by Jeff Povey
I quickly look back at the splash of red on the ceiling, watching it drip onto the white dust sheet below. I walk over, peer up at the splash, and immediately know what I’m looking at.
I glance around wildly, heart thumping so hard that my ribs are going to end up bruised. I check again, desperately making sure there’s no one else in the room, and then reach forward and pull away the bloodstained dust sheet. It’s like being hit by a train when I see what is sitting on the sofa. A man, tall, thin, bony—and currently stabbed to death, hence the arterial spray on the ceiling—sits very upright with a carton over his head. A KFC family-size bucket, to be more precise. I can tell just from looking at the body’s huge hands that it is James, but I have to make completely sure. Using the tip of the lead piping, I gingerly push up the KFC bucket until I can see James’s gaping dead mouth crammed with lemon-scented hand wipes. I raise the bucket farther and find a typed sheet stapled to James’s forehead. I lean closer still.
Hi, Dougie.
My soul kicks savagely at my insides, scratching and tearing to get out of my frozen body. That old familiar mantra of four years ago, from when I first joined the Club, returns.
Get the hell out, Dougie! Get out, get out, get out!
And this time I heed it. I turn and flee from the apartment, thundering onto the landing and taking the emergency stairs, somehow having the presence of mind to make sure no one sees me as I head down into the car lot built underneath the apartment block. Thanks to the lead piping, I easily smash open the side window of a white Cadillac and jump in behind the wheel. I don’t care that the car alarm is now screeching as I hot-wire the engine, slam it into drive, and roar away. It takes me a good fifty miles before I find out how to turn off the damn alarm, and by this time I’m driving along an empty freeway to God knows where. Rearing up before me is a nameless world, and I break the speed limit trying to escape the eerie, cemeterylike landscape. I grab the mobile phone and punch in the number for Betty. I don’t know what time it is in Chicago, and in truth I don’t really care. Her answering machine kicks in, tells me the number of her mobile, and I call that, punching the keys so hard that I break a nail.
“Douglas?”
“Jesus . . . Betty . . . God . . . help me . . .”
“What is it, what’s wrong?” Betty’s voice crackles, is hard to make out—it sounds like she’s standing in a wind tunnel.
“I love you.”
“Douglas . . . ?”
“I do, Betty. I love you and love you and love you.”
“Start breathing, Douglas. One . . . two . . .”
“Betty, I mean it. I want to go away with you. On a boat, Burt’s boat. We’ll sail to Mexico together. You, me, and your dog.”
“What dog?”
“Please say yes, Betty. . . .”
“Look, we’ll talk when you come over Sunday.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“You have to.”
“Don’t make me beg you, Betty.”
“Douglas . . . I’m going to help you. Are you listening? I’m going to help you. Everything’s going to be just fine. You won’t have to worry anymore.”
“I love you more than anything in the whole world, Betty.”
“And I love you, too, Douglas. Now go back to sleep.”
“Sleep? I’m driving, for chrissakes!”
“Driving? Where exactly are you?”
“Texas.”
“What are you doing down there?”
“I, uh . . . I dunno. I guess I took the wrong turn.”
“What about the meeting tonight? Will you be back in time for that?”
“I didn’t know there was one.”
“It’s an emergency meet. KK’s posted an ad. He’s coming tonight.”
I’m so insensible that I can’t take this on board and seem capable only of declaring my undying love for Betty, as if this single feeling can combat everything bad that’s happening to me. “Betty . . . I . . . I really, really—”
“I know, Douglas. I know.”
Betty hangs up, and I grip the phone hard in my hand, wishing I could somehow squeeze Betty out of it so that she’d be there with me. When she doesn’t appear, I toss the phone away and instead notice the odometer. I gaze intently at the dial as the miles roll hypnotically past, going from the tens to the hundreds, and on and on and up to the thousand mark and beyond.
When I get back to Chicago, I don’t truly know where to go. I definitely can’t face Agent Wade, and I’m not sure I can face the Club, either. I arrive at the harbor to find that the waters are still and the sun has broken through for the first time in what must be a decade.
There is a definite buzz in the air, and as I pass the security guard’s hut, I can smell warm bagels. It could also be his burned feet, I guess, but I don’t bother looking.
Burt’s houseboat, the Teacher, is empty, creaking gently in the quiet tide. I drag my weary self aboard, find his bunk, and crash facedown on it. I am in hell, and I don’t know the way back.
SON OF SUDDENLY
I WAKE TO THE SOUND of a familiar voice. Burt’s small portable television is on, and as I open my eyes, trying to establish where exactly I am, I look around to see the face of the television psychiatrist staring back at me. From the tiny black-and-white screen, I hasten to add.
His face disappears, to be replaced by a drawing of someone sitting on a sofa with a KFC bucket placed over their head. The television psychiatrist comes back on screen and slowly, gravely, shakes his head.
“Victim number three hundred and one.” A shot of James’s skeleton lover complete with underwear and thigh-length boots is flashed up, with the psychiatrist’s voice-over. “Is this what America is coming to?”
The psychiatrist shakes his head solemnly. “Let’s concentrate on the victim for a change. Put to the back of your minds that he was killed by the Kentucky Killer, and instead, think hard about what sort of man—a lawyer, no less—dresses up a skeleton and takes it to bed with him. And then think that perhaps this man deserved to die, that our fine friends in forensics have established this man as a notorious serial killer—”
A hand reaches over and flicks off the screen. I sit up suddenly at the sight of Agent Wade offering me a cup of chamomile tea.
“Figured you’d be here.”
My heart break-dances inside my chest, and I can hardly hold the cup of tea without spilling it all over myself.
“Tried the zoo first, then thought to myself, Now where would I go if I were Dougie?” Agent Wade chews on a nail, bites it, and then spits it out. “I see you’ve got a sense of humor.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Dumping the KFC box on James’s head. Very funny.”
“I didn’t.”
“Dougie . . .”
“He was like that when I found him.” I’m not sure why Agent Wade is playing these games with me. “He was, I swear.”
Agent Wade looks at me as if he’s waiting for me to break into an uncontrollable smile, like I’m joking and it’s only a matter of time before I own up.
“There was even a typed message stapled to him. ‘Hi, Dougie.’ I wouldn’t have put that there.”
“Wasn’t mentioned in the news report.”
“Maybe they forgot.”
“A message like that would make headlines: ‘Anyone Out There Know a Dougie?’”
“Someone else killed him.” I try hard to get my point across as I set down the cup of chamomile tea. Chamomile? I glance at the cup like it’s got a snake in there or something. Where the hell did Agent Wade get the teabag from? He had to have been in James Mason’s apartment.
Agent Wade sits at the bottom of the bunk—close to my feet—and I find I really don’t like being this close to him. He produces a newspaper and tosses it over to me. I pick it up and see that it is folded open at the personals. On the top half there is nothing but lonely guys looking for even lonelier girls. Some lonely guys seem to be happy to ask for either—a lonely
girl or a lonely guy, or even both at the same time. One ad asks for “any color, creed, sex, or religion, just please, please write to me,” and I know from experience that that sort of pathetic begging will get him nowhere. I invert the page, read the bottom half, and trawl through more ads from society’s misfits, and then finally I see it.
It’s Club night and the King is in the mood to party.
I remember the phone call to Betty and glance at my watch. It’s seven in the evening; I haven’t been asleep as long as I thought.
Agent Wade grabs my sports bag from the floor and unzips it, showing me what’s inside. “I brought a change of clothes for you. How about having a shower and a shave, and after you’re dressed I’ll drive you over to the Club.”
“I’m not going.”
“Don’t start that again.”
I fix my eyes on Agent Wade, not about to budge. “I’m not going.”
“You’ve got to—KK’s going to be there. I want that guy, Dougie.”
“You go, then. Take a seat somewhere, the next table, even, wait for the meeting to wrap, and then take him out after he leaves.”
“That’s your job.”
“Seems to me I’m getting a lot of help lately, so what does it matter?”
“I can put you in the electric chair, Dougie.” Agent Wade snaps his fingers. “Like that.”
“Not before I tell the world who you really are.”
Agent Wade looks up sharply, and I enjoy this.
“Oh yeah, I know your little secret.”
“What are you talking about?” Agent Wade seems confused.
“Really want me to spell it out for you?”
“Gonna have to.”
“You killed James Mason. You got there before me, didn’t you. You stopped off at KFC, drove into the underground car park, went up the emergency stairway, and stabbed him to death. What did you do with the chicken? Just eat it on the way there? Toss the bones out the window? I’ve never seen anyone eat as much fried chicken as you do. Plus your car smells like a lemon grove.”
Agent Wade frowns deeply, looks pretty lost, but I know he knows how to act and don’t buy it for a second. “Are you trying to tell me I’m the Kentucky Killer?”
I give him a slow and deliberate hand clap. “That FBI training you’ve been given—boy, it made you bright.”
Agent Wade’s lips curl up at the edges, and his perfect teeth are revealed as a grin illuminates his face. “Did I make that tea too strong or something?”
“C’mon, just admit it. There’s only me and you on this boat. So c’mon. Tell me it’s true.”
Agent Wade picks up my teacup, sniffs it, and takes a sip. He places it back down and snorts out some laughter. “Dougie . . .”
“What?”
His voice hardens abruptly. “Go shower. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
I don’t move a muscle. Agent Wade is getting angrier by the second, looks like he might start beating me around the head. “You’ve got three seconds, Dougie.”
“I’m not going.”
Agent Wade’s regulation FBI revolver is out of its holster before I can take a breath. The tip of the barrel is squeezed hard against my nose, and his finger eases back the trigger. “Shower for me.”
KENTUCKY DEBUT
AGENT WADE pulls away from Grillers, beeps his horn a couple of times, and then disappears onto the interstate.
I stand looking at the bar and grill and find that I can’t move. I’m wearing a badly crushed velvet jacket and jeans. The jacket is the most expensive item of clothing I possess, and it’s the first time I’ve been able to wear it without fear of the rain ruining it. Agent Wade said I had to wear it because I had to look my very best for KK. The moon is full tonight, and the dark blue sky is cloudless. A forecaster on Agent Wade’s car radio claimed that this dry spell was going to last a week or more.
I can see Chuck’s low-slung Pontiac Firebird sitting in the car park. Betty’s silver Datsun—nearly two hundred thousand miles on the clock and still going strong—sits next to it, but apart from that the car park is empty. There was a time when it was full, and I reflect on that for a moment. Remembering that the sight of all those parked cars filled me with an unadulterated happiness as I jinked toward the main entrance to meet up with people I came to call my friends.
I sit down without saying anything and take in Chuck and Myrna, who sit close together—and then Betty, who sits opposite me. I note that she has put on a lot of makeup—heaped it on would be more appropriate—and she looks like one of those women who sell beauty products in department stores, bulging dark-rimmed eyes, bright red cheeks like a clown, and a fake mole. I can only presume she wants KK to notice her.
Chuck, who has donned his best snakeskin jacket, looks ill at ease tonight and is obviously glad that Myrna is holding his hand under the table. He can barely bring himself to look at Tony.
“Thought you said things were going to be okay, Tony?”
Tony, who hasn’t done anything more than comb his hair for the big moment, fidgets in his seat. “Guess you’re talking about James.”
“And the small fact that KK killed him. The same KK who’s s’posed to be coming here tonight. Nice work, Tony, really can’t wait for him to show.” Chuck’s irony is fast turning into a simpering whine.
Tony muses for a moment and to be honest doesn’t look that confident. “So what are you doing here, Chuck, all dressed up and looking your fancy best?”
“Same thing you are. Safety in numbers. He comes in, we take him down. Hard and fast.”
The entrance door to Grillers suddenly swings open, and the Club turns as one—eyes trained on the door—waiting with bated breath. A boy, maybe twelve at most, looks in, casting his eyes around Grillers until he sees us. The boy stares at us a second as he finishes off a fried chicken wing and tosses the bone out into the car park.
The boy starts walking toward us. He has very dark hair and even darker eyes, and he possesses that air of confident indifference that the youth of today seem to believe makes them cool. He ambles over, dressed in jeans that are baggy and a nylon jacket with a beer slogan stitched into it.
“That can’t be him. Can’t be.” Tony is mesmerized by the kid.
“How young did he start? Musta been in the cradle.” Chuck is equally bewildered.
“Could just be a mad dwarf like Dougie there.” I don’t bother to respond to Tony, my eyes fixed on the kid as he stops at our table and gives us a lingering, attitude-based look.
“You the killuhs?”
No one says anything.
“You the killuhs?” The kid is already getting impatient with us, but I’m damned if anyone has the nerve to respond to him. My voice is trapped way in the back of my throat, that’s for sure.
“Last time, gooks. You the killuhs?”
“Who wants to know?” Thank God, Tony has finally pulled himself together.
“Ansa question . . . you killuhs or not?”
“Sure—that’s us. What do you want?” Tony glowers at the kid.
“Message for you.”
“Who from?”
The kid isn’t in the least scared of Tony. “Message is man ain’t showin’. Message is man gon’ kill killuhs.”
I look up at Betty and see her staring back at me, questioning me: Is this really happening? Even her pale complexion looks drained.
“Who told you this, you little punk?” Tony grabs the kid by the scruff of the neck, pulling him toward him.
Still the kid remains unfazed. “Man tol’ me.”
“What man?”
“Didn’t see. Planted a letter and dough in my pocket when I wasn’t looking.”
“Lemme see that letter!” I blurt this out, glad that Tony still has the kid well gripped.
The kid looks at me, big proud, tough face. “You pay first, killuh.”
“How much?” Chuck has turned pale as he yanks out his billfold and starts peeling off notes. “Twenty, thirty?”
Go to Grillers
Give to killers
No need to show
No need to go
Seen them now
Know them now
Watch them cry
Watch them die.
Tony looks up at us and then glances to the kid. “You still here?”
“You real killuhs?”
“Wanna find out, punk?” Chuck stares hard at the little kid.
“You’re nuthin’.” The kid makes this street sign with his hands that presumably means “Fuck you,” turns on his heel, and swaggers off in a rolling-hipped, loose-limbed stroll. “Nuthin’, nuthin’, nuthin’.”
“Jesus . . .” I have never seen Tony this unsettled. He takes in a great gulp of air, sucking it down into his huge lungs.
“Me and Myrna want at least a coupla guns each, Tony. Can you arrange that?”
“Yeah, sure. What about you, Betty?”
Betty sits there, looking silent and shaken. She nods. “Make it a forty-four.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Hoo boy.”
I look at Tony, can’t believe he’s forgotten about me. “Uh, Tony . . .”
Tony shakes his head, wrapped in thought. “Why’s KK doing this? What’s he got against us?”
