"I know," I told him.

I went out around nine the next night. The doorman saw me leave. He's very alert.

The doorman pushed the call button. A light would go on outside, a signal that a cab was needed. When a taxi pulled up, the doorman opened the back door for me. I thanked him and palmed a dollar bill into his hand.

I told the cab driver where to go. He wrote the destination down on his trip sheet. When he pulled up in front of the club, I thanked him for the ride. I gave him a tip too.

I walked the rest of the way. It was almost midnight before I arrived at his house, a big house in a fancy neighborhood. I went over the back fence. He didn't have a dog. I knew that from watching. I'd been watching a long time.

The back door lock wasn't much. I slipped inside. He lived alone. It was easier for him to be himself that way.

I moved toward the light. He was watching television. On the screen, it showed a little boy. The boy was…It wasn't television he was watching, it was a videotape.

The same kind of videotape I knew he made of my son. The police had never found it, but I knew.

I made a little noise so he'd turn around. He saw me then. He sat back in his chair, startled.

"Wha…?"

"You know who I am?" I asked him.

"No. Look, if you want —"

"It's you I want," I said quietly. "For what you did to my son. My son David. Remember?"

Sweat broke out all along his hairline, but his voice was calm. "Look, I…I know who you are. I couldn't tell at first…in that bad light. I…don't blame you. Any father would be enraged if that sort of thing happened to his kid. But I was the wrong man. Come on, you remember—you were at the trial, for God's sake! It wasn't me. You know that. It wasn't me. It's a terrible thing, what happened to your boy. But it wasn't me. They all testified. That whole night, I was —"

"I know where you were," I told him. "I'm there myself. Right now."

Anytime I want

 

She didn't answer my knock. I used the key she gave me to open the door. When I saw her lying on the bare hardwood floor, I knew he'd finally taken her. Like he always told us he would.

I went next door, rang the bell. The people there called the police, like I asked. I didn't scare them, didn't panic. I was polite, like I always am.

Two detectives came. I told them Denise was my sister. My big sister. They were all my big sisters, four of them. Denise was the baby girl, twenty-two years old when he took her.

The cops asked me a lot of questions. It was okay—I'm used to questions. They asked me where I'd been, before it happened. That was the easy part—I work the night shift, plenty of guys at the plant saw me.

I gave them the names: Fiona, Rhonda, Evelyn. And Denise. My four sisters. I have one brother, Frankie. He's sixteen. I wasn't worried about an alibi for him—he was in the last month of a one-year jolt with the state. Frankie's a big kid, and he's got a bad temper.

I'm nineteen. I work nights, go to college in the daytime. Weekends, I'm a thief. A careful, quiet thief.

Denise's face was all swollen, slash marks on her hands, trying to stop the knife before it went in the last time. All her clothes were off, thrown around the room. He left her like that.

"Did you love her?" one of the detectives asked me.

"I still love her," I told him.

I went home, changed my clothes, put on a nice suit. I drove down to Pontiac. The guards like me there. I'm always polite, always respectful.

They brought Frankie out, left us alone.

I told him.

"Don't kill him until I get out," he begged me, looking at me with those big dark eyes.

"Can I count on you?" I asked him.

"Count on me? He's dead, Fal. On my honor, he's dead. You just make sure you got yourself a place where you can be seen, first night I come out of here."

Frankie calls me Fal—short for Falcon. Most of the kids in our club did. Because I was always watching. I leaned over close to him, talking quiet. "You remember, Frankie? Remember how it was…before we got out?"

His face was chiseled stone, big hands clenched the table. Scars all across his knuckles.

Our house. A terror zone. No locks anywhere, not even on the bathroom door. The basement, where he'd take the girls. One at a time. The leather strap, the one with the brass studs. I can still feel it across my back.

I was just a baby when he started with Fiona—Frankie wasn't even born. One after the other. His property. Mom tried to stop him once. I remember—I was eight, Evelyn was about thirteen. He made her suck him, right at the kitchen table. He made us all watch. "Anytime I want," is what he said. "My property—anytime I want." I tried to go after him — Denise held me back. It didn't do any good. He beat me so bad I woke up in the hospital,

Mom told them I fell down a flight of stairs. Into the basement, onto the concrete floor.

He never got Denise. She wouldn't do it. He broke her arm once, twisted it hard behind her back. I heard it snap.

I don't know what Denise told the hospital, but some social workers came to the house. The older girls, they all said Denise was a liar…she was staying out late, smoking cigarettes, drinking. Messing with boys. The social workers said something to him about counseling.

When they left, he punched me in the face. I lost two teeth. Then he took Rhonda down to the basement.

Denise tried to stab him once. With a kitchen knife, when he was holding my hand in the flame from the stove burner. I threw up on myself but he didn't stop.

The girls moved out, one by one. Fiona is a whore. She works in a club downtown, dancing naked. Rhonda killed herself with drugs. Evelyn went off with a biker.

He still sees Fiona. Anytime he wants.

Denise worked as a typist. For a lawyer. She was the smartest one, Denise. She was going to go to law school herself, someday. He picked her up once. Told her Mom was in the hospital. Drove her into an alley and went after her. Denise fought him to a standstill. She told the cops. They picked him up. He said it never happened—he was home with Mom all night. Mom was never in the hospital. But Denise was. Once before. A psychiatric hospital. When she tried to kill herself.

When the cops found out about that, they closed the case.

He always said he'd take her. She was his. They all were. Fred is his name. The girl's names were his brand. Fiona. Rhonda. Evelyn. Denise.

Frankie's name didn't matter. Neither did mine.

"Can I count on you?" I asked Frankie again.

He got it that time. Reached out his hand. "It has to be right," I told him. "For Denise. Blowing him up, it wouldn't be good enough. You understands'

He nodded.

"No more nonsense, Frankie. Do the rest of your time, no beefs, got it?"

He nodded again.

I waited and I watched.

Mom said he was with her the night Denise was killed. It's an Unsolved Homicide.

Frankie got out on a Monday. I picked him up. He came to live with me.

Friday night we went in. The locks only took me a couple of minutes.

He never woke up. I left Frankie at the head of the stairs while I went down into the basement. Frankie had a tire iron in his hand. "If he comes downstairs, you can do it," I said.

I know where he keeps his trophies. In this little back room he built in the basement. Under a loose brick in the corner. A red silk scarf, a faded corsage from a dance, a pair of little girl's panties, white. And the pictures: Fiona on her knees, with him in her mouth. Rhonda bent over, something sticking out of her. Evelyn nude, lying down, a mirror between her legs. He didn't have any little-girl pictures of Denise…just a Polaroid of her lying on the apartment floor. Naked. A knife between her breasts.