He had discovered his taste for raping and killing young girls when he was twenty-three, after the failurethrough no fault of his ownof his first marriage. Since then, James B. Hansen had been married seven times, although he saved real sexual satisfaction for his episodes with the young, teenage girls. Wives were good cover and part of whatever identity he was inhabiting at any given time, but their middle-aged flab and used, tired bodies held no excitement for Hansen. He considered himself a connoisseur of virgins. And terrorized virginity was precisely the bouquet and aroma of the fine wine he most enjoyed. James B. Hansen knew that the cultural revulsion from pedophilia was just another example of people pulling away furthest from what they wanted most. From time immemorial, men had wanted the youngest and freshest girls in which to plant their seedalthough Hansen never planted his seed anywhere, being careful to wear condoms and latex gloves since DNA typing had become so prevalent. But where other men fantasized and masturbated, James B. Hansen acted and enjoyed.
More than once, Hansen could have found it convenient to add «gay» to his repertoire of chameleon identities, but he drew the line at that. He was no pervert.
Knowing the psychopathology of his own preferences, Hansen avoided stereotypicaland criminal "typable" behaviors. He was now out of the age range of the average serial killer. He resisted the urge to harvest more than one kill a year. He could afford to fly whenever he wanted and took great care in spreading the victims around the country, with no geographical connection to his home location at any given time. He took no souvenirs except for photographs, and these were sealed away in his locked titanium case inside an expensive safe in his locked gun room in the basement of this house. Only he was allowed to go there. If the police found his souvenir case, then his current identity was long since blown. If his current wife or son somehow got into the room and got into the safe and found the case and somehow opened it well, they were always expendable.
But that would not happen.
Hansen knew now that John Wellington Frears, the African-American
violinist from his Chicago days two decades ago and father of Number Nine, was in Buffalo. He knew now that Frears had thought he'd seen him at the airportwhich at first amazed and disturbed Hansen since he had undergone five plastic-surgery operations since Chicago and would not have recognized himself from those daysbut he also knew that no one at police headquarters had given any credence at all to Frears's flutterings and sputterings. James B. Hansen was officially as dead as little Crystal Frears, and the Chicago P.D. had the dental records and photos of the charred corpsecomplete with a partially identifiable Marine Corps tattoo James B. Hansen had sportedto prove it. And there was no question in his mind that others could not see any physical resemblance between the current iteration of James B. Hansen and that of his old Chicago-era persona.
Hansen had not heard the hullabaloo behind him at the airporthis hearing had been damaged slightly by too many years of practice shooting without ear protectionand did not learn about it right away at work because he had taken two days of vacation after his Florida business trip. It was always Hansen's practice to spend a day or two away from work and family after his annual Special Visit.
When Hansen did hear about Frears, his first impulse was to drive to the Airport Sheraton and blow the overrated fiddler away. He had driven to the Sheraton, but once again the cool, analytical part of his genius-level intellect prevailed. Any murder of Frears in Buffalo would lead to a homicide investigation, which would bring up the man's crank report of his airport spotting, which might involve the Chicago P.D. and some reopening of the Crystal Frears case.
Hansen considered waiting for the old black man to go back to his lonely life in New York and to his upcoming concert tour. Hansen had already downloaded the full itinerary of that tour and he thought that Denver would be a good place for a botched mugging to occur. A fatal shooting. A modest obituary in The New York Times . But that plan had problems: Hansen would have to travel to follow Frears on tour, and travel always left records; a murder in another town would mean that Hansen could have no connection with the homicide investigation. Finally, Hansen simply did not want to wait. He wanted Frears dead. Soon. But he needed someone else to be the obvious suspectsomeone else not only to take the fall, but to take a bullet while resisting arrest.
Now Hansen went back into the house and moved from guest to guest laughing, telling easy stories, chuckling at his own mortality looming at the age of fiftyin truth, he had never felt stronger or smarter or more aliveall the while moving toward the kitchen and Donna.
His pager vibrated.
Hansen looked at the number. "Shit." He didn't need these clowns screwing up his birthday. He went up to his bedroom to retrieve his cell phonehis son was on the computer and tying up the house lineand punched in the number.