He lay there in the dark, in the secret room, and he let the waves of blissful grandeur wash over him. He could not imagine any other human being had ever felt more powerful, or more fulfilled.
He took out all three of his Angels and they sang to him all night, they sang in his dreams, and took him beyond any of the special places he had missed for so long, the places he had longed for for so very long.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans,
Well now Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.
Workin’ from one end to the other and all points in between…
The slow thrum of the bass and the smoky blues guitar.
Shrrick…shrrick…
The sharp sound keeping time with the throbbing Texas shuffle…
Dave and I are both sitting on the little mound of dirt in the small plateau overlooking Temescal Canyon Park.
Shrrick…shrrick…
Dave slides the blade of the knife against the small whetstone in his hand, in time with the music…
How can I hear the music up here, in the canyon? It is loud, thumping in my chest…
“So what do you think of Dave’s Hit List?,” Dave says.
“Wat list?” I ask, stupid with drink.
He gives his low, mirthless laugh.
“See, that’s another thing I like about you, Doc. You listen, you pay attention. But you don’t remember a goddamned thing.”
Shrrick…shrrick… I watch him sharpen the knife as I take another pull from the bottle of Jack.
“Those four pretty little pieces I told you about. Dave’s Greatest Hits.”
Shrrick…shrrick…
I don’t remember, but I listen.
“Three of those four pretty little pieces are already in pieces—and they aren’t very pretty pieces,” he says, and I can hear the smile without seeing it.
Shrrick…shrrick… He sharpens the ten-inch knife with a serrated top and black rubber handle.
I drink again—and suddenly flash on a memory of his pictures as he laid them on the table at McDougal’s…that’s where the music is from…the jukebox…?
And now somehow we are back in the booth at McDougal’s. He lays the pictures out and I hear him smile.
“It’s been fun telling you my stories, Doc. I’m gonna have to leave soon. What do you think? Good stuff, huh?”
“Yeah. Good stories,” I mumble around my glass, barely able to keep my head up or my eyes open.
“Yeah, good stories,” he looks down at the pictures. “Good times,” he takes the picture of Beverly Grace off the table.
“Three down, one to go,” he says.
Shrrick…shrrick…to the beat of the music.
* * *
You might not see him in person but he’ll see you just the same,
You might not see him in person but he’ll see you just the same.
You don’t have to worry ‘cause takin’ care of business is his name.
The dream about Dave goes away but the music continues. And the sound of the knife on the whetstone…shrrick…shrrick…in time with the slow Texas shuffle is still loud in my ears.
This is no dream, I realize as my head begins to throb and I smell the stale cigarette smoke and feel something cold and hard against my left wrist and I open my eyes and there he is.
Dave.
Standing over me, sharpening the knife casually, the long chain swaying from his hip.
“What’s up, Doc?” he says in his low, sonorous voice, the sound of a smile behind it.
Jesus God…what is happening…? I blink my eyes, trying to clear my head, and I feel something warm running down the back of my neck and realize I am sitting on the floor of my bedroom and I move to touch the back of my throbbing head but my left hand is handcuffed to a steel conduit behind me.
“I’m sorry I had to put you down there on the floor but it got a little more crowded in here than I planned on,” Dave says, moving aside so I can see, behind him in the dim light, Nicki and Laurie Vonn, tied to my kitchen chairs with nylon rope, back to back, each with a swatch of duct tape over their mouths. Nicki’s eyes flash wide with panic at me. The front of Laurie Vonn’s blouse is covered with blood from a cut at her throat, but she is alive. She looks at me with the mindless terror of a dying animal in her eyes.
Dave leans over and looks into my eyes and I smell his stale cigarette smoke and see myself reflected in his rectangular glasses, reversed, twice.
“Do you know that Paul never met Jesus?” he asks me.
I stare at him, still trying to gather my wits.
“Never met him. Paul spent half his life persecuting Christians, and the other half spreading the gospel to the world,” he says. “How does it feel?” he asks me.
“How does what feel?” I say.
“To see me again,” he says. “To meet the man you’ve immortalized.”
A hundred responses ping-pong around in my throbbing head, but none of them are right.
“Kind of overwhelming, isn’t it?” he says.
“Yes.”
He smiles at me. He looks—and sounds—different from my distorted memories. He is slight and pale, his hair thinner, and he speaks with quiet confidence and intelligence, rather than a trucker’s swaggering drawl, as I remember.
“I found my favorite song in your CD collection,” Dave says, tucking the whetstone into his jacket pocket. He waits for the end of the verse, then arches his back and throws his head back and bellows along with the song, suddenly transforming back into the redneck trucker I met in Pasadena so long ago.
“AHH TAKE ME WITH YOU, JESUS!”
He looks back down at me, grinning now, his eyes alight, and I see the full madness of the man—madness in full bloom before me. In an instant he had changed his voice, his expression, everything. I look up at him, astonished; afraid to move or respond.
“We have a lot of catching up to do, but first we have some business to take care of. You really made me proud. Or, I should say, I’m proud of you. The way you told my stories to the world. Very clever. You didn’t get every little detail right, but hey, you were completely fucked up at the time. I’m surprised you remembered as much as you did. Guess I made an impression on you, huh?”
I nod.
“I liked you for that, I really did,” Dave says to me. “You were happy just to listen to somebody else so you didn’t have to think about her, weren’t you?”
I nod, watching the knife in his hand. I feel around the back of my waistband but the Ruger is gone. Think...
“Did you believe me when I told you my stories and showed you my pictures?”
I shake my head. “No. I thought they were just…stories…”
“Really? Even with all those details….the way you described the pictures…everything you put in your books?”
I nod, feeling the cuff around my wrist. It’s just loose enough to move my wrist around and slide it down to the knuckle of my thumb. I look around me—a weapon…a tool…anything…
“What about the presents I left you, Jack?” he asks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
He looks at me with that penetrating look, and again I hold his gaze.
Then he straightens up and looks around the cabin. “You did pretty good for yourself, remembering my stories.”
“I didn’t think I was remembering. I thought I was making it all up.”
“Really?” He looks at me for a long time, standing stock still, his eyes invisible in the darkness behind his rectangular glasses. “You never lied to me before,” he says.
He waits, watching to see my reaction. I hold his gaze steadily.
“But now it’s all fucked up,” he says. “Now they’re saying YOU did those things, which cuts me out of the picture. And you DON’T CUT ME OUT OF THE PICTURE, JACK.”
“I know that now.” My eyes darting around the room. Think think think…
He reaches for a book that is on the top of my dresser. When he leans past Laurie she closes her eyes and makes a terrified noise. He turns the book over—the most recent paperback of Killer Unbound. He reads the promotional copy aloud from the back of the book.
“Coming soon—the exciting fourth book in the bestselling KILLER series—Killer Unmasked—in which author Jack Rhodes will reveal the true identity of Killer once and for all.” He looks at me. “Is that what you were planning to do? Tell the world who I am?”
“No, I thought I made you up…I didn’t think you were real.”
“You know I’m real now, don’t you?”
I nod, watching him tap the blade of the knife against his thigh. I can see my bookcase in the office, through the doorway and across the hall…The Dangerous Summer is still there…did they search and find the gun? How thoroughly did they search? I can see into the bathroom. The plumber’s tape is still intact around the drain trap under the sink…FBI didn’t take the traps apart yet…maybe they only had time to do a cursory search—
“I’m as real as rain, Jack. I EXIST. At the very least you’re guilty of plagiarism.”
He pulls a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket and flicks open the top on his Zippo.
“Do you mind if I smoke in here?”
I look at him. He’s serious, holding the lighter and waiting for my response.
The nicotine may calm him.
“No… Go ahead.”
He lights the Marlboro with his silver Zippo.
They didn’t search the drain traps…they didn’t pull the books off the shelves…they were in too much of a hurry, on their way to Michigan after the phone in the oranges…
He lights the cigarette and inhales, then exhales, talking around it.
“All the great men had their biographers. Presidents. Emperors. Old Jesus sure had his. But now everyone thinks YOU did those things you wrote. And that cuts me out. You didn’t DO those things, you were TOLD those things, and we need to set the record straight. That’s why I came here. We have some things to sort out, and quick, before any other cops or feds show up.”
I sit on the floor, watching him smoke, trying to think through the fear, to sort through the meaning of his words. I try to think of things to say, anything, and I think of a hostage negotiator for NYPD who once told me, “Best thing to do is keep your mouth shut. When in doubt, say nothing. Do nothing.”
The music fades out, leaving only the sound of the howling blizzard outside the bedroom window.
“They’re gonna write books about both of us now, Jack,” the smile back in his voice as he looks down at me.
There must be backup—someone to relieve Claire—how long before—?
“After you went to the cops in L.A. I kept on you. I knew once they dug up Temescal they’d be asking a lot of questions. I paid you a visit here when you got back. You had the book about Sharon Belton on your nightstand and I knew you’d be going to St. Stephen.”
He stands there with a strange smile, looking down at me over his cigarette, dangling from his lips, which are curled in a superior half-smile. Master to apprentice.
“I wasn’t sure if I should kill you or not in St. Stephen,” he says. “On the one hand, I didn’t know if you had told the police about me, so I figured I should. On the other hand, how could I kill my St. Paul? So I decided, since we were at Calvary Assembly of God, I’d put you in the grave and see if you rose like Jesus did at Calvary. And sure as hell, you did. You’re a bulldog, Jack. Once you get a bone between your teeth you don’t let go, do you?”
“No,” I say.
“Then when I saw you went fugitive I knew where you’d be headed,” he says, cocking his head back toward Laurie Vonn.
“You were right,” I say.
“Yes. Well, we can catch up later. Right now we’ve got work to do,” he takes one last drag off the cigarette, then grinds it out casually against Laurie Vonn’s neck. She screams in agony behind her taped mouth, and her red-rimmed eyes brim with fresh tears.
Dave turns and looks at her with mild interest. Then he looks at Nicki.
“This one here says she’s your lawyer. Is that true?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Are you fucking her, Jack?” he smiles at me.
Which is better, yes or no? Which will keep her alive?
“Come on, tell the truth,” Dave says to me.
“No,” I say.
“I wasn’t expecting her, but now that she’s here we have to take care of business and be on our way. The little headless horsewoman out front is bound to have somebody out here soon to check on her, so let’s get to it. I took a big risk leading you here and I don’t like to take risks, as you know. So we have to get to it. To the work.”
He grips the black rubber handle of the knife and walks over to Laurie Vonn and grabs the high back of the chair and Laurie screams behind her gag—
“Please—don’t—” I say.
“Oh, I’m not gonna kill her,” he says, then drags Laurie’s chair over beside me and tips the chair back so that Laurie’s head is right near my lap as she lies on her back.
Dave throws the knife at me suddenly. It sticks in the floorboards, an inch from my right foot.
“You are,” he says. “That’s why I left your right hand free. You’re right-handed,” he says, as if he had shown me a great courtesy.
“You do that one and the other one gets to live another day to sue somebody,” Dave says, and then he slides back into his trucker’s drawl. “If you’re not up to it then I do ‘em both, Doc.”
He looks at me, waiting.
Think, think, think…
“Do it and get it done and we’re outta here in that Sheriff’s four-wheeler outside,” he looks at his watch. “Pick up the knife, Doc.”
I look at the knife stuck in the floor by my leg. I can see Laurie Vonn’s terrified eyes beyond it, looking up at me, pleading.
Stall, talk, anything…
“How? How do you want me to—” I begin.
“You know exactly how, Jack,” he says, impatient, dropping the trucker drawl. He points at Laurie Vonn’s neck. “You wrote about in perfect detail. Decapitation between the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae, amputation of the hands at the radiocarpal joint.”
He waits, watching me. Then he reverts to the low, deep drawl again. “Or, as Killer would say, you just cut between the big bone and the little bone at the back of the neck. You’ll feel a snap when the blade cuts through and then it’ll lie still and the rest is easy. Like carvin’ off a drumstick.”
Laurie begins to sob, her chest heaving uncontrollably, tears from her eyes and her nose running as the blood runs down her front.
“Time’s a wastin’, Doc.”
“I—”
“Shut up and cut, Jack, or I’ll carve up both little Thanksgiving turkeys. Breasts and thighs,” he says. Then he pulls Sallie Fun’s Ruger from the back of his waistband. “It would be a shame for all those fans of yours to hear that the bestselling author Jack Rhodes was found with two dead women and a bullet hole in his head, self-inflicted, his prints on the knife. It would be a neat out for me, but I’d prefer to keep you alive, to tell you more stories. But c’est la vie,” he drawls out the French: “Say law vee.”
“Now, cut.”
Anything, talk about anything to stall…
“You’ve read all the books,” I say.
“Oh yeah. I’m your number one fan,” he husks a short laugh.
“I never mentioned your name,” I say. “I didn’t remember…talking to you.”
“Yeah. Pretty fucking clever how you did it,” he says. Then he looks at me funny. “You really didn’t remember those three nights we spent. Talking. Hearing all about my Angels?”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know what was going on.”
The low, mirthless laugh. “I guess it’s been a long, strange trip for you, then,” he says. “A little mind-fuck for the big shot writer.”
“It was.”
“Cut, Jack. You can’t stall or placate me with talk.”
“How long have you been following me?”
“Oh, I came out here after I read the first book. Paid you a few visits right here in this room, just to keep tabs. I’ll say one thing for you, Jack. You know how to keep ‘em guessing.”
“So do you,” I say.
“Enough. Cut, Jack. Cut now.”
He stands still as a statue, coiled, waiting for me to make a move.
I lean forward and stretch my right hand out and grab the handle of the knife, pulling my left wrist against the cuff behind me. The steel handcuff cuts into my wrist and I feel blood drip down my hand. Pain from the cut makes me wince and tears come to my eyes. I grip the knife and look down at Laurie Vonn, who stares at me with such terror that I have to look away. She is making horrible little sounds with every breath—short, sharp little whines, muted pleading and crying. The knife is heavy in my hand and my other hand is wrenched in a way that cuts the steel cuffs deeper into my skin and I feel the blood flow around my wrist, making it slippery.
“CUT,” Dave says.
I twist around to move the knife toward Laurie Vonn’s neck. I avoid looking in her eyes and pull my left wrist harder, behind my back, the pain ravaging but the blood pouring over my hidden hand is making it slippery and I can slide the cuff another half-inch down, over my thumb joint.
If I can just…
I lower the knife toward Laurie Vonn’s neck and pull my cuffed hand harder, pulling and wrenching hard—and with a sudden, muted SNAP and a shot of PAIN I feel the chrome and polyurethane joint come apart inside my wrist and it is all I can do to keep from screaming. Tears course down my face.
“Get it over with,” Dave says, impatient with my tears.
If I can just… If I can take it…if I can take the pain I can…
I slide the knife under Laurie Vonn’s neck as I pull my left hand with all my strength against the cuff, tearing into my skin, peeling it back, peeling off muscle and digging into bone—
Oh Dear Sweet Jesus God the PAIN…please let me go…please let me…
Dave comes over me and leans forward, his hands on his knees.
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