“You hear me, Gorilla Man? Drop the fucking gun or you’re going to see genius brains all over this penthouse apartment.”

“Don’t do it, Morales. Everybody knows it’s you. You can quit,” Marino’s mouth said while his thoughts streaked through possibilities that kept pinning him against the same wall, a wall he couldn’t get away from no matter what.

He was trapped.

He could pull the trigger, and Morales would pull the trigger. Maybe Morales would be dead, leaving Berger and Marino. But Scarpetta would be dead.

“You got a little problem with proof, Gorilla Man. Anybody ever call you that?” Morales said. “I like that. Gorilla Man.”

Marino couldn’t tell if he was drunk or high. But he was on something.

“Because … because”—he sniggered—“you’re the proverbial knuckle dragger, now, aren’t you. Va-nil- la Go-ril- la. How you like that?”

“Marino, don’t drop your gun,” Scarpetta said with amazing steadiness, but her face looked dead. “He can’t shoot everyone at once. Don’t drop your gun.”

“You know, she’s such a hero, ain’t she?” Morales jammed the barrel hard against her skull, and she winced silently. “One brave lady, having all these stiffs for patients who can’t thank her or complain.”

He bent over and touched her ear with his tongue.

“Poor thing. Couldn’t work with living people? That’s what they say about doctors like you. That and you gotta have the air-conditioning on fifty or you can’t sleep. Put the fucking gun down!” he yelled at Marino.

Their eyes locked.

“Okay.” Morales shrugged. He said to Scarpetta, “Sleepy time, and you get to see your precious little Lucy again. Did you tell Marino I blew her brains out upstairs? Say hello to everyone in heaven for me.”

Marino knew he meant it. He knew people meant it when they really didn’t care, and Morales didn’t care. Scarpetta was nothing to him. Nobody was anything to him. He was going to do it.

Marino said, “Don’t shoot. I’m going to put my gun down. Don’t shoot.”

“No!” Scarpetta raised her voice. “No!”

Berger said nothing, because there was nothing she could say that would make a difference. It was better for her to say nothing, and she knew it.

Marino didn’t want to put his gun down. Morales had killed Lucy. He would kill every one of them. Lucy was dead. She must be upstairs. If Marino kept his gun, Morales couldn’t kill all of them. But he’d kill Scarpetta. Marino couldn’t let him do that. Lucy was dead. All of them would be dead.

A tiny red laser dot landed on Morales’s right temple. The little dot flickered and was shaking badly, then slowed and moved just a little, like a ruby-red firefly.

“I’m putting my gun down on the floor,” Marino said, squatting.