The Devils Teardrop

continued. “It’s too smart to leave a reference to the hotel accidentally. It tried to fool us with the trace on the envelope. The same’s true with the indented writing. The t-e-l .”
    “We hardly even found the indented writing,” Lukas countered. “We wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been helping us.”
    “It knows—” The talk of the note personified seemed to make them uncomfortable. He said, “The unsub knew what he’d be up against. Remember my linguistic profile?” He tapped the picture of the dead unsub. “He was brilliant. He was a strategist. He had to make the evidence subtle. Otherwise we wouldn’t believe it. No, no, we have to stop the tactical teams. Wherever they are. And wait until we can figure out where the real target is.”
    “Wait?” Hardy said, exasperated, lifting his hands.
    C. P. whispered, “It’s five minutes to four!”
    Cage shrugged, glanced at Lukas. It was her call.
    “You have to,” Parker snapped.
    He saw Lukas lift her stony eyes to the clock on the wall. The minute hand advanced one more notch.
    * * *
    The hotel was nicer than this place.
    The Digger looks around him and there’s something about this theater he doesn’t like.
    The puppy bag seemed . . . seemed right when he was in the nice hotel.
    It doesn’t look right here.
    This is the . . . this is the . . . click  . . . is the Mason Theater, just east of Georgetown. The Digger is in the lobby and he’s looking at the wood carvings. He sees flowers that aren’t yellow or red but are wood, dark like dark blood. Oh, and what’s this? Snakes. Snakes carved in the wood. And women with big breasts like Pamela’s.
    Hmmm.
    But no animals.
    No puppies here. No, no.
    He’d walked into the theater without anybody stopping him. The performance was nearly over. You canwalk into most theaters toward the end of a show, said the man who tells him things, and nobody notices you. They think you’re there to pick up somebody.
    All the ushers here ignore him. They’re talking about sports and restaurants and New Year’s Eve parties.
    Things like that.
    It’s nearly four.
    The Digger hasn’t been to a concert or a play for several years. Pamela and he went . . . click  . . . went to someplace to hear music. Not a play. Not a ballet. What was it? Someplace where people were dancing. Listening to music . . . People in funny hats like cowboys wear. Playing guitar, singing. The Digger remembers a song. He hums to himself.
    When I try to love you less,
    I just love you all the more.
    But nobody’s singing today. This show is a ballet. A matinee.
    They rhyme, he thinks. Funny. Ballet . . . matinee . . .
    The Digger looks at the wall—at a poster. A scary picture he doesn’t like. Scarier than the picture of the entrance to hell. It’s a picture of a soldier with a huge jaw and he’s wearing a tall blue hat. Weird. No . . . click  . . . no, no, I don’t like that at all.
    He walks through the lobby, thinking that Pamela would rather see men in cowboy hats than soldiers with big jaws like this one. She’d get dressed up in clothes bright as flowers and go out to see the men in cowboy hats sing. The Digger’s friend William wore hats like that sometime. They all went out together. He thinks they had fun but he’s not sure.
    The Digger eases to the lobby bar—which is now closed—and finds the service door, steps through and makes his way up the stairs that smell like spilled soda. Past cardboard boxes of plastic glasses and napkins and Gummi Bears and Twizzlers.
    I love you all the more . . .
    Upstairs, at the door that says balcony, the Digger steps into the corridor and walks slowly over the thick carpet.
    “Go into box number fifty-eight,” said the man who tells him things. “I bought all the seats in the box so it’ll be empty. It’s on the balcony level. Around the right side of the horseshoe.”
    “Shoe?” the Digger asked. What does he mean, shoe?
    “The balcony is curved like a horseshoe. Go to a box.”
    “I’ll go . . .” Click. “. . . go to a box. What’s a box?”
    “It’ll be behind the curtains. A little room overlooking the stage.”
    “Oh.”
    Now, nearly 4 p.m., the Digger walks slowly toward the box and nobody notices him.
    A family is walking past the concession stand; the father is looking at his watch. They’re leaving early. The mother is helping her daughter put her coat on as they walk and they both look upset. There’s a