by Barry Lyga
“Don’t you sass me, boy!” Billy shouted, the cords on his neck standing out. “Don’t talk back! These words mean something!” He raised both fists. LOVE, spelled the one. FEAR, the other. “This is philosophy. Your ink is bullshit. You defile your body for entertainment.”
And Jazz remembered—with startling clarity—the first needle penetrating his flesh, the day he’d gotten the stylized CP3 tattoo. Howie had stood nearby, the look of sheer joy in his eyes so childlike and innocent in comparison with his lurking, adult frame.
“No. For friendship.”
Billy thrust his fists out. The tats were ragged and imprecise. LOVE. FEAR.
“Which one holds your fate, Jasper? Love for your family, for your kin? For the people who made you what you are? Or fear of yourself? Fear of the prospects and the world they want you to live in?”
Leave it to Billy to put it that way. Leave it to Billy to imagine that you could break down the world into precisely two categories and then to define them thus. Love didn’t have to mean family. Fear didn’t have to apply to the rest of the world.
“I think I’ve had enough of your kind of love,” Jazz said, surprising himself that he clenched his jaw tight, tears gathering. “You… you abused me,” he spluttered. “You did horrible things to me. You made me—”
“I never abused you.” Billy dropped his hands to his sides. “I loved—I love you, boy. You’re my son. My child. I never once—”
“You made me cut her!” Jazz shouted. “You made me cut her and you, and you, and you—” He gulped air. He couldn’t speak. Oh, Jesus, what was wrong with him! Can’t lose control, he told himself. Can’t go crazy. You lose it and Billy moves into your head, and then you’re done for, one way or the other. You either end up dead or you cave, giving in to the most lethal Father/Son Day ever.
To his surprise, Billy simply stood there and watched—something like concern spreading over his features—as Jazz composed himself and drew in a deep breath. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
“You all right?” Billy asked gently.
“Screw you.” Jazz’s voice was heated. “You’ve been manipulating me my whole life, but I won’t fall for it anymore. You made me…” He gulped. He had to say it. He had to say it out loud. When he did, it came out in a whisper. “You made me have sex with my own aunt. The things you did—”
Billy shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Did no such thing, Jasper. I swear it.” He actually raised one hand and put the other over the spot where a human being would have a heart. “Never happened.”
“I remember it.” Jazz’s voice barely worked. He was choking on his own language. He couldn’t stop thinking of the dream, the dream that—like the dream of cutting—had turned out to be real. The touches.
“I can’t help what you remember,” Billy said with a shrug.
Jazz forced himself away from it. He made himself think of something else. The birth certificate. His tear-clotted throat allowed a rueful laugh to escape. That damn birth certificate. That was Billy’s first mistake. The mocking, accusatory blank next to father had taught Jazz an important lesson.
“If I have to kill you to save Mom,” Jazz said, “I will. Without a second thought. Without remorse or regret.”
Billy nodded thoughtfully. “And that’s one step away from killing anyone for any reason. Without remorse or regret.”
“Stop trying to mess with my head. Stop telling me what I think and feel, what I will think and feel. I’m the master of my own mind.”
“I’m sure you’d like to think so.” Billy withdrew the knife again, and once again held it out, handle toward Jazz. “But you won’t really know until you try, hmm?”
Without meaning to, without even being wholly aware of it, Jazz took a step closer to Billy, a step closer to the knife. His right hand jerked upward, and Jazz had to will it back into place.
Billy’s eyes twinkled. Blue ice floating on a sea of bloodshot white.
“You can’t do this to me,” Jazz whispered, but it was already being done. He could see himself taking the knife. Could see himself cutting those damn twinkling eyes from his father’s face. Then the tongue, that goddamn tongue that never, ever, ever stopped wagging. Yes! Silence the voice forever. Sever the tongue, pull it, still wriggling and longing for speech, from the well of blood that would be Billy’s mouth.
And then, when Billy was defenseless and at his most pathetic: the blade. Through the chest. Into the heart. Twist it to be sure. Would he feel the cardiac muscles separating, the sensation transmitted through the blade? Oh, hell yes, he would!
It would be too disappointing otherwise.
He wanted to feel his father’s heart as it broke.
His fingers spasmed. They longed for a weapon.
“I think you’re ready now,” Billy said. They stared at each other, transfixed. His father laid the knife on the back of the sofa. “I think you’re ready for the truth. For the Crow King.”
“I know the truth,” Jazz whispered. “I thought you were the Crow King. But you aren’t.”
“Never was,” Billy agreed. “Tell me what you know.”
Yes. Yes, he would. It seemed easier to surrender. The darkness didn’t have to be cold. It could be warm. He could settle into it like a down blanket and just… let the world happen. It was what Billy had done, and Billy was so happy.
Why not?
He heard himself spell it out, everything he’d come to understand. How wrong he’d been all along. He’d thought Billy was the Crow King, the ruler, the master boogeyman, but he’d been wrong.
It had been his aunt Samantha all along. The puppeteer. The gender was a ruse. Female serial killers were so rare that no one would ever suspect a woman at the head of the Crows. No one would ever suspect a woman was the Crow King.
Jazz had sat across Gramma’s kitchen table from her, drinking coffee. He could have stopped all this back then, if he hadn’t been so desperate for some family connection.
Well, he had all the family connections he could ever want now. Father and aunt murder machines. It was in his DNA.
“Sam was older than you,” Jazz began. “She made contact first.” He thought of the story Sam had told him, of Billy as a child, standing naked in her room one night. He believed that story. She had just ended it too soon, was all. What had happened after what she’d told him?
His own memories of childhood filled in the blanks. And the thought no longer nauseated him. This was just the way of it now. This was what the Dents did. Had his grandfather molested Billy or Sam? Is that how it started? He would never know. His grandparents were dead, and he couldn’t imagine Billy answering that question. Sam and Billy had been born bad or they had learned bad. Either way, the results were the same.
For a long time, Sam had said, I thought there was something wrong with me because no one else seemed to notice. Such an idiot. She’d practically told Jazz who and what she was. She recognized Billy’s madness and propensity for murder early on. And no doubt encouraged it. The doting, adoring older sister, taking her little brother by the hand and teaching him.
“She left the house first. Went out prospecting. Got the attention of the Crows and brought you into the fold. And that’s when your career really took off. Maybe she helped you on some of your kills. I’m not sure. But she was out there in the world, working her way up the Crow ladder. Playing their games and winning every single one. Until she became the Crow King and the two of you could reunite. She sent the Impressionist to Lobo’s Nod. She arranged your escape from Wammaket.”
Billy nodded thoughtfully. “Got it all figured out.”
Numb, Jazz shoved his hands into his pockets. Oh, right. The Taser. He didn’t even bother with it. There was no point. He could stun and kill Billy, and Aunt Samantha would just come for him.
“You’re right about everything,” Billy said. “Except for the things you’re wrong about. But playtime’s over. Are you ready to meet the Crow King?”
Jazz ha
d already met Sam, but he allowed Billy the moment of melodrama as his father picked up the iPad and turned it on.
“This thing? Goddamn miracle, Jasper. Missed out on ’em while I was in prison, but it’s so easy.…” He fiddled with it for a moment, then propped it up on the sofa so that it faced Jazz. A little light turned on, indicating that the webcam was active, and then FaceTime came up.
“Hello, Jasper,” said his mother.
CHAPTER 49
Her voice hadn’t changed. Not at all.
“Hello, Jasper.”
The first words he’d heard from her in years. They hit him harder than he anticipated, stabbing tears out of his eyes. He dug at them with his fingers, a rage more potent and dangerous than any he’d ever felt before swelling inside him, so fulsome and massive that it overflowed and threatened to explode him.
Had he imagined this was over? Had he really considered surrendering to Billy? Here she was, the woman he’d assaulted and stolen and lied for. Looking so identical to the picture he’d kept all these years that it was as though the time had not passed at all, as though he were a child again. But for the subtle lines around her eyes—those hazel eyes, so like his own, so unlike Billy’s—and the slight, silvery tint to her hair, she could be the exact same person he’d last seen before going off to school that day years ago.
His mother. Alive, before him. He could see her. Hear her. Now he only needed to find her.
“Where is she?” Jazz demanded. “Where is Sam holding her?”
Billy tsked and sighed a sigh that would have been familiar to any long-suffering parent. “I don’t think he’s gettin’ it, Belle. Want to set the boy straight?”
Jazz’s eyes drifted from Billy back to the iPad. His mother, he realized, was smiling wryly, her lips curled in bemusement. There was no fear in her eyes. No worry in her expression.
No.
No. No.
No.
“Jasper,” she said, “don’t you have anything to say to your momma? It’s been so long. I’m sorry I had to go away, but… a Crow King’s business is never done.”
“No!” This time it erupted from him. He couldn’t hold it back. “How did you make her do it?” He turned back to Billy, his fists clenched. “How did you force her to become—”
Billy held his hands up, palms out, his face contorted into a “Don’t look at me!” expression. “Force her? Boy, I couldn’t ever force your momma into anything. This was all her idea. She sure does like her games.”
“You’re lying,” Jazz said, but he knew that wasn’t true. He had spent his entire life listening to Billy’s lies and Billy’s truths. He knew how to tell one from the other.
Billy was—for once—telling the truth. In fact, Jazz realized, his father had always told him the truth. At least, as well as he could.
“You know that old sayin’, son,” Billy mused. “ ‘Behind every great man, there’s a great woman.’ Well, I, son, am a magnificent man.” He gestured to the iPad, where Janice Dent, the Crow King, Belle Gunness, Ugly J, gazed out, smiling. “Funny, that, though. Women’re so proud when they say it about a doctor or a president or a king. Not so proud when it comes to a fella like me. Now… why is that, do you think?”
“Because my sex is consumed with its own self-righteous victimhood and self-pity,” his mother said matter-of-factly.
“I believe you might be right about that.” Billy grinned.
Jazz staggered backward a step. The sight of his parents both smiling at him, utterly soulless, their hearts dead as stone—it poleaxed him. He couldn’t breathe.
The dreams.
The cutting.
And the…
Oh, God.
He dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. Was this shock? Was he going into shock? He couldn’t breathe, and his vision had gone blurry.
He’d touched… He’d touched…
Hands pressed to Weathers’s cheap carpeting, Jazz tried and failed to draw in a breath. His lungs had turned to stone, the first step in the paralysis when gazing upon the cursed visage of the Gorgons.
Beautiful, the Impressionist had said. But the way you die is so ugly.…
And beautiful she was, his mother. Ugly, too.
Jazz would choke to death on his own history, here in Doug Weathers’s apartment. And it was, he knew, what he deserved. For the hubris of thinking he could possibly conquer his own past and overcome Billy. For the arrogance of thinking he had outwitted his father and deduced the ultimate punch line.
For the weakness of a boy’s love for his mother.
Everything he’d believed, everything he’d clung to in his life, had been worse than a lie. It had been a deceit. Deliberate. His safe haven had turned into an ambush.
He stared at his hands, red flushed and wavering, blurring into the carpet pattern. Suddenly everything made sense and nothing made sense. Billy’s ability to evade the police wasn’t quite so magical when the cops were looking for a single male. Or for a man with a hostage. When Billy and Mom drove out of New York, they must have looked like any other happy married couple, sailing right through checkpoints. Mom leaving had been planned, and Billy’s excising her from history was just one more item on the to-do list.
Billy had told the truth. He’d said that Jazz wasn’t a virgin. He’d said that he hadn’t hurt Mom—
What did you do to Mom? Jazz had demanded.
And Billy had shrugged. Do? What did I do to your mother? Nothing.
Lie was truth and truth was a lie. Mom had given him Rusty as a puppy, and Billy had skinned the dog alive in front of him. Was that part of some plan? Had that been designed into his life?
And of course there was
like that
it’s all right
it’s not all right
it’s right
Jazz threw up. Violently. His stomach contracted over and over, his esophagus rippling savagely. Everything he’d eaten and drunk spewed from him, gushing like a water pipe, a fire hose, an artery. Burning bile scalded his throat, his tongue, and everything that came out of him wasn’t enough, as his stomach kept seizing, forcing out nothing more than his own hollow cries.
A slick of puke, streaked with protein-bar chocolate and glow-red Gatorade shimmered inches from his face. His jaw strained, his body tried to force more out of him, but there was nothing left, and he hung poised over his own sick, dry heaving.
“Billy, darling, how’s our boy?”
“Pukin’ up his guts and then some,” Billy said conversationally.
“Sounds pretty rough from here. Maybe you can make sure he’s not aspirating anything into his lungs.”
Billy came around the sofa and stood over Jazz for a moment. Jazz knew from the sound of his feet and from Billy’s Nikes, which came into view to his left, the toes inches away from Jazz’s hand.
“Looks okay,” Billy said.
“I told you he would have an extreme reaction,” Mom said in an oh, you silly boy voice.
Jazz hiccupped powerfully, his whole body spasming. He almost lost control of his arms and spilled onto the floor, but Billy stooped down quickly, grabbing Jazz under his arms and keeping him elevated.
“Whoa, there! Looks like he might be a little worse off than we—”
Billy didn’t finish the sentence because Jazz jerked his head up. His skull rattled as he connected with Billy’s jaw, shutting his father up with a satisfying Uck! sound.
“What’s going on over there?” Mom demanded from the iPad.
Billy stumbled back, still entangled with Jazz, pulling Jazz over at the same time. Jazz pushed off with his legs, propelling himself bodily at Billy’s midsection, knocking his father off-balance. Together, they collapsed onto the floor.
“Billy! What’s happening over there?” Mom sounded concerned.
“Nothin’ I can’t handle, darlin’.” Billy shoved at Jazz, who had thrown his full weight on top of his father. From his position lying atop Billy, Jazz was able to pin one arm down. With
his free arm, Billy brought a powerful fist down on Jazz’s back. Jazz bit back a scream and scrambled to bring his legs around to hold down the other arm.
“You got some fight in you after all!” Billy chortled. “Good for you! Our boy’s got spirit, Belle!”
Jazz resisted the temptation to trash-talk. He needed all his breath, all his strength. He’d been faking the tenuousness of his leg before, knowing Billy would note every shake and stutter of it. It actually felt pretty good, thanks to the painkillers and antibiotics. But even with his leg secretly functioning, they were still too evenly matched. Jazz was younger, true, more resilient, but he was also more worn-down. And he’d just puked up his only sustenance. Billy was older but prison buff, his body like a piece of shaped steel.
He blinked away memories, shreds of emotion, vile thoughts. No time for sentiment. Or remembering. He had to be a machine. He had to shove all of it away to deal with later and just focus on Billy. Nothing else mattered.
Holding down one arm with his legs and the other with his hands, Jazz risked using one of those hands to reach back toward his pocket and the Taser. Billy, sensing weakness and incipient freedom, bucked his body and rocked back and forth, trying to shake Jazz loose. Jazz willed himself to be heavier, riding out the thrashing as he got his fingers on the Taser.
Just as he withdrew it from his pocket, Billy managed to find leverage with his feet, arching back and throwing Jazz off just enough that his arms were freed. Jazz brought the Taser up and then arced it down, but before it touched his father, Billy twisted, turned, and heaved Jazz off him, dumping him in a pile on the floor. Jazz’s finger twitched on the trigger, and the Taser spat its last electrical charge into the uncaring air.
“How many times did I tell you,” Billy asked, now standing, “that you measure twice—”
“Cut once!” Mom chorused in from the iPad.
Her voice itself cut. It slashed at him, carving hideous new tattoos into him, whirling arcs and dripping gashes of memory and pain.
Put it away. Put it all away.
Jazz bounced to his feet with a vigor he did not truly feel. He couldn’t let Billy know exactly how winded he was, he thought, as he struggled to control his breathing. His heart was pulsating like a drum solo.