by David Beers
She picked up the phone in her new office, knowing that within the day it wouldn't be her office any longer. Her new office would be in Durham—hopefully across the street from wherever Linda Lucent lived.
* * *
Matthew watched the prostitute walk down the hallway, turning into the room she'd kept for at least a week. Matthew stood out on the balcony, a cigarette in his hand, breathing in the tar and relishing the burn in his throat and lungs. Pain felt good after so long of nothing. The wall allowed for no joy, no pain, no humanity at all. The things humans hate, or take for granted, like the ability to fart was something he relished in now.
The woman smiled at him as she passed, and he found himself staring at her ass as she turned her key in the doorknob. It would be nice, to be with a woman again for just a few minutes. He could too, could walk down there, pay her, and then come back to his room when the transaction was finished. He wouldn't though. He might stare at her ass and smile back when she passed him, but he would never go down there and knock on that door. The only woman he would sleep with was Rally, and if she wasn't going to put out for him anymore, then he would just go on living this priest's life.
He flicked the cigarette off the balcony and watched it fall to the graying asphalt below.
Call Rally then go get Linda. That was his to-do list.
Matthew turned around and walked into his hotel room, locking the door with both the knob and chain. He loaded up his computer, encrypting everything as he had a hundred times before, then put his headset on.
It rang, and after the third, she picked up.
"Hello?"
"Ral, you decide about my offer?"
"Yeah, I have," she said without any pause between his question and her answer. "I'll come."
"You're serious? You'll come?"
"If only to talk you out of all this, Matt. A child? You took a child?"
He heard her voice crack, revealing the tears he couldn't see.
"What's the difference between an adult and a child? They're both bodies."
"Ask yourself that question, would you rather Hilman be here or you?" She said.
"What if I told you I didn't take the child? That the police created a lie in order to ensure urgency around catching me?"
"You wouldn't because you're not going to lie to me."
Matthew didn't say anything for a full ten seconds.
"Now someone else knows what it's like to lose a son," he said emptily.
"You're spreading joy everywhere, Matt." The pain in her voice was gone. "Now when am I coming down there?"
"I have to do something first, and you might change your mind when I'm done. I have to go get someone else and then I'll come for you. How long will you stay?"
"A day or two should be enough."
"Okay, then. I'll come get you when I'm done here. I'll see you soon, Ral. I love you."
Matthew hung up on his end, not wanting to hear the silence of her refusing to tell him the same anymore.
Mrs. Linda Lucent. That's what he had to do—get her and bring her here, and the sooner he did it, the sooner he would be with the mother of his child. He knew his mistakes would begin piling up if he kept on. Calling Rally as many times as he had, and now having her come down here. Trusting her with everything in his life, allowing her the chance to burn it all. Now Lucent. The most obvious trap he'd ever seen. Matthew couldn't find a single person he looked for, not even the judge that presided over the trial of the four cops. Everyone had disappeared from Earth except for Mrs. Lucent. She was still shitting in the same toilet she used when Matthew took her whore-banging husband. The police didn't hide her, and even though cops probably followed her everywhere, she was still available. She was bait. Obvious bait. Predators don't bite when they know something is bait, like a worm on a hook. The predator waits for the next opportunity, the next grub that won't put him on a chopping block somewhere, with his intestines being pulled from his body.
Matthew didn't care. The only food he wanted was Linda Lucent.
He wanted the whining bitch that had sainted her husband and probably took a punch or two from him over their marriage. He wanted her hooked up next to the child. They laid the bait out and he was going to take it. Attached to a hook or a hundred guns, he was going to Durham and would meet Linda. He would ask her who was more brutal, her husband or him, and when she answered wrong, he would drag her down here. He'd shave her head and drill holes into her skull, then hook her up to all the same electrodes that he had used on her husband.
Chapter Twenty Three
"He'll go for her. No doubt about that."
"What makes you say that?"
The television in Jeffrey's hotel room was off, but he stared directly at it, seeing himself and the glass of orange juice and vodka sitting on the dresser next to him. Half empty. He reached for it, still watching himself in the television and took a sip. He set it back down before answering.
"Because he doesn't think you'll be able to stop him. He's quieter this time, so far anyways, but I don't think he'll keep that up forever. He may not give quotable material to reporters anymore, but if he takes her from under your nose, there isn't going to be much that needs to be said. What's he going to do? Go pull some rando off the street and hook her up to the tubes and machines? That's defeating half the purpose of this whole thing. He'll go for Lucent."
"What do you have for me?" Moore asked.
Jeffrey laughed. "Besides guaranteeing his next target for you? What else were you expecting? An address to the child's body?"
1450 Marina Parkway, Industrial Center, Building A46.
"Where are you at, Mr. Dillan?"
He stopped laughing, focusing on the black television again. He took another sip of the screwdriver. "Looking out at the beach, waiting for you guys to catch him so that I can write my next novel."
"Think it will sell as good as the last one?"
Jeffrey smiled. "It's going to make the last one look like a children's book."
"Best of luck, Mr. Dillan. Could you tell me what happened to the other half of your notes in the storage unit? We're missing a good chunk of them."
"I couldn't tell ya," Jeffrey said, looking down at the boxes next to his bed, most had cardboard lids covering them, unnecessary for what came next. "If I see them, I'll be sure to give you a call."
He hung up the phone.
Durham, North Carolina. He'd been here for his last book and remembered feeling like he was walking through an ashtray. He was heading back as soon as he finished his drink. They'd left Lucent standing out in the cold, albeit with a bunch of people hiding in the shadows trying to protect her if the monster showed up. Jeffrey hadn't been lying. The monster would show, and he knew it because he watched the monster pack. Brand visited the warehouse last night and brought out a milk jug full of a clear liquid. He brought out blankets. He brought out a gun.
Allison Moore let him know who Brand was packing for: Linda Lucent, a quiet individual if God ever made one. Jeffrey wanted to tell Lucent what was coming. He really did. Show up in Durham and tell her to run. Find the nearest cop and run into his arms and have him lock her up in a cell that had no windows and no cracks in it. Because the monster was gearing up and Jeffrey didn't think all of the F.B.I. and all of the Durham police lined up outside her house would stop Brand from getting inside. Jeffrey could tell her though, could warn her that a fate much worse than death was on its way.
Only, that wasn't true. That was a wish, not real. He wasn't going to end this book both for himself and for Brand. Jeffrey was a middle-aged man sitting on a hotel bed, drinking the last of his vodka. Boxes of old interviews surrounded him. Alone and drunk. If he couldn't be honest now, he couldn't be honest ever. This book would put him back on television, would have him interviewed by David Letterman and anyone else he wanted. This book would make him someone again. Less, but still important, if he finished this—if he didn't step in, Brand had his son back. Some people would die along the way, but f
uck it, the child was already gone. A few more people, old now, wouldn't matter. None of them would go to the lengths Brand was for someone they loved. None of them would even consider it.
Chapter Twenty Four
Linda pushed her grocery cart slowly down the canned vegetable aisle. She wanted corn but her eyes kept looking at the people around her. Who were police and who were shoppers simply looking for green beans or tomato paste? The man reading the back of the can, or the woman handing her toddler another piece of candy to keep the girl quiet for just a few more moments? How could Linda tell who was who? She couldn't and she knew it, but would keep trying.
She grabbed a can of creamed corn from the shelf and put it in her cart.
Even grocery shopping was different now, because people knew her.
She was the wife of the slain cop.
Everyone knew about the boy who was stolen in Florida. Everyone also knew that Brand wasn't done and here she was walking around the grocery store like none of it mattered. No one had said anything to her yet, no strangers at least. The cops and that F.B.I. agent were pretty forceful though. Linda's neighbor, Anne, had just about as much conviction as the cops that Linda needed to beat trail.
"Sit here an' let him come, huh? That's your plan?"
Her old face scrunched up like a molded peach.
That was Linda's plan. The only plan she had anymore besides to keep on living. She grabbed some fresh broccoli, bagged it, and dropped it into the cart.
She made her way through the rest of the store, trying to eye out the ones that might be police, knowing that a cop car waited just outside at the curb. Everyone had seen her face on the nightly news and everyone knew that cop car waited for her. The police wanted everyone to know. That was the point, wasn't it? To scare away this man who wanted her head just as he had wanted her husband's?
She rolled through the check-out, handing her debit card instead of the cash that Garret had always used. He kept a wad of cash in his pocket all the time, and pulled it out and counted out twenties or hundreds, depending on how much they needed. How long had it been since she thought about him like this? Five years? More? When she left therapy there wasn't much to think about, except maybe she might kill him again if his big ass ever made it to heaven. She didn't know if that was possible, but she kept the hope. Other than that, Garret disappeared from her mind, until Brand decided he was done sleeping. Now she thought of Garret all the time. Pushing the buggy across the asphalt, she remembered how he never used to let her push it. She thought that was sweet back then—he was being a gentleman—not wanting her to work when he was there to do it. The truth, to a fifty year old woman, was that her husband had been too busy trying to control everything rather than worrying about whether or not she was working.
The cop car didn't move as she passed it, but the heads inside did. They followed her movements, not acting like they were out on patrol or doing some kind of private gig for the store. They were here for her and her alone.
She pulled out of the parking lot, groceries packed into her trunk, and the police cruiser followed. She wished they would pull up in her driveway and help her unload all this food, but that wouldn't happen. This was a stand-off job only, no need to get up and close with the widow now being looked at as lunch meat for a possible rebirth of that psycho's son.
Linda parked the car in front of her house. The same size it had been when Garret lived with them, and for a long time after his death, it appeared so big. So empty without his presence there. Now it was only her home. Not empty. Not big. Not small. Just her home where she had managed to live on and get through everything that happened.
She opened the trunk and had all the bags in after three trips.
* * *
The cops in the car outside weren't the only people watching Linda's home. People practically lived in the back too, although she didn't know if they were cops or F.B.I. At Brand's last crime scene, he had gone through the back yard—trekking through about a half mile of woods to get there. So while she never looked in her backyard for them, she knew cops were out there, probably hiding. Hopefully hiding, because a lot of good they would be at catching Brand if they were out poking around in daylight.
She didn't think Brand would come for her here. It would be too hard of a task. Getting around all of these people staring directly at her, when there were easier ways.
Easier ways.
The thought appealed to Linda. It wasn't a death wish, per se, but something that she took from therapy. Thanks to Mr. Jeffrey Dillan for it. The man interviewed her for his book and she told glowing stories about Garret and his life. Told of the great things the man had accomplished and the great things he wanted to accomplish. Mr. Dillan told a bit of a different story, and when the book came out, Linda lost it.
Her neighbor, not quite as wrinkled as she was now, found Linda cutting long lines into her forearms. She was attacking the top of them, luckily not the bottom, and so she wasn't close to bleeding out but was certainly making a mess of both her kitchen and her mind. Anne took the knife and slapped her face, then called the ambulance. Linda kept on picking at the raw skin until the paramedics showed up and medicated her. Probably would have picked until her arm was nothing but bone if she'd been left alone.
Linda loved Anne for finding her. At the time, she was mildly annoyed. If her husband had wanted to fuck everything that walked on two or four legs, then why couldn't Linda have some fun of her own, even if it meant a little self-mutilation?
She wasn't allowed to come home for a long time. The papers said nothing about it because this was two years after Brand was silenced inside that glass cell. The Wall they called it. No one cared about Linda Lucent or what she went through anymore. Linda went to an institution. An asylum. She went somewhere where she couldn't cut herself anymore. A room with white walls that she eventually hung pictures on. A room with a cot a little bigger than a single person, when she had been so used to the king size she and Garret shared. A room with a single window, just like in the movies and Linda had thought—well isn't this quaint?
She took her meals in a cafeteria that reminded her of grade school. All of the stools were attached to the tables and she met people that were a lot better than her and some that were a lot worse. She met Martin there, a black man who looked to be the exact opposite of Garret. Where Garret was tall, Martin was short. Where Garret was thick, Martin was thin. Where Garret had hair, Martin was bald. Where Garret liked women, Martin liked men. That was the only way she knew to look at Martin, and how could she not? The only man she ever had in her life beside her father was the God-like presence of Garret. Martin had found his way to this sunny estate in much the same way as Linda, through all encompassing self-hate. A small, bald, gay, black man in Durham, North Carolina—Martin had learned to hate himself early.
"When I was fifteen, to be 'zact 'bout it," he said in his country twang that Linda imagined most people from his high school still possessed.
No pills and no therapy sessions when he was fifteen, just a lot of neighborhood beatings and a drunk dad who probably had a good deal of suspicions about which type of genitals his son preferred—even before Martin knew.
"I'mma be leavin' soon. Doc Teasler says so. Maybe in the next few months," Martin told her when they met.
"Do you still hate yourself?"
The black man looked at her, not smiling.
"Some. Probably always will. This isn't about purifying your mind, it's about progressive victory over that self-hate. I didn't cut today. I didn't think 'bout cutting today. It's 'bout takin' that small win and turning it in to something else the next day. You don't get it now, butcha will."
Linda met Martin her first time in the cafeteria and she sat with him every day for the next three months until they released him back into the world. Healed. Ready to go on.
"I'm 'spensive in here, cost too much money, and I don't think I'll be cuttin' anymore, so they're shippin' me on."
Martin was a guide as
much as Dr. Teasler. One showed her the path and the other showed her what the path looked like when you walked in it. Martin's self-hate revolved around his childhood and sexuality. Linda's self-hate revolved around her childhood and sexuality too. That's what Dr. Teasler showed her. Garret wasn't allowed to do what he did because Garret was that dominant, it was because Linda decided long ago that someone besides herself would control her life. Linda's mother was a sweet, compassionate woman. Her father used his hands for discipline. Both tried to raise a daughter that was obedient and driven, but they created a woman who couldn't say no yet had the determination to continue with something until she died. Don't speak up and don't ask why. Just keep your head down and let the world turn around you, dear. That's how good things come to people. If the meek were to inherit the Earth, as the Good Book said, then Linda's parents prepared her to be the Queen of that Kingdom.
The cutting, that came from realizing what her marriage had been. Dear Mr. Dillan had been the one to show it to her, or at least make her aware of it. Her marriage was a sham at best, a tunnel of perversions for Garret to walk through, picking out one fantasy after another. Linda was but one brick in that tunnel, one brick that helped hold up the disgusting life that Garret spent so much time building. From her view point as that brick, she couldn't see anything besides the bricks directly next to her, was barely able to understand she was part of a tunnel. Garret walked beneath her from time to time, and Lord, did she love to see him, but when he passed from her view all she could do was wait to glimpse the top of his head again. Perhaps hope that he might look up and smile at her.
Martin and Dr. Teasler helped take the brick down from its spot at the top of the tunnel. Helped put it in the middle of the tunnel so that she could see everything, all the twisted and rotten bricks that had surrounded her. Saw that she was the only piece allowing the whole structure to remain standing, her place in the center allowed him to do as he pleased. To fuck every hole he could find and still look like an upstanding citizen. To give her fucking chlamydia and make her feel as if she did something wrong. Like she should have been more careful. The self-hate, all of it at once, fell on her the same as if the tunnel had collapsed. There were no more illusions and also nothing left to cling to. Garret was dead and now the memory of him, which she loved for so long, had died too. Garret had been a philanderer and a taker. He took from Linda until there was virtually nothing left for her to give, took nearly her entire soul until she could only survive by sucking from his, and when there was nothing left to suck from because Brand murdered Garret, Linda nearly died.
