“The ‘I’ in ‘I have returned,’ you mean? A figure literally speaking to Vlad from the stars? Like in the drag theater?”
“That’s what I think, yes.”
“But Vlad didn’t start writing on his victims until Canning.”
“Right. And the writing was different on Donovan—the phrase written over and over again and then washed off—which means Vlad is still evolving. Perhaps his pattern on the ground is evolving, too. Maybe the three stars in the logo are a starting point off of which he plans to build a bigger picture. I also wonder if he didn’t know what he was doing yet with Rodriguez and Guerrera. Or maybe his plans got screwed up and he didn’t have time to impale them alive.”
“The gunshots you mean?”
“That’s right. Vlad held on to Rodriguez and Guerrera for about forty-eight hours. He held on to Donovan and Canning for longer. We know for sure that Donovan died from the impaling itself, but I’m willing to bet Canning did, too. They were also murdered one at a time and put on display individually, unlike the Hispanics. It’s why I now have a feeling that Rodriguez was the prize all along—at Angel’s—and Guer-rera showed up unexpectedly. Vlad had to improvise.”
“Rodriguez and Guerrera were lovers, you think?”
“I don’t know. We might never know unless we can tie them together.”
Just then an agent poked his head into Markham’s office. Joe Connelly was his name—a big, rough-voiced guy with whom Markham had talked about the Red Sox the week be- fore. Markham was happy for some reason to find out that Big Joe was a Sox fan, even though he himself had never given a rat’s ass about baseball.
“Kid’s stuff is starting to come in,” Big Joe said. “I’ll leave everything in the conference room before the first batch goes out to Quantico.”
“Thanks,” Markham said. “Come on, Schaap, let’s take a look.”
Schaap followed Markham into the conference room. Spread out on the table were the remains of Jose Rodriguez’s act—the shoebox and its contents that Markham had seen earlier, all tagged and placed inside clear plastic bags—as well as a large wig on a Styrofoam head and a CD in a plastic case. They had also been tagged and bagged.
Markham and Schaap each put on a pair of rubber gloves.
“So,” Schaap said, holding up the plastic bag containing the wig. “He called himself Ricky Martinez when he wore this shit?”
“No,” Markham said, fingering the other items. “Angel said his stage name was something else—something Spanish.”
“Here it is,” Schaap said. “A piece of masking tape underneath the wig on the forehead. Leona Bonita, it says. I don’t speak Spanish, but I know the word bonita means beautiful, right? Remember that Madonna song, “La Isla Bonita?” Song used to get on my fucking nerves—” Schaap stopped.
It was Markham. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
“What is it, Sam?”
“Leona Bonita,” he said. “It means beautiful lion.”
“So?”
“Leo the lion is one of the constellations that return to the nighttime sky in the spring. It’s also one of the constellations that would’ve passed through the Hispanics’ sight lines on the night they were left in the cemetery.”
“You think there might be a connection there, too? Because Rodriguez called himself Leona Bonita?”
“The crescent-moon visual, the stars at the club, and then the beautiful lion literally singing beneath them—maybe that’s why Vlad didn’t bother writing the messages on him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe Vlad saw him as part of the message—perhaps the most important part. The figure speaking to him in the stars—the lips with the microphone beside the crescent moon—they could represent to Vlad the mouth of Leo the lion.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“And if Vlad thought it was Leo speaking to him through Rodriguez, he would have no need to write on Rodriguez because the kid was part of the message itself.”
“That would mean that Vlad was also communicating to Leo via the impalement of Rodriguez and Guerrera. Sending some kind of message like, ‘Look at me, Ma’—some kind of human sacrifice, maybe?”
“Yes.”
“But if Vlad is sacrificing his victims to Leo, to whom does the ‘I’ in ‘I have returned’ refer? Vlad or the constellation?”
“Perhaps both.”
“You mean he sees himself as Leo?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he’s speaking to Leo on behalf of someone or something else; perhaps he is challenging the constellation. Whatever his reason, I know Vlad wants the figure in the stars to see his victims impaled—either Leo, whatever that constellation represents to him, or something else connected to it.”
“A god or some mythological figure?”
“Perhaps something like that, yes—that is, if I’m right about Leo to begin with.”
“But the impalement,” Schaap said. “How the hell does that connect to the constellation Leo?”
“I don’t know, Schaap,” Markham said. “I haven’t got that part figured out; could be spinning my wheels again.”
“I’m not saying—”
“But I know in my gut that it began with Rodriguez at the drag theater, and then somehow Guerrera got into the mix. It also began at the cemetery, the first murder site. Perhaps there’s something there I missed. Something that—”
Markham stopped, furrowed his brow for a moment, then suddenly bolted from the room—peeled off his rubber gloves and tossed them onto the floor as he dashed back into his office. He put on his Windbreaker.
“Where are you going?” Schaap asked, running after him.
“Back to the cemetery. Meantime, you begin with Leo. Dig up everything you can about the astrological sign and its origins, its history and its place in different cultures and whatnot.”
“The writing you mean?” Schaap asked. “Those cultures represented by the Arabic and the Egyptian and shit?”
“Yes. There’s got to be a link to the constellation there, as well as a possible link to the impalements.”
“But why are you going back to the cemetery?
“I think I missed something. Something so obvious I should be taken out back and shot.”
“What?”
“Another message,” Markham said.
And then he was gone.
Chapter 26
Now he was Edmund Lambert again.
He pulled his pickup into the Harriot Theater parking lot and turned off the ignition. He sat there for a long time just watching the rain drizzle down the windshield. He would need to watch the final dress rehearsal of Macbeth tonight; would also have to be there tomorrow night before the opening to make sure the trap was working smoothly. But then that was it. Finally, the General would be free again to conscript the next soldier into service—soldiers, he had to keep reminding himself. Yes, in order to balance the equation, he owed the Prince two of them.
That would make things 6:2—or 3:1, depending on how you wanted to look at it.
He had begun with the tattoo artist—the sinful sodomite named Canning. The General thought the Prince wanted him to be the first, for the sodomite named Canning had seen the last of the doorways with his own eyes, had even been allowed to touch it—to run his fingers over it and kiss it.
But on the night the General followed Canning to Angel’s, when the show began and the Spanish drag queen appeared on the stage looking so much like a lion, the General was overcome with a feeling similar to his anointing in Iraq; felt as if his whole body had collapsed into itself, just like the day on which he was officially chosen to become the Prince’s second in command.