“No.”
She went into the kitchen and poured him a glass from the faucet anyways. She handed him the water and sat at in the arm chair across from him. He shrugged and drank the water and finally looked up to meet her eyes with his though now she couldn’t look at him.
“I’ll go put on pants,” He said believing it was the appropriate thing to do.
“It’s fine,” Mary said. “I don’t care. This is your house.”
Jeremy shrugged and slouched back down again. He could see that she was shaking. He wanted to comfort her but he had given her enough.
“I don’t know what to tell you Mary. I don’t know why you’re here. Everything that can be done is being done.”
“I know,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry.”
He waved his hands back and forth in front of him. “I can’t Mary. I can’t deal with this right now.”
Mary closed her eyes and found a little composure in the space of a long, deep breath.
“You should go.” Jeremy said.
“Okay… Is it ok if I just sit here for a couple minute though?”
“Fine. Whatever.”
They sat there in the darkness of his apartment for awhile, not talking, not even looking at each other until Jeremy finally leaned forward and said:
“I should take a shower. I need to get back to the office. Maybe some progress has been made.” But on his way to his feet his body’s momentum lulled and he found himself seated again, forced to steady himself against the arm of the couch to keep from falling over.
“I’m so sorry Jeremy,” Mary said starting to tear up. “I’m so, so sorry. There was no other way.”
At first he couldn’t understand what she was saying. Couldn’t make sense of the sounds falling from her mouth. But she said it again and he slowly started to understand.
“I’m so sorry,” she said getting to her feet and pulling a hand gun from her purse.
Jeremy looked down at the empty glass Mary had given him and then up to her, the hurt and the anger in his face letting her know that he realized she had drugged him. The urge to laugh came over him again like a fever but it was too funny even for laughter, too absurd for words.
“There is no other way. He said he would let Cindy go. And that he would leave me alone. I’m so sorry. There is no other way. I can’t let Cindy die because of me.”
Whatever she drugged him with, he guessed sleeping pills, was amplified by the xanex already in his system and the pull they exerted on his consciousness was almost violent. His thoughts felt heavy and gaudy and uncomfortable in his mind. He leaned back in the couch stared down the barrel of Mary’s gun. Do it, he wanted to say. Empty the clip. Put every last bullet right in my fucking heart. But he knew that if Mary killed him, she was in essence also killing Charlie.
“There is no silencer,” he mumbled and Mary looked confused. She was a mess, obviously scared, but there was a kind of punch-drunk resolve in her face and Jeremy knew if he didn’t start talking some sense, she would do it.
“There’s no silencer,” he said again. “When you fire that gun it is going to be loud. So loud that it will startle you. And everyone else in this building. Police will be called. Security cameras at the entrances. You will be arrested by this morning. Slam dunk case. Life in prison. Possible death sentence.”
And that gave Mary a pause but only a short one.
“I don’t care,” she whimpered. “I don’t care. At least Cindy will be safe.”
“Fucking bitch!” Jeremy spat out and Mary jumped and then levelled the gun on him. She winced and craned her head back from the gun as though she expected it to explode upon firing it.
“He’s lying!” Jeremy screamed. “Of course he said he would let her go! He’s playing you like a fucking puppet!”
“No, no. It’s the only way. It’s what he wants… you can’t catch him. If the FBI Could they would have by now… this is the only thing I can do.”
“I have a boy. A son… my son, please Mary. I want to see my son again.”
Mary began to weep heavily, giving what Jeremy thought to be his best chance. He leaned forward to spring to his feet and kick the coffee table towards her but he underestimated the effect of the drugs. Before he could even get to his feet Mary had levelled the gun at his face. He froze, and lifted his hands in surrender; sure he was only seconds away from death. He now only had the one card left to play.
“He took my son. Adbucted him the night I came to see then rushed out. He told me the same thing. He told me to kill someone too. And that if I did that he would stop hurting Charlie… he lied.”
Mary stepped away from him, lowered the gun in her astonishment and then caught herself and raised it again.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“The bag. Over there by the table. Open it.”
Mary went to the white duffle bag and opened it, Her eyes bulging at the sight of the white suit and gun and hatchet, coloured with dark crusted blood.
“Once he has you he won’t let you go. He will make you do it. Again… and again… and again… So you see Mary, I don’t blame you. You’re only trying to protect someone you love… but he’s lying. And he will never let you or her go. It won’t end until he is dead... And I’m going to kill him.”
And then in an instant she rushed out the door and slammed it closed behind her.
His mind was aching for sleep. Just a simple closing of the eyes, a long blink. But that would be the end of everything. He knew it was a safe bet that she was going to report him but what choice did he have? It was just one more desperate play to stay a step ahead of death and give his son another chance to survive.
He leaned forward, buckled at the knees and used the coffle table to brace himself. Once on his feet he leaned forward with his shoulders and let momentum carry him into the kitchen, struggling the entire time to keep his feet underneath him. He removed a jar of instant coffee from the cupboard, dumped a pile into his hand and crammed the foul grains into his mouth, chewed and gagged, chewed and gagged until he got it down.
He scooped up the duffle bag, his wallet and his keys and phone and left not bothering to lock the door behind him.
***
Mary rode a wave of numb shock back out into the balmy night, her lips quivering, puckering at the air between soft sobs. Despair lapped at her heart, madness filling her mind until she was swimming in it; Reeling from it. Her mind was stuck on a thought; A thought about the beginning of things. The way events or choices lead to one another and another and another until your life has taken you down a path you didn’t intend to walk, didn’t even know you were walking until you got to wherever you were going and it was too late.
She felt almost too weak to even open the car door. Once inside she sat for a moment in her reality until it was clear what she had to do. She fished her phone from her purse and called Agent Costa.
CHAPTER 23
“What are you telling me?” Costa asked, handing Mary a cup of water and removing his tie.
She had called an hour previously, hysterical, insisting he see her immediately. Luckily, or not so luckily depending on how you looked at it, he was sleeping in his car in the parking lot when he received her call and so didn’t have to make the drive back in. When she got there she was babbling incoherently about something involving a gun and Jeremy. His first impression was that she had finally snapped and to be honest he wouldn’t have blamed her. But then she started to get his attention.
“He has his son. Mister has Jeremy’s son.”
Second’s later Mathews appeared in the door way, one eye brow lifted up high over his wide astonished eyes. Costa looked down at his watch. It was nearly one in the morning. He didn’t expect anyone else from his detail to still be there but it’s not something he could have kept from them anyways.
“What makes you say that?” Costa asked.
“He- he- he told me.” She sobbed. “He’s making him… oh Jesus.”
<
br /> “He’s making him what?” Costa gently pushed. “Mary? Mister is making Jeremy do what?”
“He’s making him… kill people. To save his son.”
Mathews covered his mouth with both hands muttering profanities; Costa struggled for composure.
“When did he take his son?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Costa looked up at Mathews “missing person’s,” was all he said and Mathews hurried down the hall.
“Why did he tell you this? How do you know he’s killed people?”
“He told me. Showed me a bag with… weapons, knives, a gun. A Mister costume… There was blood all over it.”
“Oh Jesus…” Costa gasped and leaned heavily onto his desk.
A couple minutes later Mathews returned, his face drawn serious and taunt.
“Missing persons report was filled five days ago.”
“Okay…Okay,” Costa said. “Get his I.D. and licence plate over the wire. Send two LAPD cars to his apartment. Another two to his office. I’m going to get a warrant to track his phone.”
“I’m on it,” Mathews said and turned to leave but Costa added:
“Mathews. He’s a missing person at this point. Foul play suspected. We can’t let this out into the open just yet.”
“I know,”
“I mean it Mathews. I have to take this to the director. Not a fucking peep until we figure out if it’s true and how to spin it.
“Costa, I know.” Mathews said again.
Costa prayed he did know. This was going to be a seismic shit storm of unparalleled proportions if it turned out to be true and though he prayed it wasn’t, Costa felt in his gut that every awful thing Mrs. Stien was saying horribly, awfully, was.
***
Jeremy drove down interstate ten periodically biting his tongue or the inside of his cheek to help keep him awake. He had tossed his identification out the window along with his credit cards so he wouldn’t be tempted to use them. He had four hundred dollars in cash which would be more than enough to get a room somewhere if he couldn’t find a secluded enough spot to pull over and sleep. Sleep was something that was going to happen whether he liked it or not. He was fairly sure Mary had gone to the police after leaving his apartment and he did not want to wake up surrounded by a group of angry cops who believed he was the serial killer who had been keeping them up all these nights. There was a faint sting of betrayal in his heart but he knew it was beyond hypocritical for him to feel that way. No matter what she did or didn’t do or wanted to, it would never compare to what he had done and what he knew he still had to do.
He turned off the interstate not even bothering to read the signs at the exit and drove until he found the sketchiest motel he could. The kind that doesn’t require I.D. and rents rooms by the hour. He entered the tiny stuffy lobby of motel Del whatever with the kill bag tucked under his arm and paid the yahoo at the counter who was suffering from a ghastly tooth deficiency fifty dollars for the day.
He found his room in the interior hall of the motel, entered, dropped the kill bag on the floor and fell.
CHAPTER 24
He was nineteen years old when he was given back to himself. He was a man officially, though it didn't feel how he expected it would to be. He was taller, and heavier, but what really was growing inside of him? Organs pumped more blood and expanded, bones stretched and something vacant in him fought to extend its borders in the territory of his heart and it was all he could do to slow its conquest.
He had learned about stealing and fighting. How to hot wire a car. How to break a lock. He learned that if you stopped trying to be accepted by people, they grudgingly would come around, or at least not try to take advantage you. But had he learned to be a man? The answer must have been no because he didn't even know what that would entail.
“Good luck,” the guard at the out-take desk of juvenile hall said dryly, his face incongruously flat and smug. And then he was free. A free man. A man who was free. He had a small bag of belongings which mainly consisted of his notebooks and a few items of clothing. A piece of paper stuffed into the pocket of his jeans had written on it an address and time for an appointment with a social worker, who he was told would help him get something called welfare so he could rent a small apartment while he tried to find a job.
Stepping through the doors out into the dry August heat a feeling came over him he had never had the opportunity to know before. The feeling of being completely on his own, free to do what he wanted, where he wanted, when he wanted. It was not as amazing as the other boys had made it sound.
They would go on and on what they were going to do when they got out and about girls and what they were going to do to them the first chance they got. The food they would eat, the booze they would drink, the places they would go. But Simon never really fantasized about any of that. Truth be told he was scared. Scared of having to decide what to do with his time, scared of not knowing where to go, scared to discover that grown ups were as mean as kids.
He walked down the street and away from the grey government institution which had been his home for longer than any other place had, until he found a bus stop. He had the address for a shelter where he was told he would have to live for a week or so before the welfare money came through.
The bus came before along and Simon stepped onto it feeling the eyes of the driver and the passengers on him, assessing him, scrutinizing him. Did they know about the juvenile hall? Did they know newly released boys were instructed to walk two blocks south and wait for the number nineteen?
Simon put his quarter into the little box next to the driver and found a seat near the back. The whole ride into downtown Los Angeles he could feel the tingly uncomfortable feel of being watched. He swivelled in his seat to look at the people beside him and behind him, and nobody was looking but he was sure they had averted their eyes just before he caught them staring. Twenty minutes later they came to his stop and he pulled the string and scurried out the door, almost tripping as he made the small jump to the sidewalk and supremely relieved he didn't because of course everyone would have laughed.
The shelter was a small two floor space that was on a busy street sandwiched between a bakery and a church. Simon hoped the shelter wasn't affiliated with the Church in any way because the guard at the out take desk and told him someone in the shelter would be expecting him and what if they told them what he had done? They probably wouldn't let a priest killer in the doors let alone sleep there. He found himself then looking around the crazy hustle and bustle of people and car's and noises and smells, which was more chaotic and busy than anything he had ever seen in his life and wondering if he could find a safe place to sleep besides there, if he had to.
He entered the shelter timidly, yet feeling instantly just a little safer. He told the nice lady who met him at the front door who he was and where he had come from. She looked at him sadly and showed him to a locker where he could keep his things and a cot where he could sleep. Which was in a large room with rows of other cots and he wasn't sad or disappointed to see the similarities to this place and his last two homes. If anything he was a little relieved and that is what made him sad.
A week in the shelter was the best way to ease into the world he realized. It was like the hall, only nobody was forced to be there and he was the only person his age. The rest were older or families with small children. Children he wanted to talk with but thought he could see a certain amount of concern in their parent’s eyes whenever he approached them. That was more than a little frustrating because he felt he could relate to kids better than he could grown ups. He needed a friend. A little friend. That's all he wanted. It was all he thought about.
He went to his meeting for welfare and was given money to rent an apartment and buy some food. Which he did with a certain sense of excitement. He had never lived on his own before. After a couple days of looking he found a small basement apartment. It was the right price and had no windows and was right across from a grade school.
It was perfect.
CHAPTER 25
Jeremy's eyes snapped open at one. His long lashed eyes blinking at the afternoon sunlight pouring through the motel window; pouring all over him. He closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of it. His chest slowly rising and falling, savouring this bath of light. Dust motes hung in the air like microscopic angels.
His anxiety had bottomed out and now that it couldn't touch him his mind had opened up to all sorts of possibilities he previously wouldn't- couldn’t- consider. For starters, maybe none of it mattered. Maybe we only felt like things mattered because the alternative was too bleak. We were just animals after all right? Does it matter if a dog eats steak all his life or have to scavenge road kill and garbage? The stupid animal will die and simply cease, so what did it matter what the quality of his life was? So Charlie dies, he dies himself. We all die sooner or later. What does it matter when? What is this holding on to life for as long as we can? Why? We all end up in the same place. The worm will have its day.
Reality was a cold cunt. That was the truth people didn't want to see. Mister was right about that. Our lives are book-ended by feebleness. The small measures of love in his Jeremy’s life or in anyone's life, was just an oasis. Pocket's of happiness which were either sufficient to carry one through the pain of life or wasn't. Even a life full of joy, full of love inevitably comes to unspeakable heartache in the loss of life. The loss of life of those you loved and then yourself. And perhaps that pain is all the more cruel for the love that came before it.
He was glad he had little love left. If he didn’t he wouldn't be able to do what he had to do now.
A monster had his son. What sin wouldn’t be forgiven a man if he committed it to save his own son from unspeakable torment? But it wasn't forgiveness he was seeking. He was protecting his family – the last of his family- the only way he could see to do so. And then it would be time for retribution. They could shoot him, put him in a cage and give him the needle. It didn't matter. One way or another he was going to drag Mister down with him.
Horror Becomes Me Page 11