Frankenstein Special Edition: Prodigal Son and City of Night. Dean Koontz

others he had taken a kidney and a liver.

      These murders were linked to those of the women by the fact that at least one of the male victims had been chloroformed.

      Copycat. Misguided imitator. Out there somewhere in New Orleans, an envious fool had been inspired by Roy’s murders without understanding the purpose of them.

      For a moment, he was offended. Then he realized that the copycat, inevitably less intelligent than Roy himself, would eventually screw up, and the police would pin all these killings on the guy. The copycat was Roy’s get-out-of-jail-free card.

       CHAPTER 22

      THE PROJECTION BOOTH might have seemed too small for two men as large—in different ways—as Jelly Biggs and Deucalion. Nevertheless, it became the space they shared when they preferred not to be alone.

      The booth was cozy, perhaps because of Jelly’s collection of paperback books, perhaps because it felt like a high redoubt above the fray of life.

      For extended periods of his long existence, Deucalion had found solitude appealing. One of those periods had ended in Tibet.

      Now, with the discovery that Victor was not dead, solitude disturbed Deucalion. He wanted companionship.

      As former carnies, he and Jelly had a world of experience in common, tales to tell, nostalgic reminiscences to share. In but one day they found that they fell into easy conversation, and Deucalion suspected that in time they would become true friends.

      Yet they fell into silences, as well, for their situation was similar to that of soldiers in a battlefield trench, in the deceptive calm before the mortar fire began. In this condition, they had profound questions to ponder before they were ready to discuss them.

      Jelly did his thinking while reading mystery novels of which he was inexpressibly fond. Much of his life, imprisoned in flesh, he had lived vicariously through the police, the private investigators, and the amateur detectives who populated the pages of his favorite genre.

      In these mutual silences, Deucalion’s reading consisted of the articles about Victor Helios, alias Frankenstein, that Ben had accumulated. He pored through them, trying to accustom himself to the bitter, incredible truth of his creator’s continued existence, while also contemplating how best to destroy that pillar of arrogance.

      Again and again, he caught himself unconsciously fingering the ruined half of his face until eventually Jelly could not refrain from asking how the damage had been done.

      “I angered my maker,” Deucalion said.

      “We all do,” Jelly said, “but not with such consequences.”

      “My maker isn’t yours,” Deucalion reminded him.

      A life of much solitude and contemplation accustomed Deucalion to silence, but Jelly needed background noise even when reading a novel. In a corner of the projection booth, volume low, stood a TV flickering with images that to Deucalion had no more narrative content than did the flames in a fireplace.

      Suddenly something in one of the droning newscast voices caught his attention. Murders. Body parts missing.

      Deucalion turned up the volume. A homicide detective named Carson O’Connor, beseiged by reporters outside the city library, responded to most of their questions with replies that in different words all amounted to no comment.

      When the story ended, Deucalion said, “The Surgeon How long has this been going on?”

      As a mystery novel aficionado, Jelly was interested in true crime stories, too. He not only knew all the gory details of the Surgeon’s murder spree; he also had developed a couple of theories that he felt were superior to any that the police had thus far put forth.

      Listening, Deucalion had suspicions of his own that grew from his unique experience.

      Most likely, the Surgeon was an ordinary serial killer taking souvenirs. But in a city where the god of the living dead had taken up residence, the Surgeon might be something worse than the usual psychopath.

      Returning the clippings to the shoe box, rising to his feet, Deucalion said, “I’m going out.”

      “Where?”

      “To find his house. To see in what style a self-appointed god chooses to live these days.”

       CHAPTER 23

      ILLEGALLY PARKED IN Jackson Square, the hood of the plainwrap sedan served as their dinner table.

      Carson and Michael ate corn-battered shrimp, shrimp étouffée with rice, and corn maque choux from take-out containers.

      Strolling along the sidewalk were young couples hand-in-hand. Musicians in black suits and porkpie hats hurried past, carrying instrument cases, shouldering between slower-moving older Cajun men in chambray shirts and Justin Wilson hats. Groups of young women showed more skin than common sense, and drag queens enjoyed the goggling of tourists.

      Somewhere good jazz was playing. Through the night air wove a tapestry of talk and laughter.

      Carson said, “What pisses me off about guys like Harker and Frye—”

      “This’ll be an epic list,” Michael said.

      “—is how I let them irritate me.”

      “They’re cheesed off because no one makes detective as young as we did.”

      “That was three years ago for me. They better adjust soon.”

      “They’ll retire, get shot. One way or another, we’ll eventually have our chance to be the old cranks.”

      After savoring a forkful of corn maque choux, Carson said, “It’s all about my father.”

      “Harker and Frye don’t care about what your father did or didn’t do,” Michael assured her.

      “You’re wrong. Everyone expects that sooner or later it’ll turn out I carry the dirty-cop gene, just like they think he did.”

      Michael shook his head, “I don’t for a minute think you carry the dirty-cop gene.”

      “I don’t give a shit what you think, Michael, I know what you think. It’s what everyone else thinks that makes this job so much harder for me than it ought to be.”

      “Yeah, well,” he said, pretending offense, “I don’t give a shit that you don’t give a shit what I think.”

      Chagrined, Carson laughed softly. “I’m sorry, man. You’re one of a handful of people I do care what they think of me.”

      “You wounded me,” he said. “But I’ll heal.”

      “I’ve worked hard to get where I am.” She sighed. “Except where I am is eating another meal on my feet, in the street.”

      “The food’s great,” he said, “and I’m glittering company.”

      “Considering the pay, why do we work so hard?”

      “We’re genuine American heroes.”

      “Yeah, right.”

      Michael’s cell phone rang. Licking Creole tartar sauce off his lips, he answered the call: “Detective Maddison.” When he hung up moments later, he said, “We’re invited to the morgue. No music, no dancing. But it might be fun.”

       CHAPTER 24

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