That evening, I began to teach her how to play chess.
I knew what was coming next. Looked around. Xyla wasn’t there. I called her name and she came running just in time for the next question to come up:
>>Where’s Candy?<<
I couldn’t figure out if he was testing or really asking, but it didn’t matter, the answer was the same.
dead
Luther Allison’s “Cherry Red Wine” was searing out of the Plymouth’s speakers as I drove back. About an unfaithful woman who drank so much wine that the earth around her grave turned the same color. I wondered what color the dirt would be around wherever they’d put Candy. Whatever color human hearts are, I guess. Ripped-out human hearts, sold to the highest bidder.
I’d given the maniac her name earlier on. And two more: Train and Julio. It’d be easy enough for him to find out who Train was. Who he’d been, anyway: the leader of a baby-breeder cult. There was a contract out on him, and Wesley was holding the paper. But Candy came into it. Hard Candy. She went back with me and Wesley. All the way back. I hadn’t seen her in years, didn’t recognize her when I met her again—all that plastic surgery. But when she took off her contacts to show me those yellow eyes, when she told me things that nobody but she could have known, I believed her. Candy was in business for herself by then. I can’t think of a name to call her, but she sold sex. Packaged it, any way you wanted. Train had her daughter, and she wanted the kid back. I. . . got into it.
All of this happened around the same time. And it was more connected than I’d ever nightmared. Train and Candy were partners. Her daughter was a toy. And Candy thought I’d be her tool.
It didn’t work out like that. First, Wesley warned me off Train. Later, we ended up trading targets. I took Train. Julio too. Wesley did mine, then claimed them all in his suicide note.
But not Candy. When we were all kids, when all of us were doing wrong, all building sins, Wesley was magnetic north on her compass. He never knew. I don’t think it would have made any difference to him. Wesley was too lethal to mate; never had a real partner. And Candy. . . she worshipped the ice in Wesley just as I did. But it penetrated her. Took her.
Citizens would say there was no difference between them, but they’d be missing it. Wesley was walking homicide, but he never did it for fun. It was fun for Candy, all of it. Even selling her own daughter to freaks, and chumping me into getting the kid back after she’d been paid for the merchandise.
I’ve got enough regret in me for the things I’ve done in my life to fill a chasm. But Candy. . . killing Candy. . . that wasn’t one of them.
Wesley died never knowing what happened to her. But now my secret was shared. With a. . .
“He’s crazy, baby,” Michelle said. “You can’t make sense out of crazy. You’ll just make yourself crazy trying.”
“He’s not crazy.”
“Burke! Listen to yourself. That stuff you told me. The ‘messages’ he’s sending you. He kidnaps kids and kills them. That’s his ‘art.’ He’s foaming at the mouth, sweetie. If the people running around making a hero out of him knew. . .”
“Michelle, there hasn’t been one murder since he started. . .”
“Started. . . what?”
“These messages. To me. It’s like. . . those murders were all some kind of. . . You know how you have to prove?”
She knew what I meant by the word. Had to do it herself too many times on the street not to. “Sure,” she said.
“Credentials,” I said, finally finding the word I was looking for—the word that kept echoing through all of this. “He’s the real thing. I just can’t see what he wants.”
“Wesley,” she said softly.
“Wesley’s—”
“—dead. Sure. But that’s what all his little crazy ‘tolls’ are about, right?”
“Tolls?”
“The price, honey. Like stud poker. You have to pay to see his next card. Every time, isn’t that true?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then, that’s the link,” she said, like she was telling me it was Monday, so certain.
“No, it isn’t,” I said, all of a sudden getting it. “I am.”
“Xyla around?” I asked Trixie.
“She was. But she had to. . . do something. Said she’d be back in a couple of minutes. You don’t mind waiting, right?”
“Not at all.” I don’t know why, but there was no sense of urgency in me. I knew the killer’s next message was somewhere in that computer, just waiting for Xyla to open it up. But I wasn’t in any hurry to see it.
“Crystal Beth was my sister,” Trixie said, snapping me out of wherever I’d gone to.
I just looked at her, waiting.
“This. . . guy. The one Xyla got you to. You think he killed them?”
“Who?”
“Whoever killed Crystal Beth. He kills fag-bashers, right?”
“Yeah. There’s no guarantee he’ll ever get the right ones. He hits at random.”
“So why do you want him?” she asked, stepping closer to me. A shadow changed behind her. Rusty. The big guy who was always drawing. He didn’t say a word, just bowed slightly. I returned it. And finally got it—I’d have to say the right thing to this woman if I wanted Xyla to open another message.
“Some people. . . some gay people. . . they hired me to reach out to him. See if he needed any help. Getting away, I mean.”
“And you were willing to do that?”
“I’m trying to find whoever killed Crystal Beth,” I told her. “And maybe he’s the path.”
“Yeah. Okay. I mean, I’m no serial-killer groupie but. . . I mean, it’s not like he’s killing kids or anything. Everyone knows how you’d feel about that.”
Her face was a study in repose, brown eyes alive but calm. And right then I knew. Xyla was slicker than the killer thought. And, somehow, she’d read his damn messages too.
I didn’t say anything.
Xyla swept into the room. Trixie and Rusty backed away.
“Ready to have your look?” Xyla asked, so upbeat and innocent.
“Sure,” I told her.
The following morning, it was time for the next phase of the operation. Again telling Zoë that I would be making a call from outside, I simply went upstairs and activated the staged sequence in the computer with the “contact-target” command. Within minutes, a call would be placed to the subject’s home. Whether picked up by an answering machine or a person, I was reasonably confident that it would be recorded. The digitized paste-up was ready to send, one of a menu of choices available to me telephonically via button-sequence selection. As the target had indicated compliance via the newspaper ad, I was able to proceed to the next step without the annoying game-playing that sometimes results when the target’s response is placed other than as precisely directed.
When the phone was answered at the target’s home, the following message would come across the line:
Thank you for your cooperation. If you wish proof of the child’s health and safety, please so indicate by affixing a piece of *red* material to the flagpole in front of your residence. This may be an object of clothing, a scrap of cloth. . . anything at all, so long as it is unmistakably red. As soon as we observe this, we will prepare and transmit the appropriate proof.
There is an element of bluff—and, thus, of chance—in all operations. Requiring the target to attach a piece of red material to the flagpole in front of their house is a classic example. Certainly, I was aware of the flagpole. Now was the time to balance the value of instilling the belief that they were under constant observation against the risk of revealing the somewhat mechanized nature of my contact systems. Restated: I would necessarily assume that they would, indeed, attach the red material, and act as if that were a fact. If I was correct in my assumption, it would exacerbate their sense of being under observation. . . and increase my safety by decreasing their willingness to participate in any law-enforcement exercise designed to ensnare me. However, if they refused (or were unable) to attach the material and I sent the promised proof anyway, it would surely disclose that they were *not* under active surveillance, threatening the credibility of my entire presentation to date.