by David Wiltse
"You don't know that, there's no way that you can know ahead of time-it's not like eating chocolate or learning to square-dance. You just might not be cut out for it. Or worse, you might be."
"This doesn't sound like the course in psychological stress management they teach at the state police academy," Tee said, lowering the gun slightly.
"It's not. I save this lecture for my friends."
"You've got more than one friend?"
"Tee, if you shoot this shithead between my legs, I'll be so scared I'll never forgive you."
Tee lowered the gun until it pointed to the ground. "McNeil, you asshole, stop cringing and get into the cruiser, you're under arrest,"
Tee said.
"What for?"
"Calling a federal officer in the middle of the night," Becker said.
"That, too," Tee agreed. "And Christ, what happened to your face?"
"Becker did it," said McNeil, warily eyeing Tee's holstered gun as he lifted a hand to test his bleeding nose and swollen mouth.
"Charge me with brutality, you ungrateful sonofabitch, and you'll find yourself in an empty field in the middle of the night alone with me. And you won't have time to make a phone call because I won't turn on a siren before I show up, I'll just be there, you understand me?"
"I wasn't going to-"
"Get in the car," Tee said. McNeil slid gratefully into the back of the cruiser. "I'm not going to thank you," Tee said to Becker. "I'm not sure you did me a favor."
Tee stood at the open dfiver's door, his elbows on top of the car. His eyes looked wild in the headlights, his manner disconnected from the scene.
"Tee…" Tee began to shake and then was weeping, loudly, hoarsely, breathing in desperate sobs. He dropped his head to his arms atop the car and tried to muffle his cries.
"It's okay," Becker said, patting him ineffectually on the back.
"I don't know what's wrong with me. I've been doing some awfully strange things lately. If I'm not careful I'm going to get myself into some trouble."
"It's okay, Tee," Becker murmured. "Fuck it is. I stood in the reservoir."
"So what?"
"Up to my neck."
"That's all right."
"It's not all right," he sobbed. "I'm the goddamned chief of police!"
He released what little control he had left and began to sob uncontrollably. Spasms racked him, his shoulders heaved and his face fell to his chest. He covered his face with his hands at first, but after a few moments he did not try to hide anything. He wandered away from the car, crying loudly, and Becker followed his friend helplessly, wondering what to do besides offering the occasional pat on the back. At length Tee came to a stop with his head leaning against a tree. "My baby!" he bayed, in one of the few intelligible sounds that Becker heard. "My baby." The chief had drifted fifty yards away from the cruiser and McNeil seized the opportunity to slip out of the car. Down the road, Tee turned abruptly and pulled his automatic from the holster again. Becker ducked instinctively and Tee fired a round in McNeil's direction. After the previous shot and all the bowling, this report did not seem nearly as loud.
McNeil leapt into the back seat of the cruiser headfirst, then squirmed around to close the door behind him, carefully keeping below the level of the seat backs.
"That was justified," Tee said, his gun hanging limply by his side.
A car approached on the road, slowing as it came abreast of them. Becker waved it past irritably, aware of the ludicrous sight he made, directing traffic in his bikini underpants as the chief of police stood beside him, sniffling. The car pulled to the side and Karen got out. Her service revolver was in the shoulder holster outside of her halter top and she looked more angry than alarmed.
"Oh, hi," said Tee, as casualty as if he had just encountered her at the local shopping center.
"Holster the gun, Tee," she said crisply.
Tee did so without hesitation. "I didn't kill him," he said, sniffing.
"Good. Sorry I'm late. I took the time to get dressed." She looked pointedly at Becker.
Metzger arrived with siren screaming and lights flashing.
"I got a report of gunshots," he said, his voice trailing off as he became aware of Becker's attire. "Everything all right?"
"Outstanding," said Becker.
"John, get in a car," Karen said. "Any car."
"I'm going to drive Tee home," said Becker. "Karen, McNeil is hiding in the back of Tee's cruiser. He fell and landed on his face-he may need medical attention, but I doubt it. Would you mind driving him to the station and slapping him in a cell?"
"McNeil's in the car?" said Metzger. He looked around him in bewilderment. "He's arrested?"
"We're putting him there for his own safe-keeping at the moment," said Becker. "I'll pick you up at the station when I get some clothes on, and we can come back for your car."
Karen nodded. Although Becker's superior at the Bureau, she was not so enamored of her power that she felt obliged to assert it in such a situation. If this was any of the Bureau's business in the first place, it had yet to be demonstrated. She took Becker's arm after he had guided Tee to the passenger seat of his car and spoke to him quietly.
"We live in Clamden, John. That doesn't make us members of the police force here."
"Put Metzger in the same car with McNeil and McNeil would be driving inside two minutes. I'll drive to the station, if you don't want to, but I think I'd better stay with Tee a bit longer."
"I don't mind, I just don't know what's going on. What have you and Tee been up to out here in the middle of the night?"
24
Captain Luv became aware of the car following him home from Trumbull while he was on the Merritt Parkway. At one point he found himself trapped in the right lane behind a car with its distress lights flashing, while the cars behind Luv continued to slide into the left lane and pick up speed, effectively sealing him into place. He drove with his eye on the mirror, looking for the opening that would allow him out of the pocket, and that was when he noticed the Toyota keeping pace with his enforced forty-five miles per hour yet staying a hundred yards back. When the opening came in the left lane, it was available to the Toyota first but the Toyota driver ignored it, staying behind Luv as if invisibly attached. Only when Luv managed to pass the distressed vehicle did the Toyota also slide into the left lane, still maintaining its discreet hundred-yard distance.
Once he was aware of it, it was a simple matter to confirm that the Toyota was following him. Luv pulled off the Merritt one exit early and made his way through the local roads, the Toyota tagging along turn for turn, varying the distance, sometimes almost disappearing, allowing other cars to slip in front of it, but never falling completely out of touch.
Disturbed but not frightened, Luv drove home and left his car parked conspicuously in the driveway. He locked himself in his study for a time, ignoring his wife, who wanted to prattle on about some grievance or other, and paced and thought. Through some stroke of dumb luck the police, or more likely the FBI, had stumbled onto him. It wasn't the result of a mistake he had made, he made no mistakes; it had to be another calamitous misfortune, like the freakish flooding that had started the investigation. Whatever it was, it could only be suspicion.
If they had anything concrete, they would have arrested him. If they were going to follow him, it meant they were only fishing, hoping he would do something stupid. Luv grinned. He didn't do stupid things, that was why he was Cap'n Luv. That was why he had lived his life for years without detection. They would have to wait forever if they waited for Luv to get dumb.
He felt a tremendous surge of pride as he reflected on how well he had done, how he had accomplished so much. So many women! They were his, they were all his for the having! Had any man a richer, fuller life?
They loved him, they all loved him! He could make any woman love him and spread her legs for him and call out his name begging for him when he was with her, and weep with longing when he was not. Any woman, anyone he want
ed. He knew their secrets, he knew how to manipulate them, he knew what they wanted and what they needed and he gave them both in the best way they had ever had or ever would have in their lives. If he had any regrets, it was that he could not have each of them over again because he was better now, he knew more now, understood more, than he did a few years ago, and would be better still in years to come. When the best continues to improve, no one else can come close.
Had any other man ever affected so many women's lives so profoundly?
They didn't just fuck him, they loved him. They could not believe their good fortune in meeting him, he was perfect, he was their dream come true, or better, an improvement on the dream which had been limited by their association with other men. He was an experience they would never forget-Luv reshaped lives for the better.
He felt so proud, so good about himself that joy swelled to fill his chest and broke forth in laughter. In the privacy of his study he laughed and laughed, bursting with triumph. He had overcome so much, his looks, his body, the contempt of other men, and he had overcome, overwhelmed, the resistance of so many women. It was always a contest with them and he considered each seduction a victory, no matter how fervently the women wanted to lose. But he was a magnanimous winner and he treated them all so well that none regretted him. They loved him still, he knew that.
He felt as confident, cocky, and proud as a rooster and he crowed and crowed, laughing at himself, mingling the laughter with a hoot that turned finally to a cough. He fell to his knees, coughing, laughing, hooting, and his eyes ran with tears. No one could stop him!
Was he going to let some idiot cops ruin everything for him? For the women? They needed him, he brightened their lives, and if he had been selfish a few times, if he had thought only of his own pleasure and not theirs, was he not human? Wasn't he entitled to be selfish a few times?
He had never killed them with malice, they had not suffered, they had not been afraid. They had given their lives in love for him, trying to the utmost to give him what he needed, and he was profoundly grateful to them all. It was not an exchange the police would understand, of course, but Luv felt certain that the women who died for him did understand. He was certain that they forgave him his selfishness-if any forgiveness was needed at all. He had given them so much too, don't forget. No other man had ever treated any of them with the love and tenderness and expertise that Cap'n Luv could bestow. He gave them the love of their lives-and they gave Luv their lives… And so few of them, really. Only 9 out of 128 women that he had loved since becoming Cap'n Luv. He did not even count the few fumbling fucks he had had before he learned what it was all about. He had been crude, incompetent, just like other men, too preoccupied with his education, then his profession, to give the proper attention to his true calling.
It required a way of life, not just a few minutes' frenzied passion, to be a lover, a proper lover, a man women loved. It was not until he devoted his energies and his imagination to it that he had become Captain Luv. And he was not able to make that dedication until he was professionally secure and domestically stable. A single man could not do what Luv had done, just as a ship could not sail without a rudder, and so he owed his wife a debt that he could never repaynor even acknowledge, of course. It was the need for deception that added much of the zest to the game, and it was the wife that produced the need as much as the victims. She needed to be deceived, just as Luv needed to deceive her, and they moved around each other in a gravitational system, like a planet and its moon-but only the planet was conscious of the movement. Because he had acquired his professional skills and a spouse before discovering his true calling, Luv had begun late, essentially losing his youth to labors. If he had not, the total would be much higher, of course, but he did not regret his tardy entry. It was not numbers alone that counted, but quality, and without the money and flexibility afforded him by his work, he could never have accomplished what he had. Or what he would accomplish in the future. He was not finished, no matter how many cops they put on his tail. Luv had surpassed mere mortal struggles, he had become a force of nature and would persist.
All that he required was a plan, and it did not take long to come up with one. He would do what he did best, he would play to his strength and strike with such cunning and bravado that the cops would have to clear him of all suspicion.
He emerged at last from his study and found his wife in the bedroom, removing the polish from her fingers and toes, the white cat beside her, its fur fading into the matching coverlet so that its green eyes seemed to balance in space. Her face was already scrubbed clean of paint and pencil and her hair fell loosely around her beautiful features. She had been his first great conquest, a woman so lovely, so prized that she had initially looked upon him with illdisguised scorn. Luv had worked on her tirelessly, learning much of his craft with her-the way a woman's mind worked, the way to play upon her emotions, her sensitivities. He learned from her what women really responded to as opposed to what they thought they needed from a man. In the end he had won her and had kept her ever since, pampered and given pride of place like the great trophy that she was.
"Sorry to take so long," he said. "I had some things to attend to."
She smirked at him, a trait that had become stronger over the years, as if she thought everything he said was a lie. "You usually do," she said.
Luv looked at her for a moment, seeing the long legs, scrupulously waxed as always, as if for the first time. Her robe was partially open and he could see the swelling of her breast. She was still magnificent, he thought, and he was going nowhere else tonight, not with his tail out there waiting for him. When he sat beside her and slid his hand up her leg, she gasped with surprise. Luv realized how long it had been. After a few moments she dropped the cat to the floor.
He took his time, trying to treat her as if she were a new conquest, using some of the things he had learned with all the others, and as he made love to her the others cascaded through his mind so that it was someone else's breast he pressed his lips to, someone else's legs he caressed, another woman whose ears and eyes he kissed, and still another victim who cried out when he entered her.
Afterwards, in the dark, she asked in wonder, "Stanley? Was that you?"
He smiled to himself. It was Cap'n Luv, not Stanley the shmuck ' "That was incredible," she said. His smile broadened. He knew.
After she had taken her sleeping pills and he heard her breathing change, after he felt the weight of the cat as it reclaimed its place on the bed, Luv slipped out the back door, across the yard, and into the woods. If he was working under new restrictions, he had to know what they were.
Becker called his house, waited for the answering machine, then left a message that he was working late and not to wait up for him. It was an excuse Karen would not question. By agreement, they never asked each other about their work except in an official capacity. The burdens of the job were grim enough without adding to them. If either wanted to talk and initiated the conversation, that was acceptable. But to inquire without solicitation was not. He hoped that she would take his advice and not wait up. He wanted her to be asleep when he came home-he could not speak to her, could not look at her without feeling the sickening anger rising. And mingled with the anger was the nugget of doubt and hope, the only thing that kept him from total despair. It was the hope which drove him now; it was the chance, however small, that he would be proven wrong about her that propelled him into the woods to take up his lonely vigil for the third night in a row.
Driving home from work, Kom decided to go via the Merritt rather than his usual route on the local roads. It was a marginally faster trip-although he normally shunned it because of a tendency for traffic to sink into a bottleneck around construction at exit 42 during rush hour-but its real value lay in giving him a choice of exits. The logical exit was 42, but Kom got off at 4 1, watching his mirror. Anyone who got off the Merritt behind him and ended up in Clamden was his tail.
The car that had followed him to his office
in the morning and from there to the hospital and back was gone, which he had expected. They must be working in a team, since they were on him around the clock. Kom knew that they were capable of all kinds of sophisticated maneuvers, running agents in front of him, changing tails every few miles, even tossing in a bit of aerial surveillance, but if they were doing anything that complicated, he doubted that they would be doing the relatively sloppy job of keeping one car in his wake. It only confirmed his notion that he was still a lowprofile job, still nothing more than a guess.
Two cars followed him at the exit and Kom thought at first it was a man in a blue Buick, but in the end only a young woman in a gray Taurus was still behind him on the twisting roads of Clamden. He had momentary doubts because his shadow was a woman, but he soon realized that Feds came in all shapes and sexes. Karen Crist was probably this young woman's superior, after all. Police work wasn't limited to men anymore, and Kom was glad of it. He preferred women in all circumstances-he was an expert at dealing with them.
He made love to Tovah for the second night in a row, attacking her with a fervor that surprised them both. In the end she stood at the foot of the bed, bent over and gripping the footboard while he took her from behind, one hand around her waist, the other grasping her neck. He tore at her, snarling as she grunted with each thrust, her voice cracking with excitement. Kom felt his fingers tighten on her neck and suddenly the mania was unleashed and ripping at him to be free of its confines in his soul. He tightened his grip further on her neck, felt her shake her head slightly in pain and protest, but he held on, simultaneously squeezing as he increased the pace and power of his thrusts. There had been no prelude, no request for tolerance of discomfort. He had not prepared her and she struggled against him now, trying to dislodge the uncomfortable grip from her neck while not disengaging from the sex. He squeezed harder, feeling his climax approaching, and began to howl crazily as both his groin and the mania flung him about, on the edge of chaos and release.