He abducted these children, one by one. And other children perhaps, as well. He drove them into remote areas outside of town and he ultimately bled them, the way one does a cow at slaughter. That’s what was learned from the bodies that had been recovered. The ones that hadn’t been recovered, of course, no one knew for sure.
After reading all of this, digesting it as well as I can, I no longer feel anger. I have moved beyond it to a state that is unfamiliar to me. It feels like I’m stone, like I am altered. My feelings are so well defined and so pure, I can think of little else. I am consumed by it.
I understand that there are likely strong psychological reasons for all of the things Atwater has done. Behavior like this isn’t born in a vacuum. Abusive father. Absent mother. Whatever the hell else: shit has happened to this guy and broken him in some important way. I know what I should probably be feeling is sympathy. Empathy. Pity, even. But that isn’t what I feel. Maybe he could even be apprehended and repaired, but that isn’t what I think about. And while the talking heads on the newsfeeds bleat on and on about what should be done, I come to understand one thing: I want William Atwater dead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE WORLD IS fucked. And if not fucked, then at least it is broken. And it isn’t only my world, though that part clearly is. But everything. Broken. People kill each other all the time, and for no reason and never mind all the people who get killed for big reasons. I have had a hand in some of those myself.
There are cops who kill innocent bystanders. Boom, boom, boom, boom: four in the chest for being born with a certain color skin. Or workers in a federal building. Or vacationers in an airport. Or a delicate line of kids whose big crime it was to breathe.
So the world is broken, and there is no way to fix it. At least, there is no way for you or me to fix it. Do you see? We can rage against a corrupt system. We can vent on our Facebook walls. Shake our fists or wave signs at politicians when we catch them unawares. We can tweet. But all of these things are acts of the powerless masses. Our hearts break with these things until we can’t stand it anymore, then we weep until, finally, we get hard and move on. We don’t do this because we are callous. We do it because we, quite simply, have no choice. We take the unthinkable and we grapple with it until, finally, we are forced to come to terms with the impossible. Sucks to be us. Yes, us. We make it thinkable and move on.
But what about me?
I can’t stop thinking about William Atwater. Somehow, despite everything, he is alive. At least sixteen kids are dead with what seems like the very real possibility of more to come. I can’t make all of these facts sit next to each other in my head.
Days go by and I think about this. Deeply and with no conclusions but, truly, there is little more for me to do. The plants have turned brown and have shriveled beyond life. The stew has been completed and divvied up into freezer bags and stored. I tramp around the forests some, but even the peaceful walks I usually enjoy don’t give me much pleasure. I keep thinking about a world without justice. A world where angels die but monsters remain free, the threat of the possibility they represent an ever-present blight on the horizon.
Before I can ponder all of this too much, I get a job. For a little while, this commands all of my attention. In that way, it is a welcome break.
Now that I am established, a routine has emerged. Assignments come in e-mail. I check my account daily through my Tor browser on the DeepNet. The silence is always broken by a text to give me a heads-up to check my mail if they want me to get on something right away. The text is always the same, though the number is always different. I don’t know if there are different phones, possibly burners, on their end. Or maybe it’s different people all the time. Different places. Or the calls might be generated by some program that makes everything random and anonymous. I don’t dwell on it, though. It’s not like it really makes a difference in the outcome or like I’m ever going to find out.
“Hey, sunshine! How’s life treating you?” will come the text.
And my response doesn’t vary much.
“I told you it was over. Stop bugging me or I’ll block you.” Or, “I’ve moved on. Let’s not do this anymore, okay?” Or something else that indicates there will be no further response from my end. And then I go to my e-mail.
Since it comes from the DeepNet, theoretically the e-mail I am sent is untraceable. And it stays on the server; there’s nothing downloaded to my computer. Still, it’s a dangerous business. I don’t take any chances. And neither do they, even though I still don’t know who or where they are. Only that I get my instructions, execute the job—pardon the pun—then report back in when the job is complete. Within twenty-four hours, there is a deposit to my Bitcoin account. I now have more Bitcoins than I know what to do with. Not a lot of the things I desire can be bought. I keep doing the work anyway. At this stage, I wouldn’t even know what else to do.
So I check my e-mail. And there isn’t a message there every day, but there is one today. And it is cryptic. The nature of the beast. But by now I know what it all means.
49.256094 -123.132813 49.283847-123.093670 ASAP. AD.
And then a name.
The first two numbers are the target’s home. The second two are the preferred location for the hit. And they want him taken out as soon as possible—ASAP—and he needs to die by accident. AD. Accidental Death. Not a lot of those come my way.
I plug the second set of coordinates into an app on my phone. It’s an office building in downtown Vancouver, Canada.
I book my travel. Book a place to stay. Then get an early night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be a difficult day no matter how well it goes. Assignments always equal difficult days.
I decide not to take the Bersa. Arrange instead to have another sent to me via a UPS store in the heart of the city. It will come to a name that is not mine, but I’ll be able to pick it up. I pay a lot for this service, via a dark web connection, but I figure it will be worth it for the hassle to get an untraceable Bersa to Canada, where guns are much harder to lay your hands on.
There is nothing that cements me to my house. No man, no kids, not even a cat. Still, when I lock the door to go away even for a few days, there is a little pang that goes with me. Maybe missing something I don’t have. Again. I try not to think about it. As time goes on, I’m getting better at that.
I take my car to long-term parking some distance from the airport. It is prudent to cover my tracks. Then a shuttle the last bit of the journey.
There are no direct flights from my local airport to Vancouver. I have to go through Phoenix, an airport I know well, because it’s a hub. I change into more fashionable clothing. I’m going to a city; my baggy country housedress will stand out there and that won’t do. I brush makeup onto my lashes, my cheeks. Sweep my hair up into something like a chignon. I feel ready for business. I feel nearly human again.
I have a lunch in the airport so good it is ridiculous. Airport food is not supposed to be excellent, but here we are. I savor it. Take my time between flights. Even order a glass of wine. I’m heading to a foreign country. One I’ve never been to before. I’m not certain there will be anything good to eat. Maple syrup and beavers. Possibly cheese. I can’t even imagine what Canadians might eat.
I sleep much of the way to Vancouver. Why not? There is nothing else to do. But once there I have an awakening of the senses. It smells beautiful. Amazing. As soon as the plane is on the ground and we passengers are on an ill-protected walkway to the main terminal, I smell something rough and new. A bit of the mountains. A bit of the sea. My heart quickens with it.
In the terminal, one must deal with customs.
What is the purpose of your visit?
Why, pleasure. Of course. What else? To see this jewel. This well-designed city perched charmingly on the sea.
How long will you be here?
A few days. Perhaps a week. There is so much to enjoy!
Have a great visit!
Oh, yes. Yes. Of course. I shall.
I find Vancouver to be stunning. Beyond my expectations. City of glass. Of ocean. Of apparent racial harmony. It’s a cool place.
I’ve arrived in the evening and it’s raining. The taxi driver grunts at me when I mention the rain, and I’m not sure what language the grunt is in, but it’s indecipherable to me.
It turns out the UPS store is on the way to the hotel, so I get the taxi to stop and wait for me while I run in to pick up my package. I breathe once it’s done and we’re underway again: there have been no obstacles, but one never knows.
My hotel is on English Bay facing the ocean. A venerated boutique hotel that is predicted not to last out the decade, but which has been here since the century before the one just past. A long time.
“Do you know Errol Flynn’s dick fell off at this hotel?” Overheard as I stand in line, waiting to check in.
Response. “Who’s Errol Flynn?”
“Wasn’t he a Red Hot Chili Pepper?” I offer, deadpan. The two girls look at each other questioningly, then give me a wide berth as they head for the exit. I don’t blame them. Theirs is probably the right call.
I’m not long in my room. I don’t need time to think, but I’ve got time to kill and walking seems a better way to do that than fighting the hotel television system in my room. And I didn’t bring a book.
I open the package containing my burner Bersa and a box of cartridges and tuck them into the safe in the room. I unpack my suitcase, then go back to the lobby. I get an umbrella from the concierge, then head out the front door and into a light and refreshing evening rain. It isn’t cold.
There is a seawall in Vancouver. It snakes around the edge of the city for miles and miles, a little pedestrian highway at the edge of the sea. I walk this now. Not thinking about my destination or if I even really have one. I figure, in fact, I probably do not, just enjoying the feeling of being able to walk out at night. I tried it once in the country and it scared the hell out of me. Noises in the dark. Likely small harmless animals. Or deer, more frightened of me than I was of them. Still. I know all too well the danger that can lurk in the night. There are chances I choose not to take. Better safe than sorry, once again.
The city at night is vibrant, though. And I am in a safe area, populated by tourists and fashionable couples. I walk on the seawall in the direction of the city, not the big park near the hotel. I have an idea of where I am going. I let my feet take me there.
I force my mind blank, making the walk meditative. Healing. Trying to stay aware of the cool sea air filling my lungs and the soft kiss of moisture on my skin, welcome after the hours in airports and planes.
I walk along the seawall as far as I can, then up a few blocks to where tomorrow I will do what I’ve come to do. One way or another. I’m in front of a four-story building of tidy appearance, despite the crumbling brick. It has an aura of solidity, even though it is in a terrible part of town.
I stand there in the rain for a few minutes, looking at the building, thinking of what approach I will take when the time comes. I am so focused, and maybe so tired, that I am startled when the front door opens and a man pops out. He is energetic and more youthful than the photo I’d been sent had led me to think he would be, but I know that it is him.
Though I am a few feet from the entrance, to my surprise my usual invisibility shield of middle-aged woman doesn’t hold. He crosses to me in a few strong steps, and does it so quickly, I have no time to collect myself and scurry away.
“Is everything all right?” he says when he reaches me. He is concerned. It is possible this is not the sort of neighborhood a woman can safely wander around in by herself. I hadn’t known that.
“Well, sure,” I reply reflexively. “I’m kind of a tourist. Out for an evening walk. I guess I got a bit turned around.”
“I guess you did,” he says, and I look at him quickly, but there is nothing but warmth in his voice and on his face. Nothing more than honest concern. “What’s a bit of a tourist, anyway? Never mind. You can tell me while we walk. I’m heading home now myself. Walking. Will be no trouble for me to see you right. Where are you staying? What part of town?”
“I’m at the Sylvia. In the West End.”
He nods approvingly and starts guiding me west. “Good choice. Charming. Not ostentatious. And all the right ghosts.”
“Errol Flynn?” I say, pushing myself to keep up with his longer strides.
“Oh yeah. Him. Sure. I think. But others. Some apparition sits on the bed in one of the rooms on the sixth floor, if I remember correctly. Something I read. You’re not on the sixth floor, are you?”
I shake my head.
“You should be all right then.”
I laugh as we walk. “Well, that’s a relief. Where are you walking me?”
“I live in Coal Harbour, which is not exactly where you’re going, but it’s quite close. I’m going to see you home.”
“Ah,” I say, trying not to think about how complicated this is getting. And then, after a while, not caring. We enjoy a companionable silence and, when we chat, words move easily between us.
As we walk, he talks about points of interest. He does it easily and well, and I can tell he is a man who is used to being treated like he has things worth saying. He asks what I do and something I’d read in the in-fight magazine provides the answer. I tell him I’m a civic planner, sent to Vancouver to evaluate local design.
“A lot of people are doing that now,” he says. “I read about that somewhere. Apparently, we have a lot of civic design worth emulating in this city. Who knew?”
I wonder if we’d read the same article, but keep my yap shut.
“Well, this has been pleasant,” he says once we reach the hotel. “For various reasons, I don’t want to go back to my lonely abode quite yet. And I know the bar in this hotel is nice enough. Will you join me for a drink?”
“Nice enough doesn’t sound like much of an endorsement. But sure. Why not?”
We sit at a table by the window, the three or four other patrons in the place far enough away that we can’t hear their conversations, nor they ours. It’s dark out, so not much can be seen from the window, but I know the ocean is waiting out there, just beyond my view. A gentler ocean here in Vancouver than I’d experienced in other places. Calmed by a large island that lies out there farther still, also out of view.
The wine we share is drinkable, not much more. As we sip and chat, a part of me dips down to darker places. Who wants this man dead? An ex-wife? A business partner? A jealous sibling? A business competitor? I seldom wonder. It’s not part of my concern. And, except with prominent figures, I never have reason to know or find out. I try to stop myself from wondering now. It is not part of my business.
“Are you married?” I hear myself ask over our second glass of wine. I think about it a lot before asking. An innocuous enough question, considering our positions. It might even seem curious if I did not ask.
“I was,” he says over his wine. “I’m not now. What about you?” And this is another thing I find myself liking in him: his directness. A simplicity to it, one that is rare. His eyes meet mine as he asks. They are a pleasant slatey color. Like stone warmed by sun.
“Same,” I hear myself say. “Just the same.” And we smile as we sip, almost as though we’ve shared a joke. Which I guess in a way we have.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT IS NOT inevitable that he should end up in my bed on the not-haunted third floor of the Sylvia Hotel. There are other possibilities. When it happens, though, I do not contemplate the wisdom of the move. And I try hard not to think about the consequences of my actions.
As he slides inside me, I wonder at what I am feeling. It is as though I’d known it would happen from the moment he’d taken those few strong strides towards me as I stood outside his office building in the rain. Like nothing else had even been possible. If I wasn’t certain of that before, it becomes clear in the elevator, the hard length of him pressed into me, his tongue exploring the delicate
lines of my ear, my chin, my neck.
By the time our unclothed bodies join in the ancient bed, I know it solidly: this was meant to be. Human touch has become difficult for me. But not here now, with him. His warmth and laughter and maybe just the feel of his skin has melted whatever reserve there might have been.
Afterwards, there is this ethereal stillness. I am aware of street noise at some distance. I imagine I can sometimes hear the lap of a wave, though I know that cannot be the truth.
We call for room service. Our exertions have made him hungry, he says. And he wants something to drink. When room service comes, he answers the door with a towel wrapped around him. I admire the way the muscles move under his skin. He has ordered grilled squid and stuffed mushrooms, and a crab cake too big for its own good. We share the food, and the wine that arrives with it, with the abandon and comfort of long lovers. Feeding each other and laughing together, giddy with something too precious to hold.
I like the strong, hot feel of him. And the way laughter storms his face. And the intensity with which he watches me when I speak, meeting my eyes. Watching for signs of things not said. Watching. Ever watchful.
There is a time when we sleep, feet touching, his hand cupped gently into the curve between my legs. I don’t know when wakefulness falls away, but it comes to both of us all at once. After a while, though, I wake. I pull the covers over us and extinguish the lights and try not to think about what I need to do. As I’ve said: human connections don’t come easily to me anymore. And yet I feel something uncomplicated growing more quickly than I would have thought possible. Uncomplicated in feeling yet complicated by fact. I push that thought away. I think about the Bersa, snug in the room safe in the closet. I imagine myself going to her, loading. See myself, in my mind’s eye, creeping towards him, holding the gun to the soft, flat spot just behind his left ear. Letting in the bullet that would find its way home.
His eyes fly open and he regards me levelly. I feel my color rise.
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