“That’s why you’ve got to hang on.”

She turned away from him and her hands plucked blindly at things on the dressing table. She picked up the hair brush and put it down, prodded a lipstick without lifting it, found a pin left in her hair but didn’t take it out—merely touching things as if there were communication in the act.

He said, “You’ve got to try.”

“I feel like Humpty Dumpty—a lot of little pieces nobody will ever put back together.”

“I know.”

“I’m learning to hate you.”

“I’m learning to hate myself.”

She took the pin out and put it down very gently in the little box. Then with growing ferocity she began to brush out her hair.

He stripped off his sweat-sodden clothes and went into the shower. When he came out of the bathroom the lights were turned off in the bedroom; before he switched off the bathroom light he saw her in the bed, lying on her side, facing away from him, crowded as far over as she could get without falling off.

He turned it off and felt his way to the bed and got in. He was careful not to touch her.

Too charged to sleep, he just lay there. Something Homer had taught him kept coming back: A man comes at you hand-to-hand, there’s one way to put him out and it works every time if he doesn’t know to look for it. Doesn’t take much of a blow. Hit him with the heel of your palm—bring it up, short and hard, right up into his nose. Drive the nasal cartilage right up into the head. You hit a man hard enough that way, just once, it’ll drive the splinters right up into his brain and kill him instantly.

The thought had sickened him at the time and he’d changed the subject immediately. But now in fevered visions he saw himself slamming his palm up with vicious rage into face after face—Gillespie, George Ramiro, Deffeldorf, Tyrone, Ezio Martin, Frank Pastor …

And then all at once he had it, the structure of the plan. It brought him bolt upright in bed.

He got up and left the room, striding down the hall barefoot, belting his robe. At Vasquez’s door he banged impatiently and when he heard a grunt he pushed inside.

Vasquez lay across the bed, reaching for the lamp. When it came on he flinched from the light and sat up squinting. He was wearing satin pajamas—bright green. “What the devil?”

“I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Evidently.” Vasquez reached for the clock and turned it toward him. “At half past two it had better be utterly fascinating.”

“I’ve figured it out.”

“Have you?” Vasquez threw the sheet back and slid his feet into a pair of moccasins. “I can’t really see you. You’ll have to wait a moment.” He padded to the bathroom.

Mathieson was too keyed up to sit; he walked to the door and back. Vasquez hadn’t shut the bathroom door and when Mathieson passed the foot of the bed he saw Vasquez bending over the sink, running water, prying his eyelids open one at a time.

Contact lenses, he thought. I’ll be damned.

From a hook Vasquez took down a green-lapeled dressing gown; he folded it around his trim shape and crossed to the straight chair at the writing desk. He sat down before he spoke. “Proceed.”

“We’ve been making a mistake in our whole approach to this thing. I just figured it out.”

“Indeed.”

“We’ve been trying to contrive some cockeyed scheme to nail them all together—simultaneously.”

“It’s hardly cockeyed. We can’t attack one or two at a time and leave the rest free to retaliate.”

“Sure we can. That’s been our mistake. You ever go bowling?”

“Not for a good many years.”

“Neither have I. But that was the image. We’ve been trying to bowl a strike—figure out how to hit all ten pins with one ball. But if you bowl a strike into the pocket—you know the term?”

“Yes.”

“Then think about what really happens. The ball doesn’t actually hit all ten pins. At most it hits three of them. Those three pins take care of the rest. They knock the other pins down.”

“That’s attractive,” Vasquez said, “but I’ve never put much trust in analogies. We’re not dealing with bowling pins. Suppose you bowl a spare instead of a strike? You’ve got one pin left standing. But this one would be a bowling pin that can shoot you to death.”

“All right, it’s a sloppy metaphor. But it got me to thinking. There’s no reason why we have to go after them all at the same time. If we can peel them off one at a time—”

“We’ve gone over all that. While we’re peeling them off one at a time, what do you suppose the others are doing?”

“They’d have to know who to come after and where to find us. If we start taking them out individually, and if we do it in such a way that nobody else knows what’s really happening …”

“Starting where? At the bottom? We’ve discussed that before. We can’t hope to disrupt their operations by stinging individual enterprises. You might annoy them a bit by hitting a few front operations but that sort of campaign would be like trying to kill an elephant with sandpaper. In any case it would be stupid to disperse our attacks—we haven’t the manpower. Save up your punch and when you use it, use all of it in intense concentration. Mr. Merle, none of this is new. Sometimes an idea coined at two in the morning seems brilliant but loses its luster in the light of day. We’ve already demonstrated that you can’t injure Frank Pastor by hitting his subsidiaries. There are too many of them and in any case those operations are protected by the police …”

“You’re getting off the track.”

“Am I? You’re talking about taking them out individually. I suggested that at the outset. But the only effective method of achieving that is to kill them. I still suggest your preclusion of murder is an artificial stricture—because the methods you’ll be forced to use are bound to be as reprehensible as murder or more so.”

“I can think of very few things as reprehensible as murder.”

“You’re wrong. Whatever method you choose, it must lead to the same end—the willful destruction of your enemies. Nothing less than that will suffice. You may leave them alive and breathing but you must destroy something vital—if only their freedom to make choices. Ultimately you’ll be forced to assume absolute power over their decisions and their lives. You must see that much. I’m not as certain that you also see the inevitable consequence. Such power will corrode your soul.”

“It can be done without killing,” Mathieson said.

“Very well. How?”

He pulled the chair closer to Vasquez and sat down. “We start with C. K. Gillespie.”

PART THREE

THE HUNTER

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

California–Illinois: 29 September

1

HE SAID HIS GOODBYES TO AMY AND BILLY AND THE MEUTHS; he carried the suitcase down to the car and put it in the back seat and walked off beyond earshot with Jan and Ronny.

Because of the boy they were both holding back a great deal. Ronny shook his hand gravely. Mathieson fought back the impulse to embrace him: Ronny would hate it in front of the others.

“I want you to take damn good care of your mother. Don’t sass her.”

He took Jan in his arms. “It’s going to work, you know. Things are going to be all right.”

“Sure.” She kissed him. He was startled by the ferocity with which she clenched him against her as if she could draw strength from him.

Ronny said, “You still look lousy in that moustache. It makes you look like Zachary Scott.”

“What have you got against Zachary Scott?”

“He’s dead,” Ronny said and turned away.

“I’m not dead, Ronny. Listen to me.”