The Killing Lessons

by Saul Black

  But the objects. The alphabet chart. The signature was Leon’s. And if this kid was a murderer, then Valerie’s instincts were for shit. They’d request a DNA sample anyway, and since he was innocent, he’d give them one. A formality.

  ‘Yeah, I think… Hang on.’ He started swiping through images. ‘Here you go. That’s Rob.’

  Again, not Leon. Instead, another young, good-looking guy in his early twenties, with a shaved head and mischievous black-eyelashed green eyes. He was grinning into the camera pretending to look crazy, an off-camera girl’s bare shoulder next to his. Was Valerie looking at one of the murderers? Assuming the kid was telling the truth about Biden’s trip away that would rule him out of Claudia’s abduction. But maybe the alpha had given him a sabbatical?

  ‘Could you give me Rob Biden’s cell phone number, please,’ Valerie said.

  ‘Holy Jesus,’ Shaun Moore said. ‘I mean… What is this?’

  ‘Where were you two nights ago?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Two nights ago. Where were you?’

  ‘I was… Fuck. Hold on a second—’

  ‘Calm down, Mr Moore. It’s only two nights ago. Come on. Where were you?’

  ‘I was… I was at a bar with my girlfriend. And two other guys.’

  ‘Which bar?’

  ‘Sundown,’ he said. ‘It’s on Webster. We were there till, like, two a.m.’

  ‘Good,’ Valerie said. ‘No problem. I believe you. But we can call these folks and get them to verify that – right?’

  ‘Of course they’ll verify it. I was there.’

  ‘I hear you. Don’t worry. That’s where you were, you’re good. Now could you give me Rob’s number, please?’

  Shaun wrote it down. His hands were shaking. Valerie did the time difference math. Should be around nine p.m. in Spain.

  Voicemail. A young-sounding male voice, the message designed to express laconic good-humoured weariness with the need for leaving messages: ‘Hi, this is Rob. Do the thing after the beep.’

  Valerie left a five-second silence and hung up. Tech would be able to tell her where the call had connected.

  ‘We’d like you to come down to the station,’ she said to Shaun Moore. ‘We’re going to go over the logistics, but I promise you this isn’t a tenancy issue. You’ve got nothing to worry about on that score. If Rob’s sub-letting we don’t care. It’s the original tenant we need to talk to. You good to go?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Shaun Moore said. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Detective Flynn? Can you take Mr Moore down in one of the squad cars? Leave me Galbraith and Moyles. We’ll need to do a door-to-door here. Get Ed in, will you?’

  It was unlikely, but not impossible, that someone in the building would know where to find Leon Ghast.

  ‘You staying?’ Valerie said to Carla, quietly, while Shaun Moore got his shit together.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Carla said. ‘It’ll be quicker.’

  Valerie was midway through the apartments on the next floor down with Carla, Ed and Galbraith (no joy so far on Leon’s photo), when her vision started acting up again. She had barely two or three seconds to note the cut-glass edging on the periphery before the tunnel closed around her, and everything went black.

  Her knees smacking the hall floor probably stopped her from passing out. But it was several seconds before the world came back.

  ‘Jesus, Detective, are you all right?’ Galbraith said, bending over her, reaching down. ‘What the hell happened?’

  Valerie was aware of Carla’s dark slacks and low-heeled boots just a few feet away. She’d seen. Fuck. Fuck.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. But when she tried to get her legs under herself she felt sickness surge. She put her hand against the wall. ‘No breakfast,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. Just give me a moment.’

  Carla and Galbraith weren’t the only witnesses. The tenants they’d been questioning had stepped out of their apartments into the corridor to gawp. A black woman in her fifties holding a toddler in her arms. A young overweight white guy in grey sweats and slippers, smoking.

  Valerie, with shuddering determination, got to her feet without taking Galbraith’s hand. Carla, she noted, was observing, standing staring at her with patent excitement in her face and limbs.

  ‘You need to take ten,’ she said.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not fine.’

  ‘Listen—’ Valerie began – but her phone rang.

  It was Will Fraser.

  ‘OK,’ Will said. ‘We’re in business.’

  ‘Go,’ Valerie said.

  Will filled her in on the trip to URS, and from there to Lester Jacobs’s apartment in the Castro. Lester, a sixty-two-year-old widower with only one functioning lung, was sick with a chest infection, and hadn’t bothered answering the phone. By the time Will got to his apartment Lester’s daughter had arrived to check on him, and after a few minutes’ persuasion had let Will in.

  ‘Leon Ghast,’ Valerie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His name’s Leon Ghast.’

  ‘Not the name I got. I got Xander King. ID’d from the zoo photo.’

  Xander.

  Zan.

  Valerie had imagined it beginning with a ‘Z’. I don’t even know if that’s his first name or his last, the kid had said.

  ‘He’s using an alias,’ Valerie said. ‘Fine. Go on.’

  ‘Long story short,’ Will said, ‘it’s not like him and Lester were buddies, but about six months after King quit the URS job they ran into each other. Our guy told Lester he’d bought a place in Utah.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘No. But it’s a state, at least.’

  ‘OK. That it?’

  ‘That’s not enough?’

  ‘You’re the shit, Will.’

  ‘I’ll see you back at the shop.’

  Carla was looking at her, waiting to be filled in.

  Waiting for something, at any rate.

  FIFTY

  The child in Claudia reached out repeatedly to the idea that some force must intervene on her behalf. God. The Spirit of Justice. A strand of benign intelligence in the universe. But the reaching out found only silence and emptiness. God did not exist. There was no Spirit of Justice. The universe had no intelligence, benign or otherwise. If she’d doubted it in the past, she knew it for certain now.

  She had to give herself things to do. If she did nothing there was nothing but fear. She’d spent a long time scanning every inch of the basement as far as the bare bulbs’ light allowed. If there was anything she could use as a weapon she had to know exactly where it was for when they next opened the cage. She had to be ready. Her eyes tried to force the recesses to yield yard tools, a rusted hatchet, a broken broom, anything. But there was nothing. There was no telling what the half-dozen cardboard boxes contained, but if she got past them she wouldn’t have longer than a couple of seconds. Maybe not even that. If she got past them. The thought of it, the two men with their hands on her and their breath on her face brought all the horror back. The horror was like a second person in the cage with her she mustn’t look at. Because when she did she saw the woman from the video, her utter helplessness, her body straining against the ropes, the veins in her throat bulging as the gag buried her scream, Xander’s rapt concentration and the knife going in, the flesh opening. The simplicity of the flesh just opening like that. The woman’s pale belly a widening gory grin. The same body that had been born, and had its umbilical cord cut, and been swaddled and rocked and loved. She saw all this and it was impossible to do anything except huddle against the furnace with her arms wrapped around herself, sick and shaking and alone.

  So she gave herself things to do.

  Right now, she’d given herself the task of searching beneath the furnace.

  There was a four- or five-inch gap. Enough to get her arm in up to just below her elbow. She lay on her belly and walked her finger
s around the entire area she could reach. It was thick with dust and fluff.

  And nothing else.

  The effort and pointlessness exhausted her.

  She pulled her arm out. Scraped a graze on the baseplate’s rusted edge. A few pricks of blood welled.

  Blood.

  She got back onto her knees.

  You’re lucky. You’re so lucky. He’s sick. It’s the flu.

  Which meant that for a short time she might have one of them to deal with instead of two.

  Which meant – the logic was delighted and awful – she should act sooner rather than later.

  Act?

  What could she do?

  The logic was there again: You have to get him to open the cage.

  How?

  How do you think?

  It stilled her.

  It stilled her because she knew the answer.

  She knew the only thing she could conceivably use.

  And everything in her said she couldn’t.

  Except the small part of her that said: If it’s that or what happened to the woman in the video, you can.

  The logic had a coda: And it’s going to happen to you anyway.

  Brutal to have let the thought in. But since she had there was no unthinking it. It was like having swallowed something that was now quietly alive inside her. It was part of her, yes, it had been admitted – but it was too terrifying to confront properly. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand the truth of it.

  She turned her attention to the back of the furnace.

  A similar gap, perhaps a little broader than the one beneath its base. The whole unit was bolted to the wall on four hefty metal brackets. Heavy enough so that if she smashed one against his skull it would buy her some time. The two on the far side were out of reach. She wrapped her fingers around the lower one nearest to her and tested how firmly it held.

  It was solid. Completely immovable. The notion of her budging it with her bare hands was risible. She tried the upper one. The same. It was hopeless.

  Her arm dropped in defeat.

  Her fingers caught on the edge of something.

  It was a thin metal placard, stamped, she assumed (braille-reading, breath held) with the unit’s serial number or technical specifications. It was supposed to be held by four screws, one at each corner. But only the top right and the bottom left were in. The bottom left was very slightly loose.

  Claudia felt the thickness of the metal. Thicker than a tin can, but thinner than a car number plate.

  Bendable?

  She pulled at the unscrewed bottom right. There was give. Just. She could shape it with her foot if not with her hands.

  If she could get it off. If she could get it off she could bend it – fold it, effectively – make a tough edge… something… Use it to prise up a floorboard?

  It was a pitiful thing to clutch at, but it was all she had. It was a piece of metal. It would be something to hold. Something between her and him. Something other than her own flesh and blood.

  Fingertips dreaming, she felt for the screw heads. They were rounded, with a cross groove. Phillips screws. Her dad’s toolbox with its odour of grease and steel. The novelty of helping him that day he’d built the birdhouse. Right, pass me the drill bit, Claudie. She’d been six or seven years old. The awe of initiation into this paternal mystery: DIY. These birds better appreciate this, he’d said. We’re giving them five-star accommodation here. We’re giving them the sparrow Ritz. She’d loved it, the idea of the birds discovering a wonderful cosy house, moving in, taking shelter from the elements.

  She extracted her arm and dug in her pocket for the change. Two quarters and a dime.

  Stop shaking. Don’t drop them. Do this properly.

  A quarter was too big. No purchase on the cross groove. She thought: The dime will be too small. A nickel would be (à la Goldilocks) just right. And I don’t have one of those.

  The dime wasn’t just right – but it was close enough.

  Manoeuvring was awkward. There wasn’t sufficient room to turn the coin without scraping the graze on her arm. Each twist inflicted a mean, precise burn. She didn’t mind. It proved she was doing something. It was a relief.

  The first screw – the top right – was out. She had to be careful. The placard was now hanging by a single screw. If it dropped and slipped away from her it might end up out of reach. She adjusted, stretched, pressed as much of her arm against it as she could without making the unscrewing action impossible.

  A thirty-degree turn.

  Another.

  It was working. It was coming loose.

  Her hand was sweaty, fingers rich with nerves. The position she had to maintain made her shoulder ache. The absurdity of her hope – a thin metal plate – was available, but she ignored it, since there was no other hope.

  The screw wobbled. Rattled. Dropped.

  She crept her fingers around the edge of the plate and slid it towards her – worrying too late that the metal’s rasp would be heard. In spite of her efforts the movement scored the graze on her arm. But even that was an enhancement of the feeling of small triumph.

  It was perhaps ten by six inches, less than an eighth of an inch thick. Manufacturer’s logo: HeatRite. Model name: XS200.5. Then a string of embossed numbers that meant nothing to her.

  Don’t fuck this up. Think. Maximise.

  Not strong enough to lever up a floorboard. And in any case the notion of digging herself out from under the grille was ridiculous, a feeble, long-term project which would depend on them not killing her any time soon.

  When she’d pictured the plate’s potential as a weapon she’d imagined bending it lengthways – some deep grammar of defence telling her the longer the implement, the less close you’d have to get to strike. But she saw now that wouldn’t work. The metal was, if anything, too pliable. Folded lengthways in half – and even in half again – it wouldn’t be strong enough not to buckle on impact. And she’d only get one chance. The alternative (the pain this was going to cost her was there in her hands already) was to fold or roll it widthways. She’d end up with something only six inches long, but significantly stronger, a short, irregular cigar of metal.

  A door opened and closed upstairs.

  She froze.

  Footsteps crossed the hall above her. Another door opened and closed.

  Silence.

  She wiped her hands on her jeans.

  HeatRite XS200.5. Someone, probably decades ago, had started a company called HeatRite. Someone from the world she’d lost. She pictured a guy in welding goggles and denim dungarees. He’d have a life. People who loved him. Beers with friends. Anxieties about overheads and tax returns. A whole wonderful swirling mass of ordinary details he’d never appreciate unless something like this happened to him.

  She began to fold-roll the metal. It wasn’t easy. Her fingers protested. Two nails broke. The action reminded her of the way she and Alison used to fold the purple tinfoil wrappers from Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bars when they were kids. At the memory of chocolate a little corner of herself complained that she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten in… how long? Nothing since the burrito at the Whole Food Feast, whenever that was. Dehydrated, too. Her head ached. You finish this, she told herself, then you drink some water.

  It took what felt like a long time. She had to keep stopping and slotting her hands into her armpits to ease the pain. When she was done, there was no disguising the negligibility of the result – a stunted baton – which would do nothing unless she got it directly into his eye. If she had something to hammer it into any kind of point…

  She put it on the floor and flattened one end with her foot. Rotated it forty-five degrees, repeated the action. A third and fourth time would have completed the job, but by now the metal was too tightly packed. An improvement, though. The cigar tapered to a usefully vicious V. She gripped it in her fist. It felt good.

  And terrifying. Because now there was nothing to do but wait for a
n opportunity to use it.

  No.

  Not wait for an opportunity.

  Make one.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Upstairs in his dull room of thrift store furniture Paulie watched the videos and tried to jerk off. No good. He gave up. Just lay there, staring at the stained ceiling, his Vaselined cock lolling like a dead fish. Outside the silver-blue small-hours sky rolled away over the empty land. The bed smelled of mould. He was simultaneously agitated and adrift. Being with Xander wasn’t good, these days – but being without him, losing the heat of his will, was worse. And he was losing it too often, lately. The nod-outs, the fucking mini-zomboid vacations. Every time it happened, every time he thought Xander was going away for good, the world loomed up giant and unbalanced, filled with visions of himself alone in it – standing in sleet at a bus stop; shambling down a bright supermarket aisle; walking into a bar and seeing people hunched over their drinks – and wanting to walk straight out again.

  It’s like I’m carrying you on my goddamned back.

  Xander had always said things like that from time to time. Used to be he’d leave a short pause and stare at you for a few seconds before grinning – so you knew he didn’t really mean it – and turning away. Used to be. But recently (not so recently, if Paulie really thought about it) the grinning – the not meaning it – had stopped.

  Meeting Xander five years ago had been a homecoming. Couldn’t even really say how it happened. Not the certainty of it. Not the deep-down knowing. Paulie, who’d been drifting since he was fifteen, had got a minimum-wage job in the refrigeration warehouse in Prescot, Oakland, and had blown off the cafeteria one lunchtime to eat his shitty pastrami on rye down by the water. He’d sat on an empty bench next to one occupied by Xander, who was Leon in those days, and after a strange forty-five minutes’ conversation (he talked a lot, Xander a little) found himself full of a thrilled gravity.