by Jeff Lindsay
“Oh!” she said, and she jumped like she had been shocked. “But I can’t possibly-You sit next to him; it’s only-My God, I couldn’t possibly!”
“All right,” I said, and I slid into the seat right next to Robert. A moment later, Rita remembered how to sit, too, and she sank bonelessly into the seat beside me.
I sat there and watched Rita fidget for several minutes; she would start to settle down and then glance at Robert and begin to blush and twitch again. I tried to ignore it, but her spasms of adoration shook my seat, too. I looked to my left, where Jackie and Deborah would be sitting. They weren’t back yet; probably still sipping beer and mingling with other celebrities in Renny’s dressing room. I hoped he would keep his shirt on.
My seat quivered and I glanced back at Rita. Her left leg was jumping up and down in a nervous and probably unconscious twitch. I wondered whether she would turn normal again when the show started. Renny would probably have to be very funny to take her mind off sitting so close to Robert the God. I hoped Renny was hilarious. But what had he said to Robert-that he didn’t do comedy; he did social commentary? Could that possibly be funny enough to stop Rita’s convulsions? Could someone with a Passenger really be funny at all? I mean, I am well known for a dry wit-but I couldn’t keep a full theater in stitches.
Still, a real TV network believed in Renny enough to give him this special. Of course, that same network had cast Robert in a starring role-but they had cast Jackie, too, so I guess that made it a fifty-fifty chance. And who knows? Anything could happen. Maybe he would even make me laugh. I didn’t think so, but stranger things have happened-many of them to me. After all, I was married, had children, and everyone thought I was wonderful.
There was a burst of gaudy music from the sound system; a cheerful-looking young man came out onstage and plucked the microphone from the stand. “Heeeeeyyyyy-Miami!” he called out in a happy foghorn voice, and for some reason the audience cheered enthusiastically.
He went on to tell us all that we were filming tonight, which I already knew, and he told us to turn off our cell phones, don’t take flash pictures, and remember to laugh a lot. He said one or two other things that I think were supposed to be funny, and then called out, “Oooo-kay! Enjoy the show!” And he stuck the microphone back on the stand and strode offstage to wild applause.
A moment later, the lights went down, the noise of the crowd trickled to a whisper, and the announcer said, “Ladies and gentlemen-Mr. Renny … Boudreaux!”
TWENTY-FOUR
Renny let the applause build, and build, and then build a little more until the audience climbed to its feet and yelled and stomped and the old theater began to shake. Then he slouched out onto the stage three steps and stopped, staring at the audience with clear disapproval. The cheering got louder; Renny shook his head and walked to the microphone as the laughter grew and mixed with the cheers. He took the microphone from its holder, turned front, and just stared at the audience.
More laughter, more cheering; Renny just kept scowling. And at the exact moment when the crowd noise started to ebb, he called out, “What the fuck is wrong with you people?!” and we were off again into a riotous rollicking sea of glee.
Again, he timed it perfectly, and at just the right moment he said, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong-you’re stupid!” Oddly enough, this got a huge laugh, which seemed to make Renny mad, and he yelled, “I’m serious!” and the laughter got even louder, until Renny held up a hand and, when the noise died down a little, he said, “Sit the fuck down!”
I realized with a small shock that I was standing along with everyone else, and as I sat down, everyone else did, too. Renny waited for it to get very quiet, and then he began to speak. He mentioned the pilot we were shooting and introduced Robert and then Jackie, and as she stood to acknowledge the applause, I saw Deborah looking alertly around the room, bodyguard style. I remembered that I was supposed to be protecting Jackie, too, so I turned and pretended to search for any sign of trouble. There was none, of course. Jackie sat down safely, and Renny pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket. He scowled at it and then looked up.
“I’m supposed to say thank you to the cops here in Miami.” He shook his head. “That make any sense to you? Me-saying thank you to cops? But Big Ticket said please, and they’re paying for this shit, so … Thank you, cops.” He glanced at the crumpled paper. “Hey, Captain Matthews, you out there?” The captain stood up with a modest and manly smile on his face, and waved at the crowd to polite applause. “Yeah, I just asked if you’re there, Captain,” Renny said. “I didn’t say, stand up and steal my fucking spotlight.” And he smiled for the first time. “Hey, that’s right-first time I can say fuck to a cop-and he’s a captain, too. Hey, Captain Matthews! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
Renny waited for the laughs to die down and then he began to talk about Miami: Miami traffic, Miami food, the variety of people here-and every so often when he got a big laugh for some outrageously cynical observation, he would pause, glare at the audience, and call out, “I’m serious!” Apparently this was his tagline, the words he was famous for, like Steve Martin’s “Excuse me!” and every time he said it, half the crowd chanted, “I’m serious!” along with him.
And he really was serious; he was just very funny about it. He talked about serious issues and made the crowd look at them in a new way, a way that was provocative and funny at the same time.
He tore into politics in a fashion that would have to be called carnivorous, and that led to public education. “You all cut the funding to public schools. Take away all the money for teaching your own damn kids-and then you complain because all the doctors are from India! You rather have an American doctor who went through your public schools, and now he’s so fucking stupid he thinks Moby-Dick is a social disease?
“And then you say hey! We can fix the schools-with a lottery! And all the money will go to public schools! And the lobbyists get ahold of it, and now some of the money goes to the schools. And then the politicians step in, and all of a sudden, a portion of the profits goes to the schools. And what you’ve done, now it’s not just about funding-you’ve turned your kids’ education into a lottery. And you know how that works, right? One outa ten million is a winner, everybody else is shit out of luck.
“I’m serious!
“And who gets most of the losing tickets, huh? Yeah, that’s right, it’s the black man. Same old shit. You all think oh, everything changed now, ’Cuz we elected a black president, but it’s still hard as hell to be a black man in America. Especially since I fucking hate basketball …!
“But it could be worse,” he went on. “I might be gay.” He peered out into the audience and said, “Show of hands-how many faggots we got here tonight?” Believe it or not, a few hands went up, but Renny shook his head. “Come on, man, I know there’s more of you-I can see your shoes.” He shook his head again and waited for the laugh to die. “Yeah, being gay today, that’s gotta suck.… I mean, the rest of y’all-Give ’em a break, all right? You think it’s icky, that’s fine-you don’t have to watch. But really-what the fuck do you care who somebody else fucks? And if they like fucking ’em so much they wanna marry ’em, what the fuck do you care?” He made a solemn face and said, in a glutinous voice, “ ‘Oh, but Renny, it’s in the Bible.’ ” Renny snorted and shook his head. “Shit, yeah, it’s in the Bible; I looked it up. Any of you motherfuckers done that …? I didn’t think so. Well, I did. Yeah, it’s in the Bible. It’s right there, next to where it says you can’t have a round haircut and you can’t eat shrimp. And I can see some round fucking haircuts out there. And how many of you faggot bashers eat shrimp? ’Cuz if you think God wants you to piss on gay people, you gotta give up that shrimp cocktail, too, sparky.… I’m serious!”
A couple of rows behind me a loud voice called out, “Faggot!” Renny looked right at the man and smiled. “Isn’t that nice? See what happens when you give a beer to a man with a tiny dick?”
The crowd la
ughed, but the heckler wasn’t done. He yelled out again, even louder, “You’re a faggot!”
And Renny smiled and said, “You really think I’m a faggot, why don’t you just suck my dick, and if I like it-damn, you were right. And if I don’t like it-at least you got some action tonight.”
The crowd gave Renny quite an ovation, and the heckler slumped back into his seat as Renny moved on. And I suppose it wasn’t really a remarkable exchange, no more than the kind of routine put-down that happens every night, every place a comic stands in front of a crowd. But for me, it was very memorable-not for the high quality of the sparkling wit, but for something very different.
Because as Renny’s eyes moved over me to focus just over my head at the heckler, I felt the hair go up on my neck, and deep inside Castle Dexter an alarm began to toll as my Passenger whipped up into High Alert and began to hiss warnings at me.
And as Renny focused on his heckler and crushed him, I saw the Thing behind his eyes, the Thing I thought I might have seen, and now there was no doubt, none at all. Above all the noise of the crowd I heard the sibilant roar of the huge Dark Thing that reared triumphantly from the deep shadows behind Renny’s smile. And I watched it uncoil and flare up into its great shadowy length, and reach its long and sharp claw at the heckler, and it was there for all the world to see, and although no one else did see it, I saw it and I knew.
A Passenger. No doubt about it.
I don’t know how or why, but I always know it when I see it. I always have. And there was no doubt now, none at all: Renny had a Dark Passenger, just like me.
Renny moved on, and I am sure the rest of his show was every bit as funny and filled with savage insight, but I did not notice. I was lost in a train of thought that took me far away down the tracks, and I would not have noticed if Renny set himself on fire.
At first I merely thought about the fact that Renny was a monster, just like me. But that led me on to thoughts that were far loftier, and much more to the point. Because Renny had a Passenger. I didn’t know how he managed its care and feeding, but he had one. And if he could survive, and even flourish in Hollywood … why couldn’t I?
I pictured it in my imagination: Dexter lounging by the pool in Bel Air, watching the shadows grow deeper as the sun drifted down into the Pacific Ocean and a slow fat moon began to creep up into the sky, and Dexter feels the old Happy Night thrill begin to take him over, and he rises from his poolside perch and with his customary care he pads into the large and airy house on his predator’s feet and reaches for his ready-packed bag of toys and tools and away he slides into a night that is just as dark and welcoming, no matter that the sun sets, instead of rises, in the water.
It could work. There was no reason it shouldn’t. And I could not shake the idea that I would be far happier on that western shore, in a land of new opportunity, a fresh panorama of unexplored darkness.
But of course … I had not actually been invited. And there was no reason to think I would be. Jackie certainly had her own life in California, with her own friends and routines and security measures, and aside from one quick kiss, she had given me no indication that I would ever be a part of that life. If I was logical about things, I had to admit that most probably, when the pilot was finished shooting here, she would thank me, hug me, and return to the West Coast, leaving Dexter behind as no more than an occasional fond memory.
And no matter how much I wanted it to be more than that, I couldn’t make that happen, and I couldn’t even say what that “more” would be.
So as Renny’s performance wound on to its no doubt hilarious conclusion, it was a somewhat Disheartened Dexter who finally came back to his grumpy senses as he realized that everyone around him was leaping to their feet and applauding madly. And because the First Principle of the Harry Code is to fit in, Dexter stood and clapped, too.
Rita stood next to me, clapping with manic enthusiasm. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and a very big smile was plastered on her face, a smile like I had never seen before, joy and thrill mixed together with excitement. She looked ecstatic, as if she had just gotten a glimpse into a world of magical beauty. I am sure the show was enjoyable, but Rita seemed transported to another plane. I had sat beside her on the couch and watched TV with her every night for years, and never suspected that the world of entertainment and its denizens were so important and enthralling to her. I couldn’t imagine how anyone with a three-digit IQ could possibly be so mesmerized-but of course, I knew Renny and Robert much better than she did.
And when the applause finally trickled to a halt, she still stood there, staring at the stage, as if she was looking at a spot where a miracle had just happened. It wasn’t until Robert tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Dex-I gotta get going,” that she finally stopped beaming at the empty stage and went back into shock.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh my-Dexter, Mr. Chase is …” And she collapsed into silence, blinking and blushing.
“Just Robert,” he said, predictably, and he smiled at her. “And can I call you, uh …?”
“Rita,” I told him.
“Rita. Right! Well, hey, Rita, you got a great guy here.” He clapped me on the shoulder to show how much he approved of me. “You’d better hang on to him,” he said. He winked at her, and put a hand on her upper arm. “You let him hang out with these Hollywood types, and they may try to steal him.”
Rita turned even redder. “Thank you, Mr. aahh, I mean Robert, I-oh,” she said. She put the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth, as if she’d said something awful and wanted to punish her teeth.
Robert didn’t seem to notice. He just squeezed her arm and said, “My pleasure. Great to meet you, Rita.” He gave her arm another squeeze, and looked at me. And then, with annoying inevitability, he shot me with his finger-gun again, and said, “See you Monday, partner.” He pushed past us and walked away up the aisle. Rita watched him go, knuckles still in her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said.
I glanced around. Jackie was standing at her seat with Debs, but she was looking at me, and I was suddenly very tired of Rita’s worshipful blathering over Robert. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll walk you out to your car.” And to my complete surprise, she threw her arms around me and gave me a crushing hug, accompanied by a series of wet kisses on my face.
“Oh, Dexter, thank you,” she said. “This has been the most amazing-To see Robert Chase, and actually talk to him …!” she said into my ear, and she planted another damp kiss on me. “And Renny Boudreaux was wonderful-I mean, the language was a bit rough. But seriously-thank you. Thank you so much for this.”
It seemed like a bit much; the tickets hadn’t cost me anything, and I had been ordered to show up with Rita. But I just said, “You’re welcome,” and pried myself out of her embrace. “Where did you park?”
“Oh,” she said, “just a couple of blocks away-at the hotel?”
“All right,” I said, and I tried to steer her out. But apparently she wasn’t finished yet.
“I really-I mean it. Thank you, Dexter; this has been so, just, like a dream,” she said.
There was more, and I just kept nodding and smiling, and finally she wore down and I got her moving up the aisle toward the lobby and out the door at last and into the bright downtown Miami night.
I walked her to the parking garage, listening to her recap of the show, telling me Renny’s best lines-all of which I had, after all, just heard myself. But she took great delight in repeating them, and eventually I tuned her out altogether until we arrived at her car.
“Good night,” I said, and I opened the car door for her. She leaned forward and kissed my cheek again.
“Thank you so much, Dexter,” she said. “It really was wonderful-and when will you come home?”
“Just a few more days,” I said, and I’m pretty sure I kept the regret out of my voice.
“All right,” she said. “Well …” And I began to think she would stand there in the open door of her car until she was struck by lightnin
g. So I planted a peck on her cheek.
“Good night,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.” And I took a step backward to give her enough room to close the car’s door, with her on the inside. She blinked at me for a moment, and then she smiled.
“Good night, Dexter,” she said. And she got into the front seat, started the car, and drove away. And I went back to find Jackie, thinking I might as well enjoy myself now.
It would all be over soon enough.
TWENTY-FIVE
In the night I woke up to the sound of sirens. They were a few miles away, winding up the scale in their flat, urgent wail, but the sound was coming closer, and without even thinking about it I knew what that meant and where they were headed: here, to this hotel, because another body had turned up, which meant—
Patrick, I thought. He’s done it again. And in my half-sleeping brain I could see his eager face as he slipped out of the chains I had put so carefully around him, and in half-waking horror I watched as he slowly, happily began to swim in toward the hotel, toward me, his rotting face set in a dead smile—
The image was too close and far too real and I jerked my eyes open. Impossible, I told myself. But in the darkened room with the sirens wailing and sleep still crusting my brain it did not seem impossible. He’s dead, I told myself, absolutely positively dead. And I knew this with complete certainty, but just as surely the sirens were coming closer, and just as surely I knew they were coming here.
I looked around the darkened room and tried to focus on real things: a chair, a table, a window. The ghosts began to fade back into dreams, and I took a deep breath-and then a new thought came barreling in, and in its own way it was just as troubling as the first nightmare:
What if I killed the wrong person?
What if that had been some Eagle Scout-innocent kayaker, who just happened to resemble a blurry picture on Facebook? And I had stabbed him and drowned him and sent him to feed the crabs, thinking it was Patrick-and now the real Patrick was right here, right now, in this hotel, and he had just killed someone, and he might even be on his way up here, to this room-I was wide-awake now. I rolled off the couch and stood there for a moment, blinking stupidly, and then I picked up the Glock and padded across the floor to the door of Jackie’s room. I paused there for a moment, listening for any sound, and as I put my ear against the door it jerked open and I almost fell over.
