Show of Evil

He felt a slight pressure from Jane's hand and looked over at her. Her lips moved under the oxygen mask.

'Take it off,' her lips said.

'Can't do that, Janie.'

'Just a minute,' the lips said.

'Okay, just for a minute.' Vail reached over and slid the face mask down to her chin. She squeezed his hand again.

'Hi,' Vail said.

'Abel?' she asked, her speech blurred by drugs.

'He's carved up pretty badly, but they think he's going to make it.'

'Sav'd m'life, Marty.'

'And you saved his.'

'D'you catch Stampler?'

'Not yet. Just a matter of time. I can't stay long. I'm not even supposed to be in here.'

'Pull rank, you're th' DA…'m I all smashed up, Marty?'

'Nah. I know a good body shop, they'll knock the dents out in no time.'

She smiled up at him.

' 'Fraid m' goin''t'sleep again.'

'Sleep well, my dear. I'll be here when you wake up.'

'Marty?'

'Yeah?'

'Kiss me?'

He leaned over and gently touched her lips with his.

'I love you.'

'And I love you, Janie.'

And she drifted off again.

She was in a deep, deep sleep, dreaming the dream she always dreamed: She was walking through dense fog, hearing the voices but never quite seeing the faces that went with them, those harpy songs that taunted her, luring her deeper and deeper into the mist. Help me, help me, help me, the voices cried until the sense of futility overwhelmed even her dreams, until suddenly she stepped into the hole and fell through the clouds, tumbling towards oblivion until she awakened with a start. This time as she moved through the cottony mist, her feet froze in place and the haze blazed into light just before she fell. She awoke with a start. The bed-table light was on and her feet were tied to the foot of the bed. She tried to scream, but her mouth was bound with tape. Fear turned sour in her mouth. She looked around and saw, a few inches from her face, a scalpel.

Its blade twinkled as it was twisted in the light's beam. Her eyes gradually refocused on the face behind the scalpel's edge.

'Hi, Miss Molly,' he said in the innocent Appalachian accent he had discarded years before. ' 'Member me?'

She recognized Stampler immediately. Time had not changed him that much. Molly Arrington's heart was pounding in her throat, her temples, her wrists. She was having trouble breathing through her nose. Behind him, she saw the open window, the curtains wafting lazily in the draft. She peered at him in terror, but then just as quickly - as she adjusted to waking up - she grew calm. Questions assaulted her mind. How did he get here? What was he doing?

'Listen to me,' he said, and his voice was cold, calculating, without accent or tone. 'I'm going to take that tape off your mouth, but if you scream, if you talk above a whisper, I'll make an incision right here' — he put the point of the blade against her throat - 'and cut out your vocal cords. It won't kill you, unless maybe you drown in your own blood, but it will be almighty painful. Do we have an understanding?' She slowly nodded.

He picked a corner of the tape up with the tip of his little finger and then ripped it off. It tore her lips. Tears flushed her eyes, but she did not scream.

'That's good, that's very, very good,' he said. 'I always did admire your spunk. I suppose you have some questions?'

She did not answer but instead stared down in shock at him. He was stark naked and erect, sitting in a chair beside the bed.

'Cat got your tongue?' He chuckled. He moved the scalpel to the neckline of her silk nightshirt and drew the sharp blade slowly down the length of the shirt. It spread open in the wake of the incision until he had split it all the way to her knees. He took the knife and flipped first one side of the shirt, then the other, aside.

'There,' he said, staring lasciviously at her naked body. 'Now we're even.'

Still not a sound from her.

'Can't you even say hello?'

She did not look at him. She stared at the ceiling.

'Talk to me!' he roared.

She turned her head slowly towards him.

'Martin was right,' she said.

'Oh, Martin was right. Martin was right,' he mimicked her. 'Martin was finally right, you should say. And only because I let him know. I gave him the clues and he finally figured it all out.'

'That's what he said.'

'Bright boy. Well, Doc, I don't have much time. Got a lot to do before I'm on my way. Got to be waiting when he comes.'

'Comes where?'

He just smiled.

She did not ask again.

He held the scalpel up again and regarded it with sensual pleasure. 'Know what I like about knives, Doctor? I like the way they feel. I like their power. People have a visceral fear of knives. And they're so efficient. All you have to do…' - he slashed the scalpel through the air — '… is that. Swish, and it's all over. Exsanguination. Instant rigor mortis. Instant! All the air rushes out of the lungs. It's such a… a pure sound. Whoosh. Ten, fifteen seconds and it's all over. And this? This is a masterpiece. A scalpel. The ultimate blade. So beautiful.'

'It's nice to know you killed them first, before you—'

'Oh, she can talk. Before I what? Before I cleansed them? Before I blooded them?'

'So that's what you did. Cleansed them,' she said with sarcasm.

'Oh, we're going to push it, are we?'

'Push what?' she answered wearily. 'I don't doubt for a minute you're going to kill me.'

'I might surprise you.'

'You can't surprise me any more,' she said.

He stood up and began to stroke himself. His lips were twitching around a sickening leer.

'You always wanted it, didn't you? Huh? Wanted me to throw you down on the floor of that cell and fuck your brains out.'

'You're delusionary.'

The smile vanished. The eyes went dead.

'Rebecca was right. Rebecca was always right. She was right about my brother and Mary. Get rid of them, she told me. Get rid of the hate. She was there when I stuffed the towels in the car window. And when they were cold and stiff, we did it in the front seat, right in front of them. Now you're even, she said. Now you can forget them. Just like I forgot Shackles and Rushman and Peter and Billy. Just like I finally could forget Linda and that creepy little coward, Alex Lincoln. She told me you were in the pit, too, that you were just as nuts as the rest of us. You know what it's like, don't you? To be smarter than all of them, listen to them pampering, pandering, so righteous. So fucking proud of themselves playing God. And they were all wrong. All of you were wrong. That's the best part of it all. Now everybody will know, the whole world will know.'

'I was wrong,' Molly said. 'You're not delusionary, you're demonic.'

'Demonic,' he sneered, raising his eyebrows.

'Demonic,' he repeated, savouring the word. 'I like that. Is that a medical term?'

'You want to kill the people that kept you alive.'

'Alive. You call ten years in bedlam alive?'

'Would you have preferred the electric chair?'

'I would have preferred freedom. He played games with me.'

'He did the best he - '

'He fucked me to protect that miserable faggot Rushman. He had the tape. Not a woman on that jury would have found me guilty if they had seen the tape. Christ, after that he had plenty of room for reasonable doubt. A second person in the room, temporary insanity, irresistible impulse. But nooo, he had to play the clever boy, protecting Rushman's good name, sucking that prosecutor into his game. And you went along with it.'