“ I'll be dead…Marie'll be dead, and nobody'll know who she is, and nobody'll care…”
Sincebaugh, from behind the glass, muttered in Landry's ear, “Got that right…”
“ We care,” said Dr. Longette. “We really do.”
“ What about Marie? Do you care about Marie?”
“ Is there anything more, anything at all, that you want to tell us, Marie?” he asked, deflecting the question.
“ E… he… he really didn't mean it. He… E just wasn't himself.”
“ Wasn't himself how?”
“ Crazed… beside himself… I think in his right mind, he couldn't've done it. It was when he became she.”
“ E then is a cross-dresser too, you mean?”
Captain Landry turned to Sincebaugh. “I want a line on this E guy, where he hangs, what he does, where he goes, who he goes with, all of it.”
“ I've never heard of anyone on the street goes by that or Easy, but we'll certainly follow up.”
“ Looks like your instincts were good all along, Alex. The killings are not aimed at the gay community from outside forces, but rather from within the gay community itself; one of them is killing his own, and the key has to be this guy, E or Easy. Doesn't ring any bells, huh?”
“ You know how many of these guys are transient. They come and go like the pigeons. Still, thought I knew all the street names, but no… no, sir, it doesn't. We can run 'im through the computer, see what kicks out.”
“ Either way, Alex, you nailed it, gay community.”
“ Transvestite community, French Quarter.”
“ What's the difference?”
“ Big difference in their ranks. Not all transvestites are gay, not all gay men are cross-dressers.”
“ As in not all bats live in caves? Give me a break, Alex.”
“ As in not all gays are HIV positive, Captain. Look, I'll be at my phone, see what I can dig up on our man E. I've seen enough of this hocus-pocus.”
“ You've seen enough, but you're willing to investigate this E character based solely on a psychic's recall under hypnosis? I'll tell you what, Alex, if this E guy turns out to be our man, this hocus-pocus will have been worth every dime, my friend.”
“ And if it doesn't pan out? You gonna give her the heave-ho? You gonna bring the tent down on this… circus?”
“ I'll certainly try, Alex, but as you know, it's rather out of my hands…”
“ Do Stephens and Meade know about this session with Dr. Longette?''
“ No, thought we'd keep this among us for now, and Dr. Desinor was obliging.”
“ And Dr. Coran?”
“ No FBI for now.”
With that news, Sincebaugh felt a bit relieved. Good move, Captain, he wanted to shout. Anything to ax Lew Meade from the new deal. “I'll go find Big, and we'll see what we can scrounge up on this Easy guy.” Alex knew that he'd combine the search for E with the search for Susie Socks, the alleged cousin to Davey “Pigsty” Gilreath.
27
May the light fade from your eyes, so you never see what you love. May your own blood rise against you. and the sweetest drink you take be the bitterest cup of sorrow. May you die without benefit of clergy; may there be none to shed a tear at your grave, and may the hearthstones of hell be your best bed forever.
Matthew Matisak pretended an aimless, wandering gait along the streets of New Orleans, a free man, his attention on the final steps that would bring him to the coming, decisive duel with her, Jessica Coran. He fully expected to take his due from her, after wrapping up a few loose ends, and this time he would be completely in control, all arrangements having been made- All systems a go and me aglow, he wickedly thought. This time her own blood would rise against her to become his absolutely and forever.
He had thoughtfully mapped out how they would meet, how he would lead her into his snare, what his final meal would be like, for it would be supplied by her and it would be his last. She would so fulfill him that he would have nowhere afterward to turn. He would have reached his personal zenith. So he would destroy himself while her blood was coursing through him, taking a part of her into eternity with him.
The means was at hand. He had already prepared and tested the equipment on a young girl he'd found wandering about the Greyhound bus station the night before. All was operational at the location he had paid well for.
He had paid top dollar for the portable dialysis machine which would remove Jessica's lifeblood in a controlled fashion and filter it into him in just as controlled a fashion. He planned to O.D. on her blood, to burst his own blood vessels with an overabundance of the good stuff. “What a way to go,” he told himself.
Not riddled with bullets, not electrocuted or gassed, not plummeting to his death during an escape or progressively rotting away in a cell, but to die in a fashion befitting such a demonic force as himself, in a manner which he would have chosen, master of his own fate. He intended to be literally imploded from within by her blood-at least all his arteries and veins would detonate, so full would they become with their commingling of blood.
It was so rare and evil an idea that it could not have been born overnight, but rather had crept up in inchworm fashion over his mind, coming on at first softly to tickle his psyche, a playful half-formed, seeking-cohesion, heat-seeking idea of a lifetime. At first slow to form and coalesce and live fully, the idea had in the past few months-since killing Dr. Gabriel Arnold with his own dialysis machine-begun to chase through Matisak's consciousness like a steam engine bound nonstop for Hades, and now… finally… years in the making… it was here in New Orleans that the complete beauty of this perfect notion had come to pure fruition like the blossom on a passionate flower. She must come to him now… come for him, unable to help herself any longer. She would do so alone. He knew that she would abandon all her training, that she knew, like him, that eternity was waiting for them to step into its waiting void together.
She would come for the same reason that he must beckon her: They were locked into meeting their death angels at the same instant in time. For all eternity hereafter they must grapple with one another. Besides, she was noble and nobles like her couldn't help themselves, not really, not after all the numbers who'd died in her place because she was so noble. She must feel great remorse for the others; it was not in her makeup to feel otherwise, especially with the last person to take her sacrificial place-this special agent named Sand whose cover as a pilot might have fooled Jessica but had not fooled him. The fool had led him directly to her.
He had learned of her relocation to New Orleans on temporary assignment through a series of phone calls, pretending an urgent message from her last tour of duty office in Honolulu. He had even learned the name of the Hawaii bureau chief, a man named James Parry, and he had used this name to gel information about her whereabouts and current operation, tracking down this Queen of Hearts pervert. Think of it, he told himself now, some sick bastard's going around ripping out the hearts, likely cannibalizing them. “And they call me sick,” he said aloud to the wind, a nearby doorman in a phony general's uniform giving him a dubious look, having overheard him.
Matisak moved on down the street. He wasn't surprised to leam that his Jessica had tackled the gruesome case that had all of New Orleans in turmoil. He'd been reading about the case, which had been making national headlines, and there had been talk of FBI involvement, and the moment he'd read ol it, he'd somehow known that Jessica would come here. This hunch, and a little fast talk with some lab technician he'd managed to reach inside Quantico after several other people had disconnected, had been enough to seal Jessica's fate. She'd come from hot, humid D.C. to the even steamier jazz capital of the world to party with a monster, do a little Mardi Gras of her own. But he was the monster that was going to get her, not this heart-eating bastard who went for gays and cross-dressers.