child to accompany him?
Perhaps it was not that sort of selection process, Becker thought. What if Lamont went after a target of opportunity, the one of the group that distinguished itself in some way, not by appearance but by movement? The first to move away from the crowd, perhaps.
Was Lamont that hungry? Would just any victim do? Did the man come to the mall, cruise until he saw one of the boys alone or in the position Lamont required, and then strike? It was possible, but the idea didn’t sit well with Becker. For one thing, it was much too dangerous. It discounted the fact that so far no one had noticed anything unusual. If Lamont was making it up as he went along, if he was grabbing at the first opportunity, he would have been hurried, he would have made a mistake. And more important was the desire. Lamont kept the boys for a couple of months before he killed them. That implied care, lodging, food, a major investment of time and caution. The victim had to be watched over during that time, probably guarded. Certainly obsessed over. Lamont was no mad-dog sex fiend who dragged the boys into a dark corner and had his way. For two months at a time he lived with them. It made no sense—not even the twisted sense of a serial killer—to devote that much to a random choice.
And finally, Becker knew it just didn’t work that way. Serial killing, like any passion, was a matter of the heart. Men do not fall in love randomly; they respond again and again to a template implanted early in life, perhaps by the mother, perhaps the first love, the nanny, the nurse. The objects of their passion could appear very different to others, but all shared some elements of the original intaglio. Often a mystery to the world, the traces of the pattern still shone brightly in the lover’s heart.
However tortured and buckled the original template, or however tormented and bizarre life had made the killer’s perception of it, the process was the same. Like any man in the throes of passion, the killer responded to those messages of the old pattern.
Becker rode the escalator to the ground floor, letting his eyes play over the youth around him. So many of them, so free, wandering alone and with others of their age, money in their pockets, no fear in their heads. Kids who once hung out on street corners or played kick the can on deserted evening suburban streets now congregated in the malls. It was not a new phenomenon, but one that Becker had heretofore paid no attention to.
Some of the children were with their parents, but even they drifted apart as each followed his own interests. Do you know where your children are? he thought. Precisely where they are? In the other end of the store? Just around the corner looking in the window of the neighboring shop? How far away do you think danger lies? How long do you think it takes? He wanted to scream at them, protect your children, for God’s sake! There are monsters loose!
Becker stopped beside a boy peering wide-eyed through plate glass at a display of telescopes. Come with me, he thought. How do I get you to come with me?
Could he drug the boy? A swift but guarded jab with a hypodermic needle to send sodium pentothal pulsing through his veins, loosening his brain to a hyper-sensitive jelly. And the crucial seconds until the drug took effect? And the long walk out of the mall with a boy whose legs were as wobbly as his brain?
Becker rejected the idea. The killer Roger Dyce had drugged his victims, but always alone and late at night. He had missed Becker himself with the needle by the thickness of the cloth on his shirt before Becker had captured him. The method would never work in daylight in public.
Becker peered down at the boy. It had been so long since he had talked to children. What could he possibly say to induce the kid to walk away with him? What fantasy, what Pied Piper tune would tempt a boy to step into danger? And if the man next to him was the giant with enough strength to toss