He easily coaxed her away from her faux boyfriend. That very night they made love in his house. Her body was as lean and sinewy and flat-chested as a boy’s. It delighted him. And she was so young. He had always appreciated youth. He himself had felt old even in childhood—an old soul, his teachers had called him. He had missed out on the pleasures of youth, but he could enjoy them vicariously.
Faust knew the exact moment when Elise became his soul mate. It was when he showed her a documentary film about his life. When it was over, she asked only, “Did you look into her eyes when you were killing her?” She was unafraid. She simply wanted to know. She had the earnest, uncomplicated curiosity of a child.
They rarely spoke of Emily Wallace. He was not sure if Elise believed that the murder was a singular episode, some breakdown in his normal habits of control, or if she believed him to be capable of repeating the performance at any time. The remarkable thing was that she did not seem to care. She accepted him completely. Perhaps this was love. Whatever it might be, he had found he needed her, and he would not lose her. He would not allow her to be endangered. No human life mattered to him, save hers.
Familiar voices broke into his thoughts. At the cafe, he and Elise were always running into people they knew. This time it was Edward and Dieter, both of whom worked in the fashion industry—Edward as a hairstylist. Dieter in set design. They had met Faust through Elise and had quickly become attached to him. Perhaps overly attached. Faust found their adoration tiresome. But Elise liked them, and he tolerated their company for her sake.
They sat at the table. Dieter garrulous and voluble as always, Edward characteristically reserved. Both were Americans; Dieter’s name was an affectation no less artificial than his bleached blond hair. Since meeting Faust, they had both somehow managed to acquire traces of his accent, as if they were remaking themselves in his image.
Dieter joked that they simply must stop meeting like this. It was like that awful American sitcom where sex-crazed, aimless young people sat around at a coffee bar.
“Only we’re not like that,” Edward added.
“No,” Faust observed, “we are not young.”
This observation was greeted with laughter. Faust was much admired for his wit.
Dieter had picked up a religious booklet somewhere and was having fun with it. He was amused by anything he considered mundane and common—religion, television, sports, fast food, backyard barbecues, holidays, the obituary pages. Edward shared his contempt but not his humor. Elise encouraged them in their talk, while Faust leaned back, taking his ease in aloof splendor. He did not speak for a long time, but when he did, the others fell silent immediately. There was a magnetism he exuded that drew them closer, as if he were a fire and they sought to huddle around his heat.
“We had a companion at our table before you arrived. A business associate. She does not approve of me.”
“Who does?” Dieter ventured, earning a laugh from Elise and a disapproving shake of Edward’s head.
“She was appalled by my criminal past. The taking of an innocent life.”
“No one is innocent,” Edward said soberly.
“Quite true, in which case it follows that no one is guilty, either.”
“There is no guilt or innocence. There is only this.” Edward rapped the table with his fist. “What is real, what is immediate. Nothing else.”
“I declined to engage her in such metaphysical speculations.” Faust smiled. “You know these Americans—they have no head for philosophy.”
“What did you tell this cunt?” Dieter asked.
“That I am an artist.”
Smiles bloomed around the table.
“An artist?” Dieter arched an eyebrow. “I don’t remember hearing that one before.”
“I am sure I made reference to it somewhere in my book.”
“Who remembers your book?” Dieter laughed, but no one joined him. A line had been crossed. “Only joking, of course,” he amended hastily.
Faust showed him a cold smile. “Of course. There are times when it is helpful to portray myself in an artistic light. I have taken this approach in some of my interviews with the media.”
“But you don’t suffer for your art,” Elise teased.
“He makes others suffer!” Dieter said, to be rewarded by a warmer smile from Faust.
“You see,” Faust said, “it can be inconvenient to have people regard me as an enigma. People need explanations. Explanations comfort them.”
“Was this bitch comforted when you said you were an artist?” Edward asked.
“I think so, yes. She feels now that she understands me, at least to a certain degree. What she understands, she can tolerate. It is only an insoluble mystery that is unbearable.”
“You could have been an artist,” Elise said.
“I could have been anything. Instead I am ... everything.” Faust sipped his coffee while the others pondered this statement.
“Hitler was an artist,” Edward said finally.
Faust frowned. “Herr Schicklgruber,” he said, using Hitler’s family name, “was a gauche little man with a loud voice. Nothing is so annoying as a tiny man who commands a big spotlight.”
“And he was a shitty artist, anyway,” Dieter observed.
“Even if he were a genius,” Faust said, “do you think anyone in today’s world would be fearless enough to admit it?”
Elise patted his arm. “You would.”
“Yes, I am the man without fear.” The others could not tell if this was a joke. Smiles flickered uncertainly on their faces. “As a child, I did feel fear at times, and I hated it. Hated myself for that weakness. Then one night I learned never to feel fear again.”
“One can’t just talk oneself out of fear.” Edward spoke with the certainty of a man to whom fear was an intimate and constant companion.
“It was much more than talk,” Faust said slowly. He shifted into what he thought of as his storytelling voice, languid and rhythmic, almost hypnotizing. “When I was ten years old, I vacationed with my parents in the Black Forest.”
All of them had heard the tale in one of his numerous interviews, or read it in his book, but they listened anyway, attentive as schoolchildren.
“We rented a cabin in the woods. One evening when my parents were asleep, I crept outside, alone, to see the night sky. There was a full moon. In the moonlight I saw a silver shadow among the trees, creeping nearer. It was a wolf, wild and solitary.
“When I recognized it for what it was, I felt a rush of fear. My childish head was filled with stories of evil wolves, like the one who devoured Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. I was sure I would be eaten alive. My one hope was to race for the cabin. But I could not move. I was frozen in place, a statue of a boy.
“The wolf moved closer. His eyes gleamed. I gazed into those eyes. And suddenly I was unafraid.
“All concern for my safety vanished. I was certain that the wolf would not harm me. I knew this—because he and I were one. At some deep, unfathomable level we shared the same spirit. We were of a single will, a single heart. We were, both of us, wolves. Wild things of the night. And neither of us knew fear. Fear is not the predator’s way. And that is what I am, a predator. I knew it then, for the first time. I watched the wolf until he turned and prowled away. Then I crept back to my bed. But I was not the same child I had been. And I have never felt fear again.”
“That must be something,” Dieter said wistfully.
“It is a state of mind available to any of you. All that is necessary is to realize that fear and ecstasy are the same emotion, the same chemical broth. It is only our lying conscious mind that stigmatizes the one and celebrates the other. Fear is a ruse, like guilt or shame, a manufactured feeling. In its pure state, fear is exhilaration. One must make up one’s mind never to be tricked into regarding any emotion as negative. There are no negative states of mind, except those arbitrarily defined as such by social convention.”
“Defined—for what purpose?”
Edward asked.
“Control. What else? Fear keeps them in line—the little people, the burghers and hausfraus, the common ones. Fear and guilt, shame and pity are the levers of social control. I let no one pull my levers.”
“You should have said as much to that bitch,” Dieter muttered, “rather than feeding her some bullshit about art.”
“She would not have understood. And even if she had, I would not care for her to know me so well. One’s soul need not be bared before strangers.”
The word soul startled them, though he had intended it only figuratively.
“I didn’t know you were religious,” Dieter said with a grin.
“Now you have insulted me,” Faust replied with mock indignation. “God, you know, is the root of fear and guilt and shame. The root cause of all weakness and vice.”
“And this is why you don’t worship God?” Dieter asked.
“That—and pride.” He tasted his coffee, taking pleasure in its bitterness. “If there were a God, I would require him to worship me.”
“He really would,” Elise seconded.
“I would, indeed,” Faust agreed. “And why not? He may be the creator of the universe, but I am the destroyer of worlds.”
“That’s Shiva,” Edward said, pedantic as always.
“It is I. I ended Emily Wallace’s world, did I not?”
He received uncomfortable assents. Putting a name to his victim had abruptly made her too concrete, too real—not a symbol, but a person.
The human mind, Faust reflected, was a peculiar thing. It could countenance endless varieties of cruelty as long as they remained safely abstract. But show it cruelty in action, inflicted on flesh and blood, and—in some cases—the mind rebelled. The same person who calmly accepted a thousand earthquake fatalities in China would recoil at the sight of a kitten in pain. The dead Chinese were statistics. The kitten was real.
Within another hour the little group had run out of conversation. When Faust suggested it was time to part company, Edward and Dieter quickly assented. They left first, sticking Faust with the tab, as usual. Faust didn’t mind. He rather enjoyed paying for them. It cemented his position of superiority and underlined their utter dependence.
He and Elise left together. He escorted her to her cherry red Infiniti coupe, which he had paid for. As she took out her keys, she said, “He never showed up.”
“Your stalker? I noticed this, as well. Perhaps Miss Sinclair is correct in her cell phone hypothesis.”
“It’s a good thing, too. If he’d seen her with us ...”
“Then her cover would have been blown, and we would have to find a new security consultant. Which would be a pity, as Miss Sinclair seems so ideally suited to the task.”
“You really think she can find him?”
Like a child, she was perpetually in need of reassurance. “Of course she can,” Faust said, “and she will. She may have no grasp of metaphysical truths, but she is reputed to be eminently competent in her narrow field of expertise. In this, she is like most Americans—practical in small things, ignorant of what matters most. She will get the job done.”
“I hope so. But once she finds him—”
“She will deal with him.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I shall handle it. I shall arrange matters so your unwanted admirer never troubles you again.”
“She may not let you do what ... what needs to be done. She may, you know, get in the way.”
Faust smiled, assisting her into her car. “If it should come to that, my darling, I shall handle her, as well.”
5
Abby guided her Miata through the neighborhood of Los Feliz, around winding streets that climbed the foothills. Pricey part of town—not that any L.A. real estate was cheap these days. Her little Westwood condo, all one thousand square feet of it, punched a gaping hole in her checkbook every month.
At Faust’s address she paused, idling outside. His house was largely concealed behind high walls. Through the iron gate she had a glimpse of a sprawling stucco pile landscaped with palms and yuccas. Nice place—much too nice for the man who had tightened a leather noose around Emily Wallace’s neck. But then, nobody ever said life was fair.
The rented guest cottage was a few doors down and across the street, at the rear of a smaller but no less elegant estate. Abby saw the roofline of the cottage through a scrim of oleander. A black sport-utility vehicle was parked in a nearby carport. Her quarry’s transportation, probably. If so, he was home.
She could lure him out at any time, but she preferred to wait until after dark. As much as she hated to admit it, Faust might have had a point when he compared her to a jungle animal. Most of them hunted at night, amid the shadows.
Nighttime is my time, she thought, like the song says.
It was two thirty now. The sun wouldn’t set for another five hours. In the meantime, she needed to work off some of the nervous energy that always developed when she was on a case.
Not to put too fine a point on it, she needed to get laid. She wondered how Faust would work that detail into his jungle-predator metaphor.
* * *
Vic Wyatt lived in a one-bedroom Culver City apartment with thin walls and noisy neighbors. Abby knew he could have afforded better on a cop’s salary, especially after his promotion to lieutenant, but he was the kind of guy who barely noticed his surroundings. For him, the apartment was only a place to crash. His quality time was spent working on the rebuilt engine of his latest acquisition, a classic Mustang.
Well, most of his quality time, anyway. Abby liked to think that her visits would also rate inclusion in that category.
She ascended the stairwell—never ride the elevator when you can walk, that was her motto—and made her way down the corridor to his door. Two or three prolonged buzzes got his attention.
The door opened, and Wyatt was there, his sandy hair slightly tousled, the way it got when he’d been sleeping.
Abby grinned. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Just a nap.”
“It’s nearly three o’clock. Not feeling very industrious, are we?”
“One of the occupational hazards of working the night watch.”
“If you need your beauty rest, I can always come back later.”
“I’m wide-awake now.”
He ushered her in. She looked around, frowning. “You know, this place is starting to have kind of a funny smell.”
“Maybe I should get a maid.”
“You sure you don’t already have one?” She patted a heap of unsorted laundry on the sofa. “She might be under here somewhere.”
“I would’ve heard her screams for help. Something to drink?”
“No, thanks. I wet my whistle at a coffee bar earlier today.”
“I never thought of you as the Starbucks type.”
“This wasn’t Starbucks. Not a place where the elite go to meet and greet. More like a caffeinated watering hole for the young and the clueless.”
His arms encircled her waist, “Then what were you doing there?”
“Does that question imply that I’m not clueless, or not young? Wait, don’t answer that. I was meeting a client. A pretty unusual guy, actually.”
“You can tell me all about him—later.”
“Come to think of it, maybe you can tell me a little about him.”
His face changed almost imperceptibly. “Here we go,” he said in a quiet voice.
“What do you mean, ‘here we go’? Where are we going? Did I miss something?”
“No. I did.” His arms weren’t around her waist anymore. “I assumed you were here for some ... intimate companionship. When in fact you’re here to pick my brain.”
Abby made a face. “Don’t say ‘pick my brain’. It’s gross. Makes me think of a George Romero movie.”
“To pump me for information, then.”
“I am planning to pump you.” She teased him with a smile. “But not for informati
on.”
“Then why are we having this conversation?”
“We don’t have to be. We can proceed wordlessly to your boudoir.”
“I don’t have a boudoir.” He turned away. “And I think it’s funny how this question of yours just happened to come up as soon as you arrived.”
She took a moment to process this. “Are you saying I’m using you?”
“No way. That would be like saying the sky is blue or two plus two equals four.”
“Math has never been my strong point, but I’m pretty sure that two plus two does equal four. And when it’s not too smoggy out, the sky is blue. So you do think I’m using you?”
“Come on, Abby.” He sounded tired. “We both know how you operate.”
“I seem to be in need of a refresher course. Enlighten me.”
“You use me. You use everybody. It’s just how you are. Nothing gets between you and your objectives.”
“Nothing gets between me and my Calvins. As far as my objectives are concerned, I’m not so sure.”
“You live for what you do. And every person in your life serves a purpose in helping you do your job. That’s how you got to know me in the first place. You never would have talked to me if I hadn’t been in a position to assist you.”
“That’s how it started, I admit. But things have progressed considerably beyond that point, Vic. I mean, we’ve been together for ... what is it, nine years?” She was surprised to realize that it had been that long. She wasn’t the type who kept track of such things. But it was true. Wyatt had been thirty-one years old when they’d met. He was turning forty this year.
“Nine years we’ve known each other,” he said. “Eight years we’ve been more than just friends.”
“Okay, eight years. That has to count for something.”
“You’d think so.” He rested on the arm of the sofa, brushing laundry out of his way. “So what is it this time? How may I be of service?”
“Never mind. Forget it.”
“Go ahead and ask. I’m easy. But you already knew that.”
Final Sins Page 4