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    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel
    Ebook594 pages9 hours

    Mr. Mercedes: A Novel

    By Stephen King

    4/5

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    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 Never Flinch (May 2025), the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), 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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    Related categories

    Reviews for Mr. Mercedes

    4/5

    2,548 ratings217 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
      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
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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 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.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      Stephen King's "Mr. Mercedes", is a brilliant example of what an amazing writer he is even if he isn't writing horror or supernatural. He gets you to care about characters in just a few simple paragraphs, which is why when bad things happen to them (and it's an SK book, so you know they will) it hurts so much. Mr. Mercedes is a brutal killer. Retired detective Bill Hodges didn't catch him before retiring. A year after, Hodges is contemplating suicide when Mr. Mercedes reaches out, taunting him. With a renewed sense of purpose, Hodges is determined to catch this maniac and put him away for good. It was taunt and suspenseful and just plain *good*. This is the sort of book he writes occasionally that makes me sad that he's labeled a "horror" writer. Although it doesn't seem to matter too much these days, he's pretty universally popular.
    • 5/5
      I've been a Stephen King fan since sixth grade, when my father let me borrow his copy of Salem's Lot. The most recent book of his I read was the final book in The Dark Tower, and I was less than impressed with it: The Dark Tower felt largely forced to me, and was such a dragging bore that it took me several months to finally get through it -- which I found to be extremely disappointing. That said, Mr. Mercedes was a nice reminder as to why I love King as a writer: his passion for his craft bleeds through the pages of this book.

      Mr. Mercedes is the first book in Stephen King's Bill Hodges Trilogy, and it is by far among the best books that I've read as of late. Set in the Midwest, which was a nice change for King's books, Mr. Mercedes begins with a crime against the poor. A group of unemployed jobseekers lined up outside in hopes of landing employment are mowed down by a deranged man behind the wheel of a Mercedes. In the aftermath, he escapes, leaving behind eight dead and several more wounded. Among the dead are a mother and her infant child. Detective Bill Hodges later retires, with no success at discovering who was responsible for the murder. The killer, dubbed Mr. Mercedes, isn't done though; and so, King takes readers on a wild race against time in a desperate attempt to keep the killer from completing his next act of domestic terrorism.

      King has a penchant for creating characters that range from the truly good to the entirely depraved, and he has a knack for writing them in a manner so thorough as to leave the reader disgusted. In Mr. Mercedes, I was thrilled to find myself once again encountering a character whose point of view was utterly revolting. Brady Hartsfield is a character I loved to hate, and King does an excellent job of writing from his point-of-view. In complete contrast, Bill Hodges and his team of unqualified partners are good, upstanding (for the most part) citizens that sate the need for a "hero" with little to be left for wanting.

      One of the things King does well in his books is foreshadowing, and Mr. Mercedes is no exception. When something bad is going to happen, King says so: only things don't happen the way you expect them to. In Mr. Mercedes, this creates a constant feeling of dread, a constant expectation that certain things will, undoubtedly, happen, and that it is only a matter of when and how. Every page is filled with anticipation of the next big event, some of which bring utter horror while others brought with them tears.

      Needless to say, I don't really have any complaints about this read; it was worth the wait. Now, I just have to wait for my turn with Finders Keepers. I'm excited to see how this trilogy continues!
    • 4/5
      The was an intriguing read that made me recall some of the early King novels I read in the '70's. He is at his best here in this book weaving an intricate and fun story about a serial killer in a midwest city and the battle of with between him and the retired cop determined to bring him in. I listened to this one on audiobook CD and Will Patton does an excellent job of delivering style to King's prose.

      4.5 stars for a really fun read read. Recommended for any fan of Stephen King as well as all murder mystery fans.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Holly reminds me of a dear friend.
    • 2/5
      Okay, I'm going to give up on Stephen King. I can see that he's a good writer, but things happen too slowly for me.
    • 5/5
      Another great read from Stephen King, although with a bit more graphic horror that I've read recently. Excellent character development and story line told by a master story teller. But be warned that this one is a bit more graphic.
    • 4/5
      His best book? No. Clever? As all hell!

      While I did not find this book to top any of his others, it was very clever and well written. I do think, however, a hand from his son, Joehill, was at work here. In saying this, I mean no hardship. All books are a collaboration of gifted, talented minds.

    Book preview

    Mr. Mercedes - Stephen King

    Cover: Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King

    #1 New York Times Bestseller

    Stephen King

    Mr. Mercedes

    Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel

    Now an AT&T Audience Original

    Series on Directv & Directv Now

    Stephen King knows exactly what scares you most, says Esquire. And in his utterly believable and profoundly chilling new novel, it’s a luxury car… and a man who lives for the thrill of causing murder and mayhem from behind the wheel.

    MR. MERCEDES

    Praise for the #1 New York Times bestseller from

    STEPHEN KING

    A taut, calibrated thriller.… Merciless and unforgiving. The scariest thing about it is how plausible the whole scenario is.

    —Miami Herald

    A literary Van de Graaff generator: tightly paced and parsed with dynamic dialogue and traumatic twists.

    —Columbus Dispatch

    "On one level, Mr. Mercedes is an expertly crafted example of the classic race-against-the-clock thriller. On another, it is a novel of depth and character enriched throughout by the grace notes King provides in such seemingly effortless profusion. It is a rich, resonant, exceptionally readable accomplishment by a man who can write in whatever genre he chooses."

    —The Washington Post

    Suspense and spine-tingling chills.

    —People

    "Think of Mr. Mercedes as an AC/DC song: uncluttered, chugging with momentum, and a lot harder to pull off than it looks.… The highway to hell never felt so fun."

    —The Christian Science Monitor

    Taut, suspenseful.

    —The New York Times

    A full-throttle sprint to the finish; the last eighty pages cannot be doled out over multiple reading sessions. You’ll have to swallow them all in a single gulp.

    —Sarasota Herald Tribune

    An oh-so-dark mystery that never shuts the door on love, loss and, possibly, redemption.

    —Cleveland Plain Dealer

    A fast-paced whodunit.

    —Esquire

    King excels in his disturbing portrait of Brady, a genuine monster in ordinary human form who gives new meaning to the phrase ‘the banality of evil.’

    —Publishers Weekly

    Pretty darn fresh.

    —Booklist

    Nicely dark, never predictable and altogether entertaining.

    —Kirkus Reviews

    King puts a fresh spin… on hard-boiled mysteries.

    —USA Today

    A showdown between good and evil that characterizes the best of King’s work.

    —Los Angeles Times

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    Mr. Mercedes, by Stephen King, Scribner

    Thinking of James M. Cain

    They threw me off the hay truck about noon…

    GRAY MERCEDES

    April 9–10, 2009

    Augie Odenkirk had a 1997 Datsun that still ran well in spite of high mileage, but gas was expensive, especially for a man with no job, and City Center was on the far side of town, so he decided to take the last bus of the night. He got off at twenty past eleven with his pack on his back and his rolled-up sleeping bag under one arm. He thought he would be glad of the down-filled bag by three A.M. The night was misty and chill.

    Good luck, man, the driver said as he stepped down. You ought to get something for just being the first one there.

    Only he wasn’t. When Augie reached the top of the wide, steep drive leading to the big auditorium, he saw a cluster of at least two dozen people already waiting outside the rank of doors, some standing, most sitting. Posts strung with yellow DO NOT CROSS tape had been set up, creating a complicated passage that doubled back on itself, mazelike. Augie was familiar with these from movie theaters and the bank where he was currently overdrawn, and understood the purpose: to cram as many people as possible into as small a space as possible.

    As he approached the end of what would soon be a conga-line of job applicants, Augie was both amazed and dismayed to see that the woman at the end of the line had a sleeping baby in a Papoose carrier. The baby’s cheeks were flushed with the cold; each exhale came with a faint rattle.

    The woman heard Augie’s slightly out-of-breath approach, and turned. She was young and pretty enough, even with the dark circles under her eyes. At her feet was a small quilted carry-case. Augie supposed it was a baby support system.

    Hi, she said. Welcome to the Early Birds Club.

    Hopefully we’ll catch a worm. He debated, thought what the hell, and stuck out his hand. August Odenkirk. Augie. I was recently downsized. That’s the twenty-first-century way of saying I got canned.

    She shook with him. She had a good grip, firm and not a bit timid. I’m Janice Cray, and my little bundle of joy is Patti. I guess I got downsized, too. I was a housekeeper for a nice family in Sugar Heights. He, um, owns a car dealership.

    Augie winced.

    Janice nodded. I know. He said he was sorry to let me go, but they had to tighten their belts.

    A lot of that going around, Augie said, thinking: You could find no one to babysit? No one at all?

    I had to bring her. He supposed Janice Cray didn’t have to be much of a mind reader to know what he was thinking. There’s no one else. Literally no one. The girl down the street couldn’t stay all night even if I could pay her, and I just can’t. If I don’t get a job, I don’t know what we’ll do.

    Your parents couldn’t take her? Augie asked.

    They live in Vermont. If I had half a brain, I’d take Patti and go there. It’s pretty. Only they’ve got their own problems. Dad says their house is underwater. Not literally, they’re not in the river or anything, it’s something financial.

    Augie nodded. There was a lot of that going around, too.

    A few cars were coming up the steep rise from Marlborough Street, where Augie had gotten off the bus. They turned left, into the vast empty plain of parking lot that would no doubt be full by daylight tomorrow… still hours before the First Annual City Job Fair opened its doors. None of the cars looked new. Their drivers parked, and from most of them three or four job-seekers emerged, heading toward the doors of the auditorium. Augie was no longer at the end of the line. It had almost reached the first switchback.

    If I can get a job, I can get a sitter, she said. But for tonight, me and Patti just gotta suck it up.

    The baby gave a croupy cough Augie didn’t care for, stirred in the Papoose, and then settled again. At least the kid was bundled up; there were even tiny mittens on her hands.

    Kids survive worse, Augie told himself uneasily. He thought of the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression. Well, this one was great enough for him. Two years ago, everything had been fine. He hadn’t exactly been living large in the ’hood, but he had been making ends meet, with a little left over at the end of most months. Now everything had turned to shit. They had done something to the money. He didn’t understand it; he’d been an office drone in the shipping department of Great Lakes Transport, and what he knew about was invoices and using a computer to route stuff by ship, train, and air.

    People will see me with a baby and think I’m irresponsible, Janice Cray fretted. "I know it, I see it on their faces already, I saw it on yours. But what else could I do? Even if the girl down the street could stay all night, it would have cost eighty-four dollars. Eighty-four! I’ve got next month’s rent put aside, and after that, I’m skint. She smiled, and in the light of the parking lot’s high arc-sodiums, Augie saw tears beading her eyelashes. I’m babbling."

    No need to apologize, if that’s what you’re doing. The line had turned the first corner now, and had arrived back at where Augie was standing. And the girl was right. He saw lots of people staring at the sleeping kid in the Papoose.

    Oh, that’s it, all right. I’m a single unmarried mother with no job. I want to apologize to everyone, for everything. She turned and looked at the banner posted above the rank of doors. 1000 JOBS GUARANTEED! it read. And below that: We Stand With the People of Our City! —MAYOR RALPH KINSLER.

    Sometimes I want to apologize for Columbine, and 9/11, and Barry Bonds taking steroids. She uttered a semi-hysterical giggle. Sometimes I even want to apologize for the space shuttle exploding, and when that happened I was still learning to walk.

    Don’t worry, Augie told her. You’ll be okay. It was just one of those things that you said.

    I wish it wasn’t so damp, that’s all. I’ve got her bundled up in case it was really cold, but this damp… She shook her head. We’ll make it, though, won’t we, Patti? She gave Augie a hopeless little smile. It just better not rain.

    It didn’t, but the dampness increased until they could see fine droplets suspended in the light thrown by the arc-sodiums. At some point Augie realized that Janice Cray was asleep on her feet. She was hipshot and slump-shouldered, with her hair hanging in dank wings around her face and her chin nearly on her breastbone. He looked at his watch and saw it was quarter to three.

    Ten minutes later, Patti Cray awoke and started to cry. Her mother (her baby mama, Augie thought) gave a jerk, voiced a horselike snort, raised her head, and tried to pull the infant out of the Papoose. At first the kid wouldn’t come; her legs were stuck. Augie pitched in, holding the sides of the sling. As Patti emerged, now wailing, he could see drops of water sparkling all over her tiny pink jacket and matching hat.

    She’s hungry, Janice said. I can give her the breast, but she’s also wet. I can feel it right through her pants. God, I can’t change her in this—look how foggy it’s gotten!

    Augie wondered what comical deity had arranged for him to be the one in line behind her. He also wondered how in hell this woman was going to get through the rest of her life—all of it, not just the next eighteen years or so when she would be responsible for the kid. To come out on a night like this, with nothing but a bag of diapers! To be that goddam desperate!

    He had put his sleeping bag down next to Patti’s diaper bag. Now he squatted, pulled the ties, unrolled it, and unzipped it. "Slide in there. Get warm and get her warm. Then I’ll hand in whatever doodads you need."

    She gazed at him, holding the squirming, crying baby. Are you married, Augie?

    Divorced.

    Children?

    He shook his head.

    Why are you being so kind to us?

    Because we’re here, he said, and shrugged.

    She looked at him a moment longer, deciding, then handed him the baby. Augie held her out at arms’ length, fascinated by the red, furious face, the bead of snot on the tiny upturned nose, the bicycling legs in the flannel onesie. Janice squirmed into the sleeping bag, then lifted her hands. Give her to me, please.

    Augie did, and the woman burrowed deeper into the bag. Beside them, where the line had doubled back on itself for the first time, two young men were staring.

    Mind your business, guys, Augie said, and they looked away.

    Would you give me a diaper? Janice said. I should change her before I feed her.

    He dropped one knee to the wet pavement and unzipped the quilted bag. He was momentarily surprised to find cloth diapers instead of Pampers, then understood. The cloth ones could be used over and over. Maybe the woman wasn’t entirely hopeless.

    I see a bottle of Baby Magic, too. Do you want that?

    From inside the sleeping bag, where now only a tuft of her brownish hair showed: Yes, please.

    He passed in the diaper and the lotion. The sleeping bag began to wiggle and bounce. At first the crying intensified. From one of the switchbacks farther down, lost in the thickening fog, someone said: Can’t you shut that kid up? Another voice added: Someone ought to call Social Services.

    Augie waited, watching the sleeping bag. At last it stopped moving around and a hand emerged, holding a diaper. Would you put it in the bag? There’s a plastic sack for the dirty ones. She looked out at him like a mole from its hole. Don’t worry, it’s not pooey, just wet.

    Augie took the diaper, put it in the plastic bag (COSTCO printed on the side), then zipped the diaper bag closed. The crying from inside the sleeping bag (so many bags, he thought) continued for another minute or so, then abruptly cut out as Patti began to nurse in the City Center parking lot. From above the ranked doors that wouldn’t open for another six hours, the banner gave a single lackadaisical flap. 1000 JOBS GUARANTEED!

    Sure, Augie thought. Also, you can’t catch AIDS if you load up on vitamin C.

    Twenty minutes passed. More cars came up the hill from Marlborough Street. More people joined the line. Augie estimated there already had to be four hundred people waiting. At that rate, there would be two thousand by the time the doors opened at nine, and that was a conservative estimate.

    If someone offers me fry-cook at McDonald’s, will I take it?

    Probably.

    What about a greeter at Walmart?

    Oh, mos def. Big smile and how’re you today? Augie thought he could wallop a greeter job right out of the park.

    I’m a people person, he thought. And laughed.

    From the bag: What’s funny?

    Nothing, he said. Cuddle that kid.

    I am. A smile in her voice.

    At three-thirty he knelt, lifted the flap of the sleeping bag, and peered inside. Janice Cray was curled up, fast asleep, with the baby at her breast. This made him think of The Grapes of Wrath. What was the name of the girl who had been in it? The one who ended up nursing the man? A flower name, he thought. Lily? No. Pansy? Absolutely not. He thought of cupping his hands around his mouth, raising his voice, and asking the crowd, WHO HERE HAS READ THE GRAPES OF WRATH?

    As he was standing up again (and smiling at this absurdity), the name came to him. Rose. That had been the name of the Grapes of Wrath girl. But not just Rose; Rose of Sharon. It sounded biblical, but he couldn’t say so with any certainty; he had never been a Bible reader.

    He looked down at the sleeping bag, in which he had expected to spend the small hours of the night, and thought of Janice Cray saying she wanted to apologize for Columbine, and 9/11, and Barry Bonds. Probably she would cop to global warming as well. Maybe when this was over and they had secured jobs—or not; not was probably just as likely—he would treat her to breakfast. Not a date, nothing like that, just some scrambled eggs and bacon. After that they would never see each other again.

    More people came. They reached the end of the posted switchbacks with the self-important DO NOT CROSS tape. Once that was used up, the line began to stretch into the parking lot. What surprised Augie—and made him uneasy—was how silent they were. As if they all knew this mission was a failure, and they were only waiting to get the official word.

    The banner gave another lackadaisical flap.

    The fog continued to thicken.

    Shortly before five A.M., Augie roused from his own half-doze, stamped his feet to wake them up, and realized an unpleasant iron light had crept into the air. It was the furthest thing in the world from the rosy-fingered dawn of poetry and old Technicolor movies; this was an anti-dawn, damp and as pale as the cheek of a day-old corpse.

    He could see the City Center auditorium slowly revealing itself in all its nineteen-seventies tacky architectural glory. He could see the two dozen switchbacks of patiently waiting people and then the tailback of the line disappearing into the fog. Now there was a little conversation, and when a janitor clad in gray fatigues passed through the lobby on the other side of the doors, a small satiric cheer went up.

    Life is discovered on other planets! shouted one of the young men who had been staring at Janice Cray—this was Keith Frias, whose left arm would shortly be torn from his body.

    There was mild laughter at this sally, and people began to talk. The night was over. The seeping light wasn’t particularly encouraging, but it was marginally better than the long small hours just past.

    Augie knelt beside his sleeping bag again and cocked an ear. The small, regular snores he heard made him smile. Maybe his worry about her had been for nothing. He guessed there were people who went through life surviving—perhaps even thriving—on the kindness of strangers. The young woman currently snoozing in his sleeping bag with her baby might be one of them.

    It came to him that he and Janice Cray could present themselves at the various application tables as a couple. If they did that, the baby’s presence might not seem an indicator of irresponsibility but rather of joint dedication. He couldn’t say for sure, much of human nature was a mystery to him, but he thought it was possible. He decided he’d try the idea out on Janice when she woke up. See what she thought. They couldn’t claim marriage; she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and he’d taken his off for good three years before, but they could claim to be… what was it people said now? Partners.

    Cars continued to come up the steep incline from Marlborough Street at steady tick-tock intervals. There would soon be pedestrians as well, fresh off the first bus of the morning. Augie was pretty sure they started running at six. Because of the thick fog, the arriving cars were just headlights with vague shadow-shapes lurking behind the windshields. A few of the drivers saw the huge crowd already waiting and turned around, discouraged, but most kept on, heading for the few remaining parking spaces, their taillights dwindling.

    Then Augie noticed a car-shape that neither turned around nor continued on toward the far reaches of the parking lot. Its unusually bright headlights were flanked by yellow fog-lamps.

    HD headers, Augie thought. That’s a Mercedes-Benz. What’s a Benz doing at a job fair?

    He supposed it might be Mayor Kinsler, here to make a speech to the Early Birds Club. To congratulate them on their gumption, their good old American git-up-and-git. If so, Augie thought, arriving in his Mercedes—even if it was an old one—was in bad taste.

    An elderly fellow in line ahead of Augie (Wayne Welland, now in the last moments of his earthly existence) said: Is that a Benz? It looks like a Benz.

    Augie started to say of course it was, you couldn’t mistake a Mercedes’s HD headlamps, and then the driver of the car directly behind the vague shape laid on his horn—a long, impatient blast. The HD lights flashed brighter than ever, cutting brilliant white cones through the suspended droplets of the fog, and the car leaped forward as if the impatient horn had goosed it.

    Hey! Wayne Welland said, surprised. It was his final word.

    The car accelerated directly at the place where the crowd of job-seekers was most tightly packed, and hemmed in by the DO NOT CROSS tapes. Some of them tried to run, but only the ones at the rear of the crowd were able to break free. Those closer to the doors—the true Early Birds—had no chance. They struck the posts and knocked them over, they got tangled in the tapes, they rebounded off each other. The crowd swayed back and forth in a series of agitated waves. Those who were older and smaller fell down and were trampled underfoot.

    Augie was shoved hard to the left, stumbled, recovered, and was pushed forward. A flying elbow struck his cheekbone just below his right eye and that side of his vision filled with bright Fourth of July sparkles. From the other eye he could see the Mercedes not just emerging from the fog but seeming to create itself from it. A big gray sedan, maybe an SL500, the kind with twelve cylinders, and right now all twelve were screaming.

    Augie was driven to his knees beside the sleeping bag, and kicked repeatedly as he struggled to get back up: in the arm, in the shoulder, in the neck. People were screaming. He heard a woman cry, Look out, look out, he’s not stopping!

    He saw Janice Cray pop her head out of the sleeping bag, eyes blinking in bewilderment. Once more he was reminded of a shy mole peering from its hole. A lady mole with a bad case of bed head.

    He scrambled forward on his hands and knees and lay down on the bag and the woman and baby inside, as if by doing this he could successfully shield them from a two-ton piece of German engineering. He heard people yelling, the sound of them almost lost beneath the approaching roar of the big sedan’s motor. Someone fetched him a terrific wallop on the back of his head, but he barely felt it.

    There was time to think: I was going to buy Rose of Sharon breakfast.

    There was time to think: Maybe he’ll veer off.

    That seemed to be their best chance, probably their only chance. He started to raise his head to see if it was happening, and a huge black tire ate up his vision. He felt the woman’s hand grip his forearm. He had time to hope the baby was still sleeping. Then time ran out.

    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

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