The consultant looked at me contemptuously and said, “Yeah, Mr. Fucking Vigilante. Oh, how cool you are. You are so special, too. Are you the real Batman, Spider-Man, the Ant-Man, maybe? You are the judge, jury, and executioner. Fuck you, man. If you are so goddamn righteous and perfect, why don’t you call the cops and let them handle this?”
“Why? Because I am not a selfish man like you are. I am saving your family from the embarrassment that your capture would cause them. They will never have to know that their father was a serial killer, a murderer of innocent women. You will be remembered as a great man, a fine father who provided for them. Isn’t that something that makes your heart tingle with happiness at least a tiny, tiny bit? And, the other thing is that I cannot risk that you hire some hotshot lawyer who helps you to beat the system. That would not be fair.”
The consultant didn’t say anything.
I looked at him and said, “Tell me how many people you have murdered. Five, ten, twenty?”
“I don’t have to tell you shit,” he shouted. “You are nothing. You are a pathetic old man. You are not even a real killer.”
“You are right about that, but not for long. You are going to feel my bullet in your dark orbital cortex soon, the bullet of a man from the suburbs—the commoner who lusted after his neighbor’s wife and falsely believed that God would let him live in peace. You will feel the wrath of my boring leather slippers and the fury of my flannel pajamas. Does that scare you, consultant, or does it disappoint you? Wouldn’t you rather have a real badass assassin to claim your last stinky breath than a family man interrupted? I bet you would, but you have no choice because you are nothing. You are lower than the lowest of the earthworms, you fucking coward. You should have died before you had a chance to kill those girls. I mean, Jesus, it’s beyond me why people like you don’t get cancer.” Then the Sig Sauer’s muzzle flashed, and the consultant’s brain painted the plastic sheet behind him with various shades of red. I didn’t have the energy to listen to his bullshit anymore, and I hoped that he had enjoyed his own death as much as he had enjoyed killing other people. Nothing was more pathetic than a man who enjoyed taking innocent lives, but when it was his own time to go, he pissed in his pants like a frightened baby. A creature like that was the embodiment of the ultimate cowardice and it belonged to hell.
I uncuffed the dead man and moved his body off the chair. Then I wrapped it in the plastic sheets that had covered the cargo space and secured the package loosely with duct tape. The kill room had been a great success, and I kicked the van’s door open with a wide smile on my face and pushed the dead consultant out on the damp ground with my right boot.
Wow, what a beautiful night it was. The rainclouds had receded, and the sky was alive with thousands of shiny stars that were twinkling like alien flashlights. Even the magnificent Mr. Moon was out and about and looking at the strange, violent world beneath his silent kingdom.
The air was clear and crisp, and I felt the power of the ancient forest pulsing in my aging bones and invigorating my tired body. The quiet land was in love with me, and its trees wrapped their invisible arms gently around me and whispered that I was a beautiful man—a man they cherished and admired so. They said that they understood me and wanted to save me, but I knew that I was just a wretched old man, a blind minnow in the darkness of the endless ocean abyss. I began shaking like the last, doomed autumn leaf, and two crystalline teardrops started their journey down my adorable suburban cheeks. The splendid beauty of the forbidden forest almost paralyzed me with its supreme might, and my whole body was convulsing, and something started crawling down my spine—something kind, something wonderful, something sacred and divine. I ripped off my deliveryman’s uniform like it was poisoned with aconite and removed my shoes and underwear. Everyone in the forest was naked, and I wanted to be naked, too. Then I raised my arms high up in the air and looked at the night sky and cried like a GODDAMN baby. I was no longer a representative of the human race. I belonged in that forest with the trees and the creatures of the night, with the whispers and the terrors of the darkness and the hope of the first morning light. I belonged with the slim man.
I walked to the addict’s grave with a gallon of gasoline in my hand and started humming a song that Eden had sung to Annalise when the doctor’s blue latex hands had touched her beautiful head for the very first time. The darkness encouraged me to light up the night, and I built a mighty fire on the dark side of the oak and burned the consultant’s body, the plastic wrappings, and Larry under the starry sky and whispered to the trees that everything was going to be all right. I tried to explain to the lonely owl sitting high in the oak that the bad man with perfect hair needed to go up in flames because he wasn’t worthy of a forest home. I told the night bird that I didn’t want to upset the slim man by burying a disgusting murderer next to his humble grave. The owl flew away before I could tell him that the fire would also be a free practice run for the consultant because he was going to see Cerberus and his master soon, and he needed to learn how to burn like a champion. I wanted to make sure that the bird understood that sending a man to hell unprepared would have been a cruel and unusual punishment.
The dead man burned wildly in the hungry petrol fire, and his charring carcass created a scorching flame that almost reached the oak’s lower leaves. The master of the universe had been defeated, and I watched the yellow monster devour his skinless head like in trance. The pyre of untimely, but justified death was glowing in my victorious eyes, and I started to believe that I was a mythological creature of justice, a special being of some kind—an immortal punisher who had been given the right to control life and death. But then, hunger reminded me that I was just a goddamn naked man in the middle of a black forest, and I stopped dreaming. I was also getting cold and had to return to the van to get my clothes.
After I got dressed, I decided to grill a bratwurst because I was getting really hungry and I didn’t want to waste such a nice campfire. I pulled out my knife, cut a tree branch, sharpened it, and attached a sausage to it. Then I grilled the white wonder on the fire and thanked the consultant for the special outdoor experience. Oh, what fun it was to ride in a gorgeous Econoline with a bad consultant and good old Larry inside.
The bratwurst was soon ready, and I took a ravenous bite. Wow, the sausage tasted really, really yummy. No, sorry, it tasted absolutely delicious. In fact, if I really thought about it carefully, it was probably the best sausage I had ever grilled. It was so goddamn great that I decided to grill the second bratwurst before the fire died.
The owl came back when the second sausage started getting crisp and began staring at me with its golden eyes from the safety of the oak. It didn’t care about the burning bones or me. It was just sitting there, high in its kingdom, waiting for the next meal to appear from the little hole under a lonely Amanita muscaria. I trusted that owl more than I had trusted any human being in my entire life. I was 100 percent sure that it wouldn’t rat on me, no matter what I would do. Murder, justice, fairness, and revenge were totally meaningless to the bird, and I truly cherished the peculiar encounter of two breathing creatures on two different levels of awareness. It was a magnificent animal, and I admired its resilience and the fact that it never complained or asked why life was so goddamn unfair and arbitrary. It wouldn’t blame anybody when the voles disappeared from the aging forest, and starvation arrived in its dark kingdom and made its feathers fall off. The owl was tough as nails, like all forest animals, and I respected them greatly—even the rats. In fact, I thought that it was somewhat unfair to associate that innocent rodent with disloyalty because a rat had never, in the history of humankind, actually snitched on anyone.
After my unconventional dinner was over, I buried the consultant’s hot bones, and whatever else was left of him, under a lonely blackberry bush. Then I cleaned up the site and started driving home. I didn’t want to waste any time trying to overanalyze the crime scene because I had learned that simplicity was, after all, the ultimate sophistic
ation.
It had, undoubtedly, been a successful night, but I was awfully tired, and the call of the young kings was getting louder in my head. I started dreaming of their gentle touch, the beauty of a well-earned slumber, and I wanted to forget the forbidden forest and enter the confusing, but, oh, so comforting world of dreams and wonder. I was ready to go home.
8
Lazy Days
The next day, I woke up at 10:00 a.m. and prepared four eggs and six slices of bacon for my famished body. I also made a pile of blueberry pancakes because I felt that I deserved a little bonus for my hard work in the forest. I missed Ramses’s bratwursts awfully, but the breakfast still tasted good, and I flushed it all down with two cups of green tea that I had sweetened with honey from a bear-shaped plastic bottle I had gotten from Kroger.
After the nourishing meal had been shoveled deep into my gut, I took a short morning walk and started cleaning the Econoline and the rest of the grisly equipment. I used soap and water on the van and a powerful cleaning solvent that I had gotten for free from the tiger show on all the weapons. I finished the job with bleach and vinegar and a couple of rolls of paper towels. I wanted to be absolutely sure that I got rid of any traces of the dead man or the forest. I knew that mistakes made in the postmurder cleaning duties were awfully costly, and diligence was the only key that would keep the door to freedom open.
The van was soon shining like it had just rolled off the production line, and I parked it under the carport and locked the doors. Then I put the weapons and the deliveryman’s uniform in the hunting bag and threw it in a small toolshed in the backyard. I put a small padlock on the door and burned the fake license plates on the grill. After that, I fetched the original plates from the kitchen and screwed them back on the Econoline. Voila! As far as I was concerned, I had nothing to do with the disappearance of a certain prominent business figure. I was an innocent man, and I needed to make sure that my brain and body understood that important fact, too. Liars passed polygraphs every day—but only if they genuinely believed that they weren’t lying.
I still had a lot of daylight left, and I went to the backyard and started trimming a giant hibiscus with a pair of kitchen scissors while drinking a gin and tonic. The sun was shining bright, and I was doing a good job at beautifying the plant, but I decided to cut the whole thing down because it looked like a giant weed. After that, I started taking small bites out of various foods I had in my refrigerator, but a peculiar mass had settled in my throat, and my digestive system wasn’t happy with anything I dropped into its dominion. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with the damn thing but I felt strange and kind of dirty. It was a very odd and uncomfortable experience, and the only logical conclusion was to take six Advil PMs and sleep the weirdness away.
The next day, I woke up early and cleaned the house thoroughly. I didn’t know why I wanted to clean so badly because the place was already spotless and I hated cleaning. I just felt that rubbing and wiping was absolutely necessary, and I even washed the windows and vacuumed the living room carpet four times. However, the strangest thing was that I took eight showers and washed my hands with bleach. I couldn’t quite explain why I did all that, but at least I was superclean. In fact, I was so clean that my skin started bleeding.
Because of my newfound cleaning fetish, and the fact that I didn’t quite feel like my normal self, I decided to keep a low profile for the next couple of weeks. I also didn’t want to do any unnecessary driving in the Econoline because someone might have seen the van at the kidnapping scene. The risk of capture was still almost nonexistent, but I figured that it was a good idea to play it extra safe and make sure that no cop had any reason to look at me or my mighty van with suspicious eyes.
The other thing was that the disappearance of the consultant had been in the news, and it was an active case with several high-profile investigators assigned to it. The wife had even hired a private investigator to do some extra snooping, but I knew that she was just wasting the dead man’s money. I was a ghost, and there was absolutely no tangible evidence of my involvement. I knew that the cops had no credible leads, and I was confident that the public would lose interest in the case after the first dust had settled. The consultant was just a regular man, after all. Rich, but regular.
A new life with a secret lover was also mentioned in one of the trashier TV shows that specialized in unconfirmed rumors and wild gossip, but the theory didn’t really have legs since the consultant hadn’t touched any of his money. All his cash, stocks, bonds, and whatnot were exactly were they were before he had disappeared, and even his blue Maserati was parked neatly in the garage. His phone, wallet, and all the credit cards had been found at his house, and his open laptop and a roll of toilet paper were still on the living room table. A burning Porterhouse steak had triggered the fire alarm, and there was a full glass of diluted whiskey on the kitchen island. That had been enough to convince the police that there was foul play involved, but the proof was still missing.
It was, indeed, a real-life mystery—but not to me. I was the only person in the whole world who knew exactly where the consultant was. It felt almost unfair that the cops would have to scratch their balding heads with their nervous fingers and work long hours just to get a shot at finding out what I already knew. It was a unique and strangely powerful position to be in, and it made me feel somewhat special. I, however, had no intention to share that knowledge with anyone, no matter how goddamn special I felt. I was never going to become that idiot who got drunk at a local bar and couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut because he felt so fabulously superior and clever that he was able to get away with murder. No, I was much stronger than that, and I knew that one fleeting moment of delusional glory was never worth a lifetime of hell in a cell. I wanted to be a smart criminal, and I didn’t even do any online research on the consultant’s disappearance. I knew that every move in cyberspace was traceable, and I subdued my curiousness and the paranoia that tried to get my attention with cold-blooded reason and unwavering self-discipline. The fact was that nature’s best predators didn’t gossip. They didn’t gloat or blabber. They were patient, focused, and strong. They survived, and they were victorious. That’s all there was to it, and I wanted to be like them. Killing a man was easy, but getting away with it was a totally different ball game.
During the two weeks of my forced vacation, I spent most of my days at home or in the forest behind the house. I tried to kill the long hours the best I could, but it was getting increasingly difficult to remain sane, and one rainy morning, I realized that the rising cabin fever needed be cured. The walls were falling on me, and paranoia was trying to penetrate my fragile mind insidiously like a snake full of neurotoxins and filth. I had to get out of the stuffy house quickly or face a mental breakdown.
Since I still didn’t feel totally comfortable with taking the Econoline out for a spin, I decided to go for a run instead and maybe get a bite to eat in the process. Running also seemed like a good way to combat the cabin fever and provide my brain with some badly needed oxygen. I knew that my organs and arteries would also thank me because the doctor had told me that getting my heart rate up to 120 bpm for at least thirty minutes every day would help me lower my blood pressure. He hadn’t, however, clarified if the heart rate increase that a kidnapping and murder triggered had the same healthy effect, but I figured that he probably didn’t have much expertise in that particular area of exercise.
I put on my ugly orange running shorts, a pair of old Reeboks and a green T-shirt that said “I Am the Numbers Guy.” Then I opened the front door enthusiastically and started running toward the town center with a wide smile on my face. It was obvious that I looked like a total moron, but I didn’t care about that minor detail because I was happy, and the beast was still breathing hard under my gaudy camouflage.
My eager feet kissed the pavement lustfully, and I reached the town in less than forty-five minutes. I had been running a little faster than was suitable for an old man, and I had to take a short
respite near the public library and let my pulse to come down a notch before I could continue. I knew that running was supposed to be fun and invigorating, but I had to admit that I preferred sitting in the mighty Econoline with a can of Dr. Pepper in my hand. I guess I still had a hard time figuring out whether it was more important to live long or live happy.
As I was leaning on my bended knees and breathing like a defeated marathon runner who had given up at the two-mile mark, I noticed that something was going on in the city park. The place was full of people holding large, colorful signs and yelling angrily about something that seemed to be very close to their hearts. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but when someone shrieked with a high-pitched voice that she had seen a dead baby under a dirty neon light, I raised my head swiftly. I wanted to know what the hell was going on in there.
I approached the loud mob gingerly and noticed that there was a smaller group of people sitting on the park lawn with a huge blue cooler full of beer and soda. Their signs were scattered on the grass like a group of fallen tombstones, and I figured that the tired group perhaps wanted the migrating cranes to see their important message, too.
I walked closer to the sitting men and women and decided to direct a quick question to a corpulent man with a red beard who seemed to be their leader. He seemed like an authoritative figure, so I raised my hand like a polite student and asked respectfully, “Hey, man, what is this thing?” What are you guys demonstrating against? Is this about helping children?”
The Sapphire Express Page 13
