The Face

a sound suppressor.

CHAPTER 88
        
         LADYBUG, LADYBUG, FLY AWAY HOME … YOUR house is on fire, and your children will burn …”
        After listening to Call 51, Ethan had no doubt that some of the first fifty recordings also contained messages of value to him, but he did not think he dared take time to review them, and he knew that he didn’t need to hear them in order to solve the riddle.
        Twenty-two ladybugs. The twenty-second of December.
         Today . And only a little more than three hours remained until the calender turned to December 23. If something terrible were going to happen, it would occur soon.
        His pistol was in his apartment.
        By now Fric must be waiting there, as well.
        He fled the white room, leaving the blue door open behind him.
        No need to panic. The perimeter alarm would shriek at the first breach of door or window. Between wails of the siren, a voice module would announce, in a clear computerized voice, the room in which the break-in had occurred.
        Besides, the men in the security office would know the moment anyone crossed the estate wall, long before an intruder could reach [546] the house. At the first evidence that the property had been violated, they would call 911 and the private armed-response security firm.
        Nevertheless, with no time for the elevator, first to the back stairs in a sprint, then down six flights, down and around he went in a thunder, slamming through the door at the bottom of the stairs, into the ground-floor west wing.
        He threw open the door to his apartment, called to Fric, and got no answer.
        Evidently the boy was still in the library. Not good. He had gotten through ten years of life alone more often than not, but he wouldn’t make it through this night by himself.
        Ethan hurried to the desk in the study. He had left the pistol in the top right-hand drawer.
        Pulling open the drawer, he expected to find that the gun had been taken. But there it was. A beautiful thing.
        As Ethan slipped into the shoulder holster, he surveyed the items on top of the desk, between the computer and the telephone.
        Nursery rhymes.
         Your house is on fire, and your children will burn …
         Wednesday’s child is full of woe …
        Nursery rhymes.
        Foreskins circumcised from ten men. Ten because Fric was ten years old. What are foreskins? Rags of tissue. Scraps. Snips.
        And snails are snails.
        The book of dog stories, Paws for Reflection, a collection of puppy-dog tales . Different spelling, same word to the ear. Tails.
        What are little boys made of?
         Snips and snails, and puppy dogs’ tails.
        That’s what little boys are made of.
        The note that had come with the apple lay on the desk: THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?
        In this case, confusion was their sole purpose. The sixth object had [547] been the easiest to interpret, so the professor, whoever the hell he was, had confused the issue with distracting-and mocking-words.
        The eye in the apple is blue, the same color as the famous eyes of Charming Manheim. Not the eye in the apple. The apple of his eye.
        Not that good Fric was ever the apple of his father’s eye. He was the blind spot in his father’s eye, too often overlooked, never seen in the fullness of his character. In this instance, the sender of the black boxes had made an incorrect assumption. The Face himself was the apple of his own eye, and there could be no other.
        If you knew the true relationship between this father and this son, you might be forgiven for not making the connection between the doll’s eye nestled in the black-sutured apple and the wonderful boy. Yet Ethan cursed himself for missing the clue.
        He pressed INTERCOM on the telephone keypad and then the line number for the security office at the back of the estate. “Pete? Ken? We might have a situation brewing.”
        No one answered.
        “Pete? Ken? Are you there?”
        Nothing.
        Ethan snatched up the handset. No dial tone.

CHAPTER 89
        
        THE HYENA SLEPT IN A CLEAN DEN, UNSOILED by mementos of his killings. No articles of clothing stained with the victims’ blood that he could press to his face to savor the scent of death. No items of women’s jewelry