“It’s going to take *much* longer than nine days, isn’t it?”
“Considerably more,” I replied.
“Can we start school, then?”
“School?”
“*Home* school. Remember? I told you my friend—”
“—Jeanne Ellen.”
“Yes! You *do* remember. You were just teasing.”
“I would not. . . ah, well, perhaps.”
“So? Can we start?”
“There is no school on weekends,” I informed her.
“But you *study* on weekends, don’t you? Didn’t you do that? When you were in school?”
“I was. . .” I stopped, wondering why the next words simply would not come. Momentarily puzzled, I quickly changed the subject: “That was a long time ago,” I said. “What’s important is the way people do things today.”
“Well, I want to study. I always study. Not just my homework either. All right?”
“Very well. Do you want to get your schoolbooks?”
“Okay!” She almost flew across the basement in her eagerness, and proudly presented me with a stack of well-worn texts. I took them from her and began to leaf through them in the hopes of recognizing an appropriate starting point. It was impossible to ignore the fact that virtually every page was covered with Zoë’s drawings. Although she had been careful not to obscure the actual words, the margins were completely decorated, and even the white space between paragraphs was not spared. Her mathematics book was creative to the point of genius—the child had connected various equations with drawings that seemed, in some symbolic way, to link the numbers with the art. The depth was breathtaking.
“Are you okay?” I felt the child’s small hand tugging at my sleeve.
“Of course, child,” I replied. “I was merely absorbed in the book, looking for—”
“But you were doing it for an *hour*!” she said, her voice not so much complaining as. . . nervous? Frightened? I could not determine.
“Ah, well, that is likely to occur when a person gazes at works of art. One becomes lost in the work.”
“You were looking at my drawings?”
“Yes, I was. They are quite. . . remarkable. But aren’t your teachers. . . annoyed at your defacement of the books?”
“They used to be. But now they know I won’t turn them in at the end of the year. My father has to buy them. From the school, I mean. So they don’t get mad anymore.”
“Are you bored, Zoë?”
“No! I’m having a good time. Really.”
“I didn’t mean here, child. I meant in school. Do you draw during class because the material is so boring?”
“I don’t know. I always do it, I guess.”
“And then you learn the material at home? By yourself?”
“I. . . guess. I always do my homework, so nobody ever gets mad.”
“But what about your grades? Your. . . report card, I suppose it would be called.”
“I always get all A’s,” she said, without the expected vein of pride in her voice, just stating a fact.
“Is that right? Your parents must be very pleased with your performance.”
“My. . .” The child looked stricken, unable to complete her thought. She stood frozen, an unconnected look on her face. It was. . . familiar, in a way I myself could not articulate.
“Your grades, Zoë,” I said gently. “Weren’t they pleased with your grades?”
She did not respond. I had observed both catatonia and elective mutism in captured children previously, but this was neither of those states. Acting on some perhaps primal instinct, I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her over to the couch. She responded only by curling up in a tight fetal ball.
It was almost forty-five minutes before she stirred. If she was surprised at finding herself under the blanket, she gave no sign. “Are we going to study?” she asked.
“It seems you have already mastered the material in your own books,” I told her. “Perhaps you would be interested in learning something about computers. . .?”
“Sure!” she said enthusiastically, throwing off the covers and coming over to where I was working on the portable machine.
Two hours later, she was sufficiently familiar with the basics of programming to create a small module of her own. Once she did that successfully, I opened a modified version of a drawing program and showed her how she could use the electronic stylus to create freehand drawings on the screen.
She was still working on acquiring the feel of the stylus when I told her it was time for supper.
Oh, I knew him then. But I couldn’t figure out if he was testing me or telling me. I called for Xyla, playing out the lie that she couldn’t retrieve what had just disappeared from the screen.
“Want me to—?”
“Just a minute,” I told her. “There’ll be one of his questions next. Let me ask you something, what does this stuff mean?” I pulled a pad of paper off the desk and wrote down the symbols he’d been using.
“Oh,” she said smiling. “The ** marks around a word is the same thing as italics. Most computer programs won’t let you underline unless you’re connecting with someone using the same ISP. Some people use ###### for chapter breaks, like if they’re sending you something in segments. And the >> and <<, those are quote marks, but you only use them when you’re quoting something that’s already on the screen from another person, see? I don’t know why he uses them the way he does. You understand?”
“I. . . guess.”
“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” she promised brightly. “I wonder when he’s going to—”
His message interrupted her.
>>You ever conduit?<<
I was with him by then. I couldn’t see why, but I could see where.
yes
It was supposed to be a job. A job of lies. All liars. Every one of them. And I fit right in. I work for money, but I live for revenge. If I’d had a target, if I’d known who took Crystal Beth, I never would have gotten into this whole thing.
First I thought, this killer, maybe he had a list somehow. You want a list of all the neo-Nazis, you ask ZOG. But if you want a list of all the fag-bashers, who is there to ask? Maybe this guy? And, sure, I’d get him out of here in exchange for that list—Crystal Beth’s killers would have to be on it somewhere.
But once we connected, I could see it. He had no list, this Homo Erectus maniac. He had a fetish. Like any serial killer. That’s why they’re so hard to catch. Random hitters, triggered by something too common to protect—blondes, hookers, gay hitchhikers, red shoes, priests—symbols, not individuals.
Whatever he was, he’d started out snatching kids. Hard to tell if killing the kids was anything other than what he said it was—that he was an artist, and killing the kids was no more than keeping his paintbrushes clean. But all the record searches came up empty.
Was he some kind of insane fiction-writer, playing out his fantasy to thousands of people at once, me thinking I was the only one? Or just too much of a narcissist to keep his light under a bushel?
Why Wesley?
If I could get that, I could get him.
But it was hard to care, and I couldn’t figure out why I did. Whoever put Crystal Beth in the ground, that’s where they were too, thanks to the hit man—if what Strega said was true.
And I believed it was. Strega did things no man could understand, but she wouldn’t lie.
Responsibility isn’t a legal thing. If the hit man, the one Gutterball thought was Wesley, if he did the other two from the drive-by car when they got to the garage, then the only one in the crowd he took out himself was the guy on the spot, Corky. Crystal Beth, she was an accident. One of those “casualties of war.” Casual. No malice. Just. . . in the way. And the guys who had laid down the cover fire that claimed her were already taken care of.
The drive-by, that’s what had triggered this maniac. At least, that’s what I thought at first. But he didn’t come across as gay in his transmissions. He di
dn’t come across as sexual at all.
Like Nadine. . . With all her flash and fire, she didn’t have any hormones I could smell. Said she was gay, and maybe she was. And making people do what you want, that’s sexual, in its own way. But she had a piece missing. Like there was no “Nadine” at all, just some collection of parts.
No point me looking anymore. I had to wait for the end of his story. And the punch line.
“You kind of done admiring this guy, huh?” I asked Xyla, probing gently.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you used to talk about what a cyber-genius he is, all like that. Last few times, you haven’t said a word.”
“He hasn’t shown me anything new,” she replied, a little too glibly, her face slightly flushed.
I wondered what Trixie and Rusty and the rest of her crew thought. Because I was sure that whatever Xyla knew, they did too. I gave her the nod, and she opened his latest:
It is very important to me that my captives do not suffer. Infliction of pain would be an affront to my art. Physical pain, that is. I am not without comprehension that my art causes emotional pain, but I am deeply concerned that its practice never replicate sadism—a repulsive “disorder” which, upon observation, I refuse to characterize as such. That is, I consider sadism, especially sexual sadism, to be a conscious decision on the part of its wielder. Clearly, there is a market for such hideousness—witness the enormous pornography industry which has attempted to fill the vacuum created by demand. And my personal investigations have proven that the market is by no means limited to *staged* depictions of the most graphic, even terminal, torture. Even assuming, as I do, that many if not most of the proffers are from government agents—parenthetically, I do not consider such activity to be “entrapment,” as the essence of same is to induce conduct to which the “victim” is not otherwise disposed—there exists a significant demand for such product. A mental disorder, then? I think not. I suspect, if one were to seek venture capital for a magazine catering to schizophrenics, one would find the prospects bleak indeed.
Ah, so many “masters” out there, convinced of their superiority, never realizing that their obsession makes them as susceptible to manipulation as the “slaves” they “collar.” But such games are, in fact, just that. Games. To be played as children play: Immaturely, focusing on immediate, tactile gratification.
But when the jolt fades, when they require reality, when their sadism can only be satisfied not with the *appearance* of unwillingness but its actuality, then pain becomes the goal. Such humans are beneath contempt. They fancy themselves “superior,” but they are pitifully dependent creatures, fools who believe they *are* the power, but who come alive only when the power is supplied by others—proving them to be as self-determining as an electrical appliance.
I know power. I was born to it, I believe. And I use it to create. My art.
The next days passed without incident. Indeed, my recollection of them is. . . flawed, perhaps. I do recall promising the child some additional art supplies. Or was it condiments? I realized that to ask her again would be to damage the fragile connection between us, so I merely resolved to obtain a sufficient quantity of anything she might potentially have requested when I left the hideout.
Friday’s telephone message to the target was simplicity itself:
If the proof you requested is sufficiently satisfactory to you and you wish to proceed with negotiations, please so indicate by replacing *red* as previously instructed with *yellow*. It is not, repeat *not* necessary that the material be similar, only the location.
That evening, Zoë became agitated, claiming that I had not been listening to her. No explanation would satisfy the child. In truth, I was at a loss for such explanation myself, vainly attempting to fill in the apparent gaps in our conversation in confabulatory fashion. I remembered a phrase from one of the TV shows Zoë and I had watched together, some trendy serial about “relationships” she said she had not been allowed to watch at home but had heard about from her friends at school. I told her, “My mind must have been somewhere else.”
The child came over to the chair where I had been slumped—itself somewhat remarkable, as I pride myself on my correct posture—and said, “I know.” Then she shyly kissed my cheek. It may surprise you to learn that this was not such an unusual event during the term of my career. Children, once their survival instincts have been activated, often attempt to curry favor with captors. However, there was none of that quality about this child’s conduct. While puzzling, it posed no danger to the operation, so I resolved to consider it post-completion, a time always more conducive to contemplation.
Saturday morning brought with it the next phase. Again, assumption-upon-assumption: (1) the target had, in fact, placed the red material on the flagpole; (2) the target had, in fact, received the video of the child; (3) the target had, in fact, decided to open negotiations and had so signified by replacing the requisite marker as directed.
The latter assumption is not, as the amateur might assume, auto-warranted. On several occasions, I have encountered parents who simply refused to negotiate—whether in blind obedience to police instructions or because the child’s return was not desired, I have no way of ascertaining to any degree of scientific certainty. While it would be possible to theorize that some negotiation offers would be rejected on the ground that the child him/herself was a participant rather than a victim—a not-uncommon occurrence among teenagers of the ultra-wealthy class—I avoid this by capturing only children too immature to concoct such a scheme. And, on one occasion, my research failed. It was impossible to convince the child’s father—a notorious drug-lord of foreign ethnicity—that I was not the representative of a rival gang but an independent entrepreneur. As a result, no money changed hands. I consider such an attempt imperfect, but a learning experience. Nevertheless, I had assumed no risk of discovery, as the target insisted on his view of reality, attacking the rival gang with great ferocity. While Zoë’s father was himself a member of organized crime—indeed, if my information was accurate, the head of a continuing criminal enterprise—I was unconcerned about him misperceiving the facts. Kidnapping children of enemy gang leaders seems a cultural phenomenon—common among some groups, unheard of in others. As always with such groups, morality is not an issue (despite the wishful thinking of some screenwriters). Only tactics are of importance. There is a Darwinistic quality to establishment and maintenance of ongoing criminal-group activity, and media exposure is, eventually, antithetical to survival. So those “sources” so highly prized by newspaper reporters are rarely in possession of *working* knowledge. That is, they may know names, dates, places, and events. But they do not understand the interstitial tissue which binds the enterprise. Thus, their information may destroy a gang, but cannot be used to replicate one.
I have developed a pre-recorded menu which allows me to “converse” with targets without actually speaking. The target is presented with a series of questions and directions. The response determines which menu item I then select. The R&D component was rather lengthy, but I now have the system perfected, reducing not only risk of identification but the length of all conversations.
Therefore, with both assumptions and equipment in place, I dialed the target’s home.
“Hello?” A man’s voice, crisp with tension, but without that crackling underpinning of anxiety characteristic of most in his position.
I tapped a button on my console and the pre-recorded voice said: “You have the proof. Do you now understand that we have your child? Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ *only*, please.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that your child is unharmed, and will remain unharmed if we conclude our business successfully?”
“Yes.”
“Are you prepared to pay for your child’s safe return?”
“Yes.”
“Have you notified the authorities?”
“No.”
“The price is seven hundred thousand dolla
rs, U.S. currency. Confirm you understand: Seven hundred thousand dollars.”
“I under—I mean. . . yes.”
“By what date will you be prepared to pay?”
“Uh. . . give me, three, four days, okay?”
“The date you have selected is suitable. Now listen carefully. Do you have a method of electronic banking?”
“Yes.”
(It was well he answered as he did, as I knew the truth.)
“Can you place the money in an account subject to your *immediate* transfer authorization?”
“Yes.”
“During what hours can such transfers be effectuated?”
“Uh, what. . . twenty-four hours. I mean, anytime at all.”
(So the target was experienced in such matters. My guess was that he probably utilized one of those easily penetrated Cayman Islands bank accounts.)
“Friday. Nine-fifty-seven a.m. Have you marked that time?”
“Yes.”
“*Prior* to that time, you will dial up the account in which the money is placed. At nine-fifty-seven precisely, I will call. You are to recite the account number I read to you then and *immediately* authorize the transfer. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“We will know within approximately thirty-five seconds if you have complied. If you have done so, the child will be released within the hour, and returned to you by close of business the same day. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
I terminated the conversation.
It was always hard to tell when his transmissions ended. Every single time, I scrolled down until I hit a blank wall. I did it that time too. When the screen started to change colors, I was ready. I thought about trying to answer him myself—I had been watching Xyla each time and I thought I could do it—but there wasn’t any point if she’d already seen his stuff. And I couldn’t shake the thought that she had. His next toll didn’t ask for a fact from the past. I had to look at it a couple of times to make sure what he was asking:
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