We work quickly now, heaving him onto the butcher block, cutting away the clothing, taping him down into unmoving readiness before he wakes—which he quickly does, eyes fluttering open, arms twitching slightly against the tape as he explores his new and final position. The eyes go wider and he tries so very hard to move away but he cannot. And we watch him for just a moment, letting the fear grow, and with it grows the joy. This is who we are. This is what we are for, the conductor of the dark ballet, and this night is our concert.
And the music rises and we take him away to where the dance begins, the lovely choreography of The End, with its same sharp steps and familiar movements and its smells of fear amid the soft sounds of tape and terror, and the knife is sharp and swift and certain tonight as it races to the well-known rhythm of the slowly swelling music of the moon that rises and grows into the final chorus of fulfillment until joy, joy, joy is in the world.
Just before the end we pause. A very small and awful lizard of doubt has scuttled into our pleasure and squatted on the halo of our happiness and we look down at him, still writhing in eye-popping horror at what has happened to him and the certainty that even more will come.
It is nearly done, comes the whisper. Don’t stop now….
And we do not–could not stop; but we pause. We look at the thing that squirms beneath our knife. He is nearly done and his breath comes slower now, but he is still moving against his bonds with one last bubble of hope forming and fighting to rise up behind the terror and pain. And there is one little thing we must know before we pop that bubble, one tiny detail we need to hear to make this complete, to blow down the floodgates and let our pleasure pour out across the land.
“Well, Victor,” we say in our frosty happy hiss, “how did Tyler Spanos taste?” And we pull the duct tape from his lips; he is too far gone into true pain to notice the rip of the sticky tape coming off, but he breathes in deep and slow and his eyes find mine. “How did she taste?” we say again, and he nods with that final acceptance of what must be.
“She tasted great,” he says in a raspy voice that knows there is no time left for anything but very final truth. “Better than the others. It was … fun.…” He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them again that small hope still floats in his eyes. “Are you going to let me go now?” he says in a raspy, lost-little-boy voice, although he knows what the answer must be.
The whir of wings surrounds us and we do not even hear our voice as we answer, “Yes, you can go,” we say, and very soon after, he does.
We left Chapin’s Mustang behind a Lucky 7 convenience mart three-quarters of a mile from the house, the key still in it. It was far too tempting to last all night in Miami; by morning it would be repainted and on a boat for South America. We’d had to rush things with Victor just a little more than we wanted to, things being what they were, but we felt a great deal better now, as always, and I was very nearly humming when I climbed out of my trusty little car and trudged into the house.
I washed myself carefully, feeling the glow begin to fade. Debs would be a little happier—not that I would tell her, of course. But Chapin had earned his leading role in the night’s little drama, and the world was a tiny bit better for it.
And so was I—much calmer, drained of tension, far readier to face the rush and tumble of recent events. It was true that I had tried to put this kind of thing behind me, and true that I had failed—but it was one small and necessary slip, and I would be very careful to see that it was the last. One little step backward, one time, no big deal—after all, nobody quits smoking right away, do they? I was much more collected and composed now, and this would not happen again. End of incident, back to my sheep’s clothing—permanently this time.
Even as this thought tried to plant itself in the sunlight of my new persona, I felt a smug twitch of claws from the Passenger, and the almost-voiced thought, Of course … until next time …
The sudden sharpness of my reaction surprised us both: a quick flash of anger and my unspoken shout of, No! No next time—go away! And clearly I really meant it this time, so clearly that there was a stunned silence, followed by a sense of great and leathery dignity receding up the staircase until it was gone. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Chapin was the last time, one minor setback on my new and sparkling path to Lily Anne’s future. It would not happen again. And just to be sure, I added, And stay away!
There was no answer, only the distant slamming of a door in one lofty tower of Castle Dexter. I looked into the mirror over the sink as I scrubbed my hands. That was the face
of a new man looking back at me. It was over now, really and truly over, and I would not go into that dark place ever again.
I dried off, put my clothes in the hamper, and tiptoed into the bedroom. The bedside clock said 2:59 as I slid quietly into bed.
The dreams came right away, immediately after my nearly instant slide into darkness. I am standing over Chapin once again, raising the knife for a perfect slice—but it is no longer Chapin on the table; it is Brian now, Brian lying taped below me. He gives me a smile so large and fake I can see it through the duct tape across his mouth, and I lift the knife higher—and then Cody and Astor are there beside me. They raise up their plastic Wii controllers and point them at me, clicking furiously, and I find myself moving to their control, lowering the knife, turning away from Brian and pointing the knife at myself until the blade is at my own throat and a terrible wailing cry comes from the table behind me and I turn to see Lily Anne taped in place and reaching up for me with her tiny perfect fingers—
—and Rita is thumping me with her elbow and saying, “Dexter, please, come on, wake up,” and at last I do. The bedside clock says 3:28 and Lily Anne is crying.
Rita groaned beside me and said, “It’s your turn,” before rolling over and dragging a pillow over her head. I got up, feeling like my limbs were made of lead, and staggered to the crib. Lily Anne was waving her feet and hands in the air and for one dark and dreadful moment I couldn’t tell it from the dream I’d just had and I stood there, wavering and stupid as I waited for things to make sense. But then the expression on Lily Anne’s small and lovely face began to change and I could see that she was about to launch herself into all-out, full-volume wailing, and I shook my head to clear away the fumes of sleep. Stupid dream—all dreams are stupid.
I picked up Lily Anne and placed her gently on the changing table, mumbling soothing nothings to her that sounded strange and far from comforting as they came from my sleep-raspy throat. But she got quieter as I changed her diaper, and when I settled with her into the rocking chair beside the changing table she twitched a few times and went right back to sleep. The sense of dread that lingered from my idiotic dream began to fade, and I rocked and hummed softly for a few more minutes, enjoying it far more than seemed right, and when I was sure that Lily Anne was sound asleep I got up and placed her carefully into the crib, tucking the blanket around her into a snug little nest.
I had just settled myself back into my own little nest when the phone rang. Instantly, Lily Anne began to cry, and Rita said, “Oh, Jesus,” which was quite shocking coming from her.
There was never any real doubt who it would be, calling at this hour. Of course it was Deborah, calling to tell me of some hideous new emergency and make me feel guilty if I didn’t instantly leap out of bed and run to her side. For a moment I considered not answering—after all, she was a grown woman, and it was time she learned to stand on her own two feet. But duty and habit kicked into gear, combined with an elbow from Rita. “Answer it, Dexter, for God’s sake,” she said, and at last I did.
“Yes?” I said, letting the grumpiness show in my voice.
“I need you here, Dex,” she said. There was real fatigue in her voice, and something else as well, some trace of the pain she had been showing lately, but it was still an old refrain, and I was tired of the song. “I’m coming to pick you up now.”
“I’m sorry, Deborah,” I said with real firmness. “Work hours are over and I need to be here with my family.”
“They found Deke,” she said, and from the way she said that I knew I didn’t want to hear the rest, but she went on anyway. “He’s dead, Dexter,” she said. “Dead, and partly eaten.”
TWENTY-FOUR
IT IS A WELL-WORN TRUTH THAT COPS GROW CALLOUS, A cliché so tattered that it is even common on television. All cops face things every day that are so gruesome, brutal, and bizarre that no normal human being could deal with them on a daily basis and stay sane. And so they learn not to feel, to grow and maintain a poker-faced whimsy toward all the surprising things their fellow humans find to do to each other. All cops practice not-feeling, and it may be that Miami cops are better at it than others, since they have so many opportunities to learn.
So it is always a little unsettling to arrive at a crime scene and see grave and shocked faces on the uniforms holding the perimeter; even worse to slide under the tape and see ace forensic geeks Vince Masuoka and Angel Batista-No-Relation standing pale and mute to one side. These are people who find the sight of an exposed human liver a rare opportunity for wit, and yet whatever they had seen here was apparently so horrific that it had failed to tickle their funny bones.
All cops grow a layer of unfeeling in the presence of death—but for some reason, if the victim is another cop the layer of callus splits and the emotions run out like sap from a tree. Even if it’s a cop that nobody cared for, like Deke Slater.