“Julius Deeds has been indicted for murder. The case against him is strong, and despite his efforts at jury tampering he’ll probably be convicted. Even if he avoids prison, his actions have made him enemies on both sides of the law. A ninety-year-old might well outlive him.”
“And Loomis? Let me guess: he’s barely twenty-five, in excellent health…”
“Twenty-seven, actually. And he’s killed four times, not just once. Other than that, yes, he’s just like the younger man in the hypothetical. A predator. He’s been operating on a three-month cycle, so unless someone stops him, we expect he’ll take his next victim in early December.”
“The police don’t have a clue who he is?”
“The police aren’t even aware of his crimes yet. He hunts male prostitutes, men who’ve been abandoned by their families and have no one to report them missing. He kills discreetly and buries the bodies. In time he’ll be found out, of course—they almost always are—but it could be years from now.”
I stared at the tabletop. “The gun’s a one-shot, isn’t it? That’s the special modification. And the test is I have to choose.”
“We need to know what your real priorities are,” True said. “In a moment you’ll select one of these booklets; inside, you’ll find all the information you need to complete your first assignment. The other booklet will go back into our files, with a notation that its subject is never to be harmed or otherwise acted against by any agent of the organization.”
“So if I pick Deeds, Loomis gets a free pass? You’d really do that?”
“It wouldn’t be much of a test, otherwise.” He looked at his wristwatch. “You have one minute to decide.”
“Screw that. I don’t need a minute.” I reached for a booklet. True took the other one. “Don’t lose the gun,” he said. “You’ll see me again when the job is completed.”
I was in the hospital for a few more weeks. Towards the end of my stay, even though I hadn’t said a word about the organization, the doctors downgraded me from morphine to Vicodin. This made me cranky.
They released me right before Thanksgiving. I had a quiet holiday at home—just Phil, a couple microwave turkey dinners, and some nonprescription painkillers—and then, on the last day of November, I killed Julius Deeds.
It happened like this: Deeds’ favorite hangout was a nightclub in the Mission District. He’d show up most nights around ten, driving a red Mustang convertible that he’d park asshole-fashion in front of a hydrant, or just facing the wrong direction—like to say, you know, I’m the king of the jungle, the normal rules don’t apply to me. If it wasn’t raining, he’d leave the top down, too. I figured the deal with that was he wanted to show what a tough guy he was, so tough that nobody would dare steal his car. Or maybe he hoped someone would steal it, so he’d have an excuse to get in some batting practice.
That night, I was hiding in an alley across the street from the club when he drove up. I watched him go inside, and gave him half an hour to get comfortable. Then I set his Mustang on fire.
Gasoline would have been poetic, but besides being really conspicuous, a gas can is tough to sling one-handed, and my right arm was still in a cast. I used charcoal starter instead—a twenty-ounce container, small enough to slip inside my jacket. I strolled up to the car during a lull in the street traffic and stood there casually, peeing lighter fluid over the front-seat upholstery. When the container was empty, I took out a strike-anywhere match and lit it off my cast.
The Mustang’s interior was burning nicely by the time the nightclub’s bouncer raised the alarm. People started coming out of the club. Most of them hung back, but one particular Cro-Magnon went charging at the car. For a second it looked like Deeds was going to do my job for me by diving headfirst into the fire.
Where were you at this point?
A couple blocks up the street, by the entrance to this park. It was on a rise, so I had a clear line of sight to the nightclub, and vice versa. I was standing under a streetlamp, spotlit.
You wanted Deeds to see you?
That was the plan. It took a while, though. You know that expression, “a blind rage”? I know what that means now. Deeds was still trying to decide whether to throw himself on the flames when the bouncer came up with a fire extinguisher. The guy was trying to help, right, but as soon as he started spraying foam onto the Mustang, Deeds went berserk and swung on him. The guy went down, and then Deeds grabbed the fire extinguisher himself, and spent about a minute trying to figure out how to work it. Then he went berserk again, and tossed the extinguisher through a shop window.
In the middle of this tantrum he suddenly stiffened up, and I knew he’d finally sensed me watching him. “Over here, killer,” I whispered. He turned slowly in place until he was looking straight at me; I raised my good arm and gave a little wave. Then I ran like hell into the park.
About a hundred yards in, I stopped to look back. Deeds had already reached the park entrance, and was ripping a two-by-four off a sign on the park gate. I ran on, my cast banging against my ribs; when I looked back again, Deeds had closed about half the distance between us and was swinging the two-by-four in big warm-up circles.
I made a last dash downhill past a swing set and out the far side of the park, onto a street lined with houses. I went to a house near the end of the block, pulling out a key as I ran up the front steps. Deeds was right on my heels now—I’d barely got the door shut behind me when the pounding started. The lock splintered on the third blow, and gave way on the fourth; the door chain snapped and then Deeds was inside.
This time I was the one sitting in a dark corner of the living room. Instead of a baseball bat I was holding a double-barreled shotgun. I had it up and ready with both hammers cocked, the barrels balanced on my right wrist, my left hand on the triggers.
“You’re a dead woman,” Deeds announced. Then he blinked, noticing the gun, and added: “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No,” I said, “I’m not kidding. Now here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to drop that piece of wood you’re holding, and we’re going to go downstairs to the basement…”
“No,” Deeds snarled. “What’s going to happen is, you’re going to give me that fucking gun. You can either hand it over easy, or I can take it from you—but if you make me take it, I’m really going to be angry.”
I pulled the left-side trigger. The shot struck Deeds in the arm, knocking him back and tearing a big chunk out of his bicep. He grunted and dropped the two-by-four.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You want to start worrying about my feelings.”
Deeds cupped a hand to his ruined bicep. “You shot me!” he complained. “You’re crazy…” He glanced over his shoulder at the broken front door.
“You won’t make it,” I said. I stood up, and gestured towards the back of the house. “Basement door’s that way. Start walking.”
He moved slowly, hoping I’d come up too close behind and give him a chance to grab at the gun. When we reached the basement stairs, he slowed down even more and tried goading me: “I don’t know how you think you’re going to come out on top here, Jane. I mean, I know you’re not going to kill me.”
“Keep moving.”
“I know you’re not going to kill me. Maybe you’ve got the guts to pull the trigger, I’ll grant you that much, but you don’t want to go to prison, do you?”
“Keep moving.”
“Or are you stupid enough to think you can claim self-defense on this? Is that the plan? Tell the cops you had to do it, because of that beating I gave you? You think they’ll care about that?”
I wasn’t going to argue with him, but I couldn’t help myself: “I think they’ll care about those three kids you burned to death.”
“Those kids…So that’s what this is about?” He laughed. “Let me tell you something about those kids, Jane. I didn’t even know they were in the house that night. But their mother—my so-called girlfriend? — she knew. And I’ll bet the selfish bitch didn’t look back once when she was running to save herself…You want to pass judgment on someone, Jane? What about a mom who leaves her own kids to fry?”