by Robert Ryan
“Did they?”
Zeke’s exhale came out as a fleeting cloud of smoke in the cold air. He gestured toward it as it dissipated.
“No. It was a lot of hot air, like that breath. Endless circular reasoning, debating each other’s premises, incessant back and forth about the types of human behavior, speculation, theories, belief systems—but never answers to the ultimate questions. Why are we here, and why is there evil?”
“No disrespect to the great thinkers, but I think I’ve gotten a lot closer to evil than they did. I spend a lot of my time interviewing death row inmates. Murderers convicted of the most heinous crimes. I’ve come to understand them all too well.”
“Fine, but then what? That’s what I’ve never understood. We study these pieces of human garbage and find out their parents were abusive alcoholics, on drugs, put cigarette butts out on their foreheads, or that girls didn’t like them. So what? We’ve learned enough to know why they do what they do. But knowing why doesn’t stop them. And it doesn’t bring back the dead.”
“Nothing brings back the dead, Zeke. Nobody knows that better than me.”
“So why, then? Who cares why this murderous piece of crap did what he did? All the studies in the world didn’t fix him—or stop any of the other sick bastards who start gunning people down.” He knew the last comment included Price but didn’t care.
“Believe it or not,” Price said, “it can be of some use. It can’t undo the past, but it can help the future. Profilers use this information to understand patterns of behavior that help them track down serial killers. It does save lives.”
“I know three lives it didn’t save. Nine if you count that family in Nam. Twenty-two if you count the other people this idiot killed in the restaurant.”
“I can’t argue that point with you.”
“Don’t.” To hear Price tell it, he’d been living his life to make up for that night. “So. You, of all people, are going to be interviewing the man who killed my family. God is an interesting fellow.”
“So is Satan. I’ve made quite a study of him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve interviewed dozens of killers, Zeke. The worst of the worst. Invoking Satan as the trigger man is almost routine. You can’t keep hearing that without looking into Satanism, what we know of the Devil, and so forth. After a while it’s hard to discount it all as just ‘voices.’ Sometimes, their stories are hard to dismiss.”
“Are you saying that in some cases it was the Devil who made them do it?”
“I can’t say that with certainty. I have no concrete proof. It’s not really provable. You can’t exactly videotape the Prince of Darkness, goading them on. I can tell you that, with the worst of these killers, when I looked into their eyes, I knew I was looking into the very soul of evil.”
It struck Zeke that the dig he was considering would be the ultimate investigation into Price’s field of expertise. He debated asking his opinion on whether such a dig had merit. Maybe—although he doubted it—further conversation could help close the gaping hole Price had machine-gunned into his life.
Not now. It was cold and he’d had enough. Maybe later. “How long are you going to be in town?”
“However long it takes. Probably a week, at least.”
“Have you got a card in case I need to get in touch? Needless to say, I’ll be extremely interested in knowing how your interrogation turns out.”
Price took off his gloves and reached into a pocket of his overcoat. He opened a small black metal case with his monogram trimmed in gold and pulled out a card. Zeke took it and nodded at the case. “Fancy. Looks like you’re living large.”
“The job pays well.” He poked his heart. “But not here.”
“Good luck with that.” Zeke stood and shoved the card into his wallet. “You married?”
“No. You?”
“No. I couldn’t love anyone until I stopped hating myself.”
Price nodded. “I know the feeling.” He stood and faced Zeke. “And have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Stopped hating yourself.”
“Almost. What about you?”
“I’ve got a ways to go.”
The snow was turning into fat flakes that were covering the ground. Price slipped his gloves back on and looked Zeke in the eye.
“Feel free to call me any time, but as far as this case goes, don’t worry. I have your number and I’ll be keeping you posted every step of the way. Technically, what I find out would be confidential, but the heck with that noise. This is between you and me, and letting you know what this guy has to say is the absolute least I can do.”
Zeke merely stared at him.
“Listen, Zeke. I know you hate me. I don’t blame you. But I didn’t ask for this assignment.”
“You could have turned it down.”
“Yes, I guess I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Not that it matters, but the guy asked for me specifically.”
“He knows you?”
“Of me, I guess. Anybody can go on the Internet these days and find an ‘expert’ on anything. At first I was going to turn it down, but then…I don’t know, I thought it might help in some small way, to—”
“Be forgiven?”
“I know I can never be forgiven.”
“You got that right. Listen, Price, let’s just take this one step at a time. Do your job, that’s fine. But don’t try to sell it as having some higher meaning, some noble purpose. It doesn’t. It does not. It’s like this:
“He’s a vile piece of scum who murdered my parents, my sister and almost the woman I love. I don’t know about Satan and Hell, but if there is a Hell, I hope the slimy motherfucker burns in the nethermost region until the universe collapses back into a single particle. And even then I hope the particle that’s left burns his ass for all eternity. Which is exactly how I felt about you up until about fifteen minutes ago.”
“So how do you feel now?”
“Don’t know. Have to wait and see.”
“Fair enough.”
Zeke picked up the coffee Price had given him and walked away. At the nearest trash can he poured the coffee onto the ground and tossed the Styrofoam cup. He paused a moment to savor the quiet at the edge of the memorial grounds before heading back out into the harsh and jangling world.
Price had gone over to the Wall and appeared to be scanning the names, perhaps wondering if any were the men they’d been tasked with saving. His dark clothing blended in with the black monolith, until his face seemed to hover in midair. The image took on the air of a lost soul, searching for redemption in an unfeeling void. Zeke wondered if anyone could ever find redemption after having done something so appalling.
Snow was falling heavily now. Waiting at a red light, Zeke watched the traffic slow to a bumper-to-bumper crawl and was glad he’d decided to take the subway instead of driving. A few minutes later the elevator for the Smithsonian Metro stop pulled him into its climate-controlled womb, but the chilling image lingered of Price trying to commune with the dead through letters chiseled in a granite wall.
CHAPTER 19
Seated behind thick bullet-proof glass, the duty officer for the D. C. Jail checked the man’s identification against his approved list of visitors. He confirmed that this was the expert who had been called in to examine “Anton,” and pushed a button. The heavy double doors opened with a loud click.
Michael Price went in and walked through a metal detector. A guard awaited on the other side to escort him the rest of the way.
Price walked in silence beside the guard, a large black man with a stern prison face. His name tag said Harkins. Several corridors, electric gates, and an elevator ride later, they came to a final hallway. At the end of it a guard with a rifle stood outside Anton’s cell.
Harkins walked Price to the cell door and spoke to someone through a shoulder microphone. The door slid open and Price walked in. The loud clang of the doo
r closing behind him sounded like the death of hope.
The man who called himself Anton sat in the middle of the single bunk. There was nothing else in the cell except a toilet and sink. A folding chair had been set up to face the prisoner. Price sat on the chair and stared at the mass murderer, who stared back defiantly. Deep lines etched the man’s face, but as Price continued to peer into it, he was struck by how the face would have looked when young. His heart began to pound in his ears.
He knew this man.
So that’s why he requested me.
For a very long moment they stared at one another in the small cell. The guard with the rifle stood watching their every move.
Beside Anton on the bunk was a copy of The Satanic Bible. It looked well-worn, like the man himself. Life had obviously taken a heavy toll, and he had aged badly, but Price had recognized him easily. There was no doubt. It would taint the investigation if their prior relationship became known, so Price decided not to mention it unless it became clear that the prisoner had recognized him.
He pulled out a microcassette recorder. “Do you mind?”
Anton smirked at it. “Your gizmo will give you no answers, but feel free.”
Price clicked it on and sat it on the bunk beside the prisoner. “All right, Anton. Before we get started, how are you? Do you need anything?”
Since his arrest the killer had called himself by only that one name. Price had known its significance instantly. It was a tribute to Anton LaVey, the founder of modern Satanism, author of The Satanic Bible that lay close at hand like a long-treasured talisman. No one knew the prisoner’s real name yet—except, now, Price.
“You know how I am.”
“Well. I can see from that book, and the things you’ve said since you were taken into custody, that you must have a great love of Satan. Why don’t we go back some? Maybe you can tell me when you first turned to him as your savior.”
“My god.”
“God, then.”
“You know.” The killer’s voice had the lifeless tone of someone whose humanity had dried up long ago.
“No, I don’t.” Price showed no reaction, but inwardly the leering insinuations were making him very uneasy. The feeling was growing that the killer had recognized him and was merely toying with him. He pressed on. “Tell me about it.”
“I tried to be a good little Catholic, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I think it started when I was a kid and heard ‘Sympathy For The Devil.’ What a cool idea! We both thought it was. But you didn’t get into it like I did. That was the beginning of the end for us.”
He knows who I am. He’s known the whole time.
Anton’s eyes looked wild. Feral. “All that time I was locked away in the Hanoi Hilton, I prayed for salvation but your God did nothing. You did nothing. Everyone had abandoned me. So I turned to the other god for help. Finally he helped me escape.” The malignant eyes bore into Price. “With one condition.”
Price held his gaze while hoping his face didn’t betray how badly shaken he was. The killer’s slash of a mouth tilted into a smirk.
“Since that day I do what Satan commands. I am his instrument. A tool. He sent me to that restaurant. He’s had his eye on this Ezekiel since childhood, knowing he could become a nuisance. He believed that by killing his family, Ezekiel’s soul would also die. But he seems stronger than we anticipated. That’s where you come in.”
Price tried to ignore the last remark and maintain his neutrality. “You didn’t just kill his family. You killed sixteen people.”
“The rest were just for fun.”
Price clenched his teeth. Anton gauged his reaction before going on.
“The thought doesn’t seem to bother you. Good. Maybe we can count on you.”
Inside Price was squirming. He needed to change the subject. “Why would Satan want Zeke Sloan dead?”
“Because he has something that could be…bothersome.”
What the hell did that mean? Suddenly Price wanted to be gone. He was sick of it all. He should have recused himself the instant he recognized the killer. To be sitting here questioning someone he not only knew, but had been very close to, for doing the same thing to Zeke’s family that he himself had done to another family… And Anton’s “that’s where you come in” comment made it sound like he was being used as part of some bizarre plan.
A heave of nausea rose in his stomach, as if from a whiff of sewage. While he waited for the feeling to pass, he knew he had to see this through. In some twisted way this might be his last chance to help Zeke, to make up for that night in the jungle.
Normally the procedure was to remain neutral, let the subject talk without passing judgment or influencing him in one direction or another. But Anton knew him and was playing games. He couldn’t just feign ignorance and allow himself to be manipulated. He leaned forward, challenging. “What do you mean? What does this man have that could possibly bother Satan?”
“Two ancient scrolls.”
“What?”
“They could lead the misguided fool to my lord.”
Price leaned back and tried not to smile. “You’re telling me that the Prince of Darkness is afraid of Zeke Sloan?”
“Not afraid. This Ezekiel and the attention he might bring would merely be an unwelcome distraction. My lord does not want to be distracted right now. A pivotal moment is coming. This Mayan prediction is not like the others. Instead of the usual doom and gloom, a positive feeling is spreading. People are seeing it as a chance for the human race to turn itself around. If my lord is not allowed to continue his work, there could be a massive outbreak of hope. He can’t have that. With help from millions like me, the world must continue on its path of despair until his victory is complete. God’s race of loathsome creatures will be destroyed, and the proper order will be restored.” He made an upside down sign of the cross. “His kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it was in heaven.”
An unwholesome, self-satisfied cackle grated through the killer’s lips.
“Bullshit, Anton. Your story doesn’t wash. If Satan wanted this guy dead, why not just kill him outright? Even if Sloan somehow found him, how big of a ‘distraction’ could he be? Any human would be like a mosquito to Satan.”
The killer remained irritatingly calm. “Your God works in mysterious ways. So does mine. Killing the body is not enough. Killing all one’s loved ones kills the souls of those remaining. Much more destructive, much more painful.” He made a dismissive wave. “Besides, he doesn’t like to kill one when he can kill many. Every murder is my lord spitting in God’s eye.”
“A clever argument, but more bullshit. If Satan wanted Zeke dead, it would make much more sense just to kill him. Dead is dead. Distraction eliminated.”
“You don’t get it. The war between God and Lucifer is much bigger than that. There must be total annihilation of the belief that Man is good, or that good can somehow triumph. Maximum pain must be inflicted at every opportunity, until the omnipotence of evil is so undeniable that even the staunchest believers in God and all that Messiah nonsense give up. This war is not over one man, my friend. It is for the souls of the entire human race.”
The bunk creaked as the killer leaned closer. The demented gleam in his eyes, the malignance in his voice, clearly came from something no longer completely human.
“In the darkness he gives me power. If I can concentrate hard enough, open myself to him completely, my spirit can leave this mortal shell to do his bidding.”
“Telepathy.”
“Oh no. Much more than that. My—his—spirit can move through things, infiltrate dreams, usurp the airwaves. Even from here, I have been psychically stalking Mr. Sloan.” The killer’s voice sliced even deeper into Price. “It was I who whispered to you that night in the jungle.”
What? Price felt his control wavering. This man’s last spark of humanity was flickering out before his eyes. Was it the killer still talking, or had Satan completely taken over? Which one had spoken to him that night
?
Anton went on before he could ask. “Ezekiel Sloan cannot be allowed to succeed on the quest he is about to undertake. I have tried to scare him off with apparitions and dreams, but I no longer have the strength.”
The killer glanced at the guard, then leaned closer and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper: “Only you can finish what I have started.” His trembling hand brandished the battered copy of The Satanic Bible. “You will need this.”
Michael Price tried to pull away from the demonic force emanating from a man who’d slaughtered sixteen people in the name of Satan. He looked into eyes he’d last seen forty years ago, when they’d stared at him with a searing look of hurt and betrayal. Something else was in those eyes now. Something black and evil.
A blinding flash of guilt at the part he’d played in destroying this man’s soul catapulted Price up from his seat. His only thought was to get away from the closest friend he’d ever had, his childhood soulmate who’d been born on the same day, almost unrecognizable now as Randy Stokes.
CHAPTER 20
Michael Price sat on the same stone bench he and Zeke had sat on yesterday, staring at the Wall and trying to decide what to do. Enveloped in a shroud of bleak wintry darkness, it struck him that the unseasonably cold autumn weather was perfect for what felt like winter in his soul.
In the distance he heard the muffled sound of evening rush hour, people fighting their way home. He envied them.
He’d come into this situation with the best intentions. A bitter smile came to his lips at the irony. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Everything had changed since he’d sat here yesterday. He shook his head in disbelief that things could have gone so wrong. It was bad enough that the murderer was Randy Stokes. But after the phone call he’d gotten a few hours ago, the situation was rapidly deteriorating from a snafu—Situation Normal, All Fucked Up—to fubar: Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.
The warden of the prison had called to tell him “Anton” had just died.
Price’s investigation was over. All he had was that one interview. In a daze after the phone call, he’d walked from his hotel to here, trying to sort out his thoughts.