I
Somewhere in Syria.
Agent Johnson stood directly below the ceiling fan. The air felt good, especially with no sand floating in it. The bartender had fled when Kazar and his men entered the room, pushing his customers out the door in front of him. The room was silent except for the rickety fan. Kazar sat down at the table in front of Agent Johnson, grinning.
The rest of the men surrounded Johnson with their automatics aimed, unlocking their safeties in unison. One of the men reached into Johnson’s suit coat and pulled out the agent’s .45 Kimber, setting it on the table in front of Kazar.
Kazar picked it up, looking at both sides of it, wondering where it had been and whom it had killed. He put the Kimber in the pocket of his own white suit coat.
Kazar spoke in muddled English.
“My men have tracked for you the last month. It is hard to believe an operative like yourself would be caught and tracked down so easy. At least you could have dressed like an Arab, you stick out like sore toe. The papers you seek belong to me and so sorry for you they will stay with me.”
“It’s sore thumb. Not sore toe,” Agent Johnson said. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn’t dress as an Arab because I wanted to get caught? It would be an easy way to lead me to the papers.”
Kazar’s grin faded slightly, the face of a man at a poker table unsure if his opponent was bluffing.
“Regardless, you are defenseless. I would kill you here, but the bar owner is my friend and he would be ruined. Besides my men and I don’t wish to carry around a heavy body. I have a far more fitting end for you Agent Johnson.”
Kazar said something in Arabic and three of the four men left the building.
The remaining man pushed his automatic into Johnson’s back, moving him out the front door. An old Jeep wagon pulled up and Johnson was shoved into the rear seat next to another man wielding a machine gun. Kazar got in the front next to the driver.
The jeep rolled loudly and was slow in leaving the small village behind.
Ten miles out of town the dirt road turned into no road and then into desert sand.
The Jeep stopped atop a large dune, a plateau of sand that was still solid enough to support the weight of a vehicle. The man next to Johnson shoved his machine gun into the agent’s side, motioning for him to get out. Johnson complied. The air was dry and the sun stood tall in the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. Kazar spoke again in Arabic, and the driver stayed in the jeep.
Agent Johnson, Kazar, and the man with gun walked from the jeep a good distance toward the far side of the top of the dune. Countless dunes dotted the distant horizon, all of them lifeless, just beaches and beaches of bright brown sand.
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Agent Johnson’s foot sank, and he tripped falling face first, but breaking the fall with his hands. The man with the gun cursed in Arabic and jerked Johnson violently to his feet by the back of his collar.
“Well Mr. Johnson this is where we say our goodbyes,” Kazar said smiling once again. “Unlike your American mobbers we don’t give a shovel so you can dig a grave. We just shoot you and let you roll down the side of the dune. The night winds of the desert will cover you up quite nicely.”
“Mobsters,” Johnson replied.
Kazar’s eyebrows raised in bewilderment.
“You said mobbers. The pronunciation is mobsters.” Kazar’s smile left him once again. “And besides, how is this guy going to shoot me if he can’t see.”
Kazar looked at his man, but before any words left his mouth Agent Johnson tossed the sand cupped in his hands directly into both of their faces as he fell to the ground. The man with the machine gun began to fire but hit only dry desert air. Johnson grabbed the gunman’s leg and swept it out from under him.
The man fell face down in the sand spraying bullets across the desert landscape on his way down. Kazar dropped to the sand as well and heard the copper projectiles buzzing through the air as they passed his ear.
Agent Johnson jumped on the gunman’s back, grabbed him under the chin, and snapped his neck effortlessly. Kazar fumbled for Johnson’s gun which was tucked snugly in the pocket of his white coat, but it was too late. Agent Johnson pulled the trigger of the acquired machine gun, and pumped bullet after bullet into Kazar’s face, turning it into a smashed rotten tomato.
The man in the Jeep took three steps toward the battle but was sliced down before he could fire or even yell.
Agent Johnson looked around at the bodies, making sure they were lifeless. He walked by the first man and gently kicked the man down the side of the dune. He came to what was left of Kazar and knelt down. He opened Kazar’s white jacket, splattered now with red and brown stains, pulling out first his gun and then the documents. Johnson quickly thumbed through the papers making sure all were intact.
Satisfied, Agent Johnson stood up. His foot gave Kazar’s body a nudge.
Down the hill of sand it went, rolling until it stopped at the bottom of the dune in a shallow valley next to the gunman that had gone before him. The wind blew briefly, depositing a thin layer of sand over the blood-soaked bodies.
Johnson looked at the two bodies expressionless. “Maybe you won’t have to wait for the nightly winds after all.”
Arriving back to the Jeep, he found the bullet-riddled driver immobile, but gasping hard for his last breaths. Johnson squeezed the trigger of his Kimber and hurried the process along, blowing what was left of the driver’s brains out the back of his skull and into the sand.
II
We never really spoke about Extravaganza too much. Even the rumor-spreading mouths of teenagers could be humbled by certain atrocities. Roman was confident that we would never see Freddy Flowers again, and that was good 252
enough for all of us. Heather probably took that night the worst. She was not quite herself the first few days afterwards; there were dark bruises around her eyes, and her previous overflowing opinions at the lunch table were non-existent.
Roman blamed himself, of course, citing that he should have never let Heather go with us in the first place. Should have gone by himself. Heather reminded him yet again that she was a big girl and would do what she damn well pleased. A long time ago, Ninja told Roman to never walk through a door unless he knew what was on the other side. Roman had followed the philosophy to a tee.
His plan was brilliant—emptying the guns for insurance—it ran as smoothly as a hockey puck over ice. But sometimes no matter how well prepared you are, things just get fucked up, especially if you bring three amateurs along for the ride.
Johnny put his two worthless cents in once, stating that if he’d brought his gun none of the other shit would’ve happened. I told him if he’d brought the gun, they would have taken it from him and killed us all.
Freddy Flowers slithered his way out of any investigation. Johnny was right about Freddy’s connections. The only thing in the paper was a statement from the fire marshal stating that the “abandoned” warehouse burned to the ground by accident and there was no one present during the fire. There was no mention of a well-done Bobby Dukes carcass. There was also no one in attendance stepping up to blow the whistle on the Flower. After all, it could not be discovered that the elite of Collingston had been at such an event.
As the weeks rolled on, talk of The Flower and his awful circus faded away, replaced by old lunch room jokes, unusual facts from Roman like a human can swim just as fast through syrup as he can through water, and comments from the gallery on the promising future of baseball and of graduation. Time heals all things? Maybe if a certain janitor is along to help you through it.
Carl had recovered almost immediately from his sickness, visiting the Tavern nightly, and receiving guests every so often at his front door. I never saw one of his so-called crack whores turned away. He listened to his crazy-ass radio programs and had us over for beer and ginger ale. As the month’s full moon approached Carl began to bring up the aliens again. I learned just to tune his nutty ass out. It was all in his head.
February was nothing more than a school girl tease, the fake hope of spring popping up in a sixty-degree day once or twice, only to return to its winter chill the very next morning. Its only good attribute was its length: always short, which meant less prison time. I wonder why the Emperors picked February to rape of its days, a question I never got around to asking Roman. He did, however, inform me about what a bogus holiday Valentine’s Day was, of how the gift card companies resurrected some story from the depths of history and turned it into a gold mine.
Anyway, I spent my February increasing the intensity of my workouts, playing catch with Sam and Pick five days a week, and visiting On Deck at least three times a week. I even dragged Roman out of his books a couple of times to throw to me. He popped the mitt well; it wasn’t just a fluke that day in January.
But with all my begging he still refused to be interested in coming out for the team.
I still had no offers on the table for baseball; all the college stuff was in the back of my mind to be honest. I kept my eye on the prize—the state title—a title 253
that had eluded the Silver Streaks since baseball became a sport at the high school.
We had a good enough team to get there, of that I was positive. We just needed that one extra ace in the hole, that one solid pitcher that unlike Johnny wouldn’t implode when the going got tough.
Coach Demera knew it too. He was hungry. I could see a little more arrogance in his step as he strolled through the halls. I could see that look in his eye, that killer look a tiger gives his distant prey. He was going to put us through hell; you could count on it. He was going to tell us things like “if you like the smell of a woman better than the smell of your mitt, you need to shit and get : you’ll be able to chase the chicken asses your whole life, but you only get to put that mitt on for a short time.” Of course he was right, and I had already got a head start on Coach, dumping my dead weight ahead of schedule.
That dead weight, I heard through the grapevine, was now dating a sophomore. A fuckin’ sophomore. Some French foreign exchange student named Jacques, who wrote poetry and could grow a full beard. I saw them pinned up against the lockers in the hallway, coincidentally the same hallway that led me to my locker. Who’s she shittin’ anyway? I could give a damn.
Jack Rollins was as happy as a pet coon, since The Killer returned to school, making sure to grab the seat next to his former commander, and hanging on his every word. Unfortunately for Jack, Johnny had grown up a little—almost suffocating inside a plastic bag and being thrown in the back of a truck will do that to a guy I guess. And when Johnny didn’t have any specific orders for Jack, the silence we’d enjoyed for the last two months was gone. With nothing else to do Jack talked, and talked, always with the high-pitched laugh and the I-screwed-your-sister look in his eye.
Brunno was in the thick of wrestling season, starving himself at lunch to make weight, and despite being scared shitless by Carl, he was undefeated and on fine pace to make a run at the state title. He still stuttered his daily business math questions to Roman, often repeating the same problem from the day before. Math just wouldn’t sink into Brunno’s fat head, but Roman never became impatient.
During those winter days, Roman and Heather spent most of their free time together, going to his house directly after school (mostly to bed I imagine), and then Heather studied and Roman fell into his endless reading. They would separate briefly during the evening—Heather to cheerleading and Roman to work—only to unite at midnight again.
Times were good.
III
San Diego
Max Sheehan jogged down the concrete slabs of the Villa’s front lot, looking constantly behind him, peeking to his right and left into the palm trees on both sides, and grabbing his painful crotch and the still-open wound in his side.
The makeshift sling he’d fixed for his most important limb had run its course, and Max needed some kind of medical attention.
For six years he’d been on a steady ascension to perfection. Sure the first time was sloppy—but since then? Not one body found, not one drop of his semen, 254
or a stray fingerprint on a doorknob. And the best part wasn’t the room he had built in his new home on the coast. It wasn’t the hours of control over the women.
It was the fact that nobody ever knew about the rapes or killings. They weren’t even looking for anyone because there was no evidence of any crime. The posters on milk cartons and gas station windows of missing young women would never bring the authorities to Max’s house.
He’d come to San Diego only because that’s where the wind blew him. It was bright there, always was. Max thought the first day he arrived that maybe the sun would burn away the darkness in his soul, maybe the black urges would melt away, and maybe he could be human. In the end the sun was no match.
How did it go so wrong? He was always careful with choosing his victims. Mary Baumbright was five foot nothing, a hundred and nothing, didn’t partake in the party scene and kept to herself. Max could always pick out the ones that were abused. He couldn’t have been more wrong with Mary.
None of it mattered now though. They had his fingerprints, DNA, and knew his identity. It would only be a matter of time before they went through the pictures on his basement wall, identified the girls, found their bodies, and made a map of his last six years. He had to get out of town. Not only that but he had to disappear, become someone else, and worst of all his playtime had to stop.
Dogey would help him. Dogey would know what to do. He always did.
Max pounded on the brown door, only to be answered with a sliding piece at eye level. The door opened to the dimness of Dogey’s front room. The room was always the same shade of black whether day or night. The fumes of cigarettes and lager rushed out of the doorway, along with the cracking noise of pool balls from the back room. Max limped in and sat at the counter.
Dogey grabbed for the Tequila, but after looking Max over, opted for the coffee cup. He produced a cigarette, offered it, and stuck into his own mouth when Max declined.
Dogey was a crime broker. He sold information, alibis, scores, and made it his business to know things before anybody else did. Dogey had never been to a police station. Like Max he was invisible—the producer behind the camera. His one rule was to never ask questions of his clients, a policy that had made him a good deal of money and kept him out of jail. A policy that kept him from knowing that a serial killer sat across the bar from him.
Dogey only stared at Max, seeing the blood spot on the side of his shirt that seemed to be growing by the minute, and waited patiently for his customer’s demand. Max sucked down the first cup of coffee ignoring the blistering heat.
Dogey filled it again.
“Unfortunate circumstances have made it impossible for me to stay around here,” Max said.
“Where do you want to go?” the broker asked.
“Back east somewhere, I suppose. Somewhere I can blend in. Somewhere with work.”
Dogey rubbed the top of his lip as if to smooth out an invisible mustache.
“I know a cat in Illinois looking for some carpentry work. He’s not legit, so I’m sure there’s more to it. Pays well.”
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Dogey picked up the phone behind the counter, hit a single button, and spoke to the man on the other end of the line. “Yeah. Max is dead.” Dogey covered the receiver and looked at Max. “Illinois then?”
Max nodded.
“What name?” Dogey asked him.
“Don’t care.”
Dogey uncovered the phone, “Yeah, Illinois and he doesn’t care. Give him some plastic and a clean cell phone. Some Vicodin too. He’s going to need some stitches.”
Max pulled out a neat stack of money and laid it on the counter as Dogey hung up. “It’ll be a few minutes my friend.”
“Will this cover it?”
Dogey looked at the high stack of hundreds and nodded.
Thirty minutes of silence and five cups of coffee later, a petite woman appeared from the staircase just next to the front door, carrying a small black bag.
Max couldn’t help but notice her dark brown hair. She set it on the counter and shuffled through the contents, handing Max his new life.
The lady said, “There you are John Smith. Three credit cards, cell phone, painkiller, and two Illinois driver’s licenses. I’m going to have you come downstairs for the stitches, the fake nose, and hairpiece. I gave you one ID with hair and the other with none. I figured we give you hair to get you through the airport. After that it’s up to you. I’ve got you on a four o’clock so we have to hustle. Any questions?”
Max looked at Dogey. “Where at in Illinois?”
“A place called Collingston,” Dogey replied.
IV
Roman stomped his shoes on the porch even though his sidewalk was clear of snow. Once in the living room he bypassed the towers of books against the wall—it was always hard to ignore them, to walk by without taking one in hand and flip through the pages to all those wonderful places—and walked to the kitchen for water. Roman was always thirsty after school, whether in the dog days of late summer or in the frozen cold. His thirst gave credence to a theory he’d developed over the years—the human brain burned the body’s fuel just as quick as any muscle.
Heather stood just in front of the door, removing her earmuffs and scarf, unzipping her fluffy goose-feather coat, and stripping the gloves from her hands. It must be nice, she thought, to walk into the dead of winter with only a flannel and stay as warm as Roman did. Was he really warm? Or did his mind just ignore the elements? It was silly for her to be preoccupied with such questions, but for some reason it bothered her. Maybe it was her competitive nature. Competitive was an understatement. When she was little, she made her father roll her countless rubber balls, sometimes until the sun went down, and wasn’t satisfied until the ball landed a distance that was comparable to the home run at school. She practiced for months until every kick at recess hit the row of pine trees in centerfield—the fourth graders’ makeshift fence. That determination stayed with her over the years. It 256
was the reason she ran every day. And while some of her peers as well as their parents might have looked on and claimed lunacy, they couldn’t argue the fact that Heather dominated every challenge in her life—school, cheerleading, and student government. If it were any other person than Roman, that seemingly perfect stance in all aspects of life would have made her envious if not infuriated. But surprisingly, when Heather figured out she couldn’t match Roman’s idiosyncrasies, her heart did not declare war.
She pulled off the last of her winter armor, placing it neatly on the floor next to the lampstand. She noticed something as she raised her head, saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something that hadn’t been in the friendly confines of Roman’s small living room slash bedroom before. It wasn’t the wallpaper. The hundreds of ball players still stared back at her. It was something bright. A color that didn’t fit in the room, and now her eyes retraced the path of her head and found the object that had caught her attention.
On the floor next to Roman’s bed leaned a canvas—a brilliant tapestry of bright colors. And while her first glance didn’t reveal exactly what image the colors merged to create, it was clearly some sort of painting. Heather took only two steps closer before she remembered the scene.
Remembered? That might not be an accurate statement. She had physically never been to the place in the painting, but she’d gone there on two different occasions in her mind. Once when Roman told his story, and once when she finally laid her head on her pillow after countless hours of wakefulness after the business at the Hollow.
The painting was identical to the image that her mind’s eye saw when Roman described it with his thoughtful words. The brilliant yellows and reds, and every shade of orange in between stood out in the sky, then in the reflection on the waves below. The perspective was fitting—from a window, with tropical palm leaves hanging over the edges on both sides. Out from the view lay what seemed like miles of golden tan sand that traveled to the horizon where it met the ocean as well as the setting sun. The black shadows of birds floated on the wind miles away against the cloudless evening. Immediately Heather forgot that it was winter outside, forgot that she lived in Collingston.
She thought of walking on the beach with Roman and at that instant his arms wrapped around her waist, and his chin rested on her shoulder. An image popped out at her from the painting, two black blotches that her eyes missed at first glance, two subtle details off in the distance, miles from the window, miles across the sand of the beach. It was two people, or shadows of people, hand in hand, walking toward the ocean and into the giant red-orange sun that teetered on the curvature of the earth.
“It’s beautiful.” The words were just supposed to be a thought in her head, but escaped from her lips in a whisper.
“Maybe the best prison view in the world,” Roman whispered and pulled back the hair from her neck, either because the locks obstructed his vision, or because he wanted her to feel his breath on her neck. Heather hoped it was the latter.
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“I’ve been there before,” Heather said. “In my dreams. We jumped through that window or hologram or whatever it was, and sat under the sun on the sand. We never said a word, just sat there, and when the sun started to set, we walked toward it, like somehow if we kept on going it would never fully disappear behind the ocean.” Heather reached her fingertips out and touched those two souls on the soft canvas.
Roman kissed the lobe of her ear. He pulled the bottom of her sweater gently up from her stomach, until it was over her head and on the floor. Roman undid the clasp on the front of her bra with his right hand and at the same time unbuttoned her jeans with his left. She turned and kissed him, sliding the silk panties away from her waist and then wiggling them down to the floor with her legs. Roman slid out of his flannel with a similar fluttering gesture using neither hand. When everything was out of their way, Roman laid her down gently and followed her with his own slow descent to the bed.
If there was one skill or task that couldn’t be learned through some textbook or the black words on a page, it was surely this Roman thought. As his nervousness passed that first time on Christmas, he knew he would someday perfect this ritual. Why wouldn’t he think such a thing? Every obstacle, roadblock, and problem that ever stood in his way was in inevitable danger of being conquered. In fact it was only a matter of time. His mind had mastered the art of denying himself that final pleasure too fast. His fingers had mastered that blind dance on the silky floor of her body. His mouth had learned when to give to her lips, and when to take. He had a good teacher after all—though there was no one to measure her against. This was a time (he first thought) that was supposed to be completely void of dialogue. It shocked him the first time Heather talked out loud during their love making, suggesting this and that, and literally telling him to do things.
Not long after those first few sessions did it finally emerge in his brain—
this wasn’t something you could perfect, it wasn’t something you could have planned ahead of time, it wasn’t a mathematical equation. If you went after it like another problem to solve, you would fail, and fail miserably. If you mastered some format, some technical plan of attack, the mystery and anticipation would wither and die. And while in every day life Roman begged for routine, longed for logic, this was the one place he had to be different. And different was better than he ever dreamed. Roman shut his mind off in those moments of passion and let his heart drift where it would.
Roman was on top of her, his arms and hands lying parallel on hers, his thrusts beginning to quicken. She couldn’t hold on much longer (a feeling Roman had been fighting since the beginning of this flesh-to-flesh horizontal dance).
Heather’s arms escaped Roman’s and her hands (and nails) found his back. Her breathing and moans heightened to a point of not being able to raise any further and finally Roman gave in as well. Not because she told him to, or because he was guessing it was time. But because he could see it in her eyes—that electric look of one that has just touched a cloud.
Heather seemed to hold onto her final sigh as long as she could, like the first drop on a rollercoaster, that no matter how long it was or how sharp the drop, 258
you would always came back for more. Roman could feel a hard shiver go through the body underneath him, and now it was Heather whose calves cramped in joy and toes curled in satisfaction.
They lay there silent for minutes, maybe hours, staring at the ceiling without conversation as if they were watching the sun set on that beach. Their breathing eventually went back to normal pace, their flesh to normal temperature as the sweat evaporated. Heather’s hand lay on Roman’s chest palm up, her body too tired to roll over so she could look him in the eye. Roman ran his fingertips down the folded lines in her palm.
“I want to thank you, Heather. I never thought that I would ever be happy again. You saved me. You taught me what it is to be a person again.”
Heather shut her eyes and kissed his hand. “I’m happy too, Roman. Isn’t it ironic, our relationship? I’m supposed to be the rich girl cheerleader, some ditz who bounces her way through life with no thought or regard for it. And you work as a janitor. I want to be a doctor and mother and a wife. I want to show my kids that the world doesn’t have to be the way it is. What about you?”
Roman hesitated, caught off guard by the question. “I’ve spent so many years worrying about the past that all I’ve been doing these last few months is living in the moment. Kids?” Roman paused again. “If I did have children, I don’t want them to be like me, awkward I mean.”
“You’re not awkward Roman. And any mother would be lucky to have half of you in her children. Your mind, your courage, and most importantly your heart.”
“It’s kind of you to say such things.”
“Not kind Roman, fact,” Heather said, rising from the bed and walking to her bag on the other side of the room.
Roman kept his head on the pillow and smiled as he watched.
Heather slid on a pair of athletic shorts, a T-shirt, and over both top and bottom went sweats. She pulled the long blond locks back into a ponytail, but released them, finding a brush was needed for the frayed mess on her head. Her hair was always like that when they finished—the electrocuted frazzle of someone who stuck their finger in the light socket—and to Roman it was starting to become the favorite of her hairstyles. Several quick pullbacks from the bangs with the brush, some kind of one-handed magic trick with her scrunchy, and Heather was ready for cheerleading practice.
“Teach me to fight,” she said.
“Where’s that coming from?”
“I still think of that asshole Bobby Dukes from time to time, and how helpless I was with his arm around my neck. I don’t want to feel that way again, ever.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about Bobby Dukes,” Roman said, getting up from the bed himself.
“There are more than just a few Bobby Dukes in the world, Roman.”
Roman walked over to her at the door. “This is true. Okay. Whatever you want.”
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“Nothing spectacular. Just maybe teach me a few deadly punches.” She kissed him and smiled.
“I want you to take this with you.” Roman walked over to the painting.
Carefully, he lifted the canvas by its edges.
“Roman...I don’t know.”
“It was meant for you. Besides I’ve looked out that