Level 26

by Anthony E. Zuiker

  Instead of excising his demons, that year had seemed only to amplify them. When it was over, when he’d hit bottom, he had figured that was it for him, looked for a place to wait out the rest of his life. God willing, he had felt at the time, it wouldn’t be long.

  Despite what Riggins thought, he’d tried. Oh, he’d fucking tried. And in the end, he’d failed.

  Dark had gone back to simple life support. Booze. Sleep. Food, if absolutely necessary.

  After a while, he wasn’t even sure what kind of life he was supporting.

  This was his life until his chance meeting with Sibby.

  And now look where he was.

  A million-dollar house with a beach view. Spacious rooms with Thomas Moser solid handcrafted wood furniture. Custom kitchen design by Nicole Sassaman. Every time Dark picked up a spoon—designed by Doriana O. Mandrelli and Massimiliano Fuksas—he couldn’t help but think of the single, slightly bent utensil he’d use to eat most of his meals before.

  Before Sibby.

  His bride, and the love of his life.

  chapter 17

  The three-bedroom home Dark and Sibby shared wasn’t furnished for show; it was a cocoon, lovingly assembled. It was a retreat from everything, and every piece was chosen to be pleasing to the eye and to the touch. Dark almost never offered his opinions, but Sibby somehow knew exactly what colors and textures would soothe him. It was almost like precognition. Dark marveled at it every time he returned home from his morning retreat.

  Sibby, wrapped in a towel, entered the room and smiled at him. “You were out longer than usual.”

  She never failed to take his breath away. Sibby Dark was a caramel-skinned beauty with raven-dark hair and eyes so intense, it was impossible to turn away from them. Her body was endlessly fascinating to Dark, but it was her soul that made him feel most at home. He was no longer worried about polluting her with his misery. He hadn’t for a long time now—she seemed immune to it. She seemed to have a curative effect on him, too.

  Dark struggled to keep his focus trained on her while the beach dogs slammed their sweet faces against his. He loved to absorb every detail of her.

  “I know,” he said. “Must have lost track of time.”

  “You missed the show.”

  “The show” was part of their morning ritual: Dark would return from the beach, find himself crawling around on the floor with the dogs, and then make it upstairs in time to watch Sibby strip, preparing herself for the shower. It started as a joke after they first moved in together, Sibby giving a little seductive twist to the elastic band of her panties before sliding them down her long legs. Dark had smiled and joked about going to find a dollar. The striptease had evolved over the last year and a half to the point where now, more days than not, Sibby didn’t reach the shower at all, and Dark would close the bedroom door, and Max and Henry would slam their paws against it, yelping for entry.

  Now Dark managed to free himself from the deep pile of writhing canine and climbed to his feet. He put his hands on Sibby’s shoulders and took in the scent of her freshly washed hair. It was one of the most intoxicating smells in the world.

  “Hey, baby,” Sibby said, then smiled.

  He leaned forward to kiss her, careful not to press up against her belly.

  Her eight-months-pregnant belly.

  Yeah, look where he was now.

  chapter 18

  Tuesday / 10 P.M.

  It was late. Sibby was almost asleep. The dogs, too. Dark made his way to the balcony six feet away from their bed and carefully slid the glass door open. Out in the darkness he could hear the Pacific taking slaps at the shoreline.

  “Where are you going?” Sibby asked.

  “Just for some air,” Dark said.

  “Come back to bed. I want to fall asleep with your arms around me.”

  “I’ll be there soon.”

  The day had been perfect. A brisk session of morning sex, followed by a light lunch and some reading on the balcony. Wine (for him) by late afternoon, and some music in the living room—Sibby had an extensive collection of pristine cool-jazz LPs, most of them from her father. Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon. Before long the sun set and Dark rubbed Sibby’s temples, hands, and feet. The pregnancy had been smooth so far, and Sibby kept herself extremely fit, but carrying a child takes a toll on even the healthiest bodies.

  Soon Sibby was asleep on the couch, and Dark gently carried her to bed. He ended the day as he began it: alone.

  This was the hardest time.

  The morning was a self-challenge; a benediction; a bracing. Being alone in the morning was tolerable because he knew Sibby would be waiting for him when he returned.

  But the nights, and the countless hours until dawn…

  They were still filled with a slow-burning anguish. And it was only harder now, with Sibby in her eighth month. She was exhausted. She needed to rest as much as possible. Dark couldn’t be so selfish as to ask her to stay up and sit with him.

  So he tried to distract himself any way he could. Sometimes it was a basketball game. Once in a while, an old black-and-white movie. Most times, it was booze.

  Tonight was different, though.

  Tonight he had something else.

  Level 26, huh?

  Dark balanced his laptop on his knees, fired it up. The memory stick was in his jacket pocket, left side. It had been sitting there all day, untouched. He’d done his best to forget about it, drowning himself in domestic life with Sibby, losing himself in her touches, her scents, the sound of her voice. Even when she was doing something as simple as running a fingertip down his face, from his forehead to his chin, everything else faded away.

  Still, he couldn’t help it. Riggins’s surprise visit picked at his mind all day long. It was why he couldn’t throw his jacket in the wash and pretend to forget that the memory stick was there.

  Dark stared at the screen, absentmindedly twisting and turning the band of gold on his finger.

  How could he not watch?

  To unlock the memory stick, log into LEVEL26.com and enter the code: censored

  chapter 19

  Motel 6, Redondo Beach, California

  Wednesday Morning / 1 A.M.

  The cell phone started ringing and vibrating against the surface of the glass table.

  Riggins had put it there on purpose, so he’d hear it, no matter what, even if he was taking a leak in the tiny motel bathroom. Which he had been doing, in fact, when the phone started ringing. Figured.

  He shook, stuffed, zipped, and stumbled across the room and reached for the cell, almost knocking his bottle of scotch off the table. The screen read: “DARK.”

  Riggins fumbled, put the phone to his ear. “Hey.”

  The phone was silent, but Riggins knew Dark was on the other end of the line. Taking his time, saving his string, gathering his wool—whatever the hell you wanted to call it. There was nothing fast about Dark. Some ops at Special Circs used to joke that Dark moved so slowly, he almost went back in time a few days.

  You couldn’t argue with the results, though. Dark may have been a tortoise, but you should see the collection of mounted rabbit heads on his living room wall. When he focused his mind on a case, it was like nothing else existed. Everything extraneous faded away, and the man pieced together a crime narrative that invariably led back to the culprit. His focus was borderline superhuman.

  And the fact that Dark had taken the memory stick this morning (even though it took twenty minutes for Riggins to realize it) made all the difference in the world. He could sit in his room and still coordinate the case without looking at his digital watch every thirty seconds. This morning he’d had about thirty hours to live; he was down to about eleven. As long as Dark was still considering the offer, there was hope he’d make it through this.

  So Riggins waited. He’d waited sixteen hours already. What were a few more seconds?

  Finally, Dark spoke. “I can’t do it, Riggins. I’ve already given everything to find this freak. A
nd I failed. I don’t know how this time would be any different.”

  “Dark…”

  “No, I’m sorry. Things are…different now.”

  “No, I understand. More than you think.”

  “You don’t need me. You’ve got good men in Special Circs. Younger and sharper people. One of them will catch him.”

  “Right.”

  After that, there wasn’t much else to say.

  Riggins nodded to himself, then pressed the END key. Looked down at the empty tumbler, with just two nearly melted fragments of motel ice at the bottom.

  Funny thing was, he wasn’t frightened. Not like he thought he might be. Actually, Riggins was surprised to find he was relieved. He’d been offered a choice: Do something repulsive, or we will kill you. Well, he’d tried to do something repulsive—pull the closest thing he had to a son back into a case that had almost killed him. But Dark had just taken that option off the table. It was out of Riggins’s hands now, so no more messy moral debates. It was now a simple matter of being on the receiving end of a death sentence.

  Nellis and McGuire would be outside, smoking, maybe comparing knife wounds to pass the time. Riggins was certain his calls were tapped, so someone in Wycoff’s office had to know what had just happened. How long would it take for them to reach his babysitters and give them the order? Under a minute, maybe?

  He pushed aside the cheap, dusty curtains and peeked outside. Nothing but cars in a nearly empty lot, and sodium lights burning holes in the dark California sky. No Nellis. No McGuire. No sign of their black van, either.

  There was a knock at his hotel room door.

  Riggins briefly thought about his gun, which was hanging next to his jacket in the motel closet. But that would do no good. Nellis and McGuire were basically guys just like him, doing their job, keeping the personal out of it. If he was going to put a bullet in anybody, it should be Wycoff. Right between his bushy eyebrows.

  So Riggins would keep the personal out of it. Keep it professional.

  He looked down at his digital watch:

  11:05:43…

  11:05:42…

  11:05:41…

  11:05:40…

  Like sands sliding down the slender glass neck of an egg timer.

  Riggins walked over to the thin door and opened it—a formality, really. They could easily have kicked it in. A fourth grader could have.

  Nellis was staring at him. McGuire was out of sight—presumably in a flanking position.

  No. No funny moves now. Riggins would be professional to the very end. He had about eleven hours to live, and the only sane thing to do was spend them as he pleased.

  “Come on in, fellas,” Riggins said. “Let’s talk.”

  chapter 20

  Somewhere in America

  There were shadows down on the dungeon wall. Twiggy, writhing shadows, as if a pack of serpents had decided to band together and approximate the shape of a human being. The shadows doubled, then tripled in size. The snakes were moving closer….

  Then, suddenly, they ceased movement completely. Sqweegel stared at his frozen shape on the wall, thinking.

  He was thinking about tracking people’s movements. Pinning them down to a time. How to affix someone to a specific time and place?

  As he pondered the question, Sqweegel began moving again, enjoying the slithering shapes his body cast on the wall. Then he turned and stood at rigid attention, his back to the stone wall. He imagined a giant clock behind him and raised his elbow up at the ten, hand at the three. The moon hung high in the night sky, and its light gave Sqweegel’s suit an ethereal, almost angelic glow. His heart pounded out the seconds.

  Tick…

  Tock…

  Tick…

  Tock…

  With every beat more blood rushed through his veins, engorging his penis. Every pump summoned his cock to life. It rose from his body like a third hand, lifting away from the face of the skinny white human clock.

  Tick…

  Tock…

  Tick…

  Tock…

  And then he had the answer.

  Sqweegel crossed the dungeon floor to where he kept the giant wooden trunk big enough to fit a human being.

  He thumbed the combination lock on the front, then freed it from the latch. Inside were various trinkets he’d picked up over the past thirty years.

  After throwing open the lid, he dug through the contents of the trunk with his gloved hands. This was the one little indulgence he kept—aside from the films, of course. These were actual relics of his holy conquests, some pieces still dotted with blood, semen, tears, dust, skin flakes, bile, shit, piss, saliva. Or some combination of the above. This lone trunk couldn’t damn him, if ever discovered. No trace of himself could be found inside the box. But it probably would have been safer to have destroyed these things, or left them at the various scenes of his crimes.

  But he couldn’t resist.

  Just look at this stuff.

  Sqweegel reached in and removed a small stainless-steel device that looked like a tiny harp—an anal spreader. This was relatively new and still tacky with some improvised lubricant. He smiled behind the mask, then placed it to the side.

  There was a cock ring with a tiny switch that would release a set of spring-loaded shark-fin-style razors. Trap the penis, bleed it out entirely. He hadn’t used one of those in a while.

  Black titanium handcuffs that, once locked, could never be opened again. He’d had to recover these from a police evidence locker after the police had been forced to remove them from a scorched corpse. (He just had to have them back.)

  A Burdizzo—a nineteen-inch set of sharpened clamps originally intended to castrate bulls but co-opted by the transgender community as a DIY device.

  So much stuff. So many treasures and trophies and devices for his biographers to pore over and ponder later.

  Finally, Sqweegel found the relic he’d been looking for: a stopped wristwatch. It hadn’t told time for fifteen years.

  It wasn’t even a particularly expensive watch—just a Timex 1967 Silver Viscount. Silver band, scratched crystal, with little silver tabs marking the hours between the twelve, three, six, and nine. Self-winding. It was dead when Sqweegel had taken it from the desk drawer of one of his victims.

  Something about it, though, made him want it. It was the kind of watch a father might pass down to a son—which was probably the case here, considering the youth he’d gotten it from. The watch had most likely functioned properly when the kid received it, but he’d let it rot in a drawer, never bothering to give it the little bit of attention it needed to coax it back to life.

  Sqweegel brought it to his workbench, gathered a small plastic case of supplies, and set to work. Beneath the dial, he saw that the rotor, balance wheel, hairspring, and gears had been allowed to rust.

  He disassembled the watch into a series of single pieces, then set to the long task of washing them with a cotton swab dabbed in lighter fluid, followed by another round of washing, this time with commercial lubricant. Finally, the pieces were placed in a small sonic cleaner, and then allowed to dry.

  The band required special attention. It was the expandable type, and perfect for trapping tiny wrist hairs and flakes of skin. Every link in the chain had to be cleansed individually, and also soaked and sonic treated.

  A while later, Sqweegel reassembled the Timex. There was no need to download an old instruction manual from the Internet; it was a fairly basic timepiece, and sturdy, which made them incredibly popular in the middle of the last century. He worked from memory. Soon, he wasn’t even bothering to look down at his hands.

  As he worked, Sqweegel wondered about the father, and the son, and why the son had ignored his father’s gift. The cheap watch had clearly meant something to the father. Maybe it had seen a war, or a prison camp. Maybe it had seen heartbreak.

  And the son had just shoved it in a drawer.

  How he’d crossed paths with Sqweegel was another matter entirely, but
now Sqweegel made a mental note to dig out the appropriate films so he could relive the experience.

  When Sqweegel looked down, he saw that the watch was complete, and ticking again, the rotor spinning smoothly and without complaint.

  He strapped it to his own wrist, over the white latex.

  chapter 21

  Malibu, California

  Dark pressed END, then padded his way barefoot through the bedroom, downstairs, and through a set of sliding doors to their walled-off yard. Sibby’s touches were apparent here, too, from the hanging lights to the bulbed glass candleholders to the patio furniture—they were all soothing and comforting. This was a place where worries weren’t supposed to find you.

  He sat on their outdoor couch, let the sharp ocean air fill his lungs, and stared up at the tiny pinpricks of light punching holes in the night sky. They looked like a hundred burning eyes, gazing down at him.

  Dark told himself that this was the right thing. Sure, this monster was going to find someone else. Maybe next week, maybe tomorrow. Maybe he’d even found a target tonight, and Sqweegel was tucked up somewhere in a dim, dank corner, ticking down the seconds until it was time to strike.

  And maybe Dark could have done something about it….

  No. Don’t. Don’t even think about that. It’s not your job anymore.

  Don’t think about the red-haired girl in the blue cotton nightie with the streaks of blood covering her pale belly and legs.

  Don’t think about what was crying in the corner….

  Was he supposed to feel guilty about it forever? It was too much to ask one man, wasn’t it?

  Dark had tried to capture Sqweegel. Sqweegel had retaliated…and won. He’d taken the shot that few men would. He’d hidden his tracks. He’d made sure there was no magic thread. Maybe he deserved to be out there, free. Dark had tried to stop him, broken damn near every law to stop him, and failed anyway. Why couldn’t it just be left at that?