The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

And what was this missing thing? Simple: Thompson Boyd was waiting for the numbness to go away and for the feeling in his soul to return, the way your foot comes back to life after it's fallen asleep.

Thompson had many recollections of his childhood in Texas, images

of his parents and his aunt Sandra, cousins, friends from school. Watching Texas A&M games on the tube, sitting around the Sears electric organ, Thompson pushing the button for the chords while his aunt or father played the melody as best they could with their pudgy fingers (they ran in the family line). Singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and the theme from The Green Berets. Playing hearts. Learning how to use tools with his father in the perfectly neat work shed. Walking beside the big man in the desert, marveling at the sunsets, the lava beds, coyotes, the sidewinders, which moved like music but could still sting you to death in a flash.

He recalled his mother's life of church, packing sandwiches, sunbathing, sweeping Texas dust out the trailer door and sitting in aluminum chairs with her girlfriends. He recalled his father's life of church, collecting LP records, spending Saturdays with his boy and weekdays wildcatting on the derricks. He recalled those wonderful Friday evenings, going to the Goldenlight Cafe on Route 66 for Harleyburgers and fries, Texas swing music pumping through the speakers.

Thompson Boyd wasn't numb then.

Even during that hard time after a June twister took their double-wide and his mother's right arm, and nearly her life, even when his father lost his job in the layoffs that swept the Panhandle like an Okie dust storm, Thompson wasn't numb.

And he sure wasn't numb when he watched his mother gasp and stifle tears on the streets of Amarillo after some kid called her "one-arm" and Thompson had followed and made sure the boy never made fun of anybody again.

But then came the prison years. And somewhere in those Lysol-stinking halls numbness crawled over feeling and put it to sleep. So deep asleep that he didn't even feel a blip when he got the word that a driver snoozing at the cab of a Peterbilt killed his parents and aunt simultaneously, the only thing that survived being the shoe-shine kit the boy had made his father for the man's fortieth birthday. So deep asleep that when, after he left prison and tracked down the guard Charlie Tucker, Thompson Boyd felt nothing as he watched the man die slowly, face purple from the noose, struggling desperately to grip the rope and hoist himself up to stop the strangulation. Which you just can't do, no matter how strong you are.

Numb, as he'd watched the pendulum of the guard's corpse, twisting slowly to stillness. Numb, as he'd set the candles on the ground at Tucker's feet to make the murder look like some psycho, satanic thing and glanced up into the man's glazed eyes.

Numb . . .

But Thompson believed he could repair himself, just like he fixed the bathroom door and the loose stair railing at the bungalow. (They were both tasks, the only difference being where you put the decimal point.) Jeanne and the girls would bring the feelings back. All he had to do was go through the motions. Do what other people did, normal people, people who weren't numb: Paint the children's rooms, watch Judge Judy with them, go on picnics in the park. Bring them what they'd asked for. Grape, cherry, milk. Grape, cherry, milk. Try an occasional cuss word, fuck, fuck, shit . . . Because that's what people said when they were angry. And angry people felt things.

This was also why he whistled--he believed music could transport him back to those earlier days, before prison. People who liked music weren't numb. People who whistled felt things, they had families, they'd turn the heads of strangers with a good trill. They were people you could stop on the street corner and talk to, people you could offer a french fry to, right off your Harleyburger plate, with giddy music pounding in the next room, ain't them musicians something, son? How 'bout that?

Do it by the book and the numbness would go away. The feeling would return.

Was it working, he wondered, the regimen he'd set up for himself to get the feeling back in his soul? The whistling, reciting the things he felt he should recite, grape and cherry, cussing, laughing? Maybe a little, he believed. He remembered watching the woman in white that morning, back and forth, back and forth. He could honestly say that he'd enjoyed watching her at work. A small pleasure, but it was a feeling nonetheless. Pretty good.

Wait: "Pretty fucking good," he whispered.

There, a cuss word.

Maybe he should try the sex thing again (usually once a month, in the morning, he could manage, but truth was he just didn't want to--if the mood's not there, even Viagra won't do you much good). He now debated. Yes, that's what he'd do--give it a couple of days and try with Jeanne. The thought made him uneasy. But maybe he'd give it a shot. That'd be a good test. Yeah, he'd try it and see if he was getting better.

Grape, cherry, milk . . .

Thompson now stopped at a pay phone in front of a Greek deli. He dialed the voice-mail box number again and punched in the code. He listened to a new message, which told him that there'd nearly been a chance to kill Geneva Settle at the school but too many police had been guarding her. The message continued, giving her address, on 118th Street, and reporting that at least one unmarked police car and a squad car were parked nearby, changing positions occasionally. The number of officers guarding her seemed to vary from one to three.

Thompson memorized the address and erased the message then continued on his complicated walk to a six-story apartment building that was considerably more dilapidated than Jeanne's bungalow. He went around to the back and opened the door. He climbed the stairs to the apartment that was his main safe house. He stepped inside, locked the door then disarmed the system he'd set up to stop intruders.

This place was a little nicer than the one on Elizabeth Street. It was covered in blond paneling carefully tacked up and featured brown shag carpet that smelled just like what brown shag would smell. There were a half dozen pieces of furniture. The place reminded Thompson of the rec room he and his father had built weekends in the Amarillo bungalow, which had replaced the tornado-shredded trailer.

From a large utility cabinet he carefully removed several jars and carried them to the desk, whistling the theme from Pocohantas. The girls had just loved that movie. He opened the toolbox, put on thick rubber gloves and a face mask and goggles and assembled the device that tomorrow would kill Geneva Settle--and anyone near her.

Wssst . . .

The tune became something else: no longer Disney. Bob Dylan's "Forever Young."

When he finished the device he examined it carefully and was satisfied. He put everything away and then walked into the bathroom, stripped off the gloves and washed his hands three times. The whistling faded as he began mentally reciting the mantra for today.

Grape, cherry and milk . . . Grape, cherry and milk.

He never stopped getting ready for the day when the numbness would go away.

*

"How you doing there, miss?"

"Okay, Detective."