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    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
    Ebook586 pages9 hours

    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel

    By Stephen King

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Watch the complete MR. MERCEDES series on Peacock
    WINNER of the EDGAR AWARD for BEST NOVEL and #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

    In a high-suspense race against time, three of the most unlikely heroes Stephen King has ever created try to stop a lone killer from murdering thousands. “Mr. Mercedes is a rich, resonant, exceptionally readable accomplishment by a man who can write in whatever genre he chooses” (The Washington Post).

    The stolen Mercedes emerges from the pre-dawn fog and plows through a crowd of men and women on line for a job fair in a distressed American city. Then the lone driver backs up, charges again, and speeds off, leaving eight dead and more wounded. The case goes unsolved and ex-cop Bill Hodges is out of hope when he gets a letter from a man who loved the feel of death under the Mercedes’s wheels…

    Brady Hartsfield wants that rush again, but this time he’s going big, with an attack that would take down thousands—unless Hodges and two new unusual allies he picks up along the way can throw a wrench in Hartsfield’s diabolical plans. Stephen King takes off on a “nerve-shredding, pulse-pounding race against time” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) with this acclaimed #1 bestselling thriller.

    Editor's Note

    New classic…

    Is it any surprise that the master of horror’s first crime novel is a killer? With its noirish cat-and-mouse plot and terrifying sociopath of a killer, this Edgar Award-winner is a new classic in the crime genre.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateJun 3, 2014
    ISBN9781476754468
    Author

    Stephen King

    Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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    Reviews for Mr. Mercedes

    4/5

    2,512 ratings215 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a taut, suspenseful thriller with gripping characters. While some readers felt it was not Stephen King's finest work and didn't connect with the characters, others found it to be a highly enjoyable and engaging read. The book is praised for its twists and turns, and many readers couldn't put it down. Overall, readers are excited for the next parts of the series and consider it a page-turner with real depth in the characters.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This is not a horror novel, which is what Stephen King is most well known for, having said that, I enjoyed the story.

      Bill Hodges is a retired detective who was quite good at what he did. Mr. Mercedes, the man who drove a mercedes through a crowd of people killing and 8 and wounding many others, is the one he could not solve. After his retirement, he gets a letter from the person claiming to be Mr. Mercedes. The purpose of the letter is to drive Hodges to suicide, instead it does the opposite and he picks up the case to try and solve it.

      The merc killer, Brady, is a very predictable character, similar to serial killers and psycopaths you see on television and in the movies, but the other characters were what kept me reading this book. The way Hodges mind worked was interesting. Jerome, his family, Janey and her cousin added a dimension to the novel that I enjoyed. When I got about 2/3 of the way through, I could not stop reading to find out how Brady would get caught, because you know he will. A good introduction to Bill Hodges as it sets up for the next book in the trilogy.
    • 4/5
      Bill Hodges is a recently retired detective. He is haunted by an unsolved crime, where a man drove a Mercedes into a crowd, killing 8 and wounding 15. He receives a letter from a man claiming to be the perp. Hodges believes it is him, and begins an informal investigation. He is aided by a young man, Jerome, and later by a woman with emotional problems, Holly. The three of them each bring different strengths to the team, and together try to figure out who the killer is.

      We, the reader, know who the killer is. Brady Harstfield, who by day works at a discount electronics store making service calls to fix computers, and also as an ice cream truck drives. He sill lives at home, with his alcoholic mother (there are plenty of mommy issues there) and all who meet him think he is a nice guy.

      The chapters alternate between Hodges and Brady's point of view. For me, this made the story all the more tense. Knowing what Brady is planning next, but waiting for Hodges to figure it out was nerve wracking. Normally I don't like a shifting point of view, but in this case I didn't mind.

      Unlike the majority of Stephen King's work, there is no paranormal element here. This is a pure detective story. The writing style is still very much King's. Very descriptive and very "dense." This makes for a long book. The pacing of the first half seemed a little leisurely to me. The second half kicked it up and flew by. Towards the end, I had to keep reading to find out what would happen next.

      The edition that I read had a preview of the next book in the series, Finders Keepers. It was really interesting and made me want to run out and get a copy for myself. I think this book will be enjoyed both by fans of Stephen King and fans of detective stories. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      More of a cat and mouse story between a retired detective and a "perk", this was a bit of a different story from Mr. King than much of his other work I've read but I was pleasantly surprised. He still knows how to tell a story and immerse one in the world you are reading about. You can almost see and feel things as you go along and bears the mark of an outstanding author. I'm already looking forward to the other 2 stories in this trilogy.
    • 5/5
      A quick moving thriller in every sense of the word. Beware: once you start, you'll have to finish this propulsive book. It's not really a mystery, since the killer is revealed fairly early on, but there is constantly growing tension. Let's just say that I had to put the book down a few times because I became tense reading.First Stephen King novel I've ever read, and I was surprised by the skill of his writing. I understand there are more books with this detective and I'm going to seek them out.
    • 5/5
      This series has been on my tbr forever. King is one of my very favorite authors, but I was hesitant to try the detective series. That was silly because I freaking loved this book! Unexpected twists, great characters, creepy villain, plus some seriously funny parts. Uncle Stevie definitely delivers on this one. Highly recommend the great narration on audio.
    • 4/5
      A mama's boy in so many ways, when he is not trying to get a glimpse of her through her thin robe, Mr. Mercedes works at a dead end job and has never dated. Mama never leaves the house. By 2pm, she generally saunters to the kitchen for a bottle. That's when she makes it that far. He's a computer geek and, by the way, he is notorious for purposefully driving a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of desperate people waiting in the pre-dawn hours for a job fair to open. Eight people died, including an infant. Dozens were permanently maimed.

      Months later, Bill Hodges, the lead detective on the case, is retired. His marriage fell to crap when he couldn't stop drinking. Now, he doesn't touch a drop. He sits in his living room, playing with his gun and watching Dr.Phil, Judge Judy, and other junk. He keeps picking up that gun. At 62, with a gut the size of New Jersey, it's all over for him.

      One day, he gets a taunting letter from Mr Mercedes and he now has a reason to live - unlike the woman who must have left her Mercedes unlocked and couldn't stand the guilt of what was done with her car.

      The detective and the mass murderer start an internet chat. They taunt each other. Who is the cat and who is the mouse?

      Firmly placed in modern times with a nod to many current events and steeped in modern technology, King has produced a modern crime thriller that he dedicates to one of the greatest of all: James Cain. And, yes, if you look carefully, there are echoes of the classic PI, who romances his sexy client and has little to look forward to but solving the case on his own - without turning over the letters to his old partner who is still on the force.

      It's a good solid read that is hard to put down without finishing even if it's over 400 pages.
      It's not horror. It's not suspense. But, it's proof that this King guy can write.
    • 4/5
      Completely satisfying read from start to finish. I always wish King's books could be a little shorter (say 300 instead of 400+ pages), but I can never see any padding of the story line (as I can see in some other lesser writers). King is a masterful storyteller and a master of his craft. However, I'll still hold off reading the next volume in the trilogy (Finders Keepers) due to it also being 400+ pages.
    • 5/5
      great tale
    • 3/5
      I read the final third of this novel in a breathless rush. Rather a turn-up as the middle of it was enervated and saggy. Its themes are death and regeneration and I did wonder if this change of tone was an artistic choice. If so, rather an odd one in a thriller.There is some silliness, and I was put in mind several times of a Scooby Doo investigation and I’m sure that was not intended by the author.The characters are seemingly able to log into the Blue Umbrella website without passwords. At first I took this as a mistake, but there is a fair amount of commentary on the elderly’s inexperience with the internet, and what with King’s current status as an ancient stick insect I can’t help wondering if it’s some sort of joke. Of which there are many. It’s a very funny novel. The loving description of what strychnine does to dogs, for example. Or Hodges’ sex scene. What really set me squeaking was Hodges’ first scene which, by word count, is about daytime television, but is really about suicide.What I particularly enjoyed was the mirroring that pervades everything. It’s everywhere you look in the novel, most prominently between Bill Hodges and Brady Hartsfield, beginning with their initials.
    • 4/5
      I was a little worried about reading this. Stephen King is the master of horror and the only other book I read by him gave me weird dreams. But Mr. Mercedes is pretty much a straightforward detective mystery -- just creepy sociopaths and no characters with bizarre paranormal powers. It is a bit of a chess game between the creepy sociopath killer and the retired detective, Bill Hodges. The plot moves along very quickly - almost too fast to have any significant depth to the characters - but I found it easy to race through this book. And I'll definitely check out the other 2 books in this series.
    • 4/5
      Started off with a bang, literally and then it slowed down for a bit. Once the story picked up it kept going. Talk about a sadistic, sick person. Brady was a freaking lunatic and his mother was worse. What an enabler. Hodges started off as just a sad individual until Brady put that spark back in his life. What a way to get your life back together.
      Overall a good storyline. I'm curious to see what happens in the next two books.
    • 4/5
      I am a long time reader of Stephen King, but the last novel of his that I read, REVIVAL, was far from one of my favorites, and left me wondering if the King of Horror’s mojo might be running low after all these years. I am happy to say that the latest book of his that I’ve read, MR. MERCEDES, completely dispenses with that worry. I found it to be a compulsive page turner from beginning to end, with a plot that grabbed me in the first chapter and then proceeded to build the suspense nicely right through to the edge of your seat climax at the end.MR. MERCEDES is a change of pace for King, in that there is nary a horror trope in sight – no killer clowns, vampires or haunted Plymouth Furies. Instead, this book, the first in a trilogy, is a straight up crime and suspense drama set in an economically distressed Midwest city dealing with the Great Recession, where early one morning a Mercedes Benz deliberately plows through a crowd of applicants outside of a job fair, killing eight and injuring many more. The killer gets away, but nearly a year later, Bill Hodges, the cop who initially investigated the killer, dubbed “Mr. Mercedes” by the press, receives a taunting letter from the psycho who pulled off this atrocity. Hodges is now retired, living alone, watching daytime TV, and drifting into suicidal depression. That is until “Mr. Mercedes,” whose real name is Brady Hartsfield, mails his letter, but instead of being pushed over the edge, Hodges decides to get back into the game, and track down Hartsfield on his own. From there the story proceeds, as Brady Hartsfield plans his next crime, and Bill Hodges, with a pair of most unlikely allies, begins to sniff out his very cold trail.King dedicated this book to the great crime novelist, James M. Cain, the author of the book that became the movie, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, but instead of Cain, I felt King was channeling his inner Alfred Hitchcock. In fact, I think if the movie Master of Suspense had been around today, he would have jumped at a chance to make MR. MERCEDES into a film. The story is told in a way that has plenty of the situational irony found in the best of Hitchcock’s films, as the reader is given vital information that the characters in the story are not aware of – yet. And we watch and wait for the inevitable consequences. King uses a present tense, omnipotent POV – sort of like a God’s eye view – to tell his story, using short sections focused on Hodges, then Hartsfield, then secondary characters, to build the suspense. For the most part, the big gross out scenes that we expect from the usual King book is lacking, but there is one twist about midway through that has a hell of a nasty payoff, and will surely make any reader pause before they put that next hamburger in their mouth. Hodges makes for a most sympathetic protagonist, an overweight retired cop who is given a new lease on life when he goes back to doing what he was he was born to do, even briefly finding love again. Likable also is Jerome, the neighborhood teenager whose competence with computers is of great help to Hodges, and Holly, the woman with problems who becomes an ally after a relative becomes another one of Hartsfield’s victims. Outside of the killer, there are few of King’s usual hateful secondary characters; even Holly’s mother and uncle come off as more annoying than anything else. King has always had a knack for creating mentally unhinged evil, and in Brady Hartsfield, he has come up with a particularly vile piece of work, one that Norman Bates would likely have avoided. I am looking forward to reading the next two books in the Bill Hodges trilogy, FINDERS KEEPERS and END OF WATCH, and to watching the upcoming mini-series based on MR. MERCEDES. After four decades, King can still give us great fiction that speaks to the here and now, quite an accomplishment for a writer who gave us Pennywise, Randall Flagg, Mr. Barlow, the creatures in the mist, and all the other monsters that have scared generations in the best and most wonderful way.
    • 5/5
      Excellent read. Shorter and far more straightforward than a typical King novel, with not a single supernatural element in evidence, this felt a bit off-kilter but is probably the closest thing to a "normal" story Uncle Steve has written in many-a-year. Hugely enjoyable & highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Look forward to reading the sequel (the title of which eludes me now! - bing: Finder Keepers!). This was good; twists and turns and the usual King scene setting and detail. I've never touched any of his 'horror' novels (not my scene that sort of thing!), but everything else I have read has been first class.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book!
    • 5/5
      This book had me on the edge of my seat. There were parts that were a little gross and some that were a little creepy. But what else would you expect from a Stephen King novel. I like that no one was completely safe. I knew people were going to die, but I wasn't sure who and I wasn't even sure the main character was safe. I felt connected to the characters and I was rooting for Hodges to succeed. Brady wasn't likable, but I could see where his life circumstances didn't give him much chance to be "normal". The characters had a very realistic feel and there were a lot of twists and turns in the story. If you enjoy Stephen King or crime thrillers, I think this is a good book for you. An interesting note for Stephen King fans, Christine & It were both referenced in the book. Could this book be the beginning of a series? I hope so, I would like to see more from these characters.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book, but I felt it was missing some important King elements. For one I am a huge fan of King and I really enjoy when he adds a forward to the book, talking personally to the reader. I feel it pulls you into the story before even beginning to read it. For me this was a greatly missed King element. I found a few parts of the book slow, but the image of Brady's mother marching still sticks with me even weeks after reading the book. Although this was not my favorite King book it was still enjoyable and I am looking forward to reading the next two books in the series. I did develop a relationship with the characters and I am looking forward to seeing where he goes with the next book. Not the greatest Stephen King book I've read but still warrants 4 stars and its enough to pull me in for the next installment. I feel like I can't say too much about any of the characters or actions without giving away important plot points in the book. Overall very well tied together and although not as edge of your seat as some of his books still enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      There was nothing original in this plot, retired alcoholic policeman - check, insane serial killer taunting police detective - check, weird mother son relationship - check, IT literate sidekick - check, bizarre romance - check. SK is always readable and it was enjoyable enough but Michael Connelly has done this sort of plot a lot better.
    • 4/5
      This book had a fairly slow start and didn't really warm up until some two-thirds through. it centred around a retired detective, Bill Hodges, and his obsession with finding the mass killer who had been nicknamed 'Mr Mercedes'. Brady, aka Mr Mercedes, was a strange and troubled person who was planning one final mass murder. Hodges accompanied by his young friend, Jerome, and Holly, the cousin of Hodges murdered newly found girlfriend, set about to stop Brady's attempt to blow up a pop concert in a local football stadium.It was tense towards the end of the book and basically a good read but King appears to have lost some of his zing.
    • 5/5
      Mr. Mercedes is a fantastic reminder that Stephen King is not just a horror writer. He is a storyteller that is so gifted he can write across many genres. With his first crack at detective fiction, King creates a creepy cat-and-mouse story with characters you truly care about. I am ecstatic to continue this series.
    • 4/5
      I mentioned in my review of Mr. King’s On Writing that I’d never read one of his books. Well, at the Houston airport on Friday night, getting ready for the last leg of travel that would get me home from two weeks on vacation, I picked up Mr. Mercedes.

      And so it begins. Because I guarantee that the next thing I’m doing after posting this review is reserving all of his books at the library.

      Unbeknownst to me, Mr. Mercedes is the first novel in a trilogy. And thank goodness it’s the first; I’ve accidentally read the second novel in a series first before, and it SUCKS.

      You know what doesn’t suck? This book. This book is fun. It’s disturbing (one male character has a VERY close relationship with his mother, for another. Also, you know, mass killing), and the antagonist is certainly unappealing, dropping the n-word fairly regularly. The premise is this: A man drives a car into a crowd, killing eight people, and is not caught. Det. Hodges, now retired, was on the case but wasn’t able to solve it. Six months post-retirement, he gets a letter from the killer. And so it goes.

      I appreciated that this case wasn’t one that had been haunting the detective forever; it had really only been maybe a year (two at most) since the original crime was committed. So it was less ‘white whale’ and more ‘the one that got away.” There are interesting supporting characters, and plot twists that I didn’t see coming. Is that because I’m unfamiliar with Mr. King’s writing? Don’t know. Don’t care. I enjoyed the heck out of this book, and am actually pretty excited to pick up the second one from the library this week.
    • 4/5
      I have to admit, I was expecting a bit more from this one. I love King's work, and have really thought some of his recent books to be among his best... but this felt rough for me. The characters were a little bit too familiar in some cases, and too flat in others. The plot itself also seemed to be lacking a bit of the depth I've come to expect from King. Did I enjoy the story? Yes though the beginning was slow. Will I read the next one? Yes. Do I think it comes close to measuring up to most of King's other works? No, I really don't.
    • 4/5
      I picked this novel and its sequel, Finders Keepers, up at the Thrift Store, as I was intrigued to see what Stephen King would do with detective fiction. Although I am really fairly well done with spending time inside the head of a psychopath, King kept me engaged with Brady Hartsfield, turning some of the things we think we know about such people sideways (for instance, Brady is a single guy living at home with his Mother, and their relationship is downright icky, but he is fairly self-aware; he isn't driven by either abnormal obsession with or hatred for Mommy). And, mercifully, the Brady sections of the novel do not predominate. Mr. Mercedes was a page turner, and the suspense is palpable---King set me up a couple times for a really nasty thing that didn't happen, but something else nasty happened instead. Knowing that there are two more books in this trilogy gave me some confidence that King wasn't going to bump off Det. (Ret.) Hodges in this one. But the last book is called "End of Watch", which suggests he might be saving that wallop until his faithful readers are REALLY invested in the character. I just don't trust the man, who also likes to sneak damned clown masks in to so much of his fiction. (He understands our my fears too well.) Still, there's no question about his ability to get and keep a reader's attention, so he's got me hooked on Hodges and company now.
    • 5/5
      A retired police detective gets a letter from a killer he never caught, baiting him into investigating the case on his own. His unofficial investigative team soon expands to include the family of a victim and his own teen-aged neighbor who happens to be a whiz with technology. Meanwhile, the reader sees into the mind of the killer as he plots out his next move.This was a riveting and suspenseful read (even with King having spoilered some of his book in a later novel). The characterizations are incredibly interesting, and this will keep you hooked. There were a couple of times here and there where King seemed to get a little bit long-winded, but overall the book keeps you glued to the page. My one quibble is that King giving Jerome the "Tyrone Feelgood" alterego seemed offensive.For audiobook readers, Will Patton was an amazing narrator, bringing to life all of the characters. I am definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.
    • 4/5
      As they have tended to be for Stephen King books, my expectations were high for this one, especially since the reviews of it have been so favourable. My expectations were almost met, but not quite.Mr. Mercedes is, of course, a great story. It's dramatic enough from the start to be instantly interesting, and it makes it clear from the outset that this is one of those books where "that couldn't possible happen"-things can actually happen, which is crucial for a book like this to work. It's also refreshingly unpredictable, and I never knew where it was going. This wasn't down to sudden twists and unexpected turns, but rather the compounded effect of a story where both the events and the characters are original enough for me to lose my general sense of "I've seen this kind of thing before" gut-feeling about what is going to happen. The characters are well-developed enough for their actions not to feel out of place, and likeable enough (when they need to be) for me as a reader to care about what happens to them.That said, I felt that the book as a whole lacked some intensity. The fact that some sections of it were real page-turners made me all the more aware that other sections weren't. It never got boring, but at times it felt a little too much like I was reading a set-up to a future event rather than something that was written for its own sake. I think I've used the phrase "a great story told well" in reviews of Stephen King books before, but this time, for the first time, I feel like this was a great story that perhaps could have been told a little better.Still, Mr. Mercedes was a really fun, worthwhile read, and delivers more or less exactly what one would expect from a Stephen King story with a blood-soaked umbrella on the cover.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book, but was kind of disappointed by the ending. It felt like a big build up for what little happened.
    • 3/5
      I haven't read many, but this was probably the first Stephen King novel that I've somewhat enjoyed. I like that you have the perspective of both the killer and the man trying to catch him. Although, the killer has a very twisted mind full of perverse thoughts. I liked this novel enough to read the next book in the series, but I'm curious how the characters will tie in. Audio- Overdrive
    • 4/5
      Brilliant. The characters are fascinating, the plot is thrilling, and the unfurling of events is gripping. I intend to eventually read all of King's works, but I TRULY look forward to the rest of this series.
    • 4/5
      I think I prefer Stephen King's more supernatural stories over these ones where the evil is of the more ordinary human variety. In a way the human evil stories are creepier, but they lack the extra layer of coolness I enjoy from a great Stephen King story. I found this book entertaining and well written, but it was also pretty predictable, an odd thing for me to say about any of King's books. Since this was not meant to be a murder mystery, we're told who the bad guy is early on, and from almost the very beginning the only real question is whether the good guys will catch the bad guy before he can pull of his next big thing. Woven into this story is a thread about how we use gadgets we don't understand and assume we are safe when in fact we may be quite vulnerable. Unpleasant thought? Yes, but not much creepiness to build a thriller around. So, I enjoyed this book, but it is definitely not the best book by this author that I've read, and there are other writers who do 'former cops chasing scummy bad guys' books, who do at least as good a job at this subgenre of thriller adventures, and often far better.
    • 5/5
      Really super King book. Excellent writing. Super suspense. A treasure. Can't wait to read #2.

    Book preview

    Mr. Mercedes - Stephen King

    DET.-RET.

    1

    Hodges walks out of the kitchen with a can of beer in his hand, sits down in the La-Z-Boy, and puts the can down on the little table to his left, next to the gun. It’s a .38 Smith & Wesson M&P revolver, M&P standing for Military and Police. He pats it absently, the way you’d pat an old dog, then picks up the remote control and turns on Channel Seven. He’s a little late, and the studio audience is already applauding.

    He’s thinking of a fad, brief and baleful, that inhabited the city in the late eighties. Or maybe the word he really wants is infected, because it had been like a transient fever. The city’s three papers had written editorials about it all one summer. Now two of those papers are gone and the third is on life support.

    The host comes striding onstage in a sharp suit, waving to the audience. Hodges has watched this show almost every weekday since his retirement from the police force, and he thinks this man is too bright to be doing this job, one that’s a little like scuba diving in a sewer without a wetsuit. He thinks the host is the sort of man who sometimes commits suicide and afterward all his friends and close relatives say they never had a clue anything was wrong; they talk about how cheerful he was the last time they saw him.

    At this thought, Hodges gives the revolver another absent pat. It is the Victory model. An oldie but a goodie. His own gun, when he was active, was a Glock .40. He bought it—officers in this city are expected to buy their service weapons—and now it’s in the safe in his bedroom. Safe in the safe. He unloaded it and put it in there after the retirement ceremony and hasn’t looked at it since. No interest. He likes the .38, though. He has a sentimental attachment to it, but there’s something beyond that. A revolver never jams.

    Here is the first guest, a young woman in a short blue dress. Her face is a trifle on the vacant side but she’s got a knockout bod. Somewhere inside that dress, Hodges knows, there will be the sort of tattoo now referred to as a tramp-stamp. Maybe two or three. The men in the audience whistle and stomp their feet. The women in the audience applaud more gently. Some roll their eyes. This is the kind of woman you don’t like to catch your husband staring at.

    The woman is pissed right from go. She tells the host that her boyfriend has had a baby with another woman and he goes over to see them all the time. She still loves him, she says, but she hates that—

    The next couple of words are bleeped out, but Hodges can lipread fucking whore. The audience cheers. Hodges takes a sip of his beer. He knows what comes next. This show has all the predictability of a soap opera on Friday afternoon.

    The host lets her run on for a bit and then introduces… THE OTHER WOMAN! She also has a knockout bod and several yards of big blond hair. There’s a tramp-stamp on one ankle. She approaches the other woman and says, I understand how you feel, but I love him, too.

    She’s got more on her mind, but that’s as far as she gets before Knockout Bod One goes into action. Someone offstage rings a bell, as if this were the start of a prizefight. Hodges supposes it is, since all the guests on this show must be compensated; why else would they do it? The two women punch and claw for a few seconds, and then the two beefcakes with SECURITY printed on their tee-shirts, who have been watching from the background, separate them.

    They shout at each other for awhile, a full and fair exchange of views (much of it bleeped out), as the host watches benignly, and this time it’s Knockout Bod Two who initiates the fight, swinging a big roundhouse slap that rocks Knockout Bod One’s head back. The bell rings again. They fall to the stage, their dresses rucking up, clawing and punching and slapping. The audience goes bugshit. The security beefcakes separate them and the host gets between them, talking in a voice that is soothing on top, inciteful beneath. The two women declare the depth of their love, spitting it into each other’s faces. The host says they’ll be right back and then a C-list actress is selling a diet pill.

    Hodges takes another sip of his beer and knows he won’t even finish half the can. It’s funny, because when he was on the cops, he was damned near an alcoholic. When the drinking broke up his marriage, he assumed he was an alcoholic. He summoned all his willpower and reined it in, promising himself he would drink just as much as he goddam wanted once he had his forty in—a pretty amazing number, when fifty percent of city cops retired after twenty-five and seventy percent after thirty. Only now that he has his forty, alcohol no longer interests him much. He forced himself to get drunk a few times, just to see if he could still do it, and he could, but being drunk turned out to be no better than being sober. Actually it was a little worse.

    The show returns. The host says he has another guest, and Hodges knows who that will be. The audience does, too. They yap their anticipation. Hodges picks up his father’s gun, looks into the barrel, and puts it back down on the DirecTV guide.

    The man over whom Knockout Bod One and Knockout Bod Two are in such strenuous conflict emerges from stage right. You knew what he was going to look like even before he comes strutting out and yup, he’s the guy: a gas station attendant or a Target warehouse carton-shuffler or maybe the fella who detailed your car (badly) at the Mr. Speedy. He’s skinny and pale, with black hair clumping over his forehead. He’s wearing chinos and a crazy green and yellow tie that has a chokehold on his throat just below his prominent Adam’s apple. The pointy toes of suede boots poke out beneath his pants. You knew that the women had tramp-stamps and you know this man is hung like a horse and shoots sperm more powerful than a locomotive and faster than a speeding bullet; a virginal maid who sits on a toilet seat after this guy jerked off will get up pregnant. Probably with twins. On his face is the half-smart grin of a cool dude in a loose mood. Dream job: lifetime disability. Soon the bell will ring and the women will go at each other again. Later, after they have heard enough of his smack, they will look at each other, nod slightly, and attack him together. This time the security personnel will wait a little longer, because this final battle is what the audience, both in the studio and at home, really wants to see: the hens going after the rooster.

    That brief and baleful fad in the late eighties—the infection—was called bum fighting. Some gutter genius or other got the idea, and when it turned a profit, three or four other entrepreneurs leaped in to refine the deal. What you did was pay a couple of bums thirty bucks each to go at each other at a set time and in a set place. The place Hodges remembered best was the service area behind a sleazy crab-farm of a strip club called Bam Ba Lam, over on the East Side. Once the fight card was set, you advertised (by word of mouth in those days, with widespread Internet use still over the horizon), and charged spectators twenty bucks a head. There had been better than two hundred at the one Hodges and Pete Huntley had busted, most of them making odds and fading each other like mad motherfuckers. There had been women, too, some in evening dress and loaded with jewelry, watching as those two wetbrain stewbums went at each other, flailing and kicking and falling down and getting up and yelling incoherencies. The crowd had been laughing and cheering and urging the combatants on.

    This show is like that, only there are diet pills and insurance companies to fade the action, so Hodges supposes the contestants (that’s what they are, although the host calls them guests) walk away with a little more than thirty bucks and a bottle of Night Train. And there are no cops to break it up, because it’s all as legal as lottery tickets.

    When the show is over, the take-no-prisoners lady judge will show up, robed in her trademark brand of impatient righteousness, listening with barely suppressed rage to the small-shit petitioners who come before her. Next up is the fat family psychologist who makes his guests cry (he calls this breaking through the wall of denial), and invites them to leave if any of them dare question his methods. Hodges thinks the fat family psychologist might have learned those methods from old KGB training videos.

    Hodges eats this diet of full-color shit every weekday afternoon, sitting in the La-Z-Boy with his father’s gun—the one Dad carried as a beat cop—on the table beside him. He always picks it up a few times and looks into the barrel. Inspecting that round darkness. On a couple of occasions he has slid it between his lips, just to see what it feels like to have a loaded gun lying on your tongue and pointing at your palate. Getting used to it, he supposes.

    If I could drink successfully, I could put this off, he thinks. I could put it off for at least a year. And if I could put it off for two, the urge might pass. I might get interested in gardening, or birdwatching, or even painting. Tim Quigley took up painting, down in Florida. In a retirement community that was loaded with old cops. By all accounts Quigley had really enjoyed it, and had even sold some of his work at the Venice Art Festival. Until his stroke, that was. After the stroke he’d spent eight or nine months in bed, paralyzed all down his right side. No more painting for Tim Quigley. Then off he went. Booya.

    The fight bell is ringing, and sure enough, both women are going after the scrawny guy in the crazy tie, painted fingernails flashing, big hair flying. Hodges reaches for the gun again, but he has no more than touched it when he hears the clack of the front door slot and the flump of the mail hitting the hall floor.

    Nothing of importance comes through the mail slot in these days of email and Facebook, but he gets up anyway. He’ll look through it and leave his father’s M&P .38 for another day.

    2

    When Hodges returns to his chair with his small bundle of mail, the fight-show host is saying goodbye and promising his TV Land audience that tomorrow there will be midgets. Whether of the physical or mental variety he does not specify.

    Beside the La-Z-Boy there are two small plastic waste containers, one for returnable bottles and cans, the other for trash. Into the trash goes a circular from Walmart promising ROLLBACK PRICES; an offer for burial insurance addressed to OUR FAVORITE NEIGHBOR; an announcement that all DVDs are going to be fifty percent off for one week only at Discount Electronix; a postcard-sized plea for your important vote from a fellow running for a vacancy on the city council. There’s a photograph of the candidate, and to Hodges he looks like Dr. Oberlin, the dentist who terrified him as a child. There’s also a circular from Albertsons supermarket. This Hodges puts aside (covering up his father’s gun for the time being) because it’s loaded with coupons.

    The last thing appears to be an actual letter—a fairly thick one, by the feel—in a business-sized envelope. It is addressed to Det. K. William Hodges (Ret.) at 63 Harper Road. There is no return address. In the upper lefthand corner, where one usually goes, is his second smile-face of the day’s mail delivery. Only this one’s not the winking Walmart Rollback Smiley but rather the email emoticon of Smiley wearing dark glasses and showing his teeth.

    This stirs a memory, and not a good one.

    No, he thinks. No.

    But he rips the letter open so fast and hard the envelope tears and four typed pages spill out—not real typing, not typewriter typing, but a computer font that looks like it.

    Dear Detective Hodges, the heading reads.

    He reaches out without looking, knocks the Albertsons circular to the floor, finger-walks across the revolver without even noticing it, and seizes the TV remote. He hits the kill-switch, shutting up the take-no-prisoners lady judge in mid-scold, and turns his attention to the letter.

    3

    Dear Detective Hodges,

    I hope you do not mind me using your title, even though you have been retired for 6 months. I feel that if incompetent judges, venal politicians, and stupid military commanders can keep their titles after retirement, the same should be true for one of the most decorated police officers in the city’s history.

    So Detective Hodges it shall be!

    Sir (another title you deserve, for you are a true Knight of the Badge and Gun), I write for many reasons, but must begin by congratulating you on your years of service, 27 as a detective and 40 in all. I saw some of the Retirement Ceremony on TV (Public Access Channel 2, a resource overlooked by many), and happen to know there was a party at the Raintree Inn out by the airport the following night.

    I bet that was the real Retirement Ceremony!

    I have certainly never attended such a bash, but I watch a lot of TV cop shows, and while I am sure many of them present a very fictional picture of the policeman’s lot, several have shown such retirement parties (NYPD Blue, Homicide, The Wire, etc., etc.), and I like to think they are ACCURATE portrayals of how the Knights of the Badge and Gun say so-long to one of their compatriots. I think they might be, because I have also read retirement party scenes in at least two Joseph Wambaugh books, and they are similar. He should know because he, like you, is a Det. Ret.

    I imagine balloons hanging from the ceiling, a lot of drinking, a lot of bawdy conversation, and plenty of reminiscing about the Old Days and the old cases. There is probably lots of loud and happy music, and possibly a stripper or two shaking her tailfeathers. There are probably speeches that are a lot funnier and a lot truer than the ones at the stuffed shirt ceremony.

    How am I doing?

    Not bad, Hodges thinks. Not bad at all.

    According to my research, during your time as a detective, you broke literally hundreds of cases, many of them the kind the press (who Ted Williams called the Knights of the Keyboard) terms high profile. You have caught Killers and Robbery Gangs and Arsonists and Rapists. In one article (published to coincide with your Retirement Ceremony), your longtime partner (Det. 1st Grade Peter Huntley) described you as a combination of by-the-book and intuitively brilliant.

    A nice compliment!

    If it is true, and I think it is, you will have figured out by now that I am one of those few you did not catch. I am, in fact, the man the press chose to call

    a.) The Joker

    b.) The Clown

    or

    c.) The Mercedes Killer.

    I prefer the last!

    I am sure you gave it your best shot, but sadly (for you, not me), you failed. I imagine if there was ever a perk you wanted to catch, Detective Hodges, it was the man who deliberately drove into the Job Fair crowd at City Center last year, killing eight and wounding so many more. (I must say I exceeded my own wildest expectations.) Was I on your mind when they gave you that plaque at the Official Retirement Ceremony? Was I on your mind when your fellow Knights of the Badge and Gun were telling stories about (just guessing here) criminals who were caught with their pants actually down or funny practical jokes that were played in the good old Squad Room?

    I bet I was!

    I have to tell you how much fun it was. (I’m being honest here.) When I put the pedal to the metal and drove poor Mrs. Olivia Trelawney’s Mercedes at that crowd of people, I had the biggest hard-on of my life! And was my heart beating 200 a minute? Hope to tell ya!

    Here was another Mr. Smiley in sunglasses.

    I’ll tell you something that’s true inside dope, and if you want to laugh, go ahead, because it is sort of funny (although I think it also shows just how careful I was). I was wearing a condom! A rubber! Because I was afraid of Spontaneous Ejaculation, and the DNA that might result! Well, that did not happen, but I have masturbated many times since while thinking of how they tried to run and couldn’t (they were packed in like sardines), and how scared they all looked (that was so funny), and the way I jerked forward when the car plowed into them. So hard the seatbelt locked. Gosh it was exciting.

    To tell the truth, I didn’t know what might happen. I thought the chances were 50-50 that I would get caught. But I am a cockeyed optimist, and I prepared for Success rather than Failure. The condom is inside dope, but I bet your Forensics Department (I also watch CSI) was pretty darn disappointed when they didn’t get any DNA from inside the clown mask. They must have said, Damn! That crafty perk must have been wearing a hair net underneath!

    And so I was! I also washed it out with BLEACH!

    I still relive the thuds that resulted from hitting them, and the crunching noises, and the way the car bounced on its springs when it went over the bodies. For power and control, give me a Mercedes 12-cylinder every time! When I saw in the paper that a baby was one of my victims, I was delighted!! To snuff out a life that young! Think of all she missed, eh? Patricia Cray, RIP! Got the mom, too! Strawberry jam in a sleeping bag! What a thrill, eh? I also enjoy thinking of the man who lost his arm and even more of the two who are paralyzed. The man only from the waist down, but Martine Stover is now your basic head on a stick! They didn’t die but probably WISH they did! How about that, Detective Hodges?

    Now you are probably thinking, What kind of sick and twisted Pervo do we have here? Can’t really blame you, but we could argue about that! I think a great many people would enjoy doing what I did, and that is why they enjoy books and movies (and even TV shows these days) that feature Torture and Dismemberment, etc., etc., etc. The only difference is I really did it. Not because I’m mad, though (in either sense of the word). Just because I didn’t know exactly what the experience would be like, only that it would be totally thrilling, with memories to last a lifetime, as they say. Most people are fitted with Lead Boots when they are just little kids and have to wear them all their lives. These Lead Boots are called A CONSCIENCE. I have none, so I can soar high above the heads of the Normal Crowd. And if they had caught me? Well if it had been right there, if Mrs. Trelawney’s Mercedes had stalled or something (small chance of that as it seemed very well maintained), I suppose the crowd might have torn me apart, I understood that possibility going in, and it added to the excitement. But I didn’t think they really would, because most people are sheep and sheep don’t eat meat. (I suppose I might have been beaten up a little, but I can take a beating.) Probably I would have been arrested and gone to trial, where I would have pleaded insanity. Maybe I even am insane (the idea has certainly crossed my mind), but it is a peculiar kind of insanity. Anyway, the coin came down heads and I got away.

    The fog helped!

    Now here is something else I saw, this time in a movie. (I don’t remember the name.) There was a Serial Killer who was very clever and at first the cops (one was Bruce Willis, back when he still had some hair) couldn’t catch him. So Bruce Willis said, He’ll do it again because he can’t help himself and sooner or later he’ll make a mistake and we will catch him.

    Which they did!

    That is not true in my case, Detective Hodges, because I have absolutely no urge to do it again. In my case, once was enough. I have my memories, and they are as clear as a bell. And of course, there was how frightened people were afterward, because they were sure I would do it again. Remember the public gatherings that were cancelled? That wasn’t as much fun, but it was tres amusant.

    So you see, we are both Ret.

    Speaking of which, my one regret is that I couldn’t attend your Retirement Party at the Raintree Inn and raise a toast to you, my good Sir Detective. You absolutely did give it your best shot. Detective Huntley too, of course, but if the papers and Internet reports of your respective careers are right, you were Major League and he was and always will be Triple A. I’m sure the case is still in the Active File, and that he takes those old reports out every now and then to study them, but he won’t get anywhere. I think we both know that.

    May I close on a Note of Concern?

    In some of those TV shows (and also in one of the Wambaugh books, I think, but it might have been a James Patterson), the big party with the balloons and drinking and music is followed by a sad final scene. The Detective goes home and finds out that without his Gun and Badge, his life is pointless. Which I can understand. When you think of it, what is sadder than an Old Retired Knight? Anyway, the Detective finally shoots himself (with his Service Revolver). I looked it up on the Internet and discovered this type of thing isn’t just fiction. It really happens!

    Retired police have an extremely high suicide rate!!

    In most cases, the cops who do this sad thing have no close family members who might see the Warning Signs. Many, like you, are divorced. Many have grown children living far away from home. I think of you all alone in your house on Harper Road, Detective Hodges, and I grow concerned. What kind of life do you have, now that the thrill of the hunt is behind you? Are you watching a lot of TV? Probably. Are you drinking more? Possibly. Do the hours go by more slowly because your life is now so empty? Are you suffering from insomnia? Gee, I hope not.

    But I fear that might be the case!

    You probably need a Hobby, so you’ll have something to think about instead of the one that got away and how you will never catch me. It would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People slipped through your fingers.

    I wouldn’t want you to start thinking about your gun.

    But you are thinking of it, aren’t you?

    I would like to close with one final thought from the one that got away. That thought is:

    FUCK YOU, LOSER.

    Just kidding!

    Very truly yours,

    THE MERCEDES KILLER

    Below this was yet another smile-face. And below that:

    PS! Sorry about Mrs. Trelawney, but when you turn this letter over to Det. Huntley, tell him not to bother looking at any photos I’m sure the police took at her funeral. I attended, but only in my imagination. (My imagination is very powerful.)

    PPS: Want to get in touch with me? Give me your feedback? Try Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. I even got you a username: kermitfrog19. I might not reply, but hey, you never know.

    PPPS: Hope this letter has cheered you up!

    4

    Hodges sits where he is for two minutes, four minutes, six, eight. Completely still. He holds the letter in his hand, looking at the Andrew Wyeth print on the wall. At last he puts the pages on the table beside his chair and picks up the envelope. The postmark is right here in the city, which doesn’t surprise him. His correspondent wants him to know he’s close by. It’s part of the taunt. As his correspondent would say, it’s…

    Part of the fun!

    New chemicals and computer-assisted scanning processes can pick up excellent fingerprints from paper, but Hodges knows that if he turns this letter in to Forensics, they will find no prints on it but his. This guy is crazy, but his self-assessment—one crafty perp—is absolutely correct. Only he wrote perk, not perp, and he wrote it twice. Also…

    Wait a minute, wait a minute.

    What do you mean, when you turn it in?

    Hodges gets up, goes to the window carrying the letter, and looks out on Harper Road. The Harrison girl putts by on her moped. She’s really too young to have one of those things, no matter what the law allows, but at least she’s wearing her helmet. The Mr. Tastey truck jangles by; in warm weather it works the city’s East Side between school’s out and dusk. A little black smart car trundles by. The graying hair of the woman behind the wheel is up in rollers. Or is it a woman? It could be a man wearing a wig and a dress. The rollers would be the perfect final touch, wouldn’t they?

    That’s what he wants you to think.

    But no. Not exactly.

    Not what. It’s how the self-styled Mercedes Killer (except he was right, it was really the papers and the TV news that styled him that) wants him to think.

    It’s the ice cream man!

    No, it’s the man dressed as a woman in the smart car!

    Uh-uh, it’s the guy driving the liquid propane truck, or the meter-reader!

    How did you spark paranoia like that? It helps to casually let drop that you know more than the ex-detective’s address. You know he’s divorced and at least imply that he has a kid or kids somewhere.

    Looking out at the grass now, noticing that it needs cutting. If Jerome doesn’t come around pretty soon, Hodges thinks, I’ll have to call him.

    Kid or kids? Don’t kid yourself. He knows my ex is Corinne and we have one adult child, a daughter named Alison. He knows Allie’s thirty and lives in San Francisco. He probably knows she’s five-six and plays tennis. All that stuff is readily available on the Net. These days, everything is.

    His next move should be to turn this letter over to Pete and Pete’s new partner, Isabelle Jaynes. They inherited the Mercedes thing, along with a few other danglers, when Hodges pulled the pin. Some cases are like idle computers; they go to sleep. This letter will wake up the Mercedes case in a hurry.

    He traces the progress of the letter in his mind.

    From the mail slot to the hall floor. From the hall floor to the La-Z-Boy. From the La-Z-Boy to here by the window, where he can now observe the mail truck going back the way it came—Andy Fenster done for the day. From here to the kitchen, where the letter would go into a totally unnecessary Glad bag, the kind with the zip top, because old habits are strong habits. Next to Pete and Isabelle. From Pete to Forensics for a complete dilation and curettage, where the unnecessariness of the Glad bag would be conclusively proved by: no prints, no hairs, no DNA of any kind, paper available by the caseload at every Staples and Office Depot in the city, and—last but not least—standard laser printing. They may be able to tell what kind of computer was used to compose the letter (about this he can’t be sure; he knows little about computers, and when he has trouble with his he turns to Jerome, who lives handily nearby), and if so, it would turn out to be a Mac or a PC. Big whoop.

    From Forensics the letter would bounce back to Pete and Isabelle, who’d no doubt convene the sort of idiotic kop kolloquium you see on BBC crime shows like Luther and Prime Suspect (which his psychopathic correspondent probably loves). This kolloquium would be complete with whiteboard and photo enlargements of the letter, maybe even a laser pointer. Hodges watches some of those British crime shows, too, and believes Scotland Yard somehow missed the old saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth.

    The kop kolloquium would accomplish only one thing, and Hodges believes it’s what the psycho wants: with ten or a dozen detectives in attendance, the existence of the letter will inevitably leak to the press. The psycho is probably not telling the truth when he says he has no urge to repeat his crime, but of one thing Hodges is completely sure: he misses being in the news.

    Dandelions are sprouting on the lawn. It is definitely time to call Jerome. Lawn aside, Hodges misses his face around the place. Cool kid.

    Something else. Even if the psycho is telling the truth about feeling no urge to perpetrate another mass slaughter (unlikely, but not out of the question), he’s still extremely interested in death. The letter’s subtext could not be clearer. Off yourself. You’re thinking about it already, so take the next step. Which also happens to be the final step.

    Has he seen me playing with Dad’s .38?

    Seen me putting it in my mouth?

    Hodges has to admit it’s possible; he has never even thought of pulling the shades. Feeling stupidly safe in his living room when anybody could have a set of binocs. Or Jerome could have seen. Jerome bopping up the walk to ask about chores: what he is pleased to call chos fo hos.

    Only if Jerome had seen him playing with that old revolver, he would have been scared to death. He would have said something.

    Does Mr. Mercedes really masturbate when he thinks about running those people down?

    In his years on the police force, Hodges has seen things he would never talk about with anyone who has not also seen them. Such toxic memories lead him to believe that his correspondent could be telling the truth about the masturbation, just as he is certainly telling the truth about having no conscience. Hodges has read there are wells in Iceland so deep you can drop a stone down them and never hear the splash. He thinks some human souls are like that. Things like bum fighting are only halfway down such wells.

    He returns to his La-Z-Boy, opens the drawer in the table, and takes out his cell phone. He replaces it with the .38 and closes the drawer. He speed-dials the police department, but when the receptionist asks how she can direct his call, Hodges says: Oh, damn. I just punched the wrong button on my phone. Sorry to have bothered you.

    No bother, sir, she says with a smile in her voice.

    No calls, not yet. No action of any kind. He needs to think about this.

    He really, really needs to think about this.

    Hodges sits looking at his television, which is off on a weekday afternoon for the first time in months.

    5

    That evening he drives down to Newmarket Plaza and has a meal at the Thai restaurant. Mrs. Buramuk serves him personally. Haven’t seen you long time, Officer Hodges. It comes out Offica Hutches.

    Been cooking for myself since I retired.

    You let me cook. Much better.

    When he tastes Mrs. Buramuk’s Tom Yum Gang again, he realizes how sick he is of half-raw fried hamburgers and spaghetti with Newman’s Own sauce. And the Sang Kaya Fug Tong makes him realize how tired he is of Pepperidge Farm coconut cake. If I never eat another slice of coconut cake, he thinks, I could live just as long and die just as happy. He drinks two cans of Singha with his meal, and it’s the best beer he’s had since the Raintree retirement party, which went almost exactly as Mr. Mercedes said; there was even a stripper shaking her tailfeathers. Along with everything else.

    Had Mr. Mercedes been lurking at the back of the room? As the cartoon possum was wont to say, It’s possible, Muskie, it’s possible.

    At home again, he sits in the La-Z-Boy and takes up the letter. He knows what the next step must be—if he’s not going to turn it over to Pete Huntley, that is—but he also knows better than to try doing it after a couple of brewskis. So he puts the letter in the drawer on top of the .38 (he never did bother with the Glad bag) and gets another beer. The one from the fridge is just an Ivory Special, the local brand, but it tastes every bit as good as the Singha.

    When it’s gone, Hodges powers up his computer, opens Firefox, and types in Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. The descriptor beneath isn’t very descriptive: A social site where interesting people exchange interesting views. He thinks of going further, then shuts the computer down. Not that, either. Not tonight.

    He has been going to bed late, because that means fewer hours spent tossing and turning, going over old cases and old mistakes, but tonight he turns in early and knows he’ll sleep almost at once. It’s a wonderful feeling.

    His last thought before he goes under is of how Mr. Mercedes’s poison-pen letter finished up. Mr. Mercedes wants him to commit suicide. Hodges wonders what he would think if he knew he had given this particular ex–Knight of the Badge and Gun a reason to live, instead. At least for awhile.

    Then sleep takes him. He gets a full and restful six hours before his bladder wakes him. He gropes to the bathroom, pees himself empty, and goes back to bed, where he sleeps for another three hours. When he wakes, sunshine is slanting in the windows and the birds are twittering. He heads into the kitchen, where he cooks himself a full breakfast. As he’s sliding a couple of hard-fried eggs onto a plate already loaded with bacon and toast, he stops, startled.

    Someone is singing.

    It’s him.

    6

    Once his breakfast dishes are in the dishwasher, he goes into the study to tear the letter down. This is a thing he’s done at least two dozen times before, but never on his own; as a detective he always had Pete Huntley to help him, and before Pete, two previous partners. Most of the letters were threatening communications from ex-husbands (and an ex-wife or two). Not much challenge in those. Some were extortion demands. Some were blackmail—really just another form of extortion. One was from a kidnapper demanding a paltry and unimaginative ransom. And three—four, counting the one from Mr. Mercedes—were from self-confessed murderers. Two of those were clearly fantasy. One might or might not have been from the serial killer they called Turnpike Joe.

    What about this one? True or false? Real or fantasy?

    Hodges opens his desk drawer, takes out a yellow legal pad, tears off the week-old grocery list on the top. Then he plucks one of the Uni-Ball pens from the cup beside his computer. He considers the detail about the condom first. If the guy really was wearing one, he took it with him… but that makes sense, doesn’t it? Condoms can hold fingerprints as well as jizz. Hodges considers other details: how the seatbelt locked when the guy plowed into the crowd, the way the Mercedes bounced when it went over the bodies. Stuff that wouldn’t have been in any of the newspapers, but also stuff he could have made up. He even said…

    Hodges scans the letter, and here it is: My imagination is very powerful.

    But there were two details he could not have made up. Two details that had been withheld from the news media.

    On his legal pad, below IS IT REAL?, Hodges writes: HAIRNET. BLEACH.

    Mr. Mercedes had taken the net with him just as he had taken the condom (probably still hanging off his dick, assuming it had been there at all), but Gibson in Forensics had been positive there was one, because Mr. Mercedes had left the clown mask and there had been no hairs stuck to the rubber. About the swimming-pool smell of DNA-killing bleach there had been no doubt. He must have used a lot.

    But it isn’t just those things; it’s everything. The assuredness. There’s nothing tentative here.

    He hesitates, then prints: THIS IS THE GUY.

    Hesitates again. Scribbles out GUY and prints BASTARD.

    7

    It’s been awhile since he thought like a cop, and even longer since he did this kind of work—a special kind of forensics that doesn’t require cameras, microscopes, or special chemicals—but once he buckles down to it, he warms up fast. He starts with a series of headings.

    ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPHS.

    CAPITALIZED PHRASES.

    PHRASES IN QUOTATION MARKS.

    FANCY PHRASES.

    UNUSUAL WORDS.

    EXCLAMATION POINTS.

    Here he stops, tapping the pen against his lower lip and reading the letter through again from Dear Detective Hodges to Hope this letter has cheered you up! Then he adds two more headings on the sheet, which is now getting crowded.

    USES BASEBALL METAPHOR, MAY BE A FAN.

    COMPUTER SAVVY (UNDER 50?).

    He is far from sure about these last two. Sports metaphors have become common, especially among political pundits, and these days there are octogenarians on Facebook and Twitter. Hodges himself may be tapping only twelve percent of his Mac’s potential (that’s what Jerome claims), but that doesn’t make him part of the majority. You had to start somewhere, though, and besides, the letter has a young feel.

    He has always been talented at this sort of work, and a lot more than twelve percent of it is intuition.

    He’s listed nearly a dozen examples under UNUSUAL WORDS, and now circles two: compatriots and Spontaneous Ejaculation. Beside them he adds a name: Wambaugh. Mr. Mercedes is a shitbag, but a bright, book-reading shitbag. He has a large vocabulary and doesn’t make spelling errors. Hodges can imagine Jerome Robinson saying, "Spellchecker, my man. I mean, duh?"

    Sure, sure, these days anyone with a word processing program can spell like a champ, but Mr. Mercedes has written Wambaugh, not Wombough, or even Wombow, which is how it sounds. Just the fact that he’s remembered to put in that silent gh suggests a fairly high level of intelligence. Mr. Mercedes’s missive may not be high-class literature, but his writing is a lot better than the dialogue in shows like NCIS or Bones.

    Homeschooled, public-schooled, or self-taught? Does it matter? Maybe not, but maybe it does.

    Hodges doesn’t think self-taught, no. The writing is too… what?

    Expansive, he says to the empty room, but it’s more than that. "Outward. This guy writes outward. He learned with others. And wrote for others."

    A shaky deduction, but it’s supported by certain flourishes—those FANCY PHRASES. Must begin by congratulating you, he writes. Literally hundreds of cases, he writes. And—twice—Was I on your mind. Hodges logged As in his high school English classes, Bs in college, and he remembers what that sort of thing is called: incremental repetition. Does Mr. Mercedes imagine his letter being published in the newspaper, circulated on the Internet, quoted (with a certain reluctant respect) on Channel Four News at Six?

    Sure you do, Hodges says. "Once upon a time you read your themes in class. You liked it, too. Liked being in the spotlight. Didn’t you? When I find you—if I find you—I’ll find that you did as well in your English classes as I did." Probably better. Hodges can’t remember ever using incremental repetition, unless it was by accident.

    Only there are four public high schools in the city and God knows how many private ones. Not to mention prep schools, junior colleges, City College, and St. Jude’s Catholic University. Plenty of haystacks for a poisoned needle to hide in. If he even went to school here at all, and not in Miami or Phoenix.

    Plus, he’s a sly dog. The letter is full of false fingerprints—the capitalized phrases like Lead

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