Scream Catcher Read Online Free PDF Page A

village arcade … A fucking video game … You’re sure it’s him; that he matches the description … You’re not pulling snitch shit over my eyes for the sake of a quick buck … Okay, okay, T-Bred. I believe you. I think we just might have our man. Find a way to make sure he stays there and I’ll double your fee. You hear what I’m saying? Do whatever it takes.”
    Jude knows someone is in the process of tipping Mack off.
    Maybe somebody who keeps a scanner close at hand; someone who must have picked up on the A.P.B. issued out of Sweeney’s back lot; someone who goes by the handle Thoroughbred, or T-Bred for short.
    Yanking the cell from his ear, Mack nods as if confirming some silent hunch he’s been mulling to himself ever since he and his son exited the kill scene.
    “What’s happening, Mack?”
    “Give me a minute, kid,” the old Captain grouses while punching another series of numbers into the cell.
    Sitting back, Jude breathes in slowly, exhales even slower. The cigarette-tinged air inside the Jeep has gone from good smelling to stale and acrid. It settles like a cancer in his lungs, right beside the demon.
    “Lino please,” Mack says. After a brief holding period he continues: “I think Lennox is back … Yeah, alive, I’d bet the mortgage … The stiff laid out behind Sweeney’s makes three confirmed kills … CSI is on site now trying to lift a print while we got a crystal golden window … Yes, yes, if they get something they’ll fax it to you before I get there so you can make an L.D.I. reference. In the meantime call in the Staties. Tell them not to look for a man, but for a car—a silver or platinum sedan, make and model unidentified. Tell them that if they find it, to leave it untouched. I want Glens Falls forensics to comb for trace evidence. You hear what I’m saying? This time, we leave nothing up to chance.”
    Jude gazes out the window onto the lake, its calm morning surface speckled with a handful of commercial fishing and pleasure craft. He knows now that his father has to be on the line with a member of his support staff inside the L.G.P.D. A person named Lino. A real name. Not a handle meant to conceal a real identity. Maybe someone sharing in the responsibility of apprehending the man Mack just seconds ago referred to as “Lennox.”
    The one-sided conversation continues: “Yes, bring him in now … If Longhair just happens to be the newest incarnation of our boy Hector Lennox, then we won’t have another chance like this one to snag his ass.” Another pause. Longer than the others. “That’s correct, my son made the kill scene ID …”
    Jude’s stomach makes like a vice grip as Mack pockets his cell phone.
    He turns to the driver, eyes wide, glaring.
    “Step on it Long Legs. We’re the cops. We own the fucking road.”

7
     
    Wild Bill’s All Day/All Night Video Game Parlor
    Tuesday, 8:32 A.M.
     
    How does Hector Lennox morph into the Black Dragon?
    By becoming the product of his own invention.
    Inside the neon lighting of the video arcade, his new surgically-constructed cheekbones, silicon injected lips and resculptured chin give his face a chiseled-like intensity. Veiling the face are shoulder-length dreadlocks that took the entire nineteen months he spent in Paris to grow out. With an iron-pumped, Human Growth Hormone-fed body, he presents an awesome self-invented physical prize—a scream catching athlete.
    On the outside.
    On the inside, Hector “the Black Dragon” Lennox is a complicated blend of fearlessness and fantasy. His long dead father would have attested to the fact that manipulation, domination and will-of-force were key components of the little video gamer’s obsessive personality. The Christian Minister feared them like the devil himself. Feared them like the mark of the beast. Feared them, resisted them, fought them.
    Papa Lennox punishes little Hector for playing too many video games. Papa locks the little boy inside a windowless basement room