Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets (29 page)

“Just tell me what’s going on,” Dodge pleads.  “I got an army of five-oh on my tail.”

Jason sighs, pounds on some keys at his computer.  “Dude, it’s not good,” he tells him.

“Just tell me what
is going on,” Dodge snaps.

“Hooker,” Jason announces.  “Dead in a hotel room in Vegas.  Registered under your name.  Cops think it’s one in a series of murders.”

“What about DNA?” Dodge asks, nearly shouting.  “Do they have any DNA from the scene?”

“No DNA,” Jason tells him.

Dodge had that prostitute killed
f
or nothing.

No DNA.

N
o cyber trail.

No frame job.

Just a dead woman
.  In a hotel room in his name.

And three cops on his tail.

The whole world collapsing.

The universe imploding on itself.

He switches lanes, darts around a ca
r suddenly -
dramatically increasing the distance between him and the police.  He watches them scramble to catch up in his rearview mirror.  Their sirens aren’t on yet, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.

Until then, he’ll
create as much chaos as they can create order.

Every
minute he spends free now might be his last
free minute
.

It frightens him
– the idea
that he has an evil twin.

That the police cannot distinguish from him.

T
hat
his evil twin is only a slightly worse version of himself.

Not a polar opposite.

Just a slightly worse version.

Another quick lane change leaves the cops even further in the dust.

Dodge could do this all day.

He knows the patterns.

Knows the order traffic forms when there are no police; knows how it reacts when
the
cops do show up.

He knows that the police trying to
understand
everything that happened won’t work.

That they
don’t have any idea
w
hat really went down.

Yeah, he killed Dressler.

But that man was either fucking his wife, or fucking with his wife.

And t
he reality is,
Dressler deserved his fate in that moment, no matter what the law says.

Deserved to be hacked into two with a samur
ai sword.

And
Dodge’s infidelity.

It’s just
nature’s way.

Nature designed Jaime
, literally, to lure him into bed.

As
much as nature abhors a vacuum, what it really despises is
anyone ignoring it.

So, yeah, he screwed
Jaime.

And yes, he murdered Dressler.

And broke every rule.

Ev
ery rule that makes sense.

Don’t cheat.

Don’t kill.

Don’t lie.

But somewhere, deep down in his soul, Dodge knows
.

He can’t deny nature.

His nature.

Viewed through this lens, life becomes a lot simpler.

Not unlike navigating traffic on the Thruway.

Drive as fast as you want.

Use any lane you want.

Change lanes.

Let them try
to predict your actions.

Or even dictate them.

And think that they
are somehow closer to God than you.

Even now, chasing him up the
highway.

W
hen they put him away, for crimes he didn’t commit, the
real
killer will go free.

And all of their desire for
order will only create more chaos.

This would have resolved itself.

The human race will
go on.

Jaime seduce
s
Dodge.

Dressler kills Siobhan.

Dodge kills Dressler.

Jaime gets Dodge.

Chuck should have gotten
caught eventually.  He’s not that smart.

Dodge should have never have tried to make anything happen.

No one else would have died.

It
sounds brutal
.

But it’s just t
he history of the human race
- more stories for
the Bible.

And now, even as
the agents of
order
descend
on him,
evil
triumphs.

Chuck will go free, will go on killing.

When it’s Dodge who should
be free.

F
or now,
though,
all he can do is
evade the police.

Even as their sirens finally turn on, he feels himself pulling away from them, weaving wildly through traffic,
defying reason, defying order -
surfing
some random wave that will only occur this once in the constant pushing and pulling of
all of the
organisms in the universe.

Of which this is only some small, insignificant part.

One small, insignificant part Dodge failed to play.

And now, it will just clear him out of the way.

Like the traffic clears, and closes
,
behind him.

A fish in the sea.

Alligators in the rivers.

The primordial waters.

The bottom of the food chain.

The end of the line.

More cop cars swarm
around him.

T
his is t
he end of the line.

*****

Jaime collapses into the chair by the side of the pool, letti
ng her cocktail spill on her bare stomach -
her bikini, of course, not big enough to land even the idea of a drink on.

But without Dodge
here to see it,
the bikini feels useless.

The booze.

Useless.

Wondering if she can even
feel anything
again, she slurps on her cocktail,
stares at the empty pool, watches the waves spill over the edge.

Of
her pool.

On her deck.

By her
self.

At her mansion.

She’s about a bottle
deep when she sees Dodge suddenly walk
onto the pool deck. 

Then, of course, realizes it’s not Dodge
.

He’s probably
on his way to jail by now.

Not that she wants him to be.

He just is.

But at least they got married first.

No, it’s not Dodge.

It’s Chuck.

Grinning like some stupi
d idiot at her, like she
deserve
s
it.

While she drinks
her guilt away
. 

L
ike there’s no tomorro
w
,
on a deck she’s owned for only a day.

So, there she is.

Nine
tenths of the way to oblivion.