“Son, things have never been like how you think they used to be.”
23. Dreaming
WILSON LEFT BIG HEART’S after his encounter with Reggie and drove home to his apartment on Capitol Hill. He wondered how he was going to fix things with Reggie and Big Heart’s. He had done so much for his fellow Indians. He had made the ultimate sacrifice. He wanted them to love him. He parked his pickup in front of the building, slowly trudged up the front walk, and checked his mail.
Isn’t that how it happened?
He loved his mail. There was none, of course, but he checked anyway. Then he walked upstairs, opened his door, and turned on the light. His apartment was as neat as always. The small table. Two forks, two spoons, two knives, two plates. The black-and-white photograph of his birth parents on the dresser. The foldout couch. It was cold in the apartment because Wilson always turned down the heat before he went out. Seattle was cold at night during the summer and winter. He was slightly chilled and wanted to climb beneath the covers and sleep for days. First things first, though. He brushed and flossed his teeth, undressed, and tossed his dirty clothes into the hamper.
Isn’t that how it happened?
Then he slipped into his favorite pajamas and settled into bed. He could hear his neighbors turning in for the night. Running water, flushing toilets, creaking bed springs. It was very quiet. One police siren, then another, and a third. Cars on the freeway ten blocks to the west. Muffled conversation between two men walking down the street in front of the building.
Isn’t that how it happened?
In his bed, awake and wondering about the Indian Killer, about finishing the novel. He thought about John Smith, who, in Wilson’s mind, remained as unfinished as the novel. In the dark, Wilson could still see the photograph of John at the construction site. John’s fellow workers eat together, share a joke and common laughter, slap one another on the back. John sits back all by himself, his eyes dark and impenetrable. Wilson thought that a person driving down a road and coming upon a tunnel as dark as those eyes would stop, turn the car around, and go miles out of his way to avoid it. As it was, Wilson had tried to follow those eyes. Sitting with John’s mother, he had felt it when something left her body. Something solid and substantial. Following John’s eyes into Big Heart’s, he saw Reggie’s eyes, just as dark, but lit with a more volatile fire. Quicker to burn, easier to extinguish. Reggie was probably in Big Heart’s telling stories and laughing right now, reliving his encounter with Wilson, turning a potentially fatal conflict into a series of comic escapades.
Isn’t that how it happened?
Wilson was thinking about John Smith, then fell so quickly to sleep that he effortlessly slipped into a dream about Smith. He dreamed about Smith pushing that knife into the white man in the University District. He saw Smith slit the throat of the businessman. Then Smith was smiling as he lifted the young boy from his bed. Then Wilson saw himself with that knife. Wilson saw himself pushing the knife into one white body, then another, and another, until there were multitudes.
Isn’t that how it happened?
Then the dream changed, and Wilson was pulling up in front of his apartment building again. A brown hand reached through the open window of the truck and smashed Wilson’s head against the steering wheel. Stunned and barely conscious, Wilson slumped in his seat and somebody, a dark figure, reached inside Wilson’s jacket and took his weapon. Then the dark figure opened the door and pushed him out of the way. With Wilson stuffed under the dashboard, the dark figure sat quietly at the steering wheel, waiting to see if the commotion had attracted any attention. A police siren in the distance, but nobody shouted out. No lights suddenly appeared in the apartment building. No cars passed by. The dark figure started the pickup and slowly drove down Capitol Hill.
24. Testimony
“DR. MATHER, I HEAR you know who the Indian Killer is.”
“Well, Officer, I don’t know who the Indian Killer is, but I have some information you may find useful in your investigation.”
“And?”
“Well, it’s about a former student of mine, a Spokane Indian named Reggie Polatkin.”
“Any relation to Marie Polatkin?”
“Why, yes. They’re cousins. How do you know her?”
“She’s the Sandwich Lady.”
“Excuse me?”
“She delivers sandwiches to the homeless.”
“Really. I can’t imagine her in such a role.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she always seems so impulsive, so emotional. What’s the word I’m searching for? So individualistic. Not tribal at all. I mean, she actually threatened me with physical violence earlier today.”
“How did she threaten you?”
“She said she’d eat my heart.”
“Really? Marie Polatkin said that?”
“Yes, she did. Of course, I had to drop her from my class. I’m thinking of pursuing more serious charges against her.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that. Tell me more about her cousin.”
“Reggie? Well, as I said, Reggie is a former student of mine. We had a misunderstanding and he, well, he assaulted me.”
“Sounds like you and the Polatkin family have a problem.”
“I hardly find this amusing, Officer. I must protest your behavior.”
“Protest noted.”
“Officer, Reggie and I used to travel together. And we talked. Reggie had a very violent father. Very violent. A white man. I always worried that Reggie was going to hurt somebody.”
“Why were you worried?”
“Because he said he dreamed about killing people.”
25. The Last Skyscraper in Seattle
SLOWLY, WILSON WOKE AND made several attempts to open his eyes. His head ached and he could taste blood. He tried to reach up and touch his face to see how badly he was hurt, but discovered that he was tied to a wall. He could not move his arms or legs. He tested the ropes, but they held tight. How had this happened? Wilson wondered if he was still dreaming.
But Wilson was tied to a wall. His head did ache and his mouth tasted of real blood. He couldn’t move his arms or legs. He did test the ropes that held him. He stood eagle-armed, his wrists tightly secured to two-by-fours, his legs tied at the ankles to another two-by-four. All of the two-by-fours were part of a wall frame. Wilson looked around. By twisting his head, Wilson could see that he was tied to a wall frame in an upper floor of an unfinished downtown building. He could see the other frames that would hold the walls for the bathrooms and two large corner offices. He noticed frames for rows of smaller offices between corner offices. The elevators and shafts were finished, looked strange and out of place. Various saw-horses scattered here and there. A forgotten black metal lunch box near a power saw. An open metal door just north of Wilson. An unlit exit sign above it. Wilson tested the ropes. He could see through the wooden skeleton of the floor to the buildings that surrounded him. In one building, a janitor pushed a vacuum back and forth, back and forth. A police siren many floors below him. Then another siren, and a third, a fourth, blending into one long scream. Wilson could sense that somebody was standing behind him. Wilson knew that his shoulder holster was empty and that somebody behind him was holding the pistol.
“John?” asked Wilson.
“Yes,” John answered. Wilson twisted his head violently from side to side in an effort to locate him.