“Well, Helen, that’s a very interesting idea, but it wouldn’t work very well. Indians are damn good swimmers. Folks, we have to take time out for some commercial messages. Stay with us. We’ll be back in a few.”
Truck dropped off the air, toked on his cigar.
“Truck,” said his assistant over the intercom. “It’s Johnny Law.”
Truck sat up quickly to take the call from his source in the Washington State Patrol office.
“What’s up?” Truck asked.
“They just found another body. Downtown. A white businessman. A guy named Edward Letterman.”
“Indian Killer?”
“Indian Killer, for sure. He was scalped. Two owl feathers left behind. And the fucking sick bastard ate his heart.”
“Ate his heart?”
“Like a fucking sandwich.”
Truck whooped. He turned to his microphone.
“Folks,” he said. “The Indian Killer has struck again.”
11. Wilson
WILSON FELT TIED TO a dying typewriter. The writing had always come easy to him before, but he could barely manage to write a few paragraphs of Indian Killer before he had to stand up, stretch, read a magazine, watch television. Any excuse not to write. He knew he had to finish the book, but he was somehow afraid of it. His agent and publisher were waiting. But he had to find the ending, had to write the book that was more true than any of the other Indian Killer books he knew would be published. He dreamed constantly about the murders. He saw the face of that man in Fremont when the knife slid across his throat, and felt the weight of that little boy’s body. After those dreams, Wilson would lie awake for hours, staring at the walls.
Wilson looked at the blank page in his typewriter and at the Indian Killer manuscript stacked haphazardly on the table beside it. His manuscripts were always a disorganized mess, in stark contrast to his tidy apartment, balanced checking account, and simple eating habits. He supposed it was easy to be well-organized when you lived alone. Roommates, wives, kids, pets — they all added an element of randomness that Wilson could never have tolerated. That was probably why Wilson’s dreams troubled him so much. They were beyond his control. Still, he knew that Indians were supposed to listen carefully to their dreams. Aristotle Little Hawk had solved more than one crime by using information he had obtained in dreams. Wilson felt he’d been chosen for a special task. Maybe that was the reason for his dreams. People were dying horribly for reasons he alone understood, and he was the only one who could truly talk about the Indian Killer. Wilson knew that he was writing more than a novel. He would write the book that would finally reveal to the world what it truly meant to be Indian.
Obsessed with all of it, Wilson knew that more people were going to be hurt, and killed, and he also knew his book would be ignored when it was published. He was positive a dozen knockoffs were already on their way to the printers. Wilson picked up the ringing telephone.
“Hey, Wilson,” said Rupert, his agent in New York. “What the hell is going on out there? I thought you people gave up that cowboys-and-Indians shit.”
“Jesus,” said Wilson. “You wouldn’t believe the mess. Cameras everywhere. It’s a race war.”
“Yeah, well, I hope you’re getting it all down. It’s great material.”
“I’ve almost finished a first draft,” Wilson lied.
Rupert whistled.
“Hot damn, you should send me the pages. You got my Fed Ex number?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure what to do.”
“Well, you stick the pages in an envelope and then mail them to me.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, there must be a dozen books coming out of this thing, right?”
“Listen up. You’re writing a novel, champ. That’s fiction. You get to make up shit. Besides, you know how this will turn out in real life. In the third act, they’ll find some white guy in eagle feathers is doing the killing. White guys are always the serial killers. Think about it. Bundy, Gacy, Gilmore. Where’s the drama in that? It’s been done. You get to tell a new story. You’re the Indian writer. This belongs to you, Wilson.”
Wilson hung up the phone. His little apartment seemed so much smaller with all the uncertainty shoved into it. He wanted the world to know about the real Indian Killer, and not just somebody else’s invention.
It was past eight in the evening on that last day when he grabbed his keys off the hook near the door, walked quickly to his truck, and drove down Capitol Hill to the Fourth Precinct. A number of television vans were parked at haphazard angles outside. It seemed like half of the reporters in the city had converged on his source of information. After parking in his usual spot, Wilson walked into the lobby and saw a large number of reporters and cameramen milling about. The bright lights of the television cameras were painful to the eyes. The desk sergeant who always supplied Wilson with inside information was using his usual methods to maintain some sense of order.
“All of you, get the fuck out of here!” yelled the sergeant.
Nobody paid much attention. Wilson saw a white man standing alone in the corner between the water fountain and the pay phone. A short, stocky guy, big belly, strong arms, a red flannel shirt, looking confused. Wilson wondered if he knew what was happening.
“Hey,” said Wilson.
“Hey,” said the man.
“Kind of crazy in here, isn’t it?” asked Wilson.
“Yeah, they told me to pick a number a couple of hours ago. I got number three. I figured it wouldn’t take long. I ain’t heard much since then.”
“Maybe they start at a hundred and work backwards.” Wilson laughed at his own weak joke, that sort of short, loud, staccato laugh that men use in social situations. The man smiled and studied the number in his hand.
“So,” asked Wilson. “What is going on anyhow?”
“You a reporter?” asked the man, studying Wilson carefully.
“No,” said Wilson, lying only a little.
“I guess they found a body downtown.”
“A white guy?” asked Wilson.
“Yeah, I heard it on the radio coming over here. On the Truck Schultz show. Do you listen to him?”
“No,” Wilson lied.
“Well, you should. Truck heard about the body and went live with it. I guess it was some visiting businessman. He was all cut to hell, I guess, just butchered.”
“Do they think the Indian Killer did it?”
“That’s what Truck said. All I know is this place was empty when I first got here. And now it’s a zoo. All these reporters are just trying to catch up with Truck now.”
“Life is crazy,” Wilson said to the man, who promptly agreed.
“And you know what else?” asked the man. “I came here because I thought I might know who the Indian Killer is. There was this Indian used to work for me. I was his foreman, you know? Working on the last skyscraper in Seattle. The last one. Guy’s name was John Smith. Kind of a funny name for an Indian, don’t you think?”
Wilson nodded his head.
“Anyways, he was a great big kid. Always kind of goofy, you know? Talking to himself all the time. Don’t get me wrong. He was a good worker and all, but he was just plain weird. He never talked to anybody but himself.”
Wilson was fascinated. A weird Indian climbing through the skyscrapers of Seattle. The foreman noticed the faraway expression on Wilson’s face and was suddenly uncomfortable.
“I know it don’t sound like much,” said the foreman. “I mean, John was a good worker, but there was something wrong with him. Really wrong. He just up and quit on me a while back. I didn’t think much of it at the time. But with these murders happening, it just kept nagging at me.”