"Do you have any idea what that's from?"

"None."

"Neither did I. My head is full of garbage. There's no room for anything important. And I'm not a well-educated man. Not well educated at all. So I called a friend of mine, a professor in the Department of English at Columbia. He didn't recognize the line either, but he pa.s.sed it around to a few of his colleagues. One of them thought he knew it. He got a concordance of the major philosophers and located the full quotation. 'Man is rope stretched between the animal and the Superman-a rope over an abyss.'"

"Who said it?"

"Hitler's favorite philosopher."

"Nietzsche."

"You know his work?"

"In pa.s.sing."

"He believed men could be G.o.ds-or at least that certain men could be G.o.ds if their society allowed them to grow and exercise their powers. He believed mankind was evolving toward G.o.dhood. You see, there's a superficial resemblance between Blake and Nietzsche. That's why the Butcher might quote both of them. But there's a problem, Graham."

"What's that?"

"Blake was an optimist all the way. Nietzsche was a raving pessimist. Blake thought mankind had a bright future. Nietzsche thought mankind should have a bright future, but he believed that it would destroy itself before the Supermen ever evolved from it. Blake apparently liked women. Nietzsche despised them. In fact, he thought women const.i.tuted one of the greatest obstacles standing between man and his climb to G.o.dhood. You see what I'm getting at?"

"You're saying that if the Butcher subscribes to both Blake and Nietzsche's philosophies, then he's a schizophrenic."

"Yet you say he's not even crazy."

"Wait a minute."

"Last night-"

"All I said was that if he's a maniac, he's a new kind new kind of maniac. I said he wasn't crazy in any traditional sense." of maniac. I said he wasn't crazy in any traditional sense."

"Which rules out schizophrenia?"

"I guess it does, Ira."

"But I think it's a good bet... maybe I'm wrong... G.o.d knows... but maybe he looks at himself as one of Nietzsche's Supermen. A psychiatrist would call that delusions of grandeur. And delusions of grandeur characterize schizophrenia and paranoia. Do you still think the Butcher could pa.s.s any psychiatric test we could give him?"

"Yes."

"You sense this psychically?"

"That's right."

"Have you ever sensed something and been wrong?"

"Not seriously wrong. No worse than thinking Edna Mowry's name was Edna Dancer."

"Of course. I know your reputation. I know you're good. I didn't mean to imply anything. You understand? But still-now where do I stand?"

"I don't know."

"Graham... if you were to sit down with a book of Blake's poems, if you were to spend an hour or so reading them, would that maybe put you in tune with the Butcher? Would it spark something-if not a vision, at least a hunch?"

"It might."

"Would you do me a favor then?"

"Name it."

"If I send a messenger right over with an edition of Blake's work, will you sit down with it for an hour and see what happens?"

"You can send it over today if you want, but I won't get to it until tomorrow."

"Maybe just half an half an hour." hour."

"Not even that. I've got to finish working on one of my magazines and get it off to the printer tomorrow morning. I'm already three days late with the issue. I'll be working most of tonight. But tomorrow afternoon or evening, I'll make time for Blake."

"Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do. I'm counting on you. You're my only hope. This Butcher is too much for me, too sharp for me. I'm getting nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. If we don't get a solid lead soon, I don't know what's going to happen."

9.

Paul Stevenson was wearing a hand-sewn blue shirt, a blue-and-black-striped silk tie, an expensive black suit, black socks, and light brown shoes with white st.i.tching. When he came into Anthony Prine's office at two o'clock Friday afternoon, unaware that Prine winced when he saw the shoes, he was upset. Because he was incapable of shouting and screaming at Prine, he pouted. "Tony, why are you keeping secrets from me?"

Prine was stretched out on the couch, his head propped on a bolster pillow. He was reading The New York Times. The New York Times. "Secrets?" "Secrets?"

"I just found out that at your direction the company has hired a private detective agency to snoop on Graham Harris."

"They're not snooping. All I've asked them to do is establish Harris's whereabouts at certain hours on certain days."

"You asked the detectives not to approach Harris or his girlfriend directly. That's snooping. And you asked them for a forty-eight-hour rush job, which triples the cost. If you want to know where he was, why don't you ask him yourself?"

"I think he'd lie to me."

"Why should he lie? What certain hours? What certain dates?"

Prine put down the paper, sat up, stood up, stretched. "I want to know where he was when each of those ten women was killed."

Perplexed, blinking somewhat stupidly, Stevenson said, "Why?"

"If on all ten occasions he was alone-working alone, seeing a movie alone, walking alone-then maybe he could have killed them."

"Harris? You think Harris is the Butcher?" You think Harris is the Butcher?"

"Maybe."

"You hire detectives on a maybe?"

"I told you, I've distrusted that man from the start. And if I'm right about this, what a scoop we'll have!"

"But Harris isn't a killer. He catches catches killers." killers."

Prine went to the bar. "If a doctor treats fifty patients for influenza one week and fifty more the next, would it surprise you if he got influenza himself during the third week?"

"I'm not sure I get your point."

Prine filled his gla.s.s with bourbon. "For years Harris has been tuning in to murder with the deepest levels of his mind, exposing himself to trauma as few of us ever do. He has been literally delving into the minds of wife killers, child killers, ma.s.s murderers.... He's probably seen more blood and violence than most career cops. Isn't it conceivable that a man, unstable to begin with, could crack from all the violent input? Isn't it conceivable that he could become the kind of maniac he's worked so hard to catch?"

"Unstable?" Stevenson frowned. "Graham Harris is as stable as you or me."

"How well do you know him?"

"I saw him on the show."

"There's a bit more you should know." Prine caught sight of himself in the mirror behind the bar cabinet; he smoothed his l.u.s.trous white hair with one hand.

"For example?"

"I'll indulge myself in amateur psychoa.n.a.lysis-amateur but probably accurate. First of all, Graham Harris was born into borderline poverty and-"

"Hold on. His old man was Evan Harris, the publisher. "

"His stepfather. His real father died when Graham was a year old. His mother was a c.o.c.ktail waitress. She had trouble keeping a roof over their heads because she had to pay off her husband's medical bills. For years they lived day to day, on the edge of disaster. That would leave marks on a child."

"How did she meet Evan Harris?" Stevenson asked.

"I don't know. But after they were married, Graham took his stepfather's name. He spent the latter part of his childhood in a mansion. After he got his university degree, he had enough time and money to become one of the world's leading climbers. Old man Harris encouraged him. In some circles, Graham was famous, a star.

Do you realize how many beautiful women are drawn to the sport of climbing?"

Stevenson shrugged.

"Not as partic.i.p.ants," Prine said. "As companions to the partic.i.p.ants, as bedmates. More women than you'd think. I guess it's the nearness of death that attracts them. For more than a decade, Graham was adored, made over. Then he took a bad fall. When he recovered, he was terrified of climbing." Prine was listening to his own voice, fascinated by the theory he had developed. "Do you understand, Paul? He was born a n.o.body, lived the first six years of his life as a n.o.body-then overnight he became a somebody when his mother married Evan Harris. Now is it any wonder that he's afraid of being a n.o.body again?"

Stevenson went to the bar and poured himself some bourbon. "It's not likely he'll be a n.o.body again. He did inherit his stepfather's money."

"Money isn't the same as fame. Once he'd been a celebrity, even within the tight circle of climbing enthusiasts, maybe he developed a habit for it. Maybe he became a fame junkie. It can happen to the best. I've seen it."

"So have I."

"If that's what he is ... well, maybe he's decided that being infamous is as good as being famous. As the Butcher, he's grabbing headlines; he's infamous, even if only under a nom de guerre. nom de guerre. " "

"But he was with you in the studio last night when the Mowry girl was murdered."

"Maybe not."

"What? He predicted her death."

"Did he? Or did he simply tell us who he had selected for his next victim?"

Stevenson stared at him as if he were mad.

Laughing, Prine said, "Of course Harris was in the studio with me-but perhaps not when the murder took place. I used a source in the police department and got a copy of the coroner's report. According to the pathologist, Edna Mowry was murdered sometime between eleven-thirty Thursday night and one-thirty Friday morning. Now, Graham Harris left the studio at twelve-thirty Friday morning. He had an hour to get to Edna Mowry."

Stevenson swallowed some bourbon. "Jesus, Tony, if you're right, if you break a story like this, ABC will give you a late-night talk show and let you do it your way, live!" live!"

"They might."

Stevenson finished his bourbon. "But you don't have any proof. It's just a theory. And a pretty far-out theory at that. You can't convict a man because he was born to poor parents. h.e.l.l, your childhood was worse than his, and you're not a killer."

"At the moment I've got no proof," Prine said. But if it can't be found, it can be manufactured, he thought.

10.

Sarah Piper spent the early part of Friday afternoon packing for a five-day trip to Las Vegas. Ernie Nolan, a men's clothing manufacturer who had been on her special list of customers for three years, went to Vegas every six months and took her with him. He paid her fifteen hundred dollars for her time in bed and gave her five hundred as a gambling stake. Even if Ernie had been a beast, which he was not, it would have been a good vacation for her.

Beginning today, she was on a week's leave from the Rhinestone Palace; and she was glad that she hadn't tried to squeeze in one more night's work before catching the flight to Vegas tomorrow morning. She'd had only two hours' sleep after returning from Edna's place, and those two hours had been plagued by nightmares. She would need to rest well tonight if she was going to be at the top of her form for Ernie. and she was glad that she hadn't tried to squeeze in one more night's work before catching the flight to Vegas tomorrow morning. She'd had only two hours' sleep after returning from Edna's place, and those two hours had been plagued by nightmares. She would need to rest well tonight if she was going to be at the top of her form for Ernie.

As she packed, she wondered if there was something missing from her. Heart? Normal emotions? She had cried last night, had been deeply affected by Edna's death. But already her spirits were high again. She was excited, pleased to be getting away from New York. Introspection didn't give rise to any guilt. She had seen too much of the world-too much violence, desperation, selfishness and grubbiness-to chastise herself for being unable to sustain her grief. That was the way people were built: forgetfulness was the hub of the wheel, the core of the mind, the thing that kept you sane. Maybe that was not pleasant to contemplate, but it was true.

At three o'clock, as she was locking the third suitcase, a man called. He wanted to set up a date for that evening. She didn't know him, but he claimed to have gotten her name from one of her regular clients. Although he sounded quite nice-a genuine Southern gentleman with a mellow accent-she had to turn him down.

"If you've got something else going," he said, "I can make it worth your while to drop him for tonight."

"There's no one else. But I'm going to Vegas in the morning, and I need my rest."

"What's your usual rate?" he asked.

"Two hundred. But-"

"I'll give you three hundred."

She hesitated.

"Four hundred."

"I'll give you the names of a couple of girls-"