It was possible, he thought, that the Strykers, one or all of them, would not want Williamson cleared, as Virgil had suggested he might be. And Stryker did have a streak of violence in him, as Jesse had suggested. He'd killed Feur and the man named John without turning a hair. Twenty percent, one or all.

THERE WAS a possibility, which would never really come clear, if it were true, that George Feur was behind it all, as Jim Stryker believed. Good reason to believe that-Stryker wasn't a stupid man. Fifteen percent.

MARGARET LAYMON was another possibility, although he really didn't think she would have left that pistol in Jesse's boot. Or, in any case, he couldn't see why she would do that.

Then there were a few outliers: Jensen and Margo Carr. Somebody had planted that Revelation, and that Salem cigarette butt, and had known that Carr would pick it up.

Altogether, another fifteen percent.

FOR A TOTAL OF 110 PERCENT.

VIRGIL NOW HAD them all separated and one of them, maybe, was worried. He'd carefully primed them all with the belief that he had more information, had more ideas about who the killer might be…

And one of them, he thought, the crazy one, the man in the moon, might well be coming with a gun to erase the Virgil Flowers problem.

And if nobody did? Well, then, maybe it was Feur.

Maybe…

VIRGIL LOOKED DOWN at his watch. Nine-forty.

Had to be Williamson, Virgil thought. He was still in his shop, under surveillance.

If it was another one of them, he or she would have already made a move. Maybe it was a bust…

Then Moonie came out of the shadows…

25

VIRGIL HAD JUST called Stryker: "He moving yet?"

"Not a thing. Lights are still on."

"Have you seen…?"

AT THAT MOMENT, a figure emerged from the hedge at the back of the Sherwin-Williams store, dressed all in black, except for jogging shoes with reflective strips on the back, little white flashes in the night. Hard to see him, though it was a he. Couldn't be Williamson, because he was still at the paper.

The killer jogged silently in a combat hunch to the back and then down the side of Virgil's truck. Virgil half stood as the figure lifted the muzzle of a shotgun as he came up to the truck's front door, then stepped back and fired a single shot like thunder and lightning in the night, a flash of exploding glass, through the window on the truck, neatly blowing the head off the CPR dummy that sat behind the wheel.

In the flash, Virgil caught his face.

VIRGIL SHOUTED: "Williamson: lay the gun on the ground."

Williamson had never struck Virgil as an athlete, but he spun and pumped and fired and the last words weren't out of Virgil's mouth when lightning flashed at him, but going wide, and he went flat and squeezed off a shot from his own shotgun, but Williamson had vanished. Virgil had the impression that his shot had gone in close, but he'd learned early that a shotgun was no sure cure in a gunfight.

Fuckin' Williamson!

He could hear Stryker screaming on the radio: he picked it up and shouted, "Williamson's out. Williamson's out. He's got a shotgun and he ran behind Sherwin-Williams. Kick in the door on his office, make sure he's not headed back there. He's got a shotgun and I don't know what else, he's shooting, so everybody take it easy. Everybody stay in your cars, let's see if we can spot him…"

"You okay, you okay?" Stryker was still screaming.

"I'm okay, except I'm scared. Everybody stay cool now. Let's round him up. Margo, are you there? Jensen?"

Stryker: "How'd he get out, how'd he get out…?"

THEY CHECKED IN, all cruising.

Little Curly said, "I'm going down the tracks, I'm going down the tracks…"

Big Curley: "I'm behind Marvin's, heading toward the elevator."

A few seconds later, the tornado siren went off. The dispatcher called: "I'm waking up everybody in town. I've got the weather-tree going-in five minutes, everybody in town will know that it's Williamson and they'll all be looking out the windows."

Margo Carr: "Do you think he cut back across Poplar? If he's headed down to the river, he'll be hard to spot."

Jensen: "Tommy, get back to the weather-tree, tell people to lock their doors and call if somebody tries to get at a car."

Dispatcher: "Louie Barth says somebody ran down the alley just a minute ago, behind his house…"

Carr: "I'm right there, I'm taking the alley…"

Virgil had brushed the glass off the seat of his truck, threw the decapitated dummy in the back, and took off, calling, "Careful, careful, Margo, don't let him ambush you. Where am I going, where am I going…?"

Saw flashers, north, turned that way, more flashers coming up behind. Dispatcher called, "I've got everybody coming in, we're coming right in on top of you, Margo…"

VIRGIL HEARD the boom of a shotgun, close, no more than a couple of blocks, called, "Got gunfire, got gunfire…" saw the lights ahead, cut left, closed, cut left, found a squad car across a street, a body on the ground, Stryker standing, then on the radio, "Margo's down, she's hit, he took her car, he's running east on Clete, he's turning north on Seventy-five…"

Virgil was out on the street and Stryker shouted, "She's bad, she's bad…"

"Get her in your truck, run it to the hospital." Together, they lifted her into the backseat of the truck. She had shotgun-pellet wounds in her face and neck; she was semiconscious, pumping blood, and Stryker took off and Virgil shouted into the radio, to the dispatcher, "Call the emergency room, they've got a gunshot wound coming in, gonna need a surgeon, gonna need some blood…"

"I think I got him, I think I got him," Jensen called. Big Curly: "I got him too, he's running north on Seventy-five…" And a third cop, unknown to Virgil: "I'm running south on Seventy-five, I'm just going past Ambers, I don't see him yet."

Virgil took the truck back down the street and cut onto the main drag, saw flashing lights ahead, accelerating out of town. More lights were filing in behind him, every cop in the city, then Jensen called, "He's turned off at the park, he's turned at the park, he's headed up to Judd's…He's running out of road."

Virgil: "Dispatch, start breaking people around the perimeter of the hill, we don't want everybody at the same spot up on top. Tell them to put their lights on the hill but get out of the trucks in the dark behind them, watch for him coming down the hill."

VIRGIL WAS two hundred yards behind Big Curly, who was two hundred yards behind Jensen, who was a half mile behind Williamson. Virgil saw Carr's truck, driven by Williamson, climbing the hill toward Judd's, then Jensen's taillights flaring as he slowed to turn through the park gates and up the hill, then Big Curly slowing, and then Virgil was slowing, and then Jensen said, "Holy shit! He's turned down the hill toward the bluff, toward the Buffalo Jump. Man, he's headed right toward it…Jesus Christ!"

Virgil had turned and was looking up the hill when he saw the lights of the lead car, Williamson, bounding over humps in the turf, once, twice, and then he was gone.

"He went over," Jensen screamed. "Jesus Christ, he went over."

Virgil shouted: "Dispatch, get people down there. Larry. Stop where you are: put your headlights down there, Big Curly, get up by Larry, put your headlights across the slope, I'm coming in, I'll bet he bailed out before the car went over the edge."

Then he was there, pulling past the second cop, pulling past Jensen, playing his lights across the slope; saw no movement, was out of the truck, stepped back to Jensen and Big Curly and said, "Get back out of the light, guys, get back in the dark."

"Don't see anybody. I don't see anybody," Jensen said. He and Big Curly both had shotguns. Virgil popped the back of his truck, unlocked the toolbox, lifted out the semiauto.30-06 and two magazines; opened his duffel, took out a long-sleeved camo shirt that he used for turkey hunting.