superficial resemblance between Blake and Nietzsche. That’s why the
Butcher might quote both of them. But there’s a problem, Graham.”
“What’s that?”
“Blake was an optimist all the way. Nietzsche was a raving pessimist.
Blake thought mankind had a bright future.
Nietzsche thought mankind should have a bright future, but he believed
that it would destroy itself before the Supermen ever evolved from it.
Blake apparently liked women. Nietzsche despised them. In fact, he
thought women constituted one of the greatest obstacles standing between
man and his climb to godhood. You see what I’m getting at?”
“You’re saying that if the Butcher subscribes to both Blake and
Nietzsche’s philosophies, then he’s a schizophrenic.”
“Yet you say he’s not even crazy.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Last night-”
“All I said was that if he’s a maniac, he’s a new kind of maniac. I
said he wasn’t crazy in any traditional sense.”
“Which rules out schizophrenia?”
“I guess it does, Ira.”
“But I think it’s a good bet . . . maybe I’m wrong …
God knows … but maybe he looks at himself as one of Nietzsche’s
Supermen. A psychiatrist would call that delusions of grandeur. And
delusions of grandeur characterize schizophrenia and paranoia. Do you
still think the Butcher could pass any psychiatric test we could give
him?”
“Yes.”
“You sense this psychically?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you ever sensed something and been wrong?”
“Not seriously wrong. No worse than thinking Edna Mowry’s name was Edna
Dancer.”
“Of course. I know your reputation. I know you’re good. I didn’t mean
to imply anything. You understand? But still-now where do I stand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Graham … if you were to sit down with a book of Blake’s poems, if you
were to spend an hour or so reading them, would that maybe put you in
tune with the Butcher? Would it spark something-if not a vision, at
least a hunch?”
“It might.”
“Would you do me a favor then?”
“Name it.”
“If I send a messenger right over with an edition of Blake’s work, will
you sit down with it for an hour and see what happens?”
“You can send it over today if you want, but I won’t get to it until
tomorrow.”
“Maybe just half an hour.”
“Not even that. I’ve got to finish working on one of my magazines and
get it off to the printer tomorrow morning. I’m already three days late
with the issue. I’ll be working most of tonight. But tomorrow
afternoon or evening, I’ll make time for Blake.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do. I’m counting on you.
You’re my only hope. This Butcher is too much for me, too sharp for me.
I’m getting nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. If we don’t get a solid lead
soon, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Paul Stevenson was wearing a hand-sewn blue shirt, a
blue-and-black-striped silk tie, an expensive black suit, black socks,
and light brown shoes with white stitching. When he came into Anthony
Prine’s office at two o’clock Friday afternoon, unaware that Prine
winced when he saw the shoes, he was upset. Because he was incapable of
shouting and screaming at Prine, he pouted. “Tony, why are you keeping
secrets from me?”
Prine was stretched out on the couch, his head propped on a holster
pillow. He was reading The New York Times. “Secrets?”
“I just found out that at your direction the company has hired a private
detective agency to snoop on Graham Harris’ ”
“They’re not snooping. All I’ve asked them to do is establish Harris’s.
whereabouts at certain hours on certain days.
“You asked the detectives not to approach Harris or his girlfriend
directly. That’s snooping. And you asked them for a forty-eight-hour
rush job, which triples the cost. If you want to know where he was, why
don’t you ask him yourself?”
“I think he’d lie to me.”
“Why should he lie? What certain hours? What certain dates?”
Prine put down the paper, sat up, stood up, stretched. “I want to know
where he was when each of those ten women was killed.”
Perplexed, blinking somewhat stupidly, Stevenson said, “Why?”
“If on all ten occasions he was alone-working alone, seeing a movie