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My mind was doing flip-flops. Even if we hadn’t lost Neddie, what could we charge him with? Leaving the psych center? Maybe he was allowed to go to the post office or whatever. Were we making shit up out of pure desperation?
We looked up and down Jones, peering into shop windows, and didn’t see Neddie. We split up. I went up Geary, and Richie took O’Farrell. We checked in with each other by phone, and fifteen minutes after losing Neddie, Conklin and I met back at the car. We took our seats and kept our eyes on the alley. Damn it to hell! How did we freaking lose that guy?
And then—Neddie walked right past us. His eyes were still down and he was talking to himself.
I heard only a few words: “… need some cash.”
I said to Conklin, “Now.”
We sprang out of the unmarked car and walked up on Neddie as he turned into the alley.
We were ten feet away when he saw us and started to scream. He unlocked the green metal door that led to the building and disappeared inside. I heard the door lock behind him. I pulled on the handle anyway, but it was secure.
I let out a few loud curses.
Conklin pulled his gun and shot out the lock.
CHAPTER 83
CONKLIN PULLED OPEN the metal door, and we rushed through the doorway into a garbage room piled high with bulging construction bags. The room was about fifteen feet square and was bracketed by two doors.
We’d come through the first, the metal door that connected the trash room to the alley. Neddie was crouched against the wooden door in the far wall, which led to the underground corridor—and he was screaming, “I’m good. I’m good.”
At the same time he was trying to fit a key into the door lock and was having no luck. His height and the short length of his arms and his fear were preventing him from inserting the key.
I took very quick stock of the situation. Neddie was crying and wailing, and yet I’d seen him walking normally. If what he was doing now was an act, it was a very convincing act of a man playing with half a deck.
My gun was in my hand when I said, “Neddie. Give me your keys.”
He was making terrible whimpering sounds, like a small animal caught in a trap. I wondered what the hell I thought I was doing, holding a gun on a mental patient armed with a set of keys.
Did I seriously think I would shoot him? For what?
Was this the “weird-looking guy” who might have killed a half dozen people or more? Or was he just what he seemed to be, a mental patient on a walkabout? I couldn’t know. And I couldn’t take any chances.
Conklin said, “Neddie. I’m Richie. No one’s going to hurt you. See?” He showed Neddie his gun, then opened his jacket and slipped the gun into his holster.
“My partner, Lindsay, will put her gun away, too.”
I did it.
Rich went on, “Sorry to scare you, Neddie. Sorry about the noise. Let’s go upstairs so we can talk.”
Bags rustled behind me. I spun around and saw a maintenance worker hiding between the garbage bags and the wall, his hands over his ears, trying to make himself invisible.
Neddie said to Conklin, “Talk. Just talk, right, Richie?”
Rich reassured him, and Neddie said, “I give up, I give up.”
Neddie was holding a small bunch of keys above his head, and Rich reached for them. Neddie ducked under Rich’s arm and threw himself facedown on top of the orderly.
What is this?
Neddie said to the man, “Lawrence, we’re leaving here together.”
Lawrence said, “Neddie, leave me out of this. Go or don’t go. It’s no business of mine.”
“It is now,” said Neddie.
