by Tim Kizer
"I have no idea. But he said he'd give a full confession if you met with him." Norris put his hand on Richard’s shoulder. "Will you help us?"
"Are you sure he meant me? I’m not the only Richard Brower in the area.”
“He gave us your address.”
Richard ran his hand through his hair and said, “This is so strange.”
“I agree with you. I don't understand it myself."
Richard's heart began to thump hard. He wished he could refuse to come with Norris, but the problem was he couldn’t afford to piss off the police right now.
He would tell Norris about Pryor's ankle on the way to the sheriff’s department.
"All right." Richard nodded.
3.
He did not like what Pryor had said about his ankle. He did not like it because it gave him food for thought, it caused him to have terrible suspicions.
Pryor had stayed home for five days because of a sprained ankle.
Damn, he must be a bad judge of character. He was wrong about this guy. How could he have let this motherfucker fool him for so long?
Steve Norris had lied to him. The detective had made no effort to get in touch with Fred Pryor. This asshole had never intended to help him.
Oh God. Jesus Christ! It was Norris!
It was Norris who had stolen the knife. Perhaps that was why he had broken into his house three weeks ago. Was Norris the one who had planted the knife at the crime scene? Probably.
Son of a bitch!
Richard squinted cautiously at Norris, whose eyes were fixed on the road.
"How did you catch him?"
"Oh, you’re going to like this." Norris turned his face to him, smiled. "This jerk attacked a woman who knows karate. I believe she has a brown belt. They started fighting, and she knocked him out. She says she kicked him in the balls." Norris chuckled. "He was a mess when our guys arrived." He laughed.
Norris had invited him to that birthday party. Norris had set it all up!
Who had attacked Kathy? Chances were it wasn’t Norris. He had probably sent one of his buddies to do it.
He must know of lot of shady people—ex-cons, informants, junkies, etcetera, etcetera.
“What’s his name?” Richard struggled to speak calmly.
“Jack Grady.”
Richard had never heard this name before. For some reason, it made him feel relieved.
“I don’t know any Jack Grady.”
“It could be an alias.”
"Why do you think he wants to see me?"
“He’s insane. Maybe he thinks you’re his long-lost brother." Norris smiled.
Was Norris one of them? Was he an avenger?
What about Welles? Was he really Norris’s cousin? Welles could be one of the avengers, too. There were a lot of them. They were closing in on him.
Richard lowered the window a little to let some fresh air into the car.
They would crush him like a bug. Was there a way out? There was always a way out. There must be a way out.
"I forgot my cigarettes at home," Richard muttered. "Can we stop at a gas station?"
"Cigarettes? I didn’t know you smoke.” Norris put his hand in his inner jacket pocket and produced a pack of Camel cigarettes. “Here, I got some.” He offered the pack to Richard.
"I prefer Marlboro. It will only take a minute.”
"I strongly advise you to quit. I quit a long time ago. If I can do it, so can you."
Richard nodded. After half a minute, Norris pulled into a Shell gas station and parked by the side of the convenience store.
"I’ll be back in a minute." Richard got out of the car and headed for the entrance.
His plan was to walk up to the doors, linger there for a moment, creating the impression that he was actually going to go inside, and then slink away. His gait was easy, he did not look like a person planning to flee.
He would run down the street, find a place to hide (a store or an office building), call a cab, and go to... He would think about it later.
When he reached the store entrance, Richard glanced back to check whether Norris was watching him. He was relieved to see that he was out of Norris’s field of vision. His heart pumping hard, Richard quickened his pace.
4.
He turned around the corner and took out his cellphone. He was walking as fast as he could. His stomach was churning, he was sweating like a pig. There were no stores or office buildings on either side of the street. He dialed 411. The next intersection was no more than three hundred yards away; there could be a shopping plaza there. An operator answered, and Richard asked her to connect him to a local cab company. From the corner of his eye he saw a yellow cab coming his way. He stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and started waving his right hand.
"Hey!" he shouted. He stepped down onto the roadway.
"Sir, wait a second, please."
Richard looked to his left and saw a man running down the sidewalk toward him.
"Wait a second, please," the man called out. Apparently, the guy needed a cab, too.
"What happened?" Richard asked.
To his disappointment, the cab was not slowing down.
"Just a moment." The man ran up to Richard and struck him on the forehead with his fist.
The world instantly turned black. Time stopped.
5.
"To tell you the truth, I didn't expect you to run,” Norris said. “Thank God, I'm a very provident man. Does it hurt?"
Norris and Richard were sitting side by side in the backseat of a small helicopter. Harry (that was the name of the guy who had knocked Richard out back on the sidewalk) was in the cockpit, in the right pilot’s seat.
Richard touched his forehead with his palm and winced with pain. Norris exchanged glances with Harry and laughed.
"You'll be fine,” Norris went on. “When we get to our destination, I'll give you ice. You only have yourself to blame, Richard. Why the hell did you run? Did you get scared? Well, you were right to be scared." He chortled. "Okay, Harry, let’s get going."
He waved his hand, and Harry started pressing buttons on the control panel.
"We're taking off!" Norris announced cheerfully. He clapped Harry on the shoulder. "Richard, in case you’re curious: it was Harry who did that hooker in. You know who I mean. What was her name? I forget."
Staring at the handcuffs, Richard thought that what was happening to him right now must be a bad dream. He had almost escaped, he had been inches away from freedom, and then all of a sudden his luck had reversed.
Norris nudged him in the ribs gently, the way an old friend would do. Richard raised his face.
He was like a character in one of those fairy tales where a guy falls in love with a princess and then has to carry out various assignments for her evil father in order to win his blessing to marry her. If he doesn't fulfill the tasks, he’ll lose not only the princess, but also his head. And when the guy, having successfully completed another difficult assignment, comes to the princess’s father, expecting to finally receive the blessing, the old man grins and says, "Well, kid, I see you're a very lucky fellow, but hold your horses. It was just the beginning. The real work is ahead of you."
And then he sends the guy to fight some immortal monster with thirty heads.
"Allow me to tell you what’s going to happen to you in the next few hours," Norris said. "Your future is very dark, Richard. I'm tired of waiting. This Pryor guy is just too slow. He’s as good as a glass hammer, to be honest with you. So... You're going to die today, my friend. That’s where we’re headed—the place where you’re going to die. And then we'll plant the ears of those poor women, you know who I’m talking about, in your basement. They’re in great condition. They’ve been preserved in alcohol this whole time. Your body will be burned in your car. You lost control of your car, veered off the road, and smashed into a pole. You see, I’m completely honest with you."
"Why?"
"Why? Oh, damn, didn't I tell you already? You killed
nine of our people. You killed them, you asshole! And I decided to interfere. Is that clear?"
Richard gave no answer.
"Good." Norris put a piece of bubble gum in his mouth and started chewing.
Richard pressed the back of his head against the cabin wall, whose vibrations reminded him that was up in the air in a helicopter. He didn't like flying in helicopters because, in his opinion, it was easy to fall out of them. But falling out of the chopper was the last thing he should worry about right now.
In extreme situations, many people act like idiots. They get hysterical, they scream and weep, they try to kill themselves, they pray, they do all sorts of other stupid things. Richard was sure this was not going to happen to him. Why? Because he was a reasonable, rational person.
Then he thought how great it would be to see Norris, or whatever his actual name was, walk into the tail rotor of the helicopter they were in. To watch him being sliced into a hundred pieces. He would pay big money to see that.
6.
"This is our temple." Norris pointed to the brown unpretentious two-story building in front of which the helicopter had landed. The structure looked more like a small-town library than a temple of a human-sacrificing cult. “It’s simple, as you can see. We’re not flashy like the Catholic Church or like the people who build those humongous mosques. We have a few more in other states.”
They walked up to the entrance, where they were greeted by a Hispanic man with a crew cut, dressed in khakis and a short-sleeved shirt.
"Have they arrived yet?” Norris asked the man.
"No, sir.”
"Richard, this is Nick. He's the temple keeper," Norris said. “Nick, this is the guy I told you about.”
"Nice to meet you, Nick," Richard muttered.
They went inside, and Norris headed for the double doors to the right of the marble grand staircase in the middle of the foyer. Richard and Harry followed him, their footsteps echoing off the white marble floor. Nick stayed at the front door.
"I’m not going to try to get you on my side," Norris said. “I know that it's pointless. I just want to look in your eyes. You know, I envy you a little. You’re an amazingly lucky man. You slipped away from us every time we caught up with you. Perhaps we underestimated you, I see no other explanation."
They stopped before high wooden doors, which had brass lions’ heads with rings in their mouths for handles. Norris stepped aside so that Harry could open the doors for them.
"This is the main hall of the temple," Norris said when they stepped inside. "That’s’ where we perform important rituals. Do you like it?"
The spacious hall had a twenty-foot ceiling, from which hung a massive crystal chandelier. The walls were covered with stone tiles; they looked heavy and somber. The floor tiles were made of gray marble. The room had no windows. The wall opposite the entrance was decorated with numerous bladed weapons, which consisted of a dozen daggers, approximately the same number of battle axes, and eight swords. In the centre of the hall was a water well measuring about four feet in diameter. The curb of the well was about one foot high.
"Take off the handcuffs," Norris said to Harry. While Harry carried out his order, Norris walked up to the round stone table by the back wall.
"You probably believe that I spent a thousand hours thinking about our revenge on you," he said. "Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re wrong.” He folded his arms on his chest and fixed his eyes on Richard.
"I didn't think so."
"Of course you did. People like you think that the world revolves around them. But I’m going to have to upset you, Richard. I was not obsessed with killing you. You don't deserve it. You think you're important? You think you’re worth anything? You’re wrong. If you want to hear the truth, I'll tell you what you are. You’re nothing. You’re a microbe, Richard.”
“When did you find me?”
“Around five months ago.”
“Why didn’t you kill me four months ago? What’s the point of this circus?”
“I’m just trying to have as much fun as possible. You see, Richard, I can only kill you once.” Norris smiled. “Are you upset that we didn’t simply shoot you in your sleep?”
“No, not at all.”
“I want you to understand something, Richard. You’re going to die today because we’re united, because we always strike back. That's our philosophy."
"I know a little about your philosophy."
"Look what I've got." Norris picked up a zipper plastic bag from the table. Inside the bag Richard could see garden scissors, which were very similar to those he had at home. "You know what this is?"
"Scissors?"
"Yes, it's garden scissors. They used to belong to you." Norris smiled. "What do you think about it?"
"You stole my garden scissors?" Richard immediately remembered the statuette he had found in the basement while looking for garden scissors.
"Yes, we did. For your fingerprints. At first, we wanted to use garden scissors to kill those women. Just to bring some originality, you know. A garden scissors psycho. I don’t think it’s been done before. It sounds cool, doesn’t it?"
"Why did you change your mind?"
"Because there were no fingerprints of yours on those scissors. We found Mary’s fingerprints on them, but not yours. It looks like you don't like to trim bushes. Or maybe you put gloves on when you use garden scissors.” Norris paused. "Now you see why Kathy was stabbed with a knife? There were a lot of your fingerprints on that knife from your kitchen.”
While Norris talked, Richard was staring at the well. Silently, he walked up to it and asked, “What’s this?” He cast an interrogative glance at Norris.
"It's a well."
Richard put his foot on the curb and looked inside the well. He saw his reflection in the water.
"You know what’s in that well?" Norris asked.
"Water?"
"Yes, water." Norris nodded. "But what kind of water?"
"Tap water?"
"Wrong. It's our holy water. It contains sacred water from the Ganges River and holy Zamzam water from Mecca. We use it in some of our rituals."
"Okay.”
"You know what that is?" Norris pointed at the shapeless black rock the size of a dishwasher that sat in the corner of the room, surrounded by a golden chain suspended on four poles.
"You'll never guess," Norris went on. "It's a piece of Noah's Ark. I found it on the Mount Ararat by accident. Have you been to Turkey?"
Richard shook his head.
"I have," Norris said. "I went to the Mount Ararat. I was there for two weeks before I came across this thing. I wasn’t looking for the Ark. It just fell into my hands."
"I'm very happy for you."
"You may not believe me, but I'm telling you the truth. It's a piece of Noah's Ark. It looks odd because it became petrified. It’s over four thousand years old, you know.”
Richard loved Norris's talkativeness. Every word Norris uttered extended his life by a second.
“I see.”
"You don't believe me, do you?"
"I don't want to argue with you."
"People like you believe in nothing." Norris's eyes glared.
"That statuette your guys brought to my basement, what is it?"
"Are you talking about the idol? It was a test for our new members. One of our sisters brought the idol to your basement, and one of our brothers fed it. Gods must be fed."
"What god do you believe in?"
"What god... Yes, Richard, our faith may seem unusual. A mixture of beliefs, a mixture of practices. We hate conventions. If a rite begins to bother us, we replace it with a different one. Does it sound inconsistent? Well, our lives are full of inconsistencies. We do as we like, and that's the main difference between us and other people of faith. In all these old regular religions a man is a slave of rules established by God knows whom thousands of years ago. And I don't understand that. Why are some things permitted while others are not? Most of those rules are
arbitrary, that’s what I’m trying to say here. Why should a person be immersed in water in order to be admitted into the Christian Church? What if I don’t like this method? What if I want to drink a can of beer and eat a hotdog to become a Christian? I want to be able to do it the way I like."
"Do you initiate people into your church with beer and hotdogs?" Richard couldn't help smiling.
"We don't have a formal initiation rite, like Christians. Speaking of Christians—they really love crosses, don’t they? Why? Because Jesus was crucified on a cross. But what if he had been impaled on a stake? Would Christians carry nails on their necks instead of crosses?" Norris laughed. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous to make an instrument of torture the central symbol of a religion. It's stupid. As for beer and hotdogs... Why not? It's more interesting, you see. To have a cold one, chow down a hotdog, chat about this or that. I think it would be a great rite of initiation. By the way, you gave me an excellent idea."
"Maybe you'll let me go for that?"
Norris chuckled but didn’t comment on Richard’s proposal.
"You’re intimidated by authority figures,” he said. “You’re hypnotized by them. You don't think, you just blindly accept what they push on you. What they’ve been pushing for many centuries already. And the older your traditions get, the firmer and more unshakeable they become, right? I object to that. Stagnant water, that's what approved religions are. I’m against stagnant water. It stinks.”
Norris shifted his eyes to his minions and then back to Richard.
“Why do certain religions prohibit eating pork?” he said. “Is there any reasonable explanation for this? Don't say that pigs are dirty animals. They are no dirtier than cows or sheep. There are a lot of people in the third world who are as dirty as pigs. So what's the reason? Is this prohibition based on some ancient tradition? What specifically makes pork so bad compared to beef, lamb, or chicken? Why does God even care what we eat? They can’t answer these questions, and I don't like it. If you impose a ban, I expect you to provide an explanation that makes sense. I need clarity. Intelligent people need clarity."
Richard squinted at Harry and Nick. They were listening to Norris with an expression of intense concentration on their faces.
