“Nobody knows,” Strega said.
Meaning she didn’t. But she knew everything else. And her answer to my next question was the last tile dropping into the mosaic. I could read it then, even through the haze of blood.
“It was almost fifteen years ago,” Wolfe said quietly. “September twenty-seventh, nineteen eighty-four.”
“I got him now,” I told her.
“You’re really working this?” she asked, disbelief the strongest element in her voice.
“I’m not a good liar,” I lied. “There’s nothing more for you to do. You got paid. We’re square. You think what you want about me. Make your judgments. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it.”
“Why ‘maybe’?”
“I think you know,” I told her. “I think you’ve always known. You don’t want. . . me. I got that. I’m doing this for me. The way I do everything, right? For me, that’s what you think. But you had me wrong, and one day you’ll know that. Even if I don’t tell you myself.”
“Burke. . . wait!”
I just kept walking.
“Write it down on a piece of paper,” Xyla told me. “I can’t tell how to spell it from what you’re saying. And what if you’re—”
Her mouth popped open as her computer screen shifted.
>>name?<<
was all it said. And
gutterball felestrone. 50-50
is all she typed back.
“He did find me,” Xyla said. “Christ, he’s good. I could never have found him.”
“I did,” I told her. “Get ready. He’s going to come back. And pretty soon, I think.”
I guess he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss it. Gutterball’s last meal had been in his favorite restaurant, a mob joint deep in what of Little Italy still survived the all-borders Chinatown encroachment. Nobody walked in there and blasted him, but someone had gotten into the kitchen. Gutterball was dead before the EMS ambulance managed to bull its way through the clogged streets. Gutterball always had the same thing: spaghetti and sausage with oregano-laced sauce—gravy, he called it. The newspapers had all that. The autopsy report was made public. The sauce had a little extra spice in it, that night. “Enough ricin to kill a regiment,” the pathologist was quoted as saying. “After the first swallow, he never had a chance.”
“Would it be a true death?” I asked the woman. Her office was jumbled and serene at the same time. She had no desk, just a couple of easy chairs and a couch. No computer screen, not even a file cabinet.
“It. . . could. Do you know if there were any others?”
“No.”
“Do you know—?”
“I told you everything,” I said. “Everything I know. Doc said you’re the best there is. At. . . this stuff.”
She flashed a smile. “This ‘stuff,’ as you call it, is. . . variable. That is, it depends on so many things. From what you told me, all I can say is that it could be. But only if the subject felt completely, totally safe.”
“Safe? I don’t get it. I mean—”
“It would be a true death only if the dead person never came back—that is what you’re asking, isn’t it? And I’m giving you the best answer I can. As long as the. . . environment was safe, really truly safe. . . if the. . . original conditions never resurfaced, then, yes, it could be a ‘true death,’ as you put it.”
“How do you know he’ll—?”
“I don’t,” I told Lorraine. “But I have to be ready in case he does.”
“And you’re sure he’s the one who—?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get a cot put in here,” she said. “The bathroom’s right through that door over there. You want food, just walk into the kitchen, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks.”
“I would like to go with you,” Rusty said quietly. I hadn’t even noticed him before he spoke.
“It can’t work like that,” I replied, bowing slightly to show my respect for what he was offering.
“What kind of dog is that?” Xyla asked me.
“She’s a Neapolitan mastiff,” I told her. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Pansy ignored me, watching Xyla. I saw a look pass between them. And I recognized it. “You love dogs, don’t you?” I asked Xyla.
“Oh, I do. I have a—”
“Yeah. Whatever. Listen, do not feed her, understand?”
“I wasn’t gonna—”
“Yeah, you were,” I told her. “It won’t matter. She wouldn’t take food from a stranger anyway.”
“I guess I’m busted,” she said, face reddening. It was a pretty sight in that machine-cold room, like a flower blooming at the base of a prison wall.
“I’ll call you when it’s time,” I told her, lying back on the cot and closing my eyes.
I wasn’t surprised when Xyla’s computer screen started blinking at 3:44 a.m. Sure. Let him think the machine was sitting in my house—that’s what the test was all about.
>>50-50<<
his message said. I told Xyla what to do, and she hit her keyboard:
yours $125K
Xyla was about to get up, but I put my hand on her shoulder, telling her he wasn’t done.
>>why target?<<
“He’s using ICQ,” Xyla said excitedly. “He’s there. I mean. . . somewhere. But he’s on the line.”
“He won’t stay long. Just type what I tell you.”
Cork unauthorized
His response popped up almost immediately.
>>next?<<
4 names. major money. but they want to deal direct
“What does that—?” Xyla asked.
“Ssshhh,” I told her. “He wants that too. You’ll see.”
>>understand. but no face-to-face<<
they don’t want that either. afraid
>>then?<<
want proof
>>*names* = proof<<
no. want proof he’s alive
>>*you* tell them<<
polygraph
>>understand. you know who i am?<<
think so
>>not *look* same<<
so?
>>how pass polygraph then?<<
only question: did i talk to him in person?
>>understand. you *do* know who i am.<<
yes
>>no more talk. next message, instructions for meet<<
got it
The screen flickered, glowed red, then yellow. Then Xyla’s computer just shut itself off.
“Fuck!” she snarled, flicking switches like a madwoman.
I watched her in silence. It was almost a half-hour before she pushed herself away from the computer, rolling her chair back across the room, sweat-drenched.
“He crashed it,” she said. “Thunderbolt. I’ve heard about them, but I didn’t know if they were real.”
“What’s a thunderbolt?”
“A giant spike. Electrical. It’s transmitted over the modem during ICQ. When the sender signs off, it’s activated.”
“You lost all your data?”
She gave me one of those “What are you, stupid?” looks young girls probably memorize in the cradle. “Of course not. That’s in a separate unit. I don’t leave anything connected. All he spiked out was my software. But there was a ton of that. It’s gonna take me a couple of weeks to. . .”
“I’m sorry,” I told her. Even as I realized that his attack on Xyla’s setup was another message: whatever meeting he was going to set up wasn’t going to be soon.
I learned a lot of trades in prison. Not the ones the rehab-geeks talk about. The ones we all learn, some better than others. Trades have tricks. One of them I did learn was how to use time you’re stuck with. And that’s what I did while I was waiting for the finale.
“I know the whole thing now,” I told my family.
They were all there this time: Michelle and the Mole, Terry sitting between them. The Prof and Clarence. Max and Immaculata. Even little Flower was around someplace, probably playing with t
he cooks in the back. Mama hawk-eyed the kitchen area, getting up every couple of minutes to check on her granddaughter.
Nobody said anything, waiting for me to fill in the blanks. I did it. Slow, taking my time, testing every link before I added it to the chain.
When I was done, the Prof was the first to speak. “If it’s written in blue, it must be true,” the little man said. “He found the Gatekeeper.”
“Prof!” Michelle snapped at him. “Stop it! This is insane enough without a bunch of superstitious—”
I reached over and took Michelle’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Prof,” I asked, “you said the only way to work it is to give them a soul for every one the. . . dead guy took, right?”
“One for one, son,” he agreed.
“That plane. . . the sex-tour one. I figure that probably evened the score.”
“It is impossible to transmit matter in that way,” the Mole said, earning a loving glance of approval from Michelle.
“Nobody knows some—” Clarence started, defending his father.
“Both true,” Mama said.
We all looked toward her, but she nodded at Immaculata, the first time I’d seen her defer. Mac gulped at the honor, knowing it had to be her profession Mama was deferring to, not her wisdom—Mama believed nobody under seventy knew anything of value from their own life experience. “Psychologically,” she began, “a belief can become a fact to the believer.”
“But this ain’t no nut,” the Prof stepped up.
“He wouldn’t have to be. . . crazy,” Mac told him. “Just a. . . believer. He might be rational in all other senses of the word. But if you ‘reason’ from a false premise, any conclusion, no matter how logically it follows, will be wrong, do you see what I’m saying?”
“Both true,” Mama said again, not disrespecting Immaculata’s answer, but making it clear it wasn’t enough.
“All right,” Immaculata said. “Look at it this way. Some believe this. . . Wesley never actually died, yes? But there was no. . . support for that proposition. This recent rash of murders, they represent a sort of ‘proof,’ seemingly to underscore the presence of. . . Ah, look: Those who think Wesley never actually died or those who think he could return from the dead. . . merge. Into a belief system. If it is ‘Wesley’ doing these murders in the minds of the believers, he has come back, understand?”
Mama nodded gravely, a gesture of complete support. Immaculata bowed her gratitude for the recognition.
“It doesn’t matter!” Michelle said sharply. “He’s not a threat to us. There’s no reason to get. . . involved with him. It’s over. Let him do whatever he—”
Max bowed slightly. Put his two fists together, then made a snapping motion. Volunteering to do the job if I could get him close enough.
I bowed my thanks, knowing it was impossible. “Both true, Mama?” I asked her.
She pointed at the Prof, then at the Mole.
We waited, but she was done.
“Me first,” the Prof said, stepping up to the challenge. “If this guy found the Gatekeeper, he’d have to bring a whole bunch behind what Wesley did, right?”
Nobody moved. It hadn’t been a real question.
“And he did that, right?” the Prof continued. “Ain’t no question but the motherfucker’s qualified.”
“If that would work,” the Mole said, his mild voice throbbing with the one electrical current that always hit his circuits, “the Nazis could. . .”
“To bring Hitler back, they would have to kill six million people,” Clarence said. “If they could do that, why would they need. . .?”
His voice trailed off into the silence as we all let it penetrate. But it took the Prof to say it out loud: “You all just heard the word. You got it, Schoolboy?” he asked me.
“Anyone who could kill six million people wouldn’t have to bring Hitler back,” I said slowly. “He’d be Hitler.”
Immaculata looked up. “Yes. And this killer, he wants to be. . .”
“Wesley,” I finished for her.
“Why?” the Mole asked. “Wesley was. . .”
“No,” I told them all. “Wesley is. Check the whisper-stream. He’ll never die. They never found a body. You say his name, people start to shake. It’s not some ghost they’re afraid of.”
“You think if he kills enough he will have the same. . . respect Wesley has, mahn?” Clarence asked. “That is insane. It is not the count of the bodies that—”
“My son just got it done,” the Prof said. “No way you take Wesley’s name just by playing his game.”
I saw where he was going, and cut him off. “Everything he did, it’s like an improved version of Wesley,” I said. “Every hit tied to Wesley, this guy copied. He works just like Wesley did. Wesley wasn’t just a sniper. Neither is this guy: he uses bombs, poisons, high-tech. That’s why he wanted that damn. . . ‘assignment.’ When I challenged him. Told him that any freak can be a random hitter. Wesley took contracts. He was a missile. All he needed was a name. This guy, he took a name from me and did the job because he wants a name. He wants Wesley’s.”
“Never happen,” the Prof said. “Nobody could take Wesley’s place. Wesley’ll never die. And the only way to never die is to die, right? No matter what this guy does, no matter how many fucked-up letters he writes to the newspapers, you know what they’re gonna say: it’s Wesley’s work. He can’t change that.”
“He’s a shape-shifter,” I told them. “But that’s not the whole thing. I understand what Mama meant now. You too, Mac. All of you. It is all true. If this guy starts doing Wesley’s work—taking contracts, making people dead on order—then he is Wesley, see? When people whisper Wesley’s name, they’re talking about him. And he’ll know that, wherever he is.”
“But you said his. . . journal was all about kidnapping children and—” Immaculata said, dropping her voice, eye-sweeping the place to make sure her little girl wouldn’t hear what lurked past her circle of love.
“At first,” I told her. “But I get the impression that it’s old. He did it a long time ago. He’s an. . . artist. And he finally decided that the highest art was homicide. As a kidnapper, he was the best there was. No contest. He didn’t need his name in the paper, he knew. He probably thought he was the greatest killer too. I think that’s what he said his new art was going to be. Not killing child molesters, killing mobsters. Or. . . maybe both. I don’t know. But I figure, he started doing it. And kept it up, same way he did the kidnappings. For the ‘art,’ right? But when he snapped to it. . . when he figured out that there was someone ahead of him. . . that he was in a contest he couldn’t win. . . that’s when he figured out he had to be Wesley. That’s his art now.”
“Motherfucker’s way past crazy,” the Prof said.
“Sure,” I said. “So what? He can’t be Wesley except through me, understand? Gutterball thought he was dealing with Wesley when he sent out that hit. That’s why I sent this guy right back at Gutterball. There’s nobody left to—what’s that word you always use, Mac?—validate him. Except me. Gutterball was an idiot. That’s not news. But me. . . If I go into the street and say I saw Wesley, who’s gonna deny it? Everyone knows how we. . . were.”
“And with all those baby-rapers getting hit, it just reeks of you, honey,” Michelle said, nodding her head in agreement.
“He said it right at the beginning. Of that freakish ‘journal’ he sent me. ‘Folie à deux,’ remember? I told him I could get him mob contracts, but I’d have to say I saw Wesley, get it? He made me send him all this stuff, prove I was the real thing. That I was with Wesley. All the way back to the beginning. I don’t know where he got some of his info, but it was on the money, all of it. So now, the way he figures it, if I see him, I did see Wesley. He is Wesley now—the way he figures, he’s proved that. Taken over. So he’s going to meet me, I’m sure of it.”
“But, honey, what’s the point?” Michelle asked me. “He can’t do anything to you—not if he wants you to. . . do what he said.
If you don’t do it, he’s on his own. Why meet with him?”
Max grabbed Michelle’s hand to get her attention. With his other hand, he reached over and tapped my heart. Pointed to himself, then to Immaculata. Finally, he made the sign of a man shooting a pistol.
“Oh God,” Michelle gasped. “You mean—?”
“It was him,” I told her. Told them all. “If he’s the one Gutterball talked to on the phone, then he’s the one who did the hit in Central Park. Did it the same way Wesley would have. A couple of flunkies to lay down cover fire, make a diversion, then a surgical strike. And wipe out the witnesses. Gutterball must have known it was gonna cost him those two other guys. Maybe he wanted them gone anyway—got three for the price of one.”
Immaculata cleared her throat, threading delicately, the way she always does. “But, Burke, if that’s true. . . this. . . killer, he wasn’t the one who shot Crystal Beth.”
“He made it happen,” I said flatly. “He knows a thousand ways to kill. If he’d used any other one, she’d be here today. Right here. With me.”
Something must have happened to me after I said that. When I came around, I was in a chair in the basement, my family all around me. I didn’t ask how I got there—Max could carry me as easy as a wino could lug a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.
I opened my eyes. Looked at the only people I loved on the whole planet. “I don’t know if you can make up for things,” I told them, calming down. “He killed a lot of little kids. Then he stopped. And killed a lot of scum. I don’t know if they were child molesters or mob guys or both. . . at first. Then it was fag-bashers. Then pedophiles. Maybe whoever’s keeping count thinks his scales are balanced. But not me. Michelle was right. What do I care if he was planning to kill every last freak on the planet? Because now he’s. . . stopped. He’s going to be Wesley now. A contract hitter. And you know what? It doesn’t matter anyway. He killed Crystal Beth. Got her killed, same difference. He wants to be Wesley so bad—I’m going to send him someplace where he can talk to him face to face.”
“You ain’t alone, home,” the Prof reminded me.
“You want Terry to hear this?” I asked Michelle.
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