a loss for words, and now he was floundering. "Are you… did you… uh…"

"What do I want?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Mostly I just want to talk to somebody. I liked your story. And I tell you, I got this goddamn woman is driving me crazy. I don't know what do about her. I don't want her to stop, but every time she starts to howl, I see blood. I want to take her, but…then she'd be gone. I like it when she starts to howl. I mean, she does me up like nothin' I've ever felt before. You know what I mean?"

"Not exactly." Ignace was scribbling like mad, taking it all down in shorthand. "Are you saying that you can't decide what you're going to do? I mean, Jesus Christ, don't hurt her. I mean how can you…"

"How can I do it?" The whispery laugh again, like a ripple of paper: "Because it feels good. I just ain't right, Ruffe. My head is fucked up. I know that. Everybody knows that. But what everybody doesn't know is how good it feels…"

"Jeez…"

"Hey, you ever see any of those terrorist guys on TV? Cuttin'somebody's head off or something? Everybody says it's because they're Moslems or something. I know better-I can tell by looking at them. They like it. They're having a good old time. That's what gets their rocks off-it ain't Mohammed. They like killing people. They're like me. They're like lots of us. And if you look at it that way, how many people are like us, it's really pretty normal."

Ignace was calculating now. Didn't Jimmy Breslin have something to do with the.44-caliber killer, the Son of Sam? Didn't he get more famous because of it? "Look: if you come in, I can cut a deal for you. I could cut a deal that would get you nothing but treatment…"

"Uh-uh. I ain't coming in, Ruffe. Never. I had treatment, remember? That fuckin' treatment… anyway, ain't you gonna ask me what I'm gonna do next?"

"Okay. What're you gonna do next?" Ignace was taking it all down in Gregg, word for word, trying to get it precisely right, every ain't and nothin' with a dropped g.

"I'm gonna hunt somebody down. Gonna take her out someplace, I'm gonna give her a head start, and then I'm gonna hunt her down. A woman this time. Take her out to the Boundary Waters, strip her out of her clothes, then turn her loose and watch her run. Give her a hope. A forlorn hope."

Ignace could feel the skin tighten at the back of his neck: there was no longer a question in his mind-he was talking to Charlie Pope.

"But what's all this bulls… What's all this stuff about hunting people? I mean, I'm sorry, but…"

"That's nuts." The whispery laugh again: "Of course it is. I am nuts. You seem to have a hard time getting over that. Write it down: N-U-T-S. The state says I'm nuts, and I'm nuts. What'd they think I was gonna do, lift garbage cans all the rest of my life? Fuck 'em." He laughed then, his ragged voice sounding as though a piece of paper were being torn through. Ignace was writing frantically. "How did this get started? You never… I mean, your reputation wasn't for this kind of thing."

"There were some Gods Down the Hall from me, at St. John's. They made me see how much like God you can get to be, if you got the balls to go out and do it. I talked to them and they talked to me, and I can still hear their voices. They were right: it's just like being God."

"How are you staying ahead of the police?" A woman from the desk walked up, a piece of paper in her hand, and Ignace waved her away. She said, "We need…"

Ignace said into the phone, "Hang on just a second," turned to the woman and barked, "Go away. Go away."

She persisted. "We need…"

"Go the fuck away," he shouted and, as she stepped backward, he went to the phone again. "I'm back."

"Little trouble there, Ruffe?"

"I'm the night guy; they want me to do some horseshit. Listen, how'd you know I'd be here?"

"I didn't. I just kept calling your line every couple hours, until you answered."

"I can't hear you very well…"

Louder: "I said, I kept calling your line every couple of hours… that damn Rice tried to kick me, caught me one in the throat, I think he fucked me up. I can't hardly eat nothin'."

"You're hurt?"

"Yeah, I'm hurt. Nobody said this was gonna be easy," the whisperer said. "You can't believe the shit I go through. I gotta plan, I gotta find the right person. I'm already watching two or three of these chicks, now I gotta decide which one to take. There are a lot of angles to figure out. You know, how much will they fight, will there be anybody around who might jump in to help them, maybe they got a gun, there's all kinds of shit to figure out. Makes my head hurt. Hard work. But I'm gonna do it soon. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day."

"What do you…"

"I gotta go. I can see a cop car on the next street.I don't want him looking at me. Maybe I'll call again, after I do the next one."

"Wait, wait. If you'd like to talk to a doctor, or a lawyer…"

The whispery laughter, then, "Too late for that. But I do got one more thing for you, a message for the cops. I ain't gonna quit. I'm gonna do twenty or thirty of them if I can. If they catch me, they better be ready for a fight, because I got me some guns and I know how to use them. They fucked with me all my life. Now I'm gonna fuck with everybody. I'm not going back to St. John's. I'm not coming in alive,"

Click.

IGNACE PUSHED BACK from his desk, staring at the phone and his steno pad. A guy from the desk was coming his way, trying to assemble some authority, trailed by the woman Ignace had chased off: "Holy shit," Ignace said. "Holy shit!"

SLOAN AND HIS WIFE were in bed. Sloan had come down with a bug, and his sinuses felt like overinflated basketballs; his wife was asleep, but Sloan was rolling around restlessly, fighting to breathe, when the phone rang. His wife said, "What?" and groaned. The phone never rang at that time of night unless it was trouble: Sloan rolled over and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Sloan, this is Ruffe Ignace. Charlie Pope just called me."

"What?" Cobwebs.

"Charlie Pope just called me. I need you to call Davenport and have him call me back -I assume you don't have jurisdiction in the Mankato kill."

Sloan recognized Ignace's voice. "Is this a joke?"

"This is no fuckin' joke." Ignace was shouting into the phone. "I need to talk to Davenport right now or we're just gonna put this story in the paper raw and you can read it tomorrow morning when you getup."

SLOAN WOKE UP LUCAS. "Give him my number," Lucas said. Then he lay facedown on Weather's side of the bed, in the faint lingering odor of her perfume, until the phone rang again: "This is Davenport."

"Did the killer cut off Adam Rice's penis?" Ignace asked without preamble.

"What?"

"The guy who called me- I assume Sloan told you I was called by a guy who said he was Charlie Pope- the guy said he cut off Adam Rice's penis," Ignace said.

"Ah, man, are you going to use that?"

"That's negotiable-but did he? 'Cause if he did and if this was really Pope, I have some other information."

"What information?"

"Did he cut off Adam Rice's penis?"

Lucas thought for a moment, then said, "If you use that specific information, I will find some way to fuck you up. That's not fair to any of the survivors."