“He sold them. I ran them.”
Kane nodded, said nothing.
“I hadn’t seen him in over a year. I thought I’d gotten rid of him for good. Then one night he just walked in. I found out later that someone we used to know had seen me working here and tipped him off. He’d been looking for me for a while, but I’ve gotten pretty good at being hard to find.”
“Why was he looking for you?”
“There was some unpleasantness between us. And some unfinished business.”
“What does that mean?”
“I left him a little in the lurch, financially speaking. I took off with some money that was his, that he owed to someone else. That was the unfinished business.”
“And the unpleasantness?”
“He used to want to fuck me.”
Kane nodded.
“Nothing happened,” she said. “I wasn’t interested. He’s pretty ugly. Be grateful you never saw his face. On top of that, he’s pretty much as insane as they get.”
“Insane how?”
“I think he must have done some serious steroid damage to his brain at some point. He’s got a pretty freaky temper.”
“That explains a lot.”
“He’s got a real reputation for violence. A real knack for it, too.”
“He seemed to enjoy pouncing on me.”
“He’s a bit of a sadist.”
Kane nodded at that, then said, “So one night he walks in here and finds you. Then what?”
“He told me that he wanted me to do something for him. That I owed him, and he’d make trouble for me if I didn’t help him out.”
“What did he want you to do?”
“He said he had a friend, some older man who liked to take photographs of young men, liked the young men to be unconscious while he took his photos, liked them to be naked. Dean wanted me to help him get a young man for his friend.”
“That’s an . . . unusual request.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“How exactly did he expect you to ‘get young men’?”
“He had it all planned out. I was supposed to pick someone out, someone who trusted me. He and his friend had a specific type in mind, but other than that, it could be anyone I knew.”
“Then what?”
“I was supposed to tell this kid to meet me for a drink. Dean gave me something to slip into his glass. Then I was supposed to tell the kid to wait a few minutes after I left and then meet me down the road a bit. From there they’d do the rest.”
“So you did this?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t really have a choice, though.”
“You could have gone to the police.”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Who was it that said the problem with living outside the law was that you no longer had the protection of it?”
“Truman Capote.”
“Yeah, well, there was nothing he didn’t know, right?”
“You’re in trouble with the police?”
She nodded again.
Kane waited a moment, thinking of all this, then said, “So you did what they wanted?”
“Yeah.”
“Larry was one of the boys?”
“Yeah.”
“And the boy they found before him?”
Colette paused, then nodded again. “Yeah, him too.”
“Did you know they were going to kill them?”
“No. They said the first boy had probably gone swimming after having too much to drink, just like the police said. They said they’d only kept him for a few hours, then let him go when the drug wore off. He wasn’t found dead till the next night.”
“And you believed what they said?”
“I wanted to believe it. I needed to. I told myself what I needed to tell myself to live with what I had done. You can understand that, right?”
Kane nodded absently. “But when Larry turned up dead?”
“I started having my doubts even before that. I guess deep down I knew that the first boy hadn’t been an accident. I knew there was more going on with Dean and his friend than just picture taking. There had to be.”
“What made you think that?”
“We had only talked in person that one night, Dean and I. The rest of the times it was always on cell phones, and each time he called me, it was from a different number. Never on my home line, always my cell phone. I remembered, though, that his mother had a house in Riverhead. We’d gone there once, back when we were in business together, right after she had died. I don’t think he ever knew his father. I decided to drive over there and see what I could see. This was the night after I’d met Larry at the bar and slipped what they gave me into his drink, then told him to wait five minutes and leave. I kept listening to the news on the radio, waiting to hear that he turned up dead somewhere, dreading hearing it. I couldn’t sit around any longer. It didn’t seem like anyone was home, and then I saw this white van back out from behind the house. I followed it, saw him toss Larry’s body into the bay, saw it get carried away in the tide. I called the cops, told them where to look. I figured maybe, somehow, they’d trace it back to him.”
“Why didn’t you tell them where he lived?”
“Dean would have known that it was me. I didn’t want to chance having him come looking for me. Making the phone call I made was bad enough. I didn’t dare stay home. I never told Dean where I lived, but if I could follow him, then he could have just as easily followed me home from work one night. I didn’t want to sit around and wait for him to knock down my door. So I asked Jorge if I could stay here.”
“Who’s Jorge?”
“The bar manager. The one who got drunk and told me about what went on up here. I figured this way I could stay here and still work and not have to leave, not have to run the risk of running into Dean on the road.”
“Do you think he knows you’re here?”
“I’m hoping he thinks I blew town again. Anyway, Ty’s at the door every night till closing. And there’s always someone in the back room just behind the bar. The men they have working here are pretty serious about their jobs.”
“I don’t understand something. If you’re in such danger, then why did you go to the college tonight to model?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t know you knew as much as you did. I didn’t know you had gone out to the chapel, or that anyone had talked to you about any of this. I didn’t know what else to say.”
“So then why were you there?”
“I was looking for you.”
“What for?”
“I called your place but you didn’t answer. I was desperate, decided to come look for you. I drove by the college, saw your Jeep in the lot, then your light.”
“Why were you looking for me?”
“Because Dean never mentioned this friend of his by name. Never once. He only referred to him by a nickname.”
“What nickname?”
“The Professor.”
It took Kane a moment to respond. He didn’t see any significance at all, any connection to anything. He got the impression, though, that Colette thought he’d see it right away.
“I don’t understand,” he said finally.
“You sit here long enough, you start to think of all kinds of things. You start to try to fit the pieces together.”
“I’m not following you, Colette.”
“Dean had told me that if anyone asked me anything about Larry, about why he had disappeared for one night, anything, that I was supposed to tell them about the chapel, that Larry used to go there with friends and do Satan worship, that he had bragged to me about it. This is what made me realize that Larry wasn’t coming back alive.”
“Larry never said anything to you about the chapel or what went on there?”
“No, not once. Dean told me to say that. He told me exactly what to say, made me memorize it.”
“But I saw it. I saw the writing on the walls, the drawings. There was even this little altar made of wood and milk crates.”
“Pretty convenient, huh?”
“You think it was staged?”
“It’s crossed my mind, yeah.”
“But why? Why would they do that?”
She shrugged. “Diversion. Maybe a wild goose chase, to waste the cops’ time or something. Like I said, Dean was very specific about what I was supposed to say to anyone who asked me about Larry. I think it’s safe to say that he wanted someone to go there, to find it just the way it was.”
Kane waited a moment, thinking about all that, then said, “I’m sorry, though, I’m still not following. What does that have to do with you looking for me tonight?”
“It was Dean who told me to pick Larry. The first kid could be anyone I wanted it to be, as long as he fit the description. It would work better if it was someone I knew, someone who trusted me. But he was very specific about Larry, knew Larry’s name, knew a lot of things about him, his class schedule, what dorm he was in, that Larry had a thing for me. I finally asked Dean why it had to be Larry, and he said the Professor wanted him next, that he wanted Larry Foster or it was no deal. So whoever this Professor is knew Larry, knew that I knew him, that I would have easy access to him.”
“So you were looking for me to tell me that.”
“No. I was looking for you to ask you just how well you knew Mercer.”
“What?”
“How well do you know Mercer?”
“This is ridiculous, Colette.”
“Think about it. When I find you, you tell me that someone beat you up out at the chapel, someone who can only be Dean, and that some private investigator that Mercer knows sent you there, that it was Mercer who put you and this private investigator together to begin with.”
“This is crazy.”
“Mercer would know about the chapel.”
“A lot of people know about the chapel, Colette. Everyone who goes to the college or works there knows about it. Everyone who ever went to the college and who ever worked there knows about it.”
“He knew Larry, or knew of him, anyway, saw him in the hallways every day, saw me talking to him, saw the three of us in your class.”
“So did a lot of people.”
“Dean said something about the professor having a German name. Is Mercer German?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t see a possible connection here?”
“I see a connection, yeah, but not the one you see.”
“How well do you know him, though?”
“I know him very well.”
“But how well do we really know anyone, what they’re capable of? That’s the thing with crazy killers, no one they know ever sees it coming. That’s always the case, isn’t it? That’s how they get away with what they get away with for so long. He’d see Larry every day, Larry could have caught his eye, driven him crazy for some reason. Who knows what makes someone like that do what they do.”
“First of all, it’s just not possible, okay. Not in a million lifetimes. Mercer’s not like that. He’s married. To wife number four. I think I’d know if he had a thing for boys.”
“Does he know about all your ‘things’? Your kinks?” She glanced at the scratches on Kane’s face. He ignored the shift in her eyes.
“Second,” he said, “he’s been busting his ass trying to keep me from getting fired. You make it sound like he’s setting me up for something, that he conspired to get me to go out to the chapel. He’s my friend, Colette, he’s trying to help me.”
“I used to see Dean do that all the time.”
“Do what?”
“Keep someone close by. Keep them right there beside him, to take the fall for him if necessary. You don’t know Dean. He’s got serious steroid damage, yeah, but the part of his brain that thinks of ways to cover his ass works just fine. He knows how to pin things on people. I saw him do it a dozen times. A little coke in someone’s car, a call to the police—boom, the competition, or threat, or whatever’s eliminated just like that.”
“But that’s Dean. We’re talking about Mercer.”
“But if the Professor that Dean talked about is him, then that means they’re working together. Dean could have taught him that little trick. Dean taught me a lot of shit back when we were in business together.”
“This is crazy talk, Colette. It’s just . . . crazy talk, that’s all.”
“He called someone from the chapel. Right? That’s what you said. Dean called someone from the chapel, and the person on the other end said they needed you, that it all hinged on you, or something like that. That’s what you said, right?”
“First of all, we don’t know for a fact that it was your buddy Dean who did this to me.”
“Who else could it be? I mean, c’mon, what are the chances that someone built like him would just show up out there while you happened to be looking around, then jump you and call someone and ask if he should kill you or not? C’mon, what are the chances of that?”
Kane said nothing. He was tired, past tired. And besides, what could he say? She was right—about this much, anyway, about the man who stomped him having to be the man she knew as Dean.
“I know Mercer means a lot to you,” Colette said. “I know you look up to him and all that. And I’m not saying it is him. I’m not saying I’m right about this. I’m just telling you what I know and what I see. I’m just saying it’s possible, that’s all. Everything’s possible, even the impossible. Especially the impossible. I mean, that’s the thing about being alive, isn’t it? About being alive in this world? For better and for worse, the impossible happens.”
Kane didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore, about any of it. Still, as he lay there, he found himself thinking over everything Colette had just said, looking more, or so he thought, for some way to dismiss it, some argument, some single fact, that would turn what she was considering into dust once and for all.
But the more he looked for that, for that one thing, the more he started remembering other things, things that only added to his confusion. The broken lock on his door. Mercer’s visit to his apartment the following afternoon. Mercer’s calling Meg’s house, looking for Kane there the morning after Larry was found, bringing Kane in to talk to the two detectives. He thought about all this despite himself, despite the fact that he knew Colette was wrong, crazy wrong, out-of-her-fucking-mind wrong. Every part of him knew it, knew that she had to be. Just had to be. Mercer wasn’t like that, wasn’t capable of that. No one he knew, no one in his ever-diminishing world, could be.
And, yet, here was Kane, here was Colette. Dean had called someone. If not Mercer, then who?
Kane needed to find a way out of this, right now, his mind needed to find a way out, a way of escaping from these spiraling thoughts. He felt as if he was being led into a dark maze, and he wasn’t up for that, not by any stretch of the imagination was he up for that. None of this made any sense, none of it, none at all—and, yet what from the last few days did? Or from the last four years?
His mind—tired now, way beyond tired—grabbed at the first sane question that floated by.
“What does Dean get out of all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why does he do this for his friend? Why does he go to all this trouble just so a buddy of his can fulfill some perverse fantasy?”
“Money, that’s why. When I left Dean in the lurch, he lost everything, had to go back to Riverhead and lay low in his mother’s house, take some crappy job just to pay the bills. The money that he’s getting for this is supposed to be enough to get him back into the game. He blames me for losing everything. I think the only thing that kept him from killing me for what I did to him was the fact that he needed me, that he knew he could blackmail me into doing this for him. And, like I said, the guy’s a sadist. Hurting people was sometimes part of the business. He wa
s never squeamish about doing what he had to do.”
“How much trouble exactly could he make for you? With the police, I mean. What could he tell them about you?”
“Enough.”
“Then maybe you could get a lawyer, try to get immunity or something, testify against him and the Professor.”
“Yeah, well, lawyers cost money. I’m a little short of that these days.”
She lifted the towel from Kane’s chest, looked at the bruises, then turned the towel over and lay the fresh side across him. He felt the coolness against his burning skin.
“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be the one to go out there and look around. If I had thought that was possible, I wouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s all right.”
Neither of them spoke for a long time. What was there left to say? Finally, though, Colette’s raspy voice broke the silence.
“So where’s your girlfriend tonight?” she said.
Kane swallowed, took a slow breath through his nose, let it out. “Home with her husband.”
“So I guess you won’t be going there, will you?”
“No.”
“Back in the office you said you didn’t want to go to your apartment.”
“My lock’s broken. I didn’t feel like waiting there for anyone to just come by and walk in.”
“You can stay here. You know that, right? You can stay for as long as you need.”
“What about Jorge?”
“What about him?”
“How’s he going to like the idea of me being up here with you?”
“He’ll do what I say. He feels responsible for me.”
“Why?”
“Because Dean found me here. Jorge doesn’t know I have a past with him. He thinks Dean is some customer who got the wrong idea and won’t leave me alone.”
Kane nodded and looked up at the ceiling, the peeling walls, imagined the rooms just down the hall, imagined them to be just like this one. Dilapidated chic. He imagined what went on here—the men who paid, the women who performed for money, and the reasons, all the reasons imaginable, why either would do what they did.
“You know, when I woke up today,” he said, “little did I know I’d end up under pimp protection.”
The Darkest Place Page 20
