This could be the Gentleman Caller, I warned myself. Take it very slow. This could also be a trap. Anything could happen here. There’s no predicting from here on.
I could see into a rear bedroom window. I was less than ten steps away from the cabin walls, and probably the mass murderer who was terrifying the West Coast. Then I saw him.
Dr. Will Rudolph was pacing around the small wood-paneled room and he was talking to himself. He appeared to be highly agitated. He was hugging himself with both arms. As I moved closer, I could see that he was perspiring heavily. Not in good shape at all. The scene reminded me of “quiet rooms” in mental hospitals, where patients sometimes go to act out their problems and volatile emotions.
Rudolph suddenly screamed at someone… but there was no one else in the room.
His face and his neck were bright crimson red as he screamed again and again… at absolutely no one!
He was screaming at the top of his lungs. His veins looked ready to burst.
Seeing him like this chilled me, and I slowly backed away from the cabin.
I could still hear his voice, hear the words ringing in my ears: “Goddamn you, Casanova! Kiss the girls! Kiss the fucking girls yourself from now on!”
CHAPTER 67
WHAT THE hell is Cross doing?” Agent John Asaro asked his partner. They were in the thick woods on the other side of the cabin at Big Sur. The cabin reminded Asaro of The Band’s first album, Music from Big Pink. He half expected flower children and hippies to step out of the fog.
“Maybe Cross is a peeping Tom, Johnny. What do I know? He’s a guru, a squirrel profiler. He’s Kyle Craig’s boy,” Ray Cosgrove said with a shrug.
“So that means he can do whatever he wants to do?”
“Probably.” Cosgrove shrugged a second time. He had seen far too many crazy situations, too many “special accommodations,” in his Bureau career to let this one bother him.
“First of all,” Cosgrove said, “whether we like it or not, he has Washington’s blessing.”
“I hate Washington with a freaking passion that just won’t quit,” Asaro said.
“Everybody hates Washington, Johnny. Second, Cross strikes me as a pro at least. He’s not just some glory hound. Third,” the older, more experienced partner continued, “and most important, what we have on Dr. Rudolph is hardly conclusive evidence that he’s our squirrel. Otherwise, we would have called in the LAPD, army, navy, and marines.”
“Maybe the late Ms. Lieberman made a mistake when she logged his name into her computer?”
“She definitely made some kind of mistake somewhere, Johnny. Maybe her hunch was all wrong.”
“Maybe Will Rudolph was an ex-boyfriend of hers? She was just doodling his name on her PC?”
“Doubtful. But a possibility,” Cosgrove said.
“So we watch Dr. Rudolph, and we watch Dr. Cross watch Dr. Rudolph?” Agent Asaro said.
“You got it, partner.”
“Maybe Dr. Cross and Dr. McTiernan will provide us with a little entertainment at least.”
“Hey, you never know about these things,” Raymond Cosgrove said. He was smiling now. He thought this whole thing was probably a wild goose chase, but it wouldn’t be his first one. This was a huge, nasty case no matter what. It was interstate now, and every possible lead was being chased down with a vengeance. A coast-to-coast serial squirrel connection!
So he and his partner, and two other FBI agents, were going to hang around in the dark woods of Big Sur all night and into the morning, if need be. They would dutifully watch the summer cabin of a plastic surgeon from L.A., who maybe was a real bad killer, but maybe was just a plastic surgeon from L.A.
They would watch Alex Cross and Dr. McTiernan, and speculate about the two of them. Cosgrove wasn’t really in the mood for any of this. On the other hand, it was a big case. And if he did happen to catch the Gentleman Caller, he might just become a glory hound himself. He wanted Al Pacino to play him in the movie. Pacino did Spanish guys, right?
CHAPTER 68
KATE AND I moved back a safe distance from the cabin. We ducked behind a stand of thick fir trees.
“I heard him scream,” Kate said when we got into the deeper woods. “What did you see back there, Alex?”
“I saw the devil.” I told her the truth. “I saw an absolutely crazy and evil man talking to himself. If he isn’t the Gentleman, he does a great imitation.”
The two of us took shifts watching Rudolph’s hideaway over the next several hours. That way, we both got some rest. Around six in the morning I met with the FBI team, and they gave me a pocket-sized walkie-talkie in case we needed to talk in a hurry. I still wondered how much they’d told me of what they knew.
When Dr. Will Rudolph eventually made another appearance outside, it was past one o’clock on Saturday afternoon. The silver-blue nimbus of sea mist had finally burned off. Scrub jays swooped and hollered overhead. Under different circumstances, it would have been a nice setting for a weekend in the mountains.
Dr. Rudolph cleaned up in a whitewashed outdoor shower behind the house. He was muscular, with a washboard stomach, and looked agile and fit. He was extremely handsome. He cavorted and danced around in the nude. His bearing seemed a little formal. The Gentleman.
“He’s so unbelievably sure of himself, Alex,” Kate said as we watched Rudolph from the woods. “Just look at him.”
Everything seemed very odd and ritualistic. Was the dance part of his act? His pattern?
When he finished his shower, he walked across the backyard to a small wildflower garden. He picked about a dozen flowers and brought them into the house. The Gentleman had his flowers! What now?
At four in the afternoon, Rudolph came out of the back screen door of the cabin again. He was dressed in tight black jeans, a plain white pocket T, black leather sandals. He hopped in the Range Rover and drove toward Highway 1.
About two miles south on the coast road, he pulled into a restaurant and café called Nepenthe. Kate and I waited on the sandy road shoulder, then we followed the Range Rover into a large, crowded parking lot. Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” was playing loudly from speakers hidden in the trees.
“Maybe he’s just your average horny Los Angeles doctor,” Kate said as we finally entered the parking area and searched for a space.
“No. He’s the Gentleman, all right. He’s our California butcher boy.” I was sure of it after watching him the night before, and now today.
Nepenthe was busy, filled mostly with good-looking people in their twenties and thirties, but also a sprinkling of aging hippies, some of whom were sixty or more. Stone-washed jeans, the latest West Coast swimsuit creations, colorful flip-flops, expensive hiking boots were everywhere.
So were a lot of attractive women, I noticed. All ages, all sizes, all ethnic castes. Kiss the girls.
I had heard of Nepenthe, actually. It had been hot and famous in the sixties, but, even before that, Orson Welles had bought the desirable, breathtakingly beautiful property for Rita Hayworth.
Kate and I watched how Dr. Rudolph operated at the bar. He was polite. A smile for the bartender. Shared laughter. He looked around and seriously checked out several attractive women. Apparently they weren’t attractive enough, though.
He ventured out onto a large fieldstone terrace overlooking the Pacific. Rock music from the seventies and eighties was playing from an expensive sound system. The Grateful Dead. The Doors. The Eagles. This was Hotel California.
“It’s a beautiful spot for it, Alex. Whatever in hell he’s up to.”
“He’s up to six. He’s looking for victim number seven,” I said.
Far below, on an inaccessible beach, we could see sea lions, brown pelicans, cormorants. I wished that Damon and Jannie were here to see them, and I wished the circumstances of my being here were completely different.
Out on the terrace, I took Kate’s hand. “Makes us look like we belong,” I said and winked at her.
“Maybe we do.??
? Kate gave an exaggerated wink back.
We watched Rudolph approach a striking blond woman. She was the Gentleman’s type. In her early twenties. Shapely. Beautiful face. She was also Casanova’s type, I couldn’t help thinking.
Her wavy, sunbleached hair fell to her tiny waist. She wore a red-and-yellow flowered dress from Putumayo’s that flowed down to a pair of black European workboots. She flowed when she moved as well. She was drinking champagne by the glass.
I hadn’t spotted agents Cosgrove or Asaro yet, which was making me a little nervous, a little nuts.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she? She’s just perfect,” Kate whispered at my side. “We can’t let him hurt her, Alex. We can’t let anything happen to that poor woman.”
“We won’t,” I said, “but we have to catch him in the act, nail him for kidnapping, if nothing else. We need evidence that he is the Gentleman Caller.”
I finally spotted John Asaro at the crowded main bar. He had on a bright yellow Nike T-shirt and fit in okay. I didn’t spot Ray Cosgrove or any of the other agents—which was actually a good sign.
Rudolph and the young blond woman seemed to have hit it off immediately. She appeared to be gregarious and fun-loving. She had perfect white teeth and her smile was dazzling. She couldn’t help but make an impression across the crowded room. My brain was sliding into overload. We were watching the Gentleman Caller at work, weren’t we?
“He’s hunting… and just like that”—Kate snapped her fingers—“he picks them up. Gets almost any woman he wants. That’s how he does it. So simple….
“It’s the way he looks that gets them, Alex,” Kate continued. “He has a rebellious look about him and he’s very handsome. That combination is irresistible to some women. She let him think it was his line of small talk that won her over, but it’s because he’s such a hunk.”
“So, she just picked him up?” I asked. “Our killer hunk?”
Kate nodded. She wouldn’t take her eyes off the two of them. “She just picked up the Gentleman Caller. He wanted her to, of course. I’ll bet that’s how he gets them, and why he never gets caught.”
“It’s not how Casanova works, though. Is it?”
“Maybe Casanova isn’t good-looking.” Kate turned and looked at me. “That might explain the masks he wears. Maybe he’s ugly, or disfigured, and ashamed of how he looks.”
I had another thought, another theory, about Casanova and his masks, but I didn’t want to say anything just yet.
The Gentleman and his new gir1friend ordered ambrosia-burgers, the house specialty. So did Kate and I. When in paradise…. They hung around the café until around seven o’clock and then got up to leave.
Kate and I rose from our table, too. Actually, I was half enjoying myself, considering the eerie circumstances. We had a table that overlooked the water. Down below, the Pacific crashed against a black wall of slippery rocks, and we could hear sea lions barking loudly.
I noted that there was no touching between the two of them as they walked out to the parking lot. It suggested to me that one of them was secretly shy.
Dr. Will Rudolph politely held open the door of his Range Rover, and the blond woman was laughing as she hopped in. He performed a tiny, elegant bow at the car door. The Gentleman.
She chose him, I was thinking. It wasn’t kidnapping yet. She was still making choices for herself.
We had nothing to go after him for, nothing to hold him on.
Perfect crimes.
On both coasts.
CHAPTER 69
WE TRAILED the Range Rover at a discreet distance, straight back to the cabin. I parked about a quarter of a mile up the road. My heart was hammering hard and loud. This was the moment of truth, the real deal was going down now.
Kate and I ran back through the woods and found a safe spot that was well hidden from view. It was less than fifty yards from Dr. Rudolph’s hideaway, and we could still hear the musical tinkle of the wind chimes as they moved gently. The cold, damp sea mist was inching in, and I could feel a chill right up through my shoes.
The Gentleman Caller was inside that cabin up ahead. Getting ready to do what?
My stomach felt hollow and incredibly tight. I wanted to move on him in the worst way. I didn’t want to think about how many times Dr. Will Rudolph had done this before. Taken a young woman somewhere. Mutilated her. Taken home feet, eyes, fingers, a human heart. Souvenirs of his kill.
I glanced at my wristwatch. Rudolph had been inside the cabin for only a few minutes with the blond woman from Nepenthe. I’d seen movement in the woods on the other side of the house. The FBI was there. It was getting hairy.
“Alex, what if he kills her?” Kate asked. She stood close to me, and I could feel the heat from her body. She knew what it felt like to be a captive in a house of horror. She understood the danger better than anyone.
“He doesn’t grab his victims and kill them immediately. The Gentleman Caller has his routine,” I said to Kate. “He’s kept every one of the victims for a day. He likes to play. He won’t break away from the pattern.”
I believed that, but I didn’t know it for certain. Maybe Dr. Rudolph knew we were outside… maybe he wanted to get caught. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I remembered stalking the madman Gary Soneji/Murphy. It was hard not to rush the cabin. Take our chances right now. We might find physical evidence of other murders inside. Maybe the missing body parts were kept here. Maybe he did the actual killing here in Big Sur. Or maybe he was planning another kind of surprise for us. The drama was unfolding less than fifty yards away.
“I’m going to try to get in a little closer,” I finally said to Kate. “I have to see what’s happening in there.”
“I’m glad you said that,” Kate whispered.
The talk was cut short. A bloodcurdling scream came from the cabin. “Help! Help me! Somebody help me!” the blond woman screamed.
I ran at full speed for the closest door into the cabin. So did at least five men in dark blue windbreakers from the other side of the house. I spotted Asaro and Cosgrove among them.
FBI, the windbreakers read. Rain-slicker yellow on navy blue.
All hell was breaking loose in Big Sur. We were about to meet the Gentleman.
CHAPTER 70
I GOT THERE first, at least I think I did. I threw myself hard against the cabin’s wood-plank back door. It wouldn’t give. On the second try the frame splintered, and the door burst open with a wounded grunt. I charged into the cabin with my pistol drawn.
I could see across the small kitchen, and all the way down a narrow hallway that led into a bedroom. The blond woman from Nepenthe was naked, and curled sideways on an antique brass bed. Wildflowers had been thrown around her body. Her wrists were pinioned with handcuffs near the small of her back. She was in pain, but at least she was still alive. The Gentleman Caller wasn’t there.
From outside the cabin I heard a loud bark, the harsh sound of gunfire. At least half a dozen shots were fired in rapid succession, like a string of powerful firecrackers. “Jesus, don’t kill him!” I shouted as I ran from the cabin.
Complete chaos reigned in the woods! The Range Rover was already backing wildly from the driveway when I came out. Two of the FBI men were down on the ground. One was agent Ray Cosgrove. The others had opened fire on the Range Rover.
A side window exploded. Jagged holes opened in the Range Rover’s sheet metal. The off-road vehicle swerved sideways, its wheels spinning in the dirt and gravel.
“Don’t kill him!” I yelled again. No one even looked at me in the wild confusion of the moment.
I sprinted through the side woods, hoping to cut off Rudolph if he headed west, back toward Highway 1. I got there just as the Range Rover made a shrieking, skidding turn out onto the road. A gunshot blew out another side window. Great! The FBI was shooting at both of us now.
I grabbed the passenger side door and yanked hard at the handle. It was locked. Rudolph tried to accelerate, but I held on tightly. The Rove
r fishtailed, still caught in a swale of driveway gravel. That gave me time to grab the roof rack with my free hand. I pulled myself onto the roof.
Rudolph finally got the Rover onto the concrete roadway and accelerated. He floored the vehicle for seventy yards. Then he hit the brakes hard!
I was thinking ahead—that far ahead, anyway. My face was pressed tightly against the sheet metal, which was still warm from sitting in the sun at Nepenthe. My arms and legs were splayed out against the roof rack. I was wedged like a Samsonite all-nighter on the roof.
I wasn’t coming off there, not if I could help it. He had killed at least half a dozen women around Los Angeles, and I had to find out if Naomi was still alive. He knew Casanova, and he knew about Scootchie.
Rudolph floored the Range Rover again, and the engine roared through its gears as he tried to shake me loose. He was weaving all over the road.
Trees and ancient telephone poles zoomed past me in blurry, fast motion. The rushing pines, redwoods, and mountain vines were like the changing patterns in a kaleidoscope. A lot of the foliage was brownish-gray, prickly as vineyards in the Napa Valley. It was a strange perspective on the world.
I wasn’t exactly enjoying the scenery from my perch on the Range Rover. It took all of my strength to concentrate on hugging the roof.
Rudolph drove very fast along the winding narrow road, doing seventy or eighty where fifty was dangerous.
The FBI agents, what was left of them, hadn’t been able to catch up. How could they? They’d had to run back to their cars. They would be several minutes behind us.
Other cars passed us as we got closer to the Pacific Coast Highway. Drivers gave us the strangest looks. I wondered what Rudolph was thinking as he drove. He wasn’t trying to throw me off anymore. What options did he still have? In particular—what was he planning as his next move?
We were both temporarily in check. Somebody had to lose very big, and very soon, though. Will Rudolph had always been too clever to be caught. He wouldn’t expect to be stopped now. But how would he get out of this one?