Rules of Prey

onto the kitchen’s tile floor and stripped. He took off everything, including his underwear, and left it in a pile on the floor.
    His leg was bleeding and he sat on the edge of the bathtub and looked at it. The bites were not too deep, but they were ragged. In other circumstances, he would go to an emergency room and get stitches. He couldn’t now. He washed the wounds carefully, with soap and hot water, ignoring the pain. When he had cleaned them as well as he could, he pulled the shower curtain around the tub and did the rest of his body. He washed carefully, his hands, his hair, his face. He paid special attention to his fingernails, where some of the clay might have lodged.
    Halfway through the shower, he broke down and began to gag. He leaned against the wall, choking with adrenaline and fear. But he couldn’t let himself go. He didn’t have the luxury of it. Nor did he have the luxury of contemplating his situation. He must act.
    The maddog fought to control himself. He finished washing, dried with a rough towel, and bandaged the leg woundswith gauze and adhesive tape. Then he went into the bedroom, dressed in clean clothes, and returned to the kitchen.
    All of the clothing he’d worn that night was commonly available: Levi’s, an ordinary turtleneck shirt, a black ski jacket purchased from an outdoor store. Jockey underwear. An unmarked synthetic watch cap. Running shoes. He emptied the pockets of the jacket. The Kotex pad, the gloves, the tape, the sock and potato, the pack of rubbers, all went into a pile on the floor. He’d lost the pry bar when he was running, but it should be clean; the cops wouldn’t get anything from it. He carried the pile of clothing and shoes to the laundry room and dumped it in the washing machine.
    With the clothes washing, he got a small vacuum cleaner, went out to the garage, and cleaned the car. Some of the clay was still damp and stuck tenaciously to the carpet. He went back in the house, got a bottle of dishwashing liquid and a pan, went back out, and carefully shampooed each area that showed a sign of the clay. If the cops sent the car to a crime laboratory, they might still find some particles of the stuff. He would have to think about it. And he would, for sure, vacuum it again after the damp carpet had dried.
    When he was finished with the car, the maddog went back inside and checked the washing machine—the wash cycle was done—and transferred the clothing and shoes to the dryer. Then he found the box of surgeon’s gloves he used in his attacks and pulled on a pair. From under the kitchen sink he got a roll of black plastic garbage bags, opened one, took the dust bag out of the vacuum, and threw it inside. Next he threw in the equipment he’d taken from his clothing, along with the box of remaining Kotex pads that he’d kept in a back closet.
    Anything else? The potatoes. But that was ridiculous. Everyone had potatoes in the house. On the other hand, maybe there was some kind of genetic examination that could show they came from the same place. The potatoes went in the garbage bag.
    The clothes were still in the dryer, and the maddog went back to the bedroom and pulled out the file of newspaperclippings. SERIAL KILLER STALKS TWIN CITIES WOMEN said the first. He slipped it out and read through it quickly, one last time, as he carried the file to the bathroom. Removing the clips one by one, he tore them into confetti and flushed them down the toilet.
    The clothes, when they were dry, went in another bag. By eleven o’clock he had finished collecting all of his equipment and the clothing he’d worn to McGowan’s. He phoned a car-rental agency at the airport and was told that it would be open for another hour. He reserved a car on his Visa card, called for a cab, rode out to the airport, signed for a car, and brought it back. It would be best, he thought, to keep his car off the streets for a while. There had been so much commotion back at McGowan’s, the gunfire, the whole neighborhood must have waked up. If somebody had noticed his car leaving . . . And the cops just might be desperate enough to stop any Thunderbird they found on the highway, taking names and running checks.
    Back at the apartment, he loaded the garbage bags of clothing and equipment into the rental car. A few minutes after midnight he drove onto Interstate 94, driving east, through St. Paul and into Wisconsin. He stopped at each rest area between St. Paul and Eau Claire, disposing of