The Faces of God

by Mallock;

  The newspaper-seller and his wife stared at him, their eyes gleaming with curiosity, while he picked a copy of every newspaper, one by one.

  “I could do very nicely without it,” he said, forcing himself to smile at them.

  He got into his car and quickly skimmed the main articles. Not all the information was there; far from it. Various theories, conjectures, and rumors were mixed with miscellaneous odd bits of information. Everything and anything, as usual. The further a journalist was from his source, the more deformed the message got.

  Among the descriptions and hypotheses there was one concerning the serial killer’s mobile phone. As the journalist proudly explained:

  “The killer’s name comes from the fact that he puts makeup on all his victims so that they all look like the woman he loved and who left him. He is endlessly repeating the fantasy murder of the same person.”

  Not bad, thought Mallock. Wrong, but not bad. There was something to remember in that. The fact that the makeup did give all the victims, including the men and children, a certain resemblance. Mallock didn’t know the true reason for it yet, but it certainly wasn’t the one claimed by the journalist. If it were, the Makeup Artist would have chosen women that already looked much more similar to one another, and never men or children.

  As for the rest of the newspapers, two major facts stood out: a series of horrible murders had been committed, which meant an atypical serial killer; and the existence of a government plot to hide the truth from the French people. Depending on the paper, either the conspiracy was the star point, or the monster was. Or both. This kind of sensational double story was a real godsend for the press; they’d sell newspapers by the ton. If they could draw it out a little, it might last a month—more, with public sympathy. Heat up the presses; let hack journalists come crawling out of the woodwork. The gutter press still cherished fond memories of the case of little Gregory, the ultimate headline cash cow.

  From there it wasn’t much of a leap to wanting the murders to continue, to remain unsolved.

  Someone had definitely leaked this, but who? Mallock’s first impulse was to suspect that asshole Judge Humbert, whom Dublin had felt obligated to bring in on the case yesterday morning. Judges did love their publicity. He was definitely at the top of Amédée’s list—but he was wrong, and he wouldn’t realize it until much later.

  Mallock’s next mistake was failing to understand all the consequences these revelations would have on the rest of the investigation. He was certainly irritated at the time, but he was also relieved. It was bound to explode one of these days, so why not now? Considering the results they’d gotten up to this point, it seemed like the secrecy surrounding the case had really only benefited one person: the Makeup Artist. In revealing his existence, wasn’t it possible that a hellish cycle had been broken, even unintentionally?

  Mallock hoped, now that the deck had been shuffled, that he might get a better hand this time—and that the game would get a lot crappier for his adversary. In this, he underestimated the fury of the media. It wouldn’t be long at all before they turned on the police, and the establishment too. Mallock was an ideal target.

  They were already demanding explanations and apologies from the Secretary of the Interior. Some people were calling for his removal, or even the resignation of the whole government. Mallock was surprised to find himself smiling. Some­times he preferred fighting in broad daylight, with one winner and one loser. Here, the arena was obviously packed to the rafters. In front of the screaming populace, the gladiators could do nothing but give themselves over to merciless combat. Thumbs would be turned up and then down.

  The savage within Mallock was excited—but when he arrived at Île de la Cité, he knew he was in for a bad time. A mob of angry journalists had gathered around the station. He glanced over the crowd. He knew everyone, and they all knew him. After a second of hesitation, he decided to plow straight through them, head down.

  Galvanized by the appearance of the superintendent, the hive began buzzing, every wasp ready to sting, armed with questions. Shoving with his elbows and muttering inaudible responses, Amédée fought through the dense mass of journalists. It was a job in itself; dodging the rapacity of the press corps without giving the impression that he was trying to escape them. You had to give a nice little smile, throw out a “Hi, how are you” here and there, maybe a wink at . . . nothing. He even granted himself the luxury, once he was on the other side of the throng, of turning around and calling out: “I hope I’ve answered all your questions.”

  Then, the smile still on his lips, giving them the finger in his mind, he headed up to his office.

  15.

  Saturday, January 1st. Number 36

  At the Quai des Orfèvres everyone was on edge. They knew heads were going to roll, promotions would be sidelined, changes ordered. All of it completely random, depending on nothing except who was the most unlucky. There was only one order of the day: don’t be in the wrong place when the shit hits the fan. It was all a matter of guessing where lightning would strike, to avoid being the one trapped and frozen like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

  The atmosphere in the Fort, though, was completely different. Feeling protected by their temperamental boss, Bob, Ken, and Francis had their noses firmly to the grindstone. Amédée stopped to speak to each of them individually, checking, encouraging, and picking up copies. There wasn’t much in the way of results yet, but they’d only been on the case for three short days. The data entry was chugging along practically without them, and they were absorbed now in dissecting RG’s files.

  “Those guys worked their asses off,” Francis had declared, impressed.

  “Yep. They did a good job,” Bob had agreed.

  “It corroborates pretty much everything we’re doing,” concluded Ken.

  Without consulting each other, all three men had formed the same opinion. There wasn’t much more for Mallock to say.

  “Now that the embargo’s been lifted, we’ve got our backs to the wall,” he reminded them. “As far as the media’s concerned we’ve been on the case for four months. Nobody cares about distinguishing between a Grimaud and a Mallock, which isn’t really a big deal. What scares me a whole hell of a lot more is that the Makeup Artist is speeding up the rhythm of his—or their—murders. How can we work faster? Any ideas? I’m all ears.”

  “Jules and Julie will be back tomorrow morning. That alone will help a lot,” volunteered Ken.

  “Yes, I should have gotten them home more quickly. It’s my own fault. Now, what else? Here’s a question: how are you going to sum up this case to them on Monday?”

  “We’ve got sixteen murders, all sharing the fact that makeup is put on the victims, their blood is drained, and they’re tortured,” ventured Ken.

  “What else?”

  “All the victims are beautiful,” put in Francis. “It’s not that they look like each other, but all of them—men, women, and children—have very symmetrical faces.”

  “And? What does that mean?”

  “Well, he loves . . . beautiful people.”

  “Love is kind of a strange word to use when you see what he does to them.”

  “Uh . . . I meant that he’s drawn to them, maybe sexually.”

  Mallock couldn’t let it go. Francis’s lack of subtlety irritated him sometimes. Especially when he needed to feel like he had help in his corner. Like today.

  “Have you done any research on this facial symmetry? What are your conclusions? What are our leads?”

  “I . . . well, I don’t know . . . it’s just telling us the type of victim, isn’t it?”

  “Hard work is great, my lad, but you need to reflect, too. Where do we find this same symmetry in faces or monuments? We have to try to get inside the killer’s head.”

  “To find out what? I don’t get it.”

  Francis got stuck quickly when he was asked
to draw on his imagination or his education, two areas in which he was sorely lacking.

  “To find out, for example, that the Makeup Artist is maybe the son or grandson of an Egyptologist. Or someone who’s very interested in that period, at least.”

  Francis looked stupefied and isolated.

  “Let’s imagine that he grew up among reproductions of Egyptian statues,” persisted Mallock. “He might very well have been marked for life by that. Amazing studies have been done on this type of thing. The huge statues of Ramses at Luxor have perfectly symmetrical features, and it still seems impossible that they could create something like that with the tools of the time. But they did it, which is proof that this symmetry was of fundamental importance to them.”

  “But . . . ” Francis began.

  “And even then, you have to let your mind go further,” continued Mallock, now wound up like a clock. “You always have to push further. Crazy people like this killer don’t find their obsessions right at the edge of the forest. Even in the deepest part of their forest of madness they look for a cave or a well, searching deeper for tools to feed their psychoses. Go deeper, Francis. Go deeper, again and again and always. Don’t stay on the surface of things; you’ll never find anything out that way. Look—let’s stay on the archaeological theme for now. What does this symmetry tell us? What were the reasons that drove the ancient Egyptians to create such incredible works of art? It’s been argued that, for them, this famous symmetry was the ultimate sign of perfection, of the gods. Maybe our Makeup Artist is also looking for some kind of spiritual satisfaction, or absolution, or perfection. Which one? Why?”

  Amédée paused for a moment, as if to let his words sink in. Then he continued: “And if this is a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder focused on order and symmetry, but more . . . generally, let’s say, then imagine his room, his house, his behavior at work, or even the way he walks. Would people notice him in the street? What kind of job might he want to have? Think about French-style geometrical gardens. Is it possible that he might be an arboriculturalist at Versailles?”

  Francis was completely dumbfounded. He knew he really had only stayed at the edge of the forest.

  “But it might also be the complete opposite. After all, he’s slaughtered these women and children. So then, does he have a burning hatred for perfection, for the supreme organization that symmetry represents? Does it symbolize an anal-retentive mother? Or military school, maybe? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself.”

  Mallock could seem harsh. But if Francis wasn’t up to the task that had been assigned to him, then he—Amédée, his boss—was responsible for that, and equally guilty for his failure. Lives were at stake. You didn’t come to the Fort as an intern. Everyone on his team was there to contribute his or her own science and intelligence and effectiveness.

  “Anything else, boys?” he asked, turning to the others. “What is it that links all these crimes?”

  “There’s the substance used to immobilize the victims,” suggested Ken, less out of conviction than to distract Mallock and force him to relinquish his prey.

  “That might be a determining factor, yes. RG should be able to tell me more on the subject.” If we can find him, he added to himself.

  “There’s also the fact that his victims take the metro,” volunteered Bob, cautiously.

  “Mmm . . . that point is tricky. We live in Paris. Who doesn’t take the metro?”

  “You don’t, boss,” ventured Ken, a little smile quirking the corner of his mouth.

  Touché. Amédée never used public transportation. Though he’d never discussed it openly with his team, he suffered from claustrophobia and ochlophobia—the fears of enclosed spaces and crowds—as well as psychopathophobia, the fear of going crazy, which was understandable if you knew what had happened to his parents.

  “Good point, Ken. A direct hit,” Amédée smiled. “Now, what else have we got?”

  The team continued to give their superintendent the early results of their work, and Mallock began, slowly but surely, to panic. They were going in circles. The same questions kept coming back; the same vague theories; the same dead-end trails, the same unimportant statistics. Amédée pulled himself together roughly and took the floor again:

  “I have something else important to tell you. I went back to Saint-Mandé and found a new step in his MO. In a nutshell, he moves the bodies twice. There’s the starting location of the murder, where he drains the blood, and then there’s the end location, where he stages the final scene. But there’s a middle location between the two.”

  Three locations for one killing. That had to be a first in the long history of criminology.

  “We need to add another crucial question to our list; I’ve been asking myself over and over and I haven’t been able to come up with a satisfactory answer. What does he do with all the blood? He drains it so he won’t leave traces, and so he can cut up his victims in peace, right? Does he get rid of it afterward? Does he bathe in it? Anything is possible.”

  Then he added an even more disturbing possibility. “Does he drink it? Does he use it for . . . let’s say . . . culinary purposes?”

  Francis had a grotesque vision of a kitchen, and blood-and-apple sausages. He fought back the impulse to gag.

  “Getting back to our middle location,” continued Mallock. “I discovered some very strange marks there, like nail holes, and also some curved scratches.”

  “Little holes?” mused Ken. “Maybe they’re stiletto heel prints. We might have a female Makeup Artist after all.”

  “No, they’re more pointed than that. Anyway, I took samples. As soon as I know more, I’ll . . . oh! One last thing. I noticed that an object was missing from the Modiano home: an antique Russian icon, extremely valuable. Our killer might also be a thief; they’re certainly not mutually exclusive.”

  Even as he gave them the information, Amédée realized that there might be something else there, something even more important that he hadn’t thought of at first. He didn’t actually believe that the Makeup Artist had suddenly become greedy. Yes, he had stolen jewelry before, but he’d returned it all when he decorated the wealthy woman for her descent from the cross. This time, it was the very nature of the stolen object that had attracted him. A Russian icon; a Christ on the cross. Why? For what use? What pleasure? What if this theft was a key to figuring out the Makeup Artist’s obsessions?

  “Bob, have the photo of that icon shown around the usual circuit—antique dealers, auction houses, customs, et cetera. I’ll leave you all to it.”

  He looked around at them all one more time, almost imploringly. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yeah—about the torture,” said Ken, a bit uncertainly. “I don’t think we’ve looked deeply enough into it. I mean, it’s horrible. Since it shook us all up so much, I think that—unconsciously—we kind of rushed over it, but we have to ask ourselves what it corresponds to. Aside from the sadism, it shows a hell of an imagination. So where do these fantasies come from? It suggests a certain level of education or culture, and maybe more beyond that. Something social, cultural, professional . . . it’s a whole side of the murders that we need to decipher. And as of right now, we haven’t gotten anywhere with that. Were you planning to give it to Jules or Julie?”

  “No; don’t worry, I’m on it. I’m sorry—I assigned myself the task without thinking of talking to you about it. You’re entitled to a complete rundown once I’ve come to any cohesive conclusions—which I haven’t yet. But you’re right; it’s very promising. Just a couple more things. I’ve looked at an expert’s report that was requested by RG for cases ten and eleven, the ‘descent from the cross.’ It’s pretty telling, and it goes along with your line of thinking. In substance, the psychologist discusses the concept of ‘theological conflict’ and ‘retribution.’ To make a long story short, it’s a case of inflicting pain on one person to o
btain forgiveness from others. It’s also been discovered that our hobo Christ was in fact the assistant manager of a bank, and the upper-class Virgin Mary draped in jewelry was actually homeless. This is the only staged scene that has a . . . social theme, let’s say, so I don’t think it’s useful to apply that qualification to the rest of them. But I do think we should add the adjectives ‘theological’ and ‘retributive’ to our portrait of the murders, which gives us . . . ”

  “Sixteen murders with the common characteristics of makeup on the victims, their blood being drained, three separate sacrifice locations, the use of a chemical submission cocktail, and the use of theological-type torture in an intermediate place where there are strange traces of pointy holes,” summarized Ken.

  Mallock merely said: “Keep going in that direction. I’m going home. I’m planning to do some work from my end on Sunday.”

  From my end was Mallock’s favorite way of euphemistically describing the famous waking dreams, or heightened-perception sessions, in which he engaged, escaping reality in order to plunge deeply into his own intuition—not without the occasional help of substances prohibited by both morality and the law.

  16.

  Sunday, January 2nd

  For Amédée, who had been practicing his strange brand of magic forever, it was vital to occupy all dimensions—the rational one, the cerebral one, and the one in which occult forces were present, the great instinctual id. The Makeup Artist was present somewhere in that vast domain of madness that all people share, and that was inside Mallock too. He came and went anonymously inside the superintendent’s big head like a tourist in a cave, leaving a bad smell and traces of his fingerprints.

  Sometimes he screamed insane things to test the echo inside the policeman’s skull—and to show that he didn’t give a shit, like a scumbag yelling in a church.

  Mallock hadn’t had the strength to summon him immediately when he got home from the Fort. Too tired, too tense. It wouldn’t have worked. He needed to let go and rest for a while. Soon enough the image of the killer and his evolution would appear more clearly. The sequences, as geographical and chronological as they were ritual, would become more logical, almost fluid.