The Axeman's Jazz

door.

THIRTY-TWO
    “YOU OKAY?”
    Skip opened the door. “I’m great.”
    “Sure you are. You’re the color of that sink. Well, listen, I’d turn pale too if I could. Black’s a really good color for a police shrink.”
    Skip knew Cindy Lou was trying to distract her with banter, but she was too depressed. “I hope to God if I’m a cop for the next nine thousand years, I never hear anything like that again.”
    Cindy Lou whistled. “This from a woman who sees dead bodies all the time.”
    “What are we going to do, Cindy Lou?”
    “You think the SWAT team’ll let me talk to him?”
    “Are you kidding? They’ll try anything at this point.”
    Missy and Robson had gone back downstairs. “Damn,” said Cindy Lou. “I don’t want that animal anywhere near him.”
    “Sonny probably doesn’t remember half that stuff.”
    “The hell he doesn’t! And anyway, it doesn’t matter. His unconscious knows, and what do you think’s been going around killing people? Not sunny Sonny the cute WASP medical student.”
    “Are you saying he’s a multiple personality?”
    “Nothing that weird, although it’s a miracle he didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces after what that child went through.” Cindy Lou shook her head in disapproval. “People are so damn mean down here.”
    “Like you don’t come from Detroit.”
    “I swear I think you people are meaner.”
    Under the circumstances Skip couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. Cindy Lou said, “I’ll tell you something about that kid. I think he got the message right from the start—that it wasn’t his grandfather who should have died, it was Sonny all along. If he’d killed Missy, I think he’d have been his own next victim.”
    “Well, why the hell is he holding Alex, then? He can’t expect to get out of this, and if what you’re saying’s right, he doesn’t even want to.”
    “You can be homicidal and suicidal at the same time. And you can be ambivalent even if you’re crazy and a murderer. My guess is he doesn’t even know himself why he’s doing it. It’s a safe bet he’s terrified and not thinking clearly—after all, when he grabbed Alex, a six-foot cop with a gun was chasing him. But there’s a thread of rationality here too—you have to admit it’s his only bargaining chip.”
    “He can’t expect to get anything. How can he bargain?”
    “I’ll bet he’s trying to figure that out right now.”
    “Wait a minute, let me make sure I get this. Could you possibly be saying what I think you’re saying—that Alex really isn’t in much danger?”
    “
Au contraire
. “ Cindy Lou’s voice rose for emphasis. “I think he’s in a hell of a lot of danger. Especially if anything changes, messes up the status quo. Sonny might just panic and start slashing.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “Well, let’s try to talk to him. There’s a couple of pieces of this that don’t make any sense at all. Maybe he’ll talk about those.”
    “The A’s and the letters, you mean.”
    “Yeah.”
    Skip fixed it for Cindy Lou to take over from the hostage negotiator (who seemed delighted with the break), and took the megaphone first. “Sonny, this is a good friend of mine—Cindy Lou Wootten. She’s a psychologist and she wants to help you.”
    “Tell her to stick it where the sun don’t shine.” Skip almost smiled, it was so Sonny-like—anyone else would have said “up her ass.”
    Cindy Lou whispered, “He hasn’t been answering most stuff, right? We got a sign of life here.”
    “Oh, terrific.”
    “I think he’s ready to talk. No shit. If we can just keep his goddamn dad quiet.”
    “So why’s he talking now when he wouldn’t talk before?”
    “You know what I think? Know what I really think? He likes you. Ask him if he’ll talk to you.”
    “Sonny! How about talking to me?”
    “I’ve got nothing to say.”
    Cindy Lou said, “Okay, good. You’ve got a great rapport going. Go to it.”
    Skip took a deep breath, aware of lepidoptera in the intestines. “Sonny, you know what I don’t get? You did everything perfectly. We’d have never narrowed it down to the twelve-step programs if you hadn’t sent that letter to the TV stations. Why on earth did you do that?”
    Sonny said, “You know, Skip, I’m getting pretty damn tired of this.”
    She could have sworn that Alex, even held as tightly as he was, winced slightly. Perhaps Sonny had gripped him harder, or nicked him. She was getting ready to continue when Robson shouted,