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by George Right

  "Pete, to you I am only a little girl, but listen to me. I decided to end my former life to begin a new one; you simply destroyed everything you had in your life and now you're trying to hide from the problem.”

  "There is no problem! That's enough about it!"

  "There is a problem. Pete, you need help. You don't have a job. The police may want you for hurting your boss. You left your wife. You offended everyone you know..."

  "Bettie, shut up, or I'll put you out like that guy!"

  "Pete, I'm not saying this to hurt you. I want to help you before you get in more trouble. Really, Pete, it would be easier for me just to shut up, but then it would be even worse for you. Everything can still be fixed... well, almost everything. You need to talk to a doctor..."

  "SHUT UP, YOU BITCH! SHUT UP, FUCK YOU!"

  He was so angry that he almost swerved the car off the road. Then the rage subsided and Palmer regained control again.

  "Bettie, I'm sorry. You're right in some ways. My nerves are really shot. You know, after living 20 years with a hysterical woman... Don't take offense, all right?"

  Bettie kept an insulted silence.

  "Well, if that's how it is... But I really didn't mean to shout at you."

  Silence hung. The motor evenly hummed.

  "Let's, maybe, listen to some music," said Pete and turned the radio on.

  "... terday," a familiar voice sang. "All my troubles seemed so far away..."

  "Good old rock'n'roll," Pete said. "Yes, Johnny, you're right–yesterday my troubles seemed so far away. And the day before yesterday, too. I should have walked out long ago. No, Johnny, the world didn't go bad today. The world always was rotten, only now it's easier to see."

  "Why she had to go I don't know–she wouldn't say," sang the radio.

  "Some problem," Palmer sneered. "When a chick leaves you, it's nothing. Problems are something more serious. You found that out eventually, huh, Johnny?"

  "... love was such an easy game to play..." radio insisted.

  "Love amazed you," frowned Pete. "If you had written 'life' instead, it would be a lot more interesting. At first it seems life is an easy game–you just have to obey the rules. And then you understand that you're trapped and winning this game isn't an option at all. If that guy shot you before you understood this, you were lucky, Johnny. That guy also decided not to play by the rules any more. You know, Bettie, I understand those guys who climb up on a roof with a rifle and shoot passers-by until they're killed by the police. I'm not saying that I justify them, or that I'm going to do the same myself–my God, no! But I really understand them..."

  The radio began playing "Nowhere man."

  He's a real nowhere man

  Sitting in his nowhere land

  Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

  Doesn't have a point of view

  Knows not where he's going to

  Isn't he a bit like you and me

  "Yes," nodded Pete," very much like you and me. Especially me. You're right, Bettie, I really don't know what to do next. It seemed to me that it was enough just to break loose, but now I can't think what to do with my freedom. You see, once I read that if a grasshopper is covered with a jar and kept there long enough, then even after the jar is removed, it will still jump only up to the jar's height. Looks like that's the same with me."

  Under a wheel a tumbleweed crackled.

  "You're still young, Bettie," Palmer continued. "You can still jump above the jar. Though what the hell does it matter? Everyone will still end up at one of those stations I mentioned. It may be silly to rebel, knowing you won't win. But it's even sillier to obey, knowing you won't get any reward."

  I don't mind, I think they're crazy

  Running everywhere at such a speed

  Till they find there's no need

  sang the radio.

  "I also think all of them went crazy," Pete agreed, "however there's some charm in going at great speed without any need. Don't you agree, Bettie?"

  The girl was silent.

  "Bettie, say something just for a change. It's wrong to sulk for so long."

  "Keeping an eye on the world going by the window, taking my time," warbled the radio. Palmer turned his head and saw that Bettie had dozed off. The road and the music had lulled her.

  Please don't wake me,

  No, don't shake me,

  the radio asked.

  "All right, I won't," agreed Pete. "Sleep, Bettie. When you're young, it's easy. At your age, I passed out when my head touched the pillow.”

  He became silent and concentrated on the road. However, there weren't many things to look at. The visibility was really limited. Sand tongues stretched across the asphalt, as if the desert was trying to creep away to the north, escaping from the heat.

  Then a spot appeared ahead. A car–a police cruiser; Palmer distinguished the typical black and white pattern. The cruiser stood on the shoulder of the lane going in the other direction. Pete reflexively reduced his speed. However, if the cop wanted to make trouble for Pete, he had already had enough time to check his speed.

  And it seemed he had–the officer got out of his car and made a gesture to stop. Palmer swore and braked ten yards short of the cop. Let him walk.

  The policeman came to the Ford, clutching his hat to his head with one hand and trying to cover his face from the wind. He was very young–probably just a rookie.

  "Good afternoon, sir!" he shouted approaching. "May I ask you for help? You see, my vehicle..."

  As he was talking, he came close and bent to the driver's window, which Palmer had half opened. And here something strange happened with the cop. He didn't look like Gills in any way–the latter was bald, well-fed, round-faced, bespectacled, and almost 30 years older. And the cop had a thin bony face and brown hair peeked out from under his hat; on his chin Pete noticed a small cut–probably, the guy thought that a real man should use an open razor. But nevertheless the officer's expression vividly resembled that of Gills at the moment when Pete's fist smashed his face. Completing the similarity, the cop recoiled from the car, as if indeed thrown back by a blow; however, then the similarity ended. In the next moment the policeman already stood on half-bent legs, bulging his butt back and stretching forward his straight arms clasping a gun. The barrel shook slightly–probably this was the first time the boy actually had aimed at a human being–but nevertheless the round black hole looked right at the bridge of Palmer's nose.

  "Exit the vehicle!" the cop cried out in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice. The wind tore his hat off and rolled it across the road but he didn't even notice it.

  "What?" Pete stupidly asked.

  "Exit the vehicle, slowly and so I can see your hands! One wrong move and I'll blow your head off!"

  "All right, officer," Palmer shrugged his shoulders, pressing the lever of the door lock, "but what's the matter?"

  "Ah, you son of a bitch!" the cop nearly choked from indignation. "You think strangling a girl is nothing special, huh?"

  "Probably, I look like a sketch of some murderer," Palmer thought. "Everything will clear up soon." However a cold feeling of alarm suddenly spread in his belly and made him turn his head to the right.

  Bettie wasn't sleeping. Her eyes were open... not just open. They were goggled and empty. Her face was purple. Her tongue fell out of her mouth. On her chin saliva had dried. But the most awful were the dark stains on her neck. The imprints of fingers. His fingers.

  "No," said Palmer, "my God, no."

  At work, it had been similar. He remembered hitting Gills and he remembered leaving the office. But those four minutes when he stood and swore at Gills had simply dropped out of his memory. However, when he had left, Gills was still alive.

  "Bettie, I didn't want..."

  He got out of the car backwards, without taking his eyes from the corpse. He hardly felt his own body; everything seemed just a nightmare. The strong hand of the policeman seized his wrist, closing the cool ring of a handcuff around it.
<
br />   "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney..."

  "BETTIE!!!"

  But you can't hear me,

  You can't hear me,

  the radio sang.

  Over the desert the hot wind blew.

  In the story The Beatles songs "Yesterday", "Nowhere man", "I'm only sleeping", "And your bird can sing" were quoted.

  THROAT

  Steel locks clanked hollowly behind my back, cutting me off from the world of the living. In modern prisons, guards don't jingle keys on thick wire rings anymore–everything is done by automatics; the locks are controlled from a central location. No chance to escape, nor even that tiny hope that the prisoners of the past had... For a moment I felt something like an attack of claustrophobia. Behind me there was a tightly locked steel door, ahead of me–a corridor without windows, with pale green walls and caged lights on the ceiling. Yes, here even they are behind bars... At that moment they burned steadily, but I knew that there were moments when they dimmed or started to flicker. It means that one more inhabitant of this place leaves it–leaves in almost the only way possible here...

  Alas, I had no way back. The jailer looked at me expectantly–without anger, but also without sympathy–and I obediently went forward, deep into death row.

  The guard stopped at a gray door without a number and put his card into the slot. I knew that this card wouldn't work in anyone else's hands–some kind of biometrics scanning... The lock clicked, but the jailer didn't hurry to open the door. Instead, he decided to remind me of the rules once again.

  "He's chained, and the furniture is screwed to the floor. Just the same, be careful. Don't let him provoke you, don't get too close to him, and don't give him anything in a way that could allow him to grab you. For example, don't bend down if he wants to mutter something in your ear. He'll sink his teeth in it without a second thought. Don't forget who he is."

  "I studied the case materials well," I answered, bored by the third such lecture already.

  "I'm sure," this time there was hostility in the jailer's voice. "But you think that if you are on his side, he is on yours. And that's a big mistake."

  I understood the reason for his irritation, but I didn't try to remind him once again that I was doing my duty just as he was doing his and it was not a matter of personal sympathies.

  "If anything goes wrong, call for help immediately," the guard finished, having gotten no reaction from me. "I'll be right behind this door."

  Then he opened the door at last and I went in.

  The small room was divided by a metal table. The person in orange coveralls, sitting on the other side of the table, was indeed chained to the chair armrests: his left hand–with a regular handcuff, while the chain for the right hand was longer, allowing him, if necessary, to take something from the table if it were moved close enough to him. I didn't see his ankles, but I didn't doubt that they were in shackles, too.

  Except for all these accessories, his appearance was most ordinary. He seemed to be in his early fifties (actually he was 48), a receding hairline, grizzled, with an unremarkable face (such faces are a real nightmare for policemen, as no witnesses can describe them clearly), down-turned corners of his lips, faded eyes under puffy eyelids...

  However, his ordinary appearance was, well, ordinary. No maniac looks like a maniac–otherwise catching them wouldn't be that hard. And even after all charges are proved, his neighbors, colleagues, even family members still cannot believe his guilt. “Oh, that can't be true, such a decent person! Perhaps a little unsociable, but...”

  Nevertheless, this unremarkable middle-aged man with the appearance of a tired accountant from a third-rate office was the one whom journalists had named Jack-is-Back, alluding to Jack the Ripper. As a twist of fate, when he was caught at last, his surname appeared to be Jackson. "Jack's son," literally...

  However, actually he had almost nothing in common with the Victorian serial killer, except for his extreme cruelty. Jackson didn't kill prostitutes. There were no sexual motives in his actions and no motive of punishment for sins. On the contrary, only decent people were his victims. Gender and age were not significant to him. By the way, he even wasn't unsociable–quite the opposite, he willingly made new acquaintances, easily ingratiated himself with people, making impression of a nice and harmless, though a little sad, person–and then...

  Before he was stopped, he managed to kill twenty eight people–eviscerated them alive. Sometimes, he killed whole families. The most shocking episode was in Philadelphia, where he murdered a man, his wife, his elderly parents who had come to stay for a while with their son, and three children–a boy of eight and girls of five and three. After that the public went nuts, demanding that the police find the murderer. And not even just find, but "wipe the bastard out before some lawyer rats get him off the hook...”

  Yes, members of my profession are often reproached as immoral. They say that, for enough money we are ready to defend anybody. I cannot say that these claims are absolutely groundless–though, in my opinion, justice demands, that, as there is the prosecution side, there must also be a defense side. And we have professional ethics, too. But after all we are still human beings, not just professionals. Nobody in my law office wanted to take this case. And not because–well, not only because–there wouldn't be a hefty fee (Jackson refused to take a lawyer). Nor even because the case looked absolutely hopeless: the evidentiary basis was more than convincing, the police had committed no violations about which to complain, and Jackson had admitted full guilt to all the charges against him. But the main reason was that nobody really wanted to save such a freak from the electric chair. Yes, there are murderers, and even repeated murderers, who deserve leniency–but obviously not in this case.

  And then the boss foisted this case off on me, as the youngest attorney in the firm. Say, it's your chance to prove yourself. And if you fail, well, nobody expected miracles from a beginner anyway...

  No, I, of course, didn't feel much sympathy for my client. But, after all, a job is a job.

  "Hello, Mr. Jackson," I professionally smiled, taking the laptop from my attache case and unfolding it on my side of the table."I am your lawyer. My name is Mike..."

  "I refused a lawyer," Jackson dully interrupted. "Besides, the sentence was passed already. What more do you need from me?"

  "You probably don't know yet, but there were recent changes to the state law," I explained in the same confident tone. "Now in hearings on all death sentence cases, the participation of a lawyer is obligatory. And as the law has no retroactive effect only if it would worsen the situation of the convict, your case is subject to review."

  "So you think that will improve my situation," he grinned.

  "To tell the truth, your situation is very serious," I declared, continuing nevertheless to radiate confidence. "All the evidence is against you and we have no basis to suggest..."

  "I killed all these people," he interrupted me again."And, if there is a new hearing, I will repeat my confession there. So can we just avoid all this bother?"

  "In a democratic state, a confession is not the final proof of guilt," I reminded him. "There could be circumstances which compelled you..."

  "Do you have hearing problem or don't you understand English? Nobody compelled me, tortured me, or threatened me. I killed twenty eight people absolutely willfully and purposely. And I confessed to it of my same free will after my arrest."

  "But not before!" I noticed." If you, as you say, didn't want to hide your crimes, why didn't you give yourself up?"

  "Because I wanted to continue to kill," he simply answered.

  Damn... Well, after all, that's my job.

  "Could you explain, why did you... and why do you want to continue to kill, Mr. Jackson?"

  "Because I am a monster who likes to disembowel people alive."

  Certainly, it was said in the same tone as "be damned and fuck off." I
tried to make my voice more heartfelt and looked into his eyes:

  "But there is another reason, isn't there?"

  He kept silent, trying to look indifferent as before, but nevertheless for an instant he withdrew his eyes.

  "You can tell me only," I pressured. "As an attorney, I cannot reveal what you say."

  He continued his silence and when I had already decided that he would say nothing, he suddenly muttered:

  "You won't understand. Or will think that I am crazy."

  "A psychiatric examination ruled you completely sane," I reminded.

  "Well, of course."

  "But, as far as we're concerned, it may be our only defense. You see, I've studied your biography. It was completely ordinary until three years ago when you had a car accident resulting in craniocereberal trauma and clinical death. You stayed in this condition for nearly eleven minutes. It is considered that irreversible brain damage occurs after six minutes. But it is, of course, an average. Specific features of a certain organism may... Anyway, doctors pulled you out from the next world. Then–several months of rehabilitation. Tests, tomograms, all that stuff. Eventually you completely recovered, healthy both physically and mentally. And a week later you started to kill."

  "Well, there you are. Those doctors ruled me sane, too."

  "Doctors can be mistaken. No, I don't want to say that you are crazy, Mr. Jackson. But it is more important for us not whether you are insane or not, but what the judge will think about it, do you understand me? Such a major head injury usually doesn't pass without consequences, and we have grounds to demand a new psychiatric examination. And there... I'm not saying that you should feign illness. Just, possibly, be more frank than before with the doctors, tell them more about your secret fears and fantasies, and..."