Fredrik
Dante, my self-proclaimed sidekick, looks like a rat in a suit. I help him with his tie, and affix his cufflinks properly, and smack him across the back for the tenth time when he falls into another slouch. The guy came from back alleys and heroin blowjobs, and there’s only so much I can do with him. But he’ll have to do, because I trust nobody else. I don’t trust Dante, either, but he’s terrified of me, and it would take a lot for him to betray me. I suspect he will someday, but today is not that day.
“I don’t know, boss,” he says, “I’ve never done anything like this before. What if I screw it up?”
“With enough money,” I begin, “nobody is going to notice anything else. Don’t worry too much about how to act, just make sure everybody knows how rich you are, and everything else will fall into place.”
I hear the taxi’s brakes as the driver pulls up in front of the house. One last look at Dante, and I hand him his briefcase. “You only need to remember the few things I told you; all of the information is covered on my end—just don’t forget it on yours.”
Dante nods nervously.
“And stop acting like you just shoplifted a box of condoms”—I straighten his tie—“Have a little confidence in yourself; go into this knowing you can do it; be smug, shun people, play the role of a man you’ve always dreamed of being, but never imagined you’d be—this is your chance.”
He still looks nervous. “But I always wanted to be a painter,” he says thoughtfully.
Sighing, I lead Dante to the front door.
“You’ll figure it out,” I tell him. “Ninety-nine-percent of this job is learning-as-you-go. Don’t lose your passport, or anything else in that briefcase. And remember, no matter what happens, don’t interfere. Just report everything back to me.”
“OK, boss.”
“Secure server, remember?”
Dante nods and pats the side of the briefcase where the special cell phone I gave him has been packed away.
“Hey, boss?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the other one-percent?”
“Dying, of course.” I smile.
He swallows.
Moments later, Dante hops in the taxi and heads to catch his plane.
I go down into the basement and flip on the light, walk casually through the small space, stepping around old paint cans and dusty antique frames and bloated cans of vegetables. The filthiness combined with how small the room is makes me uncomfortable, but this place was the closest I could find to Izabel’s on such short notice. Apollo Stone had to be relocated, or his sister would have eventually come for him, and I can only deal with one crazy bitch at a time—the serial killer I’m hunting, I’m convinced, is a woman.
“You’re insane,” Apollo says. He’s strapped to a hospital bed; the only thing he’s able to move are his hands and his feet and his head. “No fucking joke, bruh, you are the sickest sonofabitch I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.”
Pushing the tube on the syringe, two drops of liquid squirt from the end of the needle. I thump the syringe with my middle finger and then stick the needle into his arm.
Apollo struggles; his hands ball into fists; his fingers tighten and relax. And then they slacken, and he’s out.
“Perhaps.”
I set the syringe down, and then set the timer on my watch. For a moment, I get a strange feeling, the kind one feels when eyes are at their back. I look behind me, and toward the small, film-covered window, but I see nothing. Ignoring it, I head back upstairs and lock the basement door from the outside. I grab my briefcase from the kitchen bar, and leave the house to look into some new information regarding the serial killer. I don’t have much time before Apollo wakes up, and that irritates me because I have important things to do. But when Izabel contacted me about watching over him—and keeping it a secret from everyone, even Victor—I couldn’t very well tell her no. I wish I could just kill him—almost broke down and did it a few times—but Apollo is Izabel’s kill, not mine. And he’s not Victor’s, either, no matter how badly Victor wants him and his sister. If he ever discovers I kept this from him, hiding Apollo for Izabel, he might kill me. But I guess I’ll deal with that when the time comes.
“I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes,” I tell my contact on the phone. “No feds, understood?”
My contact agrees, and I hang up, put my car into gear and drive away.
Initially, the deal was that I work closely with the United States government in helping catch this killer. I agreed to their terms, to all of their stipulations; I told them I would share all information with them regarding this case, tell them my opinions, and give them my valuable advice, because Fredrik Gustavsson, they believe, is the only way they will catch their killer. But I lied. And I’ll continue to lie. The government does value my judgement—they wouldn’t have even considered getting me involved if they didn’t need me, and had no one else to do what I can do. But they also see me as Apollo does: insane and sick. And once I lead them to this killer, I’ll be the one they go after next. So why give them anything?
I’m only working with them because of what Victor needs: information to help him smoke out the real Vonnegut. When I meet with them, I only pretend to be on their side, for Victor’s sake.
But their threat to me, and my duty to Faust, are not the biggest reasons I’ve chosen to keep everything to myself and to betray them. I do it because of my own personal interest in this killer; she is an itch under my skin I cannot scratch unless I break it. I want to know why her methods so closely resemble my own. I want to know why she does what she does, if she’s actually trying to get my attention, or if she’s just a darker version of myself and does what she does only because she needs to.
The answers will come; they will take time, but the most satisfying things in life always take time.
Kenneth Ware, government employee working for the Special Special Activities Division, and my number one fan apparently, sits across the table from me in the public library. This man, so enamored by the bloodlust of mentally disturbed criminals, is quite extraordinary. I get the feeling he’s just as demented as any serial killer he’s studied; yet he’s capable of refraining from acting upon his own urges. Of course, it bothers me to admit this, but this makes him more advanced than me; it makes him mentally stronger than me and those demented criminals he hunts and pines over like a teen-aged girl over a baby-faced musician.
But Mr. Ware, like all men, has a weakness, a chink in his armor: my baby face. And every time I meet with him, I play him like fingers moving smoothly, skillfully over piano keys.
“So, what new information do you have for me, Mr. Ware?”
He smiles, and with eager hands he reaches for his briefcase on the table and flips it open. Two seconds later, a file is in front of me.
“You’re going to love this,” he says, closing the briefcase and sliding it aside.
I pull the folder closer, but wait before opening it; I don’t want to appear as eager as he does—it’s such a vulnerable look.
Instead of elaborating, it’s apparent he just wants me to open the file already. And I guess I better, or else he’s going to have an anxiety attack over there caused by the anticipation from waiting too long.
Placing two fingers into the folder, I open it slowly. There are no photos this time, no gruesome crime scenes; just a bunch of text, with a few small paragraphs here and there in bold font. I skim the information at first, but when I see a few keywords sticking out at me like bright red blood on a sterile-white floor—hair sample, DNA, female—I read everything word-for-word instead. Because I had a feeling this day might come; good thing I prepared for it in advance.
When I’m finished, I close the folder and look at Ware, unimpressed.
“It’s a possibility,” I say, “but doubtful.”
Ware blinks. “Doubtful?” His excitement turns to disappointment. “But it’s all right here”—he gestures at the file—“and it’s the biggest break in this case I’ve seen in ten years. How can you brush off the theory so easily without giving it a chance?” He is truly beside himself over this.
Because you’re getting too close, Mr. Ware, and I can’t have that.
“Even the fact that all of the victims are male,” he goes on, “is a concrete clue—how could you think otherwise?”
“Because based on the case files,” I begin, “the crime scenes, everything about this killer, in my expert opinion, points in one direction.”
Ware leans away from the table, and crosses his arms; he gives me a look that basically says: Well, I’m listening; and he seems a little aggravated, too; as pissed as he can be at someone he admires so much, of course.
I slide my briefcase over this time, enter the code to unlock it, and then reach inside for my own files. As I’m spreading out crime scene photos on the table between us, Ware’s eyes veer off nervously, worried someone else will walk by and see such horrific things.
Sliding one photo toward him, I say, “Tell me what you see in that photo.” Before giving him a chance to answer, I put a few more next to it. “Tell me what you see in all of these photos.”
Ware looks down at them, studies them for a moment. “I can tell you exactly what I see, but we both know you’re going to point out something I obviously do not. So, it’s probably better you just tell me what it is.”
I point at the bookcase behind the victim’s head. “A mirror.” I point at various spots in the other photos. “There’s a mirror in every single crime scene—maybe not in all of the photos you’ve ever shown me, but I can guarantee that if you go back and look at every photo ever taken of each crime scene, you’ll find a mirror at all of them.”
He mulls it over a moment. “OK, so even if there’s a mirror in all of them, what is that supposed to mean?”
I shuffle the photographs into a stack and place them back into my briefcase as a woman walks by. I feel her eyes on us, glancing over my shoulder covertly. Sensing she probably saw or heard something she shouldn’t have, I watch her from the corner of my eye as she makes her way toward the restrooms. This is why I hate meeting in public places about things like this; everyday people are so foolishly curious. And nosey.
“This killer hates himself,” I tell Kenneth Ware, “but he wants to love himself.” I slide the first sheet of paper into Ware’s view, and point at the text while explaining. “All of the victims, not only are they men, but they’re fairly large men”—I point at one line in particular—“Kamir Rashad weighed two-hundred-forty pounds, all muscle.” I shuffle another sheet on top, and point again. “Abner Marin was a black-belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu—”
“I see what you’re getting at,” he cuts in, and then leans forward again, resting his arms upon the table, “and we’ve already considered this information, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a woman. I’ve known women who could kick my ass, and I’m six-two and weigh one-ninety-three.”
“I’m not done,” I point out, and his lips snap closed.
I move the papers aside.
“All of the victims were men. Most of them were physically strong, and bigger than the average-sized woman; and some of them, like Abner Marin, were skilled in some kind of martial arts—and one was a cop, another was military—so, what I’m seeing here, rather than the obvious it-must-be-a-woman-because-the-victims-are-men theory, is that all of the victims were manly men, and that the killer is also a manly man, and that’s why he chooses them—because that’s the part about himself he hates. It also better explains how the killer could take down so many men of their size and skill, on his own, and not get himself killed doing it. If the killer was a woman, she probably wouldn’t have lasted this long.” I know that’s not true—at least not with most women I’ve ever known—but whatever steers Ware in the other direction…
Ware doesn’t look convinced, as I knew he wouldn’t be at first; he crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head.
“But what made you come to that conclusion?” he asks. “You need something solid from the evidence that points in that direction, or else it’s just another theory.”
I smile. “The mirrors,” I say. “They are there for a reason. You’ve studied serial killers all your life, Mr. Ware; you already know that most, if not all of them, either take a trophy, or leave something behind.” I lean forward like him, and rest my arms on the table. “But I think you’ve been looking at the wrong one: your killer has an obvious interest in his victim’s teeth, I agree with that, and I’m still as stumped as you are, but I don’t think the teeth are what you need to focus on, or that all the victims are men—you need to focus on the mirrors; the teeth are probably just the aftermath of his rage”—I point at Ware shortly—“but the mirrors, they are the part of the puzzle telling the actual story.”
OK, now he’s starting to look convinced—hell, I’m starting to convince myself!
Ware stares off at nothing; his expression is that of a man contemplating the most complex puzzle he’s ever tried to put together.
Finally, he nods, and takes a deep breath.
“So, about that one direction you think this case is pointing?” he reminds me.
I rest my back against the chair again.
“I believe this killer, this man, wants to be a woman, or absolutely believes he is a woman. I believe he hates men, and kills men—men he resembles in ways that, stereotypically, make him a man—because by killing them, he’s killing that part of himself. Of course, the feeling only lasts for so long before it wears off, like it does with all serial killers, and he has to kill again. There’s also a good chance”—I point my index finger upward—“that the killer was molested and raped by men, maybe just one man, I don’t know, but I think that’s where it all stems from.”
“What about the hair sample and the female DNA found at a crime scene?” Ware asks.
I tilt my head to one side, playing my piano with the skill of Chopin. “How long have you been hunting this killer, Mr. Ware?”
“Ten years.”
“And what is something common in many serial killers, especially after such a long time killing, and not getting caught?”
“They tend to want to get caught.”
“And in the media, when there’s a news report about the possibility that your untitled killer has struck again, what does the media always refer to him as?”
Ware looks now as if a bright light just flipped on inside his head.
“They refer to him as a man,” he answers. “As he.”
“And what is one thing many serial killers crave other than their need to satisfy their urges?”
“Attention. And proper recognition.”
“So, not only is he not being recognized properly because he’s constantly referred to as being a he, but he hasn’t even been given a title, therefore he doesn’t get the attention he seeks. The DNA, the hair sample, it’s all an attempt to make you and the media see him for who he believes he is: a woman.”
Ware feels like a total fool, I can see it in his face, but, he’s newly energized; I can practically hear him talking to himself, how he’s changing all of his plans, making room for the new ones. The guy may admire me at unhealthy levels, but he’s ready to get up right now and leave me sitting here so he can get to work on this new theory he believes will break his case.
Of course, everything I told him is bullshit.
This serial killer is definitely a woman; the stereotypical evidence about all the victims being men, is true. I have nothing concrete to back up my belief, but I don’t need it. Sometimes you just know, you trust it, you feel it in your gut. Although, with this new DNA evidence Ware has given me, it may well be the concrete evidence I need. And it may lead me right to her. Is this what she wanted? Does she want to get caught? By me, of all people? I think she does. I think our uncanny similarities are so much more than coincidence.
I have successfully steered Kenneth Ware in the other direction. For now. But he is an intelligent man, and what makes an intelligent man more dangerous is one who has that driving need to accomplish the thing he wants the most. This elaborate story I came up with will hold him off for a little while, but a man like Ware, I know, cannot be held off indefinitely.
But I have time. And, like Ware, I have a driving need to find this serial killer before he does.
And I will.