Dexter's Final Cut d-7

by Jeff Lindsay

  And then somewhere far off on a bleak horizon, a persistent bleat of pain began to nag at the edge of the darkness. It throbbed insistently, and with each rhythmic beat of its pulse it grew bigger, brighter, sending out thorny little vines of misery that grew larger and stronger and pushed back the darkness piece by ever-shrinking piece. And at last the pain grew into a great and luminous tree with its roots driven deep into the bedrock, and it spread its branches and lit up the darkness and lo! It spake its name:

  It’s me, Dexter.

  And behold, the darkness answered back:

  Hello, stupid.

  I was awake. I could not be sure that this was a good thing; it hurt an awful lot, and so far I had done much better when I was unconscious. But no matter how much I might want to roll over and go back to sleep, the throbbing pain in my head was strong enough to make sure that I had to wake up and live with my apparently boundless stupidity.

  So I woke up. I was groggy and dopey and not really tracking things very well, but I was awake. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone to sleep normally, and I thought there might be some really important explanation for why I hadn’t, but in my numb and painful state I couldn’t quite think of it, or of anything else, and so I dove right back into the same stupidity that had landed me here and I tried to stand up.

  It didn’t work very well. In fact, none of my limbs seemed to be doing what they were supposed to do. I pulled on an arm; it seemed to be behind my back for some reason, and it jerked about two inches, dragging the other arm along with it, and then it stopped and flopped back to where it had been, stuck behind my back. I tried my legs; they moved a little, but not separately-they seemed to be held together by something, too.

  I took a deep breath. It hurt. I tried to think, and that hurt even more. Everything hurt and I couldn’t move; that didn’t seem right. Had something happened to me? Maybe-but how could I know if I couldn’t move and couldn’t see? My head throbbed its way through one or two thoughts, and came up with an answer: You can’t know if you can’t move and can’t see.

  That was right; I was sure of it. I had thought up the right answer. I felt very good about that. And in a fit of overwhelming and completely unjustified self-confidence, I grabbed at another thought that floated past: I would do something about that.

  That was good, too. I glowed with pride. Two whole ideas, all by myself. Could I possibly have another? I took a breath that turned the back of my head into a lake of molten pain, but a third idea came. I can’t move, so I will open my eyes.

  Wonderful; I was firing on all cylinders now. I would open my eyes. If I could only remember how …

  I tried; I managed a feeble flutter. My head throbbed. Maybe both eyes was too hard; I would open one of them.

  Slowly, very carefully, with a great deal of painful effort, I pushed one eye open.

  For a moment, I could not make sense of what I was seeing. My vision was blurry, but I seemed to be looking at something cream colored, maybe a little fuzzy? I could not tell what it was, nor how far away. I squinted and that really hurt. But after a long and painful time, things began to swim into focus.

  Fuzzy, underneath me, where a floor should be: Aha, I thought. Carpet. And it was cream colored. I knew there was something I could think of that had to do with cream-colored carpet. I thought really hard for a while, and I finally remembered: the master bedroom at the New House had cream-colored carpet. I must be in my New House. The carpet was blurry and hard to see because my eye was so very close to it.

  But that meant I was lying on my face. That didn’t seem to be right, not something I would usually do. Why was I doing it now? And why couldn’t I move?

  Something was just not right. But now I had several really good clues, and a small dim memory told me that there were things I liked to do with clues. I liked to add them up. So I closed the eye and did the math. My face was close to a carpet. My hands and legs seemed to be held together by something so I could not move. My head hurt in a way that made me want to scream-except that even the thought of any loud noise made it hurt even more.

  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do all this to myself. Something unusual had happened to me. That must mean somebody else had made all this happen. Head, hands, legs, New House-all these things were connected. They added up and meant something, and if I could just push the pain aside for a moment, I would remember what they meant.

  I heard a voice in another room-Astor’s voice, rising up in a tone of blame and scorn. And I remembered:

  I had heard that voice, that same tone, at the exact moment all these unusual things began to happen.

  For a long while I just drifted with the pain, remembering small pieces. I remembered the thump on my skull that put me here, and I remembered Astor’s voice as I pitched forward, and very slowly, I began to remember why I was here.

  I had come here to tie up Robert. It hadn’t worked. He had tied me up instead.

  And slowly at first, and then with a flood of bitter memory and lizard-brain rage, it all came back to me.

  Robert had killed Jackie, and by doing that he had killed my new and wonderful life. And he had taken Astor, taken her from me, and he had done all these things right under my very own night-sniffing nose, making me into a bungler, a booby, a complete clown: Dorky Dexter, Royal Fool at the Court of Shadows. Dress him in motley and turn him loose with his funny little knife. Watch while he stabs himself and falls down, tripping over his giant floppy shoes. Dexter the Dupe, looking right at Robert and smiling because he sees only harmless, brainless, self-centered stupidity. And still looking and smiling while the dim-witted clot outthinks him, outflanks him, and caves in his head.

  For several long and bright seconds the anger took me over and I shook with it, grinding my teeth and pulling against the ropes that held me. I rolled over once, twice, and yanked my limbs furiously, and of course, nothing at all happened, except that I was now three feet away from where I had been, and my head was throbbing even worse.

  All right then, brute force was not the answer. And clearly thinking was not our strong suit. That left prayer, which is really just Talking to Yourself, and Myself had not been very helpful lately. Was there anything else left?

  And strangely, happily, just in time, it turned out that there was one last thing: pure, stupid, unearned Luck.

  And Luck came slithering into the room where I lay.

  “Dexter!” a soft voice whispered, and I turned my head to the door with great and painful effort.

  Astor stood there in bright silhouette, the light from the next room behind her. She was wearing what looked like a white silk negligee, with a pale blue bow holding it closed below her throat. She tiptoed in and squatted down beside me.

  “You moved,” Astor whispered. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said. “My head hurts and I’m tied up.”

  Astor ignored that. “He hit you really hard,” she said, still speaking very softly. “With a baseball bat. He hit Mom hard, too. She hasn’t moved for a while.” She put a hand on my forehead, then took it away and nodded. “I didn’t know he would do that,” she said. “I thought you might be dead.”

  “I will be,” I said, “and you will be, too, if you don’t untie me.”

  “He won’t kill me,” she said, and there was a bizarre, alien smugness in her voice. “Robert loves me.”

  “Astor, Robert doesn’t love anybody but himself. And he’s killed a couple of people.”

  “He did it for me,” she said. “So we could be together.” She smiled, a little proud, a little pleased with herself, and a bizarre and unexpected thought popped into my throbbing head: She was actually considering leaving me tied up, for Robert’s sake. Unthinkable-but she was thinking about it.

  “Astor,” I said, and unfortunately, a little bit of Disapproving Dad crept into my voice. It was the worst possible tone to use on Astor, and she shook her head and frowned again.

  “It’s true,” she said. “He killed them because he really lo
ves me.”

  “He killed Jackie,” I said.

  “I know. Sorry,” she said, and she patted my arm. “He kind of had to. She came busting into his trailer, yelling at him, and we were … together,” she said, looking smug and a little shy. “She was yelling about how the computer says he killed Kathy, whoever that is. But she sees us there, you know. I let him … kiss me, and … and she sort of, whoa, just stopped there. And Robert jumps up and he’s totally, ‘No, no, wait a minute; I can explain.’ And she looks at him, and says something like, ‘Okay, you can explain it to Sergeant Morgan.’ ” She grinned briefly. “Aunt Deborah,” she told me.

  “Yes, I know,” I said.

  “So anyway, Robert jumps up and says to me, ‘Stay here,’ and he’s gone out the door, chasing Jackie.” She shrugged. “I didn’t want to miss anything. I followed and I see them go into Jackie’s trailer, and by the time I get there he’s running out again, carrying this really nice MacBook Air.” She nodded. “He says I can have it,” she said. “When we get away someplace safe.”

  “Astor, there isn’t anyplace safe,” I said. “He’s killed two people. They’re going to find him, and they’re going to put him in prison for a long time.”

  Astor bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I do know,” I said. “There is nowhere he can go where they won’t find him.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “People get away with murder all the time,” she said, and she looked at me with a kind of knowing, challenging smirk.

  “But Robert killed somebody famous, Astor. The cops have to catch him or they look bad to the whole world. They’ll give this everything they’ve got, and they’ll catch him.”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Definitely,” I told her. “They will try their very hardest-in fact, the only thing that could make the cops try any harder is if Robert also kidnapped somebody. Like an eleven-year-old girl with blond hair.”

  “He didn’t kidnap me, Dexter,” she said. “I went with him. He loves me.”

  “Do you love him?”

  She snorted. “Course not,” she said. “But he’s going to get me into movies.”

  “He can’t do that from prison. Or if he’s dead,” I said.

  “But he says we can get away!” she said. “We can hide from the cops!”

  “And how will he get you into movies if he’s hiding from the cops?”

  She put her lower lip between her teeth and frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. And I thought I might have convinced her at last.

  “Astor,” I said. “Robert’s acting career is over. His life is over. And yours is, too, if you stay with him.” I wiggled closer to her and held my wrists up as far as I could. “Now untie me.”

  Astor looked at me, and then turned and looked at the door. Then she looked back at me and shook her head. “I better not,” she said. “Robert might get mad.”

  “Astor, for Christ’s sake!”

  She put a hand across my mouth. “Shhh,” she said. “He’ll hear you.”

  “I already did,” said a voice from the door, and Robert came into the room. He flipped the light switch beside the door and the ceiling light came on. It was a lot brighter than I remembered it, and I had to squint. So I didn’t see anything until Robert knelt down beside me, his head blocking the light. Then I could see, but I wished I couldn’t; Robert was carrying a very large butcher knife, and he looked like he knew what he wanted to do with it.

  Robert studied me for a moment, head cocked to one side. Even in the glaring light of this room, his tan looked great, his skin seemed smooth and soft, and his teeth were still perfect as he peeled his lips back to give me a brief automatic smile. He hefted the knife and there was no doubt what he was thinking, but he was still the most unlikely executioner I could ever imagine. “You shouldn’t have come here, Dexter,” he said, rather sorrowfully, as if it was all my fault.

  “You shouldn’t have killed Jackie,” I said.

  He grimaced briefly. “Yeah, I hate that,” he said. “I just don’t have the stomach for it. But I had to,” he said, and he shrugged. “It gets a little easier each time.” He looked at me like he thought I would be easiest of all, and I could see I was running out of time. “Anyway,” he said, “I had a good reason. I did it for Astor.”

  He turned and looked at her, and to his credit, if that is the right word, the look he gave her was either genuine abiding affection, or he was a much better actor than I’d thought. Astor looked back at him, but she didn’t look quite as smitten, and I thought I saw one small chance to save poor Dexter’s bacon.

  “If you like Astor so much,” I said, “you never should have lied to her.”

  Robert jerked his head back around to face me and frowned. “I didn’t lie to her,” he said. “I would never do that; I really love her. She knows that.” And he smiled at her again, putting the knife down on the floor beside him so he could take her hand reassuringly.

  “You lied to her,” I said, and it was the only card I had to play, so I pushed it hard. “You told her you could get her in movies, and that’s a lie.”

  “No,” he said, “I have a lot of connections and-”

  “Your connections will run from you like the plague,” I said. “Just as soon as they find out you’re a lying, murdering pedophile.”

  Robert turned bright red. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Nobody understands.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “And the cops don’t understand, either, and they will make sure you go to jail for the rest of your life-if you’re lucky. We do have capital punishment in Florida, you know.”

  He was shaking his head, faster and faster. “No, no way,” he said. “They’ll never catch me. I can get away.”

  “How, Robert?” I said. “They’re already watching the airports, the docks, even the bus depot.”

  “I have a car,” he said, almost like he hoped that was worth something.

  “And if you use your credit card to buy gas, they’ll know it. They’re going to get you, Robert. You snatched a little girl, and they are coming for you, and they will never, ever stop until they get you.”

  Robert bit his lip. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. “I can … I can bargain,” he said.

  “You’ve got nothing to bargain with,” I said.

  “I do,” he said. “I have a … a hostage.”

  “A what?” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “I can get a boat and make Cuba-I just need a head start. They’ll give me that if I give them Astor.”

  Right beside Robert I saw Astor’s face change. She had been watching us like she was seeing a Ping-Pong match, head swiveling from Robert to me, while a frown slowly bloomed on her face. But when Robert said “give them Astor,” her face hardened into a mask of cold dark rage, and she aimed it right at Robert.

  “Give them Astor? I thought you loved her,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I can’t go to prison,” he said. “I know what they do to people like me.” His jaw moved from side to side, and he blew out a breath and repeated, “I can’t go to prison. I just can’t. I will do anything to stay out.” He leaned over me, blocking everything out of my sight except his perfectly tanned, far-too-handsome face, and he actually looked a little regretful. “So I’m really sorry,” he said. “But that means I have to, um, you know.” He sighed heavily. “Kill you. I’m really sorry, Dexter. Really. I like you. But I can’t take the chance that-Urkkh,” he said, and his eyes got very big. For a long moment he didn’t move and didn’t breathe, just knelt over me looking faintly surprised. Then he frowned and opened his mouth to say something. But instead of words, a great horrible gout of vile hot awful red blood came out and it splattered onto the floor and onto me, and even though I jerked my head to one side some of it dripped onto my face.…

  And then Robert toppled over to one side and did not move, and behind him, snarling triumphantly down at him and holding a very bloody, very sharp kni
fe-behind him in her little white silk negligee with its pale blue bow and a new set of bright red polka dots, was Astor.

  “Stupid asshole,” she told him.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Astor used the knife to cut the ropes off my hands. It was just nylon clothesline and it parted easily, and in just a few seconds I was sitting up and rubbing at the nasty wet blood on my face. I felt unclean, soiled, and very close to panic until I untied my feet, too, and stumbled in to the sink to wash the awful stuff off. I looked in the mirror above the sink to make sure I’d gotten it all, and I saw a strange, uncertain face looking back at me.

  Who are you now? I wondered. It was a good question, and I could not answer it. I had tried to be a new and different Dexter-tried and failed. I had seen what I thought was a wonderful, shiny new life, a place where luxury was common coin and everyone was beautiful and no possibility was out of reach. I had seen it, and I had wanted it, and I had even been invited in, and I had thought that in a place that shone so brightly, even love was possible-love, for someone like me, who had never felt any emotion stronger than irritation.

  And I had looked around at my little perch, a tried-and-true place of proven safety, sanctified by years of experience and the Harry Code, and suddenly it had not been enough. So I had jumped feet-first off my perch, and I had landed in the bright and gleaming New World-only to find that the bright and shining place that looked so warm and solid was no more than thin and brittle ice that could never hold my weight. And it had shattered and dumped me in the frigid salt sea.

  And when I had needed most of all to be the real me, Saint Dexter of the Knife, I had taken one standard, well-practiced step into the Dark Dance, and fallen off my plié. I had been tricked and trapped by a man so dull and hollow he was practically a hologram, and he would have finished me off if I had not been saved by an eleven-year-old girl.

  It was perfect; only the truly delusional can fall so far. I had tumbled out of all my illusions, new and old. And now I would fall the rest of the way, back into the stifling dullness of the plain woodframe world behind the beautiful fake scenery.