Reggie thought about that, not being able to see one’s only living family member. About being punished for protecting her. What did that do to a person? Doing what was right and being punished for it. Seeing first-hand there was no justice in the world, and only suffering for the just.
‘What did you do when you found her?’ Reggie asked. ‘Did you take her home with you?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Ivan said. ‘I had no money, and no home to take her back to. The government condemned our home while we were away. I was living on the streets. Sleeping in parks and in alleyways. She at least had a roof over her head, and three meals a day. I envied her.’
‘You had no aunts or uncles? Grandparents?’ Reggie asked.
Ivan shook his head.
‘We never knew them growing up,’ he said. ‘Our parents never spoke of them, and we never asked.’
‘So you had to leave her,’ Reggie said.
‘Yes,’ Ivan said. ‘But I checked on her again when I came into some money. She was dead then. Died of pneumonia. She snuck out one evening to play outside. There was a winter storm. She wore only a night gown. She got lost in the snow and was gone for hours before one of the caregivers found her.’
‘How’d you come by the money?’ Reggie asked.
Ivan smiled.
‘Now that’s a story,’ he said, and spoke for a long time.
***
‘Like anywhere,’ the killer said, ‘life on the streets was hard. You fought for the best places to sleep, to beg, and you fought often. And the people were filthy. I’d never seen such filth before. How I hadn’t seen it before, I don’t know.
‘We’d been poor, my father, my sister, and I,’ Ivan said, ‘but this was beyond poor. Poverty wasn’t the right word either. That implied people who worked honest jobs for pitiful wages. People who were trying to be a part of the system, even as that system failed them.
‘This was quiet desperation,’ Ivan said, ‘of the basest sort. These were people lost, with no way to be found again. And they didn’t care. They just moved to survive as if by instinct, and not by any true desire to live.
‘My first night on the streets I found a sewage culvert that led under an overpass,’ Ivan said. ‘It was cold but provided some shelter. I tried to sleep but two creatures I took for men arrived soon after. They wore large, bulky clothes caked with dirt and filth. Their faces were hidden under folds of cloth wrapped around them against the cold.’
Reggie pictured these hulking creatures.
They stomped and shambled and lurched as they approached the boy huddled in the sewer culvert.
‘They beat me and threw me out,’ Ivan said. ‘I walked the city in the cold night from place to place. I found an alley and a similar creature chased me out, swinging a stick. I found a park, but the police chased me out too.
‘There was no place I belonged, and no place that would have me.
‘Until the old man found me,’ Ivan said.
‘Who was he?’ Reggie asked.
‘He was a rich man,’ said Ivan. ‘I’d seen him before, in his big, shiny cars, cruising the streets. I’d passed his home before – a large, gated castle it seemed to me. Larger than any home I’d ever seen. Larger than any home had a right to be.
‘He got out of his car sometimes,’ Ivan said, ‘and other men always got out with him. Large men in expensive suits. He walked the streets with these men. He walked slowly and deliberately with the support of a cane topped by a silver wolf’s head. I remember thinking there was a resemblance between that wolf’s head and the old man. His silver-grey hair seemed like a wolf’s mane, and his eyes were wild. Restrained, but wild. Like he was just waiting to attack something. Biding his time.
‘He walked the places where people like me hid,’ Ivan said. ‘He walked the back alleys and the dark places. He talked to some of the people there. Led them to his clean, shiny car, opening the door for them and herding them in.
‘Those that went with him were never seen again.
‘He became something of an urban legend on the streets. If you went in the cars, you were never seen again. He took you to places. He showed you things. Where he took you and what he showed you changed you forever.’
‘What happened to the people that went with him?’ Reggie asked, leaning forward eagerly, his chin on an upright knee.
‘I don’t know,’ Ivan said. ‘I can only tell you what happened to me.’
Reggie waited for him to continue.
‘I never found a place on the streets that was mine,’ Ivan said. ‘Every place I went belonged to someone else. I was beaten many times. I got little sleep. I ate from trash cans. I drank from gutter run-off and grimy streams. I wanted to die.
‘Then one day the long car pulled up beside me,’ Ivan said, ‘and the old man got out. The big men got out with him and surrounded me. I looked at them, confused and frightened. I wondered what they’d do to me.
‘“I can give you a new life,” said the old man, his hands folded on the silver wolf’s head. “I can show you new things.”
‘I was scared of them. More frightened of them than of anything else in my life. They were men of the world, men of means. They knew of things I’d never dreamed of. Seen things I never had.
‘But I had no other choice. I had nowhere else to go. So I nodded and they led me to the car. I climbed in and sat with my hands in my lap.
‘They got in after me, surrounding me again on the spacious car’s facing seats,’ Ivan said. ‘The old man sat directly across from me. His eyes were like the silver wolf’s eyes, I noticed. Somehow bright and lifeless at the same time.’
Reggie remembered thinking much the same about Ivan’s own eyes not so long ago, but kept this to himself.
‘“Sex or death?” the old man asked when the doors were shut and the car was moving again, rolling along in the cold night.
‘I was confused. I didn’t know what he meant. I said as much and expected them to laugh at me. No one laughed.
‘“Those are the businesses I deal in,” the old man said. “Sex or death. Choose.”
‘It took me only a moment to decide. I was thinking of my father in my sister’s room, his pants around his ankles. And later, the feel of the axe haft in my hands.
‘“Death,” I whispered, the word coming with a puff of mist.
‘“Yes,” the old man said, nodding. He smiled, showing bright, white teeth. “Death is indeed your business. I can see it in your eyes. You will be very good,” he said, and leaned over and patted my knee like a grandfather would.
‘And in time, I was,’ said the killer. ‘I was the best.’
***
‘What was it like when your dad died?’ Ivan asked. ‘How’d you feel?’
Reggie wasn’t sure he had the words for what Ivan wanted to know. But he tried.
‘You know how some things you just take for granted?’ he said, and Ivan nodded. ‘Like there will always be another day? The sun will always rise? Things like that? My dad always being there was one of those things. It’s just the way things were supposed to be.
‘I always thought there’d be time. I always thought we’d get to play catch. Go to the movies. Go out for lunch. He’d always make me tell about my day at school during dinner.
‘And then he was gone,’ Reggie said, ‘and it was like a betrayal, you know?’
Reggie had never spoken these thoughts before. But in the little tree house high off the ground, across from the killer, it seemed a special place with special rules. After what he’d seen, after what he’d done, he could say anything here.
‘He betrayed me,’ Reggie said. ‘But it was more than that. The world betrayed me. Nothing made sense. There were no rules that could be counted on. So I closed off the world, inside here,’ he said, tapping his chest, ‘and here,’ he said, tapping his head, ‘and numbed myself.’
‘What’s it like?’ Ivan asked. ‘The numbness?’
Reggie thought the killer already knew the answer t
o that, and maybe he was just seeking to have his own answer validated. To know that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
‘It’s like a wall,’ Reggie said. ‘It’s very high and runs for miles and the foundation’s set deep. You can’t go around it, over it, or under it. There’s a gate that only I control and I only let in what I want.
‘Sometimes it feels like it’s going to give,’ he said. ‘Sometimes things really pound on it, you know? And I’m not sure the wall will hold up. Like when my mom tries to get me to talk and I don’t want to. Or when thoughts of my dad really come at me hard. Times like that and the wall feels like it could break at any moment.’
‘Do things make sense back there?’ Ivan asked. ‘In the world behind the wall?’
Reggie thought a moment before answering.
‘It’s not about things making sense anymore,’ he said. ‘It’s about keeping out the things that don’t. It’s about having a little place for myself that’s mine, and only mine. Somewhere that’s quiet. Where I can just … wait.’
‘Wait for what?’ Ivan asked.
Reggie looked at the man, but didn’t answer.
‘Wait for what, Reggie?’ he asked again.
He couldn’t ignore those steel blue eyes. They demanded answers.
‘For the end,’ he said, and Ivan nodded as if he understood. And God help him, Reggie thought he did.
***
‘What were you paid for your first hit?’ Reggie asked.
‘Five hundred dollars,’ the killer said.
Reggie considered that. Five hundred dollars for a human life. There seemed something wrong with that, putting a dollar figure on a person’s life. Though his dad had been killed for sixteen bucks, so he guessed Ivan had got a good deal.
‘Who was it?’ he asked.
‘Just some guy,’ the killer said. ‘It’s usually best in my line of work not to know too much about the target.’
‘Did he have a wife?’ Reggie asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the killer said.
‘Did he have kids?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ the killer said.
‘What did he do for a living?’ Reggie asked.
‘He was a printer,’ the killer said. ‘And an editor of a newspaper.’
‘Did he have friends at work?’ he asked.
‘I couldn’t say,’ the killer said.
‘He must’ve had people that cared about him,’ Reggie pressed.
‘Probably,’ the killer said. ‘Most of us do.’
‘But you killed him for five hundred dollars,’ Reggie said.
‘Yes,’ the killer said.
‘How’d you do it?’ he asked.
‘I shot him,’ the killer said. ‘Three times in the chest.’
‘Was there a funeral?’ he asked.
‘I assume so, yes,’ the killer said.
‘But you didn’t go to it,’ Reggie said.
‘No, I did not,’ he said.
‘So you have no idea who was there?’ Reggie asked. ‘Family, friends from work. It could have been a big turnout. Lots of people could have paid their respects.’
‘It’s entirely possible, yes,’ the killer said.
‘But you don’t know,’ Reggie said.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘But you killed him for five hundred dollars,’ Reggie said. ‘Not knowing the people that would be affected by his death.’
‘Yes,’ the killer said.
‘Why?’ Reggie asked.
‘Because it’s what I was paid to do,’ the killer said.
‘Why?’ Reggie asked again, frustrated, knowing there had to be more to it than that. There just had to be.
Maybe, after a time, it had become that way for the killer: just doing a job. Pulling the trigger, tightening the garrotte, slipping the blade between the ribs. Then collecting the payment. But not at first, Reggie thought. It had to have been different in the beginning.
‘Because it’s what I do,’ the killer said, gritting his teeth.
‘Why?’ Reggie repeated, a tone of insistence creeping into the single word.
‘Because it’s all I’ve ever known,’ the killer said, his voice rising.
‘But why?’ Reggie said, raising his voice too, stressing that last word.
‘Because I’m not a good man!’ the killer yelled, leaning towards Reggie, face red, spittle flying. ‘Don’t you get that yet, Reggie?’
Surprising himself, Reggie didn’t turn away from the killer’s rage. Not immediately. He caught a glimpse of the pistol in the holster beneath the jacket. He remembered the switchblade as well, tucked away in a pocket, possibly nestled comfortingly against the curled garrotte wire.
Then, slowly, he stood up, making as little noise as possible, like a hiker before a coiled viper. Reggie moved to the ladder. He found the rungs with his feet and scaled down them without looking up.
He had to be away. The wall he’d told Ivan about was shaking, on the verge of crumbling, collapsing. As he lowered himself to the ground, Reggie heard the man’s voice above him, trailing off: ‘Because I’m not a good man …’
The words hung for a moment in the air, like an echo captured, and then were gone. Yet they repeated themselves in Reggie’s mind well into the night, playing in a loop in his head like a song heard on the radio. An earworm, that was called.
An earworm in his head, in his brain, wriggling around, digging deeper.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1.
When next Reggie went out to see the man in the tree house, he was gone. The interior of the wooden enclosure – so like a small game hunter’s trap blown up to human proportions – was empty save for little bloodstains on the planked floor. In the silence and vacancy it was as if the killer had never been there at all. The sled was parked at the base of the tree like a taxi cab waiting for a patron. Reggie looked about thinking maybe he’d just wandered off for a piss, but the killer was nowhere to be seen.
It had only been an hour or so since their last words.
He waited fifteen minutes.
Then he went back to the house and tried to forget it all.
***
Reggie couldn’t forget it though, and went back periodically to check the tree house. This routine continued through the morning and into the day. His mom, uncommonly permissive of his comings and goings since their confrontation in the car at the cemetery, noticed the frequency with which he left and came back to the house.
She asked him if anything was wrong.
He said he was okay and tried to settle himself.
He watched some television. Got up for a drink and snack during a commercial. Saw the picture the deputy had given his mom the previous day, slid among the pile of junk mail on the kitchen counter, forgotten. Stopping in front of the stack of mail, Reggie shuffled through the rest idly, feigning interest in fast food coupons, an ad for video games, and a public notice from the city warning about rabid wildlife, complete with a larger than necessary picture of a snarling bobcat. Until there was only the photo of the killer on the counter before him.
He picked it up and looked at the profile image of Ivan, the professional killer. The photo was black and white, but the intensity, the silent lethality of the man, came through even in such a grainy picture.
Reggie thought of the man splitting his own father’s head with an axe. He thought of him strangling the deputy and pushing the body over the cliff.
Reggie thought of lying side by side with him, looking at the stars. He thought of the man’s arm around him when Reggie had cried about his own father.
Reggie didn’t know what to think anymore. But he thought of Ivan out there somewhere alone, bleeding, and that didn’t seem right. He didn’t know what was right, but that wasn’t it, his friend out there by himself, maybe dying.
So he went up to his bedroom and pulled his backpack out from the closet. Empty now that school was over, the pack was limp in his hands. He draped it across the chair and
looked at it for a time. He waited for evening. Watched more television, read a book, went downstairs and talked idly with his mom for awhile. He tried to act natural, not wanting to raise any further concern or suspicion.
She fell asleep watching reruns of old black-and-white shows. Perhaps that window to the past comforted her. Maybe watching a bumbling deputy test the patience of his sheriff best friend or a gangly first mate bungle the rescue of his fellow castaways provided his mom with an alternative to the way things actually were in their sad, quiet house.
Reggie understood this need and left his mom undisturbed. Creeping on cotton-socked feet, he made it across the living room with a stealthy stride fit for a cat.
He went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator slowly. The suction of it opening made his heart skip a beat. He took out bottles of water and a couple cans of soda. From the cupboards he took out crackers and granola bars. He took a large knife from one of the drawers. He bundled these items up in his shirt just as he’d bundled the First Aid supplies only a couple days ago, and took them back upstairs. Digging the flashlight – purchased by his parents for him in case of power outages – out of the closet, he added it to his gathered supplies. He loaded his backpack and zipped it up.
He took pen and paper from his desk, sat down, and wrote this note:
Mom,
I’m going out for awhile. I might be gone for a bit. Please don’t worry. There’s something I have to do. I’m sorry for being so angry. See you soon. I love you.
Reggie
He left it on his desk where she’d be sure to see it.
Lastly, he stepped lightly to his dresser and opened the top drawer slowly, quietly. Reaching under his socks and underwear, he again retrieved the bundle there. Added it to his pack, pushing it towards the bottom, out of sight.
Are You Afraid of the Dark? Page 10