Forty-Seven
A
t 10:44
A.M.
, having slept little more than two
hours, Krait was roused from dreamless sleep by the vibrating cell phone that he still cupped in his hand.
Instantly awake, he threw back the covers and sat on the edge of Teresa Mendez’s bed to read what proved to be an annoying coded text message from his support group.
They had two questions. First, they wished to know why the three people at Bethany and Jim’s house had been killed.
Never previously had he been asked to explain collateral damage. He took offense at this query, which seemed to suggest that he might have unnecessarily terminated someone.
His first impulse was to reply that the three were better off dead, that everyone now alive would be better off dead, for the sake of the world they burdened, and that if the support group was arrogant enough to question him, then they should ask not why he had killed Cynthia and Malcolm and Nora, but instead why he had not yet killed
everyone
.
They also wanted to know how his pursuit of the Paquette woman had led him to the house where three now lay dead.
He would not answer that question because it was an impertinent violation of his privacy. They
petitioned
him to grant them a certain
grace
. They didn’t
own
him. He had a
life,
a good life in the art of death.
As long as ultimately they received the grace they sought—the death of Paquette—they had no right to make him account for his actions or his time. Outrageous.
Besides, Krait couldn’t tell them why he had gone into that house, because they didn’t know that he was homeless. They thought that he kept the whereabouts of his home a secret, which made sense for a man of his bloody calling.
If he explained his unconventional living arrangements, they would not understand. They would sever relations with him. They were mere men, after all; none of them was a prince of the earth like he was.
Instead of a home of his own, he had millions of homes. Usually, he lived in the residences of others with such circumspection that they never knew he had been there.
Once in a while, he found himself in a situation out of which he could not talk his way. Then he killed through the problem.
In the past, the Gentlemen’s Club had shown no curiosity about such matters. The difference this time might be quantity: three collateral casualties in one incident.
He decided to ignore both questions and to reply with only a line from Wallace Stevens, a poet he liked but did not understand:
THE ONLY EMPEROR IS THE EMPEROR OF ICE-CREAM
.
Sometimes, reading Wallace Stevens, Krait not only wanted to kill everyone in the world but wanted also to kill himself. This seemed to him to be the ultimate proof of great poetry.
THE ONLY EMPEROR IS THE EMPEROR OF ICE-CREAM
.
Let them reflect on that and, if they were bright enough, reach the conclusion that they had trespassed with their questions.
Krait was now alert to the likelihood that the Paquette woman was in fact a target specified by the Gentlemen’s Club and not by one of his other petitioners. Their irritation over these recent three deaths might be merely a reflection of their concern that his quarry had repeatedly escaped him, which had never happened before.
If he moved quickly to locate and destroy the woman, he would allay the Club’s concern. With Paquette dead, the murders of Cynthia and Malcolm and Nora would be accepted as unavoidable collateral damage, and soon forgotten.
He returned Teresa’s undergarments to the laundry basket in the closet, and made the bed. He took the mug, thermos, and biscuit plate to the kitchen, washed them, and put them away.
In the bedroom once more, he dressed. The reproduction art from Paquette’s bedroom had been soaked with rain, and he had earlier unfolded it on the carpet. He found it dry now; once more he folded the print and returned it to an inside coat pocket.
With the Glock machine pistol, he returned to Teresa’s small den. He switched on her computer and went on-line.
The don’t-ask rule had served Krait well. The less he knew about the targets of the Club, the better. If he ever understood why these people were wanted dead, he would know too much. He had considerable experience regarding what happened to men—perhaps even to princes—who knew too much.
Although he had been petitioned to kill Paquette, not Carrier, he’d thought it wise to apply the don’t-ask rule to the man, as well. Having been outfoxed more than once, however, and in consideration of the sudden restiveness of the Gentlemen’s Club, Krait decided to amend his strategy.
He composed a simple search string to seek whatever information about Carrier might exist. He didn’t expect to find a great deal more than what he already knew. Wrong.
Forty-Eight
T
he wide-spreading branches of a New Zealand
Christmas tree sheltered that half of the coffeehouse patio closer to the street. Its majestic limbs were not cloaked in crimson flowers at this time of year.
Tim and Linda sat in the sun, at the table farthest from the street, next to a whitewashed wall of sand-mold bricks on which climbing vines were adorned with Mexican blood flowers.
As they nursed cups of espresso, the sun warmed an increasing aroma from a plate of small chocolate-pistachio cookies.
They were talking about the blood flowers when, after a pause, Linda said, “My father’s name was Benedict. Everyone called him Benny.”
Tim heard the
was
and waited.
“He had a master’s degree in child development.”
“He did all right with you.”
A thin smile came and went. “My mother’s name was Renee.”
On a hunch, he said, “Do you carry pictures of them?”
From her purse, she took her wallet, and from the wallet an insert of plastic photo windows.
He said, “I like their faces.”
“They were gentle and sweet and funny.”
“You resemble her.”
“She had a degree in education,” Linda said.
“Teacher?”
“They worked in day-care, founded a preschool.”
“Sounds like they should have succeeded at it.”
“Eventually they owned three.”
She turned her face up to the sun and closed her eyes.
A hovering hummingbird sought the nectar of a blood flower.
She said, “There was this five-year-old named Chloe.”
In one photo, Benny in a funny hat was mugging for Linda.
“Chloe’s mother already had her on Ritalin.”
In the same photo, Linda laughed with delight.
“My folks were counseling her to stop the Ritalin.”
The spring sun made her face seem luminous from within.
“Chloe was a handful. The mother wanted her on the drug.”
He said, “They say half the kids are on it now.”
“Maybe my folks made the mother feel guilty.”
“Maybe they didn’t try. Maybe she already felt guilty.”
“Whatever. Anyway, she resented them for raising the issue.”
The hummingbird was an iridescent green, its wings a blur.
“One day on the playground, Chloe fell and scraped a knee.”
The photos had begun to look sad to him. Souvenirs of loss.
“Mom and Dad cleaned the abrasion.”
Tim returned the photos to her wallet.
“They used iodine. Chloe cried and fussed about the sting.”
Moving to a new bloom, the hummingbird went
zrrr-jikajika
.
“She told her mom, she didn’t like the way they touched her.”
Tim said, “Surely she knew the girl meant iodine.”
“Maybe she misunderstood. Maybe she
wanted
to misunderstand.”
Linda’s face seemed to darken even as the sun waxed brighter.
“Chloe’s mother complained to the police.”
The blur of wings produced a soft solemn threnody.
“The police questioned my folks, and cleared them.”
“But it didn’t end there?”
“The district attorney was facing a hard re-election battle.”
Tim said, “So the law became just politics.”
She lowered her face from the sun, but kept her eyes closed.
“The D.A. hired a psychiatrist to interview the children.”
“All of them, not just Chloe?”
“All of them. And the wild stories started.”
“And then no going back,” he said.
“Naked games. Naked dancing. Animals killed in the classroom.”
“Animal sacrifice? People believed that?”
“Dogs and cats killed to scare the children into silence.”
“My God.”
“Two kids even said a little boy had been chopped apart.”
“And they never mentioned this to their parents?”
“Repressed memories. Chopped apart, buried in the schoolyard.”
“Then dig it up, find out.”
“They did, found nothing.”
“And that wasn’t the end of it?”
“They tore open the school walls, looking for kiddie porn.”
“And found none,” he assumed.
“None. Also looking for items used in satanic rituals.”
“This sounds like Salem in another century.”
“Kids said they were forced to kiss pictures of the devil.”
“And children never lie,” he said.
“I don’t blame them. They were little…and malleable.”
“Psychiatrists can unwittingly implant false memories.”
“Perhaps not always unwittingly. Ceilings were torn out.”
“All this from a knee abrasion.”
“Floors ripped up, looking for secret basement rooms.”
“And nothing ever found,” he said.
“No. But my folks were indicted on the strength of testimony.”
She opened her eyes. She was looking into the past.
“I think,” he said, “was there a lot of this back then?”
“Yeah. Scores of cases. A nationwide hysteria.”
“Some must have been true.”
“Ninety-five percent eventually proved bogus, maybe more.”
“But lives were ruined, people went to prison.”
After a silence, she said, “I had to see the psychiatrist.”
“The same one interviewing the preschool kids?”
“Yeah. The D.A. required it. And the child welfare department.”
“Had they taken you away from your parents?”
“They were trying. The psychiatrist said he could help me.”
“Help you what?”
“Help me remember why I had bad dreams.”
“Did you have bad dreams?”
“Doesn’t every child? I was ten. He had a forceful presence.”
“The psychiatrist?”
“A forceful presence, a seductive voice. He made you like him.”
The ascension of the sun shrank the cup shadows on the table.
“He made you want to believe in things…hidden, forgotten.”
She folded both hands around the small espresso cup.
“The lights were soft. He was patient. His voice hushed.”
She lifted the cup but did not drink.
“He had a way of making you meet his eyes.”
A fine sweat chilled the back of Tim’s neck.
“He had such lovely, sad, sad eyes. And soft gentle hands.”
“How far did he lead you toward…false memories?”
“Maybe farther than I want to remember.”
She drank the last of her espresso.
“In our fourth session, he exposed himself to me.”
As she spoke, she rattled her cup back into the saucer.
With a paper napkin, Tim blotted the cold damp nape of his neck.
She said, “He asked me to touch it. Kiss it. But I wouldn’t.”
“Good God. You told somebody?”
“No one believed me. They said my parents put me up to it.”
“To discredit him.”
“I was taken from Mom and Dad. I had to live with Angelina.”
“Who was she?”
“My mother’s aunt. Molly and I, my dog Molly—to Angelina.”
She stared at the backs of her hands. Then at her palms.
“The night I left, they stoned our house, broke the windows.”
“Who stoned it?”
“Someone who believed in secret rooms and devil-kissing.”
She folded her hands, one over the other, on the table.
Her remarkable calm had not deserted her.
“I haven’t talked about this in fifteen years.”
He said, “You don’t have to go on with it now.”
“Yes. I do. But I need the courage of caffeine.”
“I’ll get two more espressos.”
“Thank you.”
Weaving between tables, he carried their soiled cups across the patio. At the coffeehouse door, he paused and looked back at her.
The beneficent sun seemed to favor her above anyone and anything in view. Judging solely by appearances, you might have thought this world had never been unkind to her, that a life of steady happiness explained the innocent beauty that drew your eyes, as if magnetized, to her face.
Forty-Nine
O
n the road again, Krait drove with a happy
heart. Events were proving him to be the king of this world, not a mere prince.
Timothy Carrier might be a formidable adversary. But the mason had a weakness that would be the destruction of him.
No longer did Krait need to track down this elusive pair. He could make Carrier—and the woman—come to him.
As he drove to Laguna Niguel, a thought occurred to him that he found electrifying. Perhaps the reversed world that he saw in mirrors and that he longed to explore might be his true world, the one from which he had come.
If he had no mother, as memory assured him that he did not, if his life had begun suddenly at eighteen, and if prior to that his life remained a mystery, then it made sense that he had come into this world not by way of any womb, but through a mirror.
His yearning for the mirror world might be a yearning for his true home.
This further explained why he had never purchased a house of his own in this world. Subconsciously, he had realized that no place on this side of the mirror could fully satisfy his need for hearth and haven, because here he would be forever a stranger in a strange land.
He was superior to and apart from the people of this backward world because he hailed from a land where all was as it should be, everything familiar and eternally unchanging and clean, where nobody needed to be killed because everyone had been born dead.
In Laguna Niguel, he drove the streets of a solid middle-class neighborhood, where handsome tract homes were well maintained with quiet pride, and where families owned more cars than their garages could contain.
At a few houses, basketball hoops were fixed above garage doors. The nets hung ready, in expectation of after-school games.
No fewer but no more flags flew than basketball hoops waited, not gloriously undulant, but solemn and draped, stars folded into stars, and stripes curled into furrows.
Close-cropped green lawns, bordered beds of impatiens in lush red and purple plenitude, geometric trellises entwined with climbing roses eloquently spoke of a love for home and a need for order.
Krait, a stranger here, wished all these people dead, street after street of them, mile after mile, dead by the millions, and wished all the houses to ashes, and all the lawns to dust.
This world might be the wrong place for him, but at least he found himself here at the right time, on the brink of an age of great violence and mass murder.
He located the particular house that had drawn him to these suburban hills. Two stories of butter-yellow stucco and white wood. Dormers. Shake roof. Bay window. Potted geraniums on the porch.
After parking at the curb and rolling down the window in the passenger’s door, he put on a set of headphones. He picked up from the seat a hand-held directional microphone and pointed it at one of the windows on the second floor.
Earlier, he had retrieved the sophisticated mike from the suitcase in the trunk of the car. It was one of several items he had been perspicacious enough to order from his support group following the unfortunate loss of his first vehicle.
At a maximum distance of fifty yards, through a closed window, the directional microphone could pick up conversations that were inaudible to the unassisted ear. Wind diminished its usefulness, and heavy rain rendered it worthless. But now the sky was clear, and the air had a mortuary stillness.
One by one, he tried the second-floor windows, but none gave forth a sound.
From the ground floor came singing. The woman had a light sweet voice. She sang softly, with a casualness that suggested she might be entertaining herself while doing household chores. The song was “I’ll Be Seeing You,” an American standard.
Krait heard a series of clinks, a soft rattle. They might have been kitchen sounds.
He heard no other voice but hers. Evidently, she was home alone, which was what he expected based on what he had learned.
After switching off the directional microphone and rolling up the car window, he drove two blocks and parked on a different street in the same neighborhood.
Carrying a small cloth satchel, he walked back toward the yellow-and-white house.
The sun-washed residential streets had a dreamy quality: bees buzzing lazily over festoons of yellow lantana, the lacy foliage of California pepper trees seeming to shimmer with pleasure as they basked in the warm light, a calico cat sleeping on a front-porch step, three larks perched on the rim of a birdbath as if studying their reflections in the water….
At the target house, the front walkway was paved with quartzite cobblestones laid in an intricate and pleasing pattern.
The deadbolt in the front door was not engaged. The simpler lock popped instantly to the pick of the LockAid, making little noise.
He put away the LockAid and carried the satchel into a small foyer, and softly closed the door behind him.
From the back of the house came the woman’s fair voice. Now she sang “I Only Have Eyes for You.”
Krait stood for a moment, enjoying.