Hubbell grinned. “I’m going to tell you about murders I’ve committed in, like, the middle of the day,” he said. “And I got away with every one of them. They’re right here on my map of the stars.” He half turned, pointing to the map on the wall behind him. “This has been my get-out-of-jail celebration, right?”
Joe flicked his eyes to the map, this time picking out the star on the corner of Balmy Alley and Twenty-Fourth, where Tina Strichler had been gored within a crowd of tourists.
The man wanted a response. And Joe wanted him to keep talking.
“Oh. You were in jail.”
“Oh, yes. You could even say I grew up there. I’m going to tell you things I’ve never told anyone, Joe,” Hubbell said, flicking his eyes from the map to where Joe sat cuffed and chained and stooped on the lower bunk. “But you have to promise to take what I tell you to your grave. Promise? Say you promise.”
“I promise,” said Joe.
“Shake?” said Hubbell.
It was an opportunity Joe couldn’t pass up.
“Shake,” he said. He put out his linked hands, and Hubbell reached out his right one—then, before he touched Joe’s hands, he pulled his away.
“Hah! Got you.”
Hubbell laughed and walked a few steps to the little refrigerator near the toilet. He took out a gallon jug of water. He guzzled some down, then offered the jug to Joe, who said, “No, thanks.”
The twelve-by-eight cell was soundproof at thirty feet underground. Joe was thinking he was never going to leave this place on his own two feet. After Hubbell finished telling him in loving detail about his life of crime, he would slice and dice him and take his body up the ladder one piece at a time.
CHAPTER 85
JOE KNEW THAT serial killers fell into two broad categories. Those in the first category were psychotic killers, criminally insane. They heard voices. They had visions. They didn’t know right from wrong.
And then there were the pathological killers, who were not insane. They were conscienceless. They killed because they liked to do it. Murder gave them an incredible high, and the only way to stop them was to kill them. Or lock them up.
Clement Hubbell was in the latter category.
Joe blocked the wave of fearful thoughts pouring into his mind, images of the people he loved and would never see again, things he would never get to do, pictures of his body hacked into bloody chunks. He took a breath, then looked up at his captor.
Hubbell was younger and stronger than Joe. He was armed, and he got off on playing cat and mouse. The smart money was on the cat.
Joe had one iffy idea on how to get out of this box. But there would be no do-over if he got it wrong.
“I want to hear all about the people you killed,” Joe said. “I want to hear it all. I’m a student of murder. I was never a profiler. Just your paper-pushing variety of Fed. So I feel lucky to have met you, Clem. I can’t wait for you to tell me your stories.”
“Oh, I will,” said Hubbell. “We have all the time in the world. Maybe you noticed. I don’t have clocks down here. It’s what we call long time.”
Joe said, “You mind if I take a leak before you begin? I had to go before I even got here.”
“Be my guest,” Hubbell said.
Joe got to his feet. Hubbell was still in the swivel chair opposite the bed. The toilet was just to Joe’s right. He unzipped his fly and took a step toward the stainless steel can.
As soon as he cleared the end of the bed, Joe whipped around and, using his foot as a fulcrum, jammed it against the bed leg closest to him. At the same time, he gripped one of the bed’s upright supports with his cuffed hands and pulled down on it, hard.
Hubbell jumped to his feet and yelled, “Hey!”
But he had nowhere to go. The desk was to his right, Joe was to his left, and as Joe kept up the pressure, the bed began teetering, then falling toward Hubbell.
Hubbell put up his hands, but the weight of the iron-framed bed had passed the tipping point. The top mattress slid, getting in Hubbell’s way, and the crashing bed pinned him.
Joe was still cuffed, but the chain that had been looped around the rear leg of the bed was now free. He stepped over and around the bed frame, wrapped the chain around Hubbell’s neck, and, grabbing him by the shoulders, slammed the man’s ugly head against the concrete floor.
Hubbell screamed, “Stop that! Noooo! Stop!”