The Face

bottles of drugs.
        “I’ll strap him in a chair next to your bed. And if he can’t watch what I’ve got planned for you, I’ll tape his eyes open.”

        Laura Moonves could find no rap sheet for Vladimir Laputa, not even a history of unpaid parking tickets. But when, after less than fifteen minutes, she called Hazard back, she had interesting news.
        Robbery/Homicide had an open case under the name Laputa. The investigation wasn’t currently active, due to a lack of evidence and leads.
        Four years ago, a woman named Justine Laputa, age sixty-eight, had been murdered in her home. The crime-scene address proved to be the residence that Hazard now had under surveillance.
        Watching the house as he spoke with Laura, Hazard said, “How did she die?”
        “The entire file isn’t on computer-network access, just the open-case extract. According to that, she was bludgeoned to death with a fireplace poker.”
        Mina Reynerd had been shot in the foot, but the actual cause of her death had been bludgeoning with a marble-and-bronze lamp.
        A fireplace poker. A heavy lamp. In both cases, the killer had resorted to a blunt instrument near at hand. This might not be proof enough of one modus operandi, one killer, but it was a start.
        “Justine’s murder was savage, unusually violent,” Laura said. “The medical examiner estimates the killer delivered between forty and fifty blows with the poker.”
        [476] Mina Reynerd’s death, by lamp, had been likewise brutal.
        “Who were the detectives on the case?” Hazard asked.
        “Walt Sunderland, for one.”
        “I know him.”
        “I got lucky,” Laura said, “caught him on his cell phone five minutes ago. Told him I couldn’t right now explain why I needed to know, then asked if he’d had a suspect in that case. Didn’t hesitate. Said Justine’s son inherited everything. Walt says he was a smug creep.”
        “The son’s name is Vladimir,” Hazard guessed.
        “Vladimir Ilyich Laputa. Teaches at the same university that his mother retired from.”
        “So why isn’t he in some hard-time joint, trading romance for cigarettes?”
        “Walt says Vladimir had an alibi so six-ways airtight that an astronaut could go to the moon and back in it.”
        Nothing in this world was perfect. A designer alibi with triple-stitched seams always cocked the trigger of a cop’s suspicion because it looked made, not found.
        The house waited in the rain, as though alive, alert, its few lighted windows like irregularly positioned eyes.

        In the syringe, Corky blended a paralytic cocktail of drugs to keep his captive quiescent, immobile, but alert.
        “By dawn you’ll be as dead as Rachel and Emily, and then this will be the boy’s room, his bed.”
        He didn’t administer either a sedative or a hallucinogenic. When he returned well before midnight, he didn’t want Dalton to be fuzzy-minded or lost in illusions. The vile man must be clearheaded to experience every subtle nuance of his long-planned death.
        “I’ve learned so much from this adventure of ours.”
        [477] Corky introduced the hypodermic needle into the drug port on the IV drip line.
        “It’s given me so many good ideas, better ideas.”
        With his thumb, he slowly depressed the plunger, feeding the contents of the syringe into the saline solution that seeped into Dalton’s vein.
        “The boy’s experiences in this room will be only somewhat like yours, but more colorful, more shocking.”
        Having administered the full dosage, he withdrew the needle from the port and discarded it in the trash can.
        “After all, the whole world will be watching the videos I send out. My little movies must have tremendous entertainment value if I’m to keep so many millions of people enthralled.”
        Already, Stinky Cheese Man’s wobbly teeth had begun to chatter. For some reason, this brew of paralytic drugs gave him spasmodic chills.
        “I’m sure the boy will be thrilled when, in his first starring role, he fascinates the masses in greater numbers than his father ever has.”

        The storm lost its strength, became a windless drizzle. Fog plumed through the street, like cold breath come down out of the hidden moon.
        Alerted now to the nature of the individual with whom he was dealing, Hazard sat in the car, mulling over how best to approach