by Jeff Lindsay
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Not one fucking thought.”
For a moment I was too stunned to respond. Here I was in quite literal chains, with reason to think it would soon be my permanent condition, and she was blaming me for not thinking of the children. Who, it must be said, were perfectly free to wander around and sit on the swings and eat pizza or whatever they wanted. It was a monstrous injustice approaching even the unfairness of my imprisonment, but there it was, and at last my wits returned and brought with them a large helping of indignation.
“Deborah, that’s completely unfair,” I said. “I have been in here without any kind of…” And I trickled to a truly feeble halt, because once again, Deborah was holding the phone away from her head and waiting for me to stop talking.
When I did, she let it hang for another minute before she finally picked up the phone. “The papers give me full custody of the kids,” she said. “I’m leaving them with the guard.” She waved the papers. “Sign them.” She began to stand up, and panic flooded into me, from the basement up. My last, my only hope, and she was leaving.
“Deborah, wait!” I called.
Deborah paused in an awkward position, a kind of squat between standing and sitting, and it seemed to my fevered brain that she stayed like that for an awfully long time, as though she couldn’t wait to leave, but some stupid obligation had frozen her in place and kept her from fleeing something distasteful. We both thought she was going to leave anyway. But then, to my idiotic relief, she sat down and picked up the phone again. “What,” she said, in a voice as dead as it could be and still come from a living human mouth.
Once more I could only blink stupidly. The “what” of it seemed painfully obvious, so patently clear that I couldn’t think of any way to say it that wasn’t insulting her intelligence. I said it anyway. “I need your help,” I said.
And just to prove that she could insult my intelligence right back, she said, “For what?”
“To get out of here,” I said. “To find a way to prove that…that—”
“That you’re innocent?” she snarled. “Bullshit.”
“But—I am innocent!”
“The hell you are,” she said, looking and sounding angry for the first time, but at last she was finally showing a little emotion. “You left Jackie alone, you abandoned Rita and let her get killed, and you handed Astor over to a homicidal pedophile!” I could see the knuckles of her hand clutching the phone turning white. She took a deep breath, and her face settled back into cold indifference. “Show me the innocent part, Dexter. Because I don’t see it.”
“But…but, Debs,” I whimpered. “I didn’t kill anybody.”
“This time!” she snapped.
“Well, but…but,” I stammered, “but that’s what I’m in here for. This time. And I didn’t…”
“This time,” she repeated softly. But even though her voice had softened, her eyes were still hard and bright. She leaned in close to the window. “How many other times did you kill somebody, Dexter? How many more times would you if you got out?” It was a fair question, and the answer would certainly compromise my innocent plea, so I wisely said nothing, and Deborah went on.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “I can’t help it. I know you say Dad set the whole thing up so you—” She looked away again. “I can’t do it anymore. I thought I could live with it, close one eye and just…” She looked back at me, and there was no softness in her anywhere. “But now this, and I don’t have any idea who the fuck you are anymore. Maybe I never did—and you could’ve been lying all along about Daddy, and…I mean, he was a cop, and a Marine vet! What would he have said, Dexter? What would Daddy say about the shit you just pulled?”
She glared at me, and I realized she really wanted an answer, but all I could think of to say was, “Semper fi…”
Deborah looked at me a little longer. Then she leaned back in her chair. “I wake up at night, and I think about all the people you killed. And I think about all the people you’ll kill if you get out again. And if I help you get out, I am as good as killing them myself,” she said.
“I thought you were okay with—I mean, Dad really did set it up, and…”
Once more her expression was enough to make me trickle to a stop.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she said. “It’s wrong. It goes against everything I ever—” Her voice was rising, and she caught herself, stopped, and went on calmly. “You belong here,” she said matter-of-factly. “The world is a better and safer place with you locked up.”
It was difficult to argue with her logic, but it would have been rather counterproductive not to try. “Debs,” I said. “I’m in here for something you know I didn’t do. You can’t let them hang it on me—you’re better than that.”
“Save it,” she said. “I’m not the fucking Innocence Project. And if I was, I’d pick somebody who deserved to be saved.”
“I’ve got nobody else,” I said, trying very hard not to sound whiny.
“No, you don’t,” she said. “You let them all get killed.”
“That’s not—”
“And you don’t have me, either,” she said. “You’re on your own.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“You’re goddamned right I mean it,” she said. “I help you get out, I do nothing but turn a killer loose—and just incidentally kill my career, too.”
“Oh, well,” I said. And I was so unhinged at her attitude that I sank into sarcasm. “Of course, if it’s a question of your career—I mean, what does my life matter compared to your career?”
She ground her teeth audibly, and her nostrils flared out and turned white, which I knew from our childhood meant she was about to lose it. “If I can save my career, keep a killer in jail, and help the department at the same time—”
“You’re not helping the department,” I said, and I was peevish now, too. “You’re not helping anyone but Anderson. And you’re doing it by abandoning your own brother!”
“Adopted,” she spat. “Not my real brother.”
For a very long moment those words just hung between us. For my part, I felt as if I had been poleaxed. For her to think that, let alone say it, was so far beyond any possible propriety that I couldn’t believe she’d really said it. Surely I had imagined it? Deborah would never…I mean, would she?
And for her part, Deborah spent a long stretch of that eternity grinding her teeth at me. There was one small, quick flash of something in her eyes: a frail and fleeting thought I could almost see that said she knew she should never say such a thing, and she couldn’t believe she’d said it, either. But that thought was gone, faster than a speeding bullet, and she settled back into her chair and got comfortable, nodding slightly, as though she was actually quite glad she’d finally said something that had been troubling her for a while. And then, just to be sure I was completely and utterly crushed, she said it again.
“Adopted,” she said with matter-of-fact venom. “You were never really my brother.”
She glared at me for another eternity or two, and then she stood up, gathered her papers, and walked away.
FOUR
I don’t know how long I sat there. It seemed like a very long time. But at some point I became aware that Lazlo’s hand was on my shoulder and he was urging me to my feet. I let him lead me back to my cell and button me in, but I didn’t actually see or hear anything that happened along the way. There was room in my poor battered brain for only one thing, and it played in an endless loop: You were never really my brother.
She’d said that. Deborah had actually said those words, and then looked perfectly satisfied with herself for saying them—and then, on top of that mind-melting sequence, she had repeated them, just in case I didn’t hear her the first time. But I heard her. I heard her over and over and I could not hear or think anything else but that.
You were never really my brother.
I know a great deal about Me. I know that I am not, for
instance, ever going to change. I will always be Dexter the Monster, human-appearing, but walking through life with one foot always in perpetual Darkness. And I am also not able to feel Real Human Emotions. This is a fact, and it cannot change either. I do not feel. I am not capable.
So what were these terrible things surging through me, smashing at the tight slick walls that held Me in perfect cold indifference? This stomach-twisting dread, the sensation of everything around me and in me being diseased, dead, rotten, and empty? What could they possibly be? They certainly felt like Feelings.
You were never really my brother.
Barely, only just almost, I could understand Deborah’s decision not to help me. Her career was everything to her, and I really was, after all, all she said I was and feared I would be again. I was and I would be, undeniably, unchangeably, and eagerly. It made a certain sense for her to think that way, and while I could never endorse it as a plan of action, I could at least comprehend the mental process that had led her there.
But this, the other, the utter rejection of our entire jointly led life, the complete denial of family ties, stretching back through the years to Mom and the house in the Grove and even including Saint Harry and His Plan—to take thirty-some years of actual existence and fling it away like roadkill—
—and then to throw it in my face, not once but twice, in a cold, uncompromising, and, it must be said, a cruel manner…this I could not understand. This went so far beyond mere self-preservation, so deeply into the surreal realm of Human Emotional Wickedness, a kingdom that was forever closed to someone like me—the Emotion part, I mean—that I could not begin to fathom it. I could not even imagine a set of circumstances that would lead me to deny Deborah in such a complete, absolute, and unbending way. It was unthinkable, no matter how I thought of it.
You were never really my brother.
That sentence of death still rang in my ears at lights-out that night.
—
It was still there the next morning at four-thirty when my loud, bright, and unnecessary wake-up call sounded. I did not need to be awakened. I had not slept. I had not performed any other higher functions of any kind, either. I had, in fact, done no more than lie on my bunk and listen to the endlessly repeating loop of Deborah’s voice casting me out of my entire life and into eternal all-alone darkness.
Breakfast came, delivered with cheerful invisible competence through the slot in my door. I am almost sure I ate it, since the tray was empty when I put it back through the slot. But I could not say what I had eaten. It might have been anything: baked frog vomit, deep-fried possum nostrils, human fingers, anything at all. I would not have noticed.
But things change. No matter how hard we fight it, nothing stays as it is. All things, as you may have noticed, must change, and even end. At some point, even the greatest misery begins to fade. Life, or what passes for life, plods on in its own unending weary footsteps, and somehow we plod along with it, if we stay lucky. Eventually, other little thoughts began to trickle into the Pit of Despair where I lay and, it must be said, where I wallowed. It was this very act of wallowing, of starting to enjoy my suffering a little too much, that finally brought me back to something resembling awareness. I became aware that I had started my own repeating loop, in perfect harmony to Deborah’s hard words. It was a simple melody, a sprightly version of the well-known old tune “Pity Me.” And when I was at last alert to the fact that I was doing that, I became self-conscious and, from there, conscious.
And so at last, just before a delightful lunch of Strange Brown Meat Sandwich was delivered, Dexter arose from the dead. I sat up, stood, and performed a few stretching motions. Then, still aware of the utterly miserable and friendless wretch that I was, I began to think. My justly famous brain was the very last asset I had; using it to play back one small cruel song over and over was not really the optimum function of this rare and valuable piece of machinery.
So I thought. Very well, I thought, I am in jail. Anderson has schemed to keep me here without due process. Deborah has abandoned me. My court-appointed attorney appears to be an overworked underengaged Twinkie. But is all that really the end of the world? Certainly not! I still have Me, and there is a great deal one can do with a finely tuned resource like that. And thinking that, I felt a little better—even though I did not, in fact, think of any specific things Me might accomplish that would help Me get out of TGK. But I would think on that, too, and sooner or later I would arrive at some fiendishly clever course of action.
I did not, however, arrive at any such destination for the next few days, no matter how much I put my cerebral racehorse through its paces. If I could only get hold of the forensic evidence from the assorted killings I was charged with, I knew I could assemble a compelling case for my innocence. A significant part of my job had been testifying in court, and hard experience had taught me how to make dry facts come to life for a judge and jury. It was usually fun, since it was in truth no more than dramatizing things a bit. Over the years I had become quite good at taking an array of somewhat gooey facts and teaching them to sing and dance in a courtroom. Of course, it was probable that Anderson had been sticking his huge and grimy fingers into the forensic evidence, too. But it was just as likely that he had missed something important—or left such huge fingerprints on everything that I could hoist him with the petard of his own evidence tampering. Whatever the case, I was absolutely certain I could find something to work with—if I could just get back to my lab….
That is, if it was even mine anymore. It was another thing I hadn’t thought about yet. Was I fired, suspended, provisionally forgotten, or what? I didn’t know, and that might make a big difference.
But then there was Vince Masuoka, the closest thing I had to a friend. He would still be there on the job—and he would surely help me, wouldn’t he? I thought over what I knew about him, which was surprisingly little, considering we had worked together in perfect amity for so many years. I knew where he lived—he had thrown me my bachelor party at his little house. I knew he wore a Carmen Miranda costume on Halloween. I knew he liked to go clubbing, and he had invited me to join him more than once. I had always begged off, pleading family obligations. And I knew his laugh was as completely fake as mine, though not nearly as convincing. It was one of the things that made me comfortable with Vince: He was quite obviously just as unclear about how to fit in with the rest of the world as I was.
But other than that, what did I really know about Vince Masuoka? It didn’t seem like much when I trotted it out and lined it all up like that, a few little factoids that I might as well have read somewhere, and yet he was my closest friend. Is it like this for humans, too? Does anybody ever really know anybody else, no matter how well they “know” them? It seemed impossible.
It also seemed like a stupid distraction. It didn’t matter how well I knew Vince. It only mattered that he would help me. He had to. He was all I had left. He was, officially, my friend—and when family leaves you so dramatically in the lurch, friends are all you have. My friend Vince would help me.
And so my next gigantic mental public works project became trying to think of how I could get a message to him. I had to assume that Anderson was keeping a tight lid on any attempts I might make to communicate with anyone. So I could not come right out and tell Vince what I needed him to do. Anderson would just quash it, and if he didn’t, he would in any case know what I was trying to do, and prevent it. Among his many charms, Anderson was a bully, and he would certainly lean on Vince, and lean a lot harder and heavier than poor little Vince could tolerate. So I had to find a way to let Vince know I needed help, and yet keep Anderson off the scent.
I really don’t like to boast, but I have so much supporting testimony that I would be less than truthful if I did not admit that I am fiendishly clever. I take no credit for it; I was born this way. Something as basic as a message that Vince would understand and Anderson wouldn’t should have been absolute simplicity for me. I pondered it with confidence, certa
in that some bright and devious ploy would pop into my busy brain. It should have been the work of a few comfortable minutes.
And yet a day later I was still pondering. It may be that the TGK diet, however nutritious and wholesome, did not contain enough fish to keep my brain functioning at the highest levels. But I had thought of nothing, and I was still empty of inspiration when once again, a little while after my delightful midday meal, I heard the gears clicking in my door. Once again it swung open, and Lazlo beckoned, saying, “Your lawyer’s here.” It was almost certainly my imagination, but he seemed to put a bit more respect into those words than he had done previously.
I trudged out of my cell and over to the large, thick window to face once more Bernie and his fabulous flying documents—and I stopped dead only halfway there. Because Bernie was nowhere to be seen. Instead, another man sat in his place in the chair on the far side of the glass. He was a man unlike any I have ever seen, outside of the movies. Everything about him seemed to radiate calm assurance, power, and money. He was tanned where Bernie was pale, relaxed and confident instead of hassled, harried, and exhausted, and he was dressed in a suit that was so unlike the poor ill-fitting grubby thing Bernie wore that it cannot really be thought of as the same kind of garment.
This man’s suit has a life of its own. It sparkles with vitality and wit, and seems to glow with the same perfect health as the man wearing it. This suit is the kind of thing ambitious tailors dream of making when they hear that royalty is in town.
I feel Lazlo’s hand on my shoulder, and I turn to look at him quizzically. He just nods and pushes me toward the window.
And so I sit, quite certain that some large and comical mistake is unfolding, but willing to play it through, if only because it breaks the tedium. I look at the man through the glass; he nods and gives me a brief, professional smile. He is holding a beautiful Italian-leather folder filled with neatly aligned papers. With his other hand he picks up the phone, holds it for me to see, and raises an eyebrow at me.