Dexter Is Dead (12 page)

“Brian,” I said. “You don’t have any intention of trying to get away, do you?”

He showed me a great many of his teeth. They gleamed oddly in the darkness. “Why, no, I don’t,” he said happily. “What would be the point? They’d find me eventually.”

“But that’s insane!” I protested. “You can’t possibly believe that you can take out an entire cartel!”

“Not by myself,” he said sweetly. And he very wisely said no more, and cast no Significant Glances at me.

“Shit,” I said, and I meant it.

“Quite possibly,” Brian said.

“How in hell could you possibly eliminate dozens of armed, crazed
drogas
?”

Brian smiled modestly. “One at a time,” he said. “Raul is the only really hard one to get to. And as I said, he will show up to be in at the finish.”

“Shit,” I said again, quite aware that I was repeating myself, but unable to think of a better summation.

“I admit it’s challenging,” Brian said. “But with a little help—I mean, you know, the
right
help…” He sighed and shook his head. “Octavio was very handy in some situations, and he had
some
skill with a knife—”

“Apparently,” I said.

“But he was basically an accountant. This would have been far beyond him.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s beyond me, too,” I said.

“Oh, no, not at all!” Brian insisted. “It’s absolutely made to order! Aside from the gifts we share, you know about the law and cops and how they react. And you know a great deal more that may be important. As you have just demonstrated with my credit card?”

He leaned toward me and lowered his voice, as if afraid that Octavio might overhear us from his snug nest in the back of the van. “And in addition to all that, dear brother,” he said, with silky suggestiveness, “we could finally do something
together
. More than one something…”

I looked away. I knew that Brian had always wanted to play, him and me together, working in unison on the one thing we both liked and needed to do above all else. And quite honestly, the idea was not totally unattractive to me, either. It seemed like the closest I could ever hope to come to sharing a
human
experience with another living creature. That was a little ironic, of course, considering what that experience would be, but even so…

But no, it was madness to think about it. In my present circumstances I couldn’t even leave town. I was watched, maybe even tailed occasionally, and Brian wanted me to join him in a full-blown bloodbath. Worse than that, I was now involved whether I wanted to be or not. So if I wanted to stay alive—and I thought I just might—I had no choice but to go along with Brian. And if I wanted to stay out of jail—and I was quite certain I did—I had to help Brian create and dispose of dead bodies. At very best, this would clearly violate Kraunauer’s instructions to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble. At worst, it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Brian,” I said at last.

“I know,” he said. “As I said, I ask a great deal.” He turned to me, and for the very first time I thought I saw genuine enthusiasm, even warmth on his face. “But
think
of it, brother!” he said. “What a glorious undertaking! You and me against the world, into the fray side by side, guns blazing and hearts singing!” He smiled modestly. “Or if not actual hearts—”

“Yes, I get the picture,” I said, and somehow I still failed to catch his enthusiasm. In fact, I was rather sour on the whole thing. “But you have to understand the trouble I’m already in, Brian.”

“Well, yes,” he said. “But doesn’t that just add spice?”

“It does not,” I said firmly. “What it adds is lethal uncertainty. I am very likely to be back in jail at some point.”

“But surely Frank Kraunauer—”

“Frank Kraunauer is hardly a sure thing,” I said. “He himself has said not to be too optimistic.”

“I’m sure he’s just being cautious,” he said.

“Caution is an excellent choice,” I said. “I am pursued, hounded, and even chivied by the mangy curs of justice, and you want me to go with you to wade in rivers of blood?”

“I would hope not actually
in
the blood,” he said with distaste.

“It’s impossible, Brian,” I said. “I can’t possibly risk it.”

“You can’t possibly avoid it,” he said.

I looked at him. He was very serious now, no fake smiles, phony sighs, or second-rate histrionics of any kind.

“Quite seriously, brother,” he said, “they have shown some skill at locating people, and they have your name.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid your choice is rather simple: Go hunting—or be hunted.”

I clenched my teeth and looked out through the windshield. In the full darkness of this night, the water of the old quarry still gleamed. But in the greater Darkness that surrounded Dexter, there was not even a single tiny pinpoint patch of brightness. Brian was quite right. Whatever I might wish, I was in this thing with him, and my only choice was exactly what he said it was: hunt or be hunted.

“Shit,” I said one last time.

Brian nodded with a nearly convincing show of sympathy. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said.

I watched the water of the quarry. It wasn’t doing anything. For that matter, neither was I. I was in a hole every bit as deep as the quarry. Only a few hours ago I had been filled with grim optimism at the prospect of being free at last—free to guarantee my continued freedom by building a case for my innocence along with Anderson’s and Robert’s guilt. I was
doing
something, and it was something I was
good
at: finding things with a computer and sniffing out assorted naughtiness. I had finally managed to move the game back to my table, where I knew the rules and the odds, and I had stupidly allowed myself to see just one tiny glimmer of light at the end of the long dark tunnel. And then with a terrible self-satisfied smirk, Life had come breezing in and blown out all the candles again.

If Raul didn’t get me, I’d be back in jail. Death or Durance, it didn’t seem to make much difference. And quite honestly, Death looked a little more likely at the moment. I couldn’t even hide properly—I was forbidden to leave town, which meant my investigation was hamstrung before I started. I couldn’t go to Mexico or L.A. to find evidence against Robert. And Brian just sat there with a stupid smile on his face when
he
had dropped me into this mess, and
he
could stroll out of town at will, even flee the country if he wanted to, leaving me behind to twiddle my thumbs and wait for the ax to fall.
He
could go anywhere, and—

Aha.

“Brian,” I said.

He looked at me with polite inquiry. “Yes?” he said.

“You know I need to work on my own problems,” I said.

He nodded. “You may have mentioned it.”

“If I help you with this,” I said, “will you help me?”

“Of course!” he said. Then he frowned. “Ah—what kind of help, brother?”

“I need some answers I can only get in L.A. Maybe Mexico. But I can’t leave town,” I said. “You can.”

Brian nodded. “A trip to L.A.? A delightful town filled with kindred spirits. I’d be happy to go.” He frowned and hesitantly added, “Um, Mexico might be a little…awkward?”

I sighed. Didn’t someone once say that every stumbling block is really a stepping-stone? Whoever had said it, if I had them here right now, I would crack them on the head with their stepping-stone and put them in the quarry with Octavio.

“We’ll do what we can,” I said.

Brian nodded, cheerful again. “Perhaps even more,” he said.

B
rian had two storm anchors in the back of his van. We wired Octavio to one and his new friend to the other, and muscled them both into the water of the quarry. They sank quickly, leaving not even a ripple to show where they had been, and I tried very hard not to see that as a metaphor for my life at the moment. It didn’t work. All I could see was the sad Detritus of Dexter sinking into the dark abyss, cold and murky water closing over my head, leaving no trace at all of the wonder that had been Me.

All the way back to U.S. 1, Brian kept up a polite stream of inconsequential chatter. I responded with monosyllables, for the most part. There didn’t seem to be a single ray of hope for me anywhere. Either I would be yanked off the streets and flung in a cell again or, if I was really lucky, I would merely be chopped and shredded by Raul’s men. The odds against my coming out the far end of this long dark tunnel were so monumental that I was more likely to grow wings and learn to grant wishes. Once again, saddest of all, I found that all my bitter thoughts led to the same place, the tragically mundane refrain of
Why Me?
It took away any possibility of finding nobility in my suffering. I was just another poor schlub caught up in something he could not control. Dexter’s Dilemma—and the most pathetic part of it all was that it was identical with what is generally known as the Human Condition. Me: reduced to mere Humanity. It wasn’t even worth one of my high-quality synthetic mocking laughs, not even to rub Brian’s nose in the fact that I did it much better than he did.

We drove back to the doughnut shop where I’d left my car, idling past once on U.S. 1 while we looked for any sign of untoward activity, Legal or Otherwise, around my car. There was no sign of anything: no police cruiser or unmarked car, and as far as we could see, there was no conga line of swarthy killers with machine guns, either.

Just to be safe, Brian drove around the block and approached the parking lot from the rear. He pulled up on the street, in the shadow of a large old banyan tree, and put the van in park. For a moment we both sat silently. I don’t know what Brian was thinking, but I was still scrabbling across the rough tundra of my brainscape, looking for a way out of the unfolding unending hopelessness of being Me nowadays. As far as I could see, there wasn’t one.

“Well,” Brian said eventually.

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose so.”

“Cheer up, brother,” he said. “Keep smiling.”

“What on earth for?”

He smiled. “It confuses people?” he said.

I sighed. “I’m afraid it’s beyond me at the moment,” I said. I opened the door. “I’ll find another hotel and let you know where I am.”

“By phone?” he said, sounding rather anxious. “I mean—I suppose the business with the credit card has made me overcautious, but—”

“You’re right,” I said, mentally kicking myself; I should have thought of that. “Let’s meet here, at the doughnut shop, for breakfast.”

“A wonderful thought,” Brian said. “I do like fresh doughnuts.”

“Eight o’clock?” I said, and he nodded. “All right, then.” I jumped down out of the van and Brian put it into gear.

“Good night,” he said as I reached to close the door. It was a wonderful sentiment, but it seemed unlikely, so I just nodded and trudged over to my rental car.

I found a small and anonymous motel just south of Goulds, a little north of Homestead. It was an old-style one-story hotel, clearly built in the fifties to accommodate weary Northerners as they rested from motoring down the old Dixie Highway and exploring the wonders of Florida. The place was run by a mom and pop who really should have retired no later than 1963. They seemed surprised and a little put out that somebody would interrupt their TV viewing by asking for a room, but I showed them cash, and after a certain amount of grumbling, they gave me a key and pointed away toward the left wing.

My room was halfway down a row of identically tatty doors with peeling paint and missing numerals. The inside was no better; it smelled like mothballs and mildew and was nearly as tiny as my cell had been. But I hoped that the place was small enough to be off the grid somewhat. And the proprietors had shown no sign of any technical savvy beyond changing channels on their old TV set—and not even with a remote control—so perhaps they would simply pocket my cash without leaving any trace on the information grid.

I locked the door and secured it with the rusty chain that hung there, and then walked over to the bed and looked it over. A large part of the mothball smell seemed to be coming from the bedspread, and the two pillows were so flat I thought they might just be empty pillowcases. I put one hand on the mattress and felt it. It offered all the firm support of a bag of fresh marshmallows. But it was a bed, and I was suddenly very tired.

I flopped onto the bed—a little too energetically, as it turned out. It was apparently a few years older than my hosts, and it did not merely sag; I actually felt my back touch the floor. Then it moved a few inches upward again, leaving me in a half-folded position that was already starting to give me back pain. The mattress in my other hotel room had been bad enough; this one was far worse, enough to make me nostalgic for the nice hard shelf they’d let me sleep on in jail.

I turned and twisted and finally found a position that was not actually painful, though it was very far from comfy. So much to do, and so many distractions. Was it really only this morning that I woke up in a cell? It seemed impossible—so much had happened since that it seemed like another lifetime. But it was true; mere hours ago I had been blinking in the sunlight, thrilled at my reentry into a world with fewer steel bars. And I spent most of the day convinced that nothing in the world could possibly be worse than going back to jail—until my brother had very thoughtfully provided a couple of new options that were far, far worse.

But I still had to keep myself free. I pushed my brain away from contemplating the hordes of savage drug-crazed assassins who were no doubt sniffing my trail, and I forced myself to think about my real agenda, keeping Dexter out of jail and, if possible, putting Anderson in.

Let’s see; I had just decided on independent action. I needed to find some proof that…what was it again? I was distracted by an enormous yawn that seemed to take over my entire body. Proof—I needed to show that Robert was a pedophile, and Anderson had played games with evidence. I remembered that I had decided my first step was to talk to Vince, ask him to help me gather some stuff that—Another enormous yawn. Something about Anderson being a bad guy or something, that was it. Good old Vince. Bad old Anderson.

I felt a third yawn coming on, and I could tell that this one would leave the other two far behind in the dust. It felt so powerful, overwhelming, gigantic that I was afraid it might actually crack me in half, and I fought against it for a few valiant seconds, and then…

The sun was doing its very best to break through the tattered mildew-smelling curtains when I opened my eyes. Somehow it had turned into morning—and an obnoxiously bright and cheerful one, too, just to rub salt in all my psychic wounds. It’s very hard to maintain a properly grumpy perspective when the sun is beaming down from a cloudless sky, and the voice of the turtle is so clearly warming up in the wings. But I tried; I lay there unmoving for a while, wondering if it was even worth getting out of bed. If I did, some new and awful disaster would almost certainly leap out of the closet and wrestle me to the floor. And the floor did not look terribly inviting—yellowed, peeling linoleum that had probably been put down to celebrate Eisenhower’s inauguration.

On the other hand, if I just lay here on my marshmallow mattress, all the other wicked and unwarranted beasties pursuing me would eventually catch up. Not really a terribly enticing choice either way.

So I lay on my back on the horribly soft bed and avoided making the choice. It was nearly comfortable, even though my knees were surprisingly close to my head. Sometime in the night, my body had curved into the shape of the letter “U,” as the bed yielded around me. It wasn’t so bad, almost the same position as lying in a hammock, and I’d never heard a sailor complain about that. Of course, I did not ordinarily hang out with sailors—but surely some word would have trickled out.

I lay there, and I thought grumpy thoughts that were only partly generated by my waking up so recently. I grumbled, and it might even be said that I pouted. But eventually a small but potent voice sounded in the depths of my very being, that tiny nagging whisper that has so often guided me, the righteous glowing arrow that always points my way, lights my footsteps, and sends me down the right path, no matter what. There is no denying this Voice when it speaks, for it is never wrong and never out of order. It spoke to me now, softly but insistently, and what it said was,
I’m hungry
.

And once again, I realized that it spoke the truth. I was hungry. Very hungry, in fact. I am blessed with a total lack of conscience, but my keen sense of hunger takes its place quite ably and keeps my feet on the proper trail. And with a jolt of guilt that very nearly approached panic, I realized I’d had no dinner. What had I been thinking? There was no excuse for such rash and careless behavior. Shame on Dexter.

With that clarion call of duty ringing in my ears, I remembered that I had said I would meet Brian for breakfast. I glanced at my watch: seven-fifteen. I had plenty of time—but on the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to get there early and get a head start on the doughnuts.

I sat up—or to be accurate, I tried to sit up. The bed had wrapped its soft and spongy tendrils around me and locked me into a kind of death grip and it would not let go. I struggled, I fought, I rolled to one side—and the edge of the bed completely collapsed under me and dumped me onto the floor. I landed badly, hitting my left elbow and right knee. And even as I felt a new pain blooming in my elbow, I could not help noticing that the floor was wonderfully firm. Perhaps I could sleep here tonight.

I pushed myself up carefully into a sitting position. That hurt even more. Between the unaccustomed exercise of the day before and the dreadful clutch of the bed, there was nothing left of my back but a vast area of numbness and pain. I tried stretching, twisting from side to side, and after only a few minutes I was somehow able to stagger to my feet and totter to the bathroom. I was quite sure that if I could only get a nice hot stream of water pouring onto my back, my spine would loosen up and return me to something that approached functioning.

And it may well be that I was right. Sadly, we will never know, because the ancient showerhead in the bathroom put out only a thin trickle of rust-tinted water, none of it warmer than room temperature. Nevertheless, I clenched my teeth and stood under it as long as I could, and if nothing else it did wake me up and put me in a proper mood to face what was certain to be a truly awful day.

I climbed out of the shower and stood there dripping, looking around for a towel. I finally found one—but only one—and it was about the size of a large washcloth. I did my best to dry off anyway, more or less pushing the water off me and onto the floor.

I got dressed in a brand-new set of clothes: underwear and socks right out of the package, jeans still stiff and smelling like…well, like new jeans, I suppose. I topped this chic ensemble with one of Walmart’s finest and most fashionable guayaberas, and I was ready for anything.

Just to show that things were finally going my way, my little red rental car was right where I’d left it, in the space closest to my room. Even better, the key still fit, and the car started right up with the first try. What a wonderful thing life can be when it puts a little effort into things.

I drove north on U.S. 1, and the morning traffic was already thick enough to make me wonder whether I would get there on time, let alone early. At 216th Street a large truckload of tomatoes had spilled out onto the road. Behind the truck where the load had spilled, a very big man with a shaved head was slugging it out with a shorter man who sported a black ponytail. It looked like the short man was winning. They stood up to their ankles in tomatoes, slinging punches with very bad intentions, and traffic slowed to a crawl, and then even less than a crawl.

I am not made out of stone; I understood full well that the spectacle was worth watching, even if it meant slowing and making several thousand people late for work while you watched and hoped both fighters would fall into the tomatoes before you crawled past. But it was precisely because I am not made of stone, and I felt very urgent hunger pangs clawing at my stomach, that I did something that can only be called a Classic Miami Move. I twisted the steering wheel, fought my way over to the shoulder, and with two wheels completely off the road, I drove the half block to the closest cross street.

Several angry horn blasts followed me, but I ignored them. It would have been more proper, or at least in keeping with tradition, to extend my middle finger, but I kept to the high ground, maintaining my poise and returning only a lofty sneer. After all, I learned to drive here. I know my rights.

I worked my way a half mile north on side streets and then turned back up onto U.S. 1. The traffic was much lighter now, since the flow had been so thoroughly choked off at the scene of Tomatopalooza. I pulled into the lot and parked at the doughnut shop thirteen minutes early. There was no sign of Brian, so I collected a large coffee, a bear claw, and a cruller, took a booth at the back, and sat facing the door.

I had disposed of the cruller and half of the bear claw when Brian came in. He looked around, careful but nonchalant, and then bought himself a large coffee and two cream-filled doughnuts with brightly colored sprinkles on top. He slid into the booth facing me and took a large bite. “Mmm,” he said.

“Yes, but really, Brian,” I said. “Sprinkles? Are you already in your second childhood?”

He smiled, revealing a row of teeth bedecked with cream filling and rainbow-colored sprinkles. “Why not?” he said, his voice thick with doughnut. “I never actually got my first one.”