The Closer (14 page)
Authors: Donn Cortez
But he knew he couldn’t do that. No, he would have to walk into that lodge himself—as their leader.
DJINN-X: I gotta say, RR—that’s some great shit you pulled the other day.
ROAD RAGE: Thank you.
DJINN-X: And that picture you posted, of the guy sitting in his SUV with his driver’s license nailed to his forehead—classic! That should have been on the front page of the newspaper!
ROAD RAGE: Yes, it did show a great deal of style, didn’t it? I was tempted to mail a copy to the media, but of course they’d never run it—though they did publish my manifesto.
DJINN-X: Is it hard to drive a nail into a guy’s skull?
ROAD RAGE: Not as hard as you’d think. I’d prefer a nail gun, but the logistics of hauling an air compressor around make that unworkable.
DJINN-X: Yeah, I’ll bet.
GOURMET: I have a suggestion. Cordless technology has dramatically improved in the last decade. I find the Black and Decker MT1203K-2 Multi-Tool to be extremely powerful and efficient. I use the jigsaw attachment to remove the top of the cranium, but there’s no reason you couldn’t drill a hole of the right diameter just as easily.
ROAD RAGE: Hmmm. Sounds a little messy.
DJINN-X: Not to mention unsatisfying. I mean, driving a nail into a guy’s skull—WHACK! WHACK!
WHACK!—that’s gotta be gratifying. Even a nail gun has that solid,
thunk! thunk!
feel to it. But a drill—that’s kinda sterile.
GOURMET: Efficiency has its own beauty.
ROAD RAGE: True. And ultimately, the message is more important than the medium….
A Few Simple Rules
By “Road Rage”
Power corrupts.
In today’s world, more and more power is concentrated in the hands of the individual. The only hope for primitive man to kill something as large as a woolly mammoth was to band together in a group; today, any cretin with an automatic weapon could destroy an entire herd.
But this isn’t an essay on gun control. It’s about a far more dangerous and pervasive weapon: the automobile.
Driving a car is having two thousand pounds of armored beast under your total control. A twitch of the wheel can wipe out a life, and let you be a hundred miles away from the crime an hour later. And how is this power restricted?
It’s not.
Society lets us drive cars before we can vote, have sex, drink alcohol, or join the armed forces. Our culture glorifies reckless driving in video games, movies, television. Driving infractions usually garner only fines, which are often simply ignored.
This is unacceptable.
Vehicles are weapons; and an armed society
must
be a polite society. Anything else leads to chaos.
The problem lies in the interaction between man and machine. A vehicle is not simply a method of transportation; it functions more as an actual extension of ourselves. It encases us like our skin, gives us information like our senses, moves us back or forward like our muscles. It eats, it needs a place to live, it has a voice. A man driving a car is not like a man on horseback; he’s more like a centaur. A blend of both, a mesh of metal and meat—a cyborg.
But a poorly designed one. One can imagine a herd of centaurs moving from place to place over well-established trails, the individuals moving at a gallop sticking to one trail, those moving at a trot to another; one can imagine a code of conduct, a certain caution around smaller and younger centaurs, a certain respect for the older ones. These are the simple rules that evolve in a civilized society with a large population.
But take those same creatures and cover them in armor that cuts them off from contact with each other. Increase their speed so that the slightest contact between them could cause both parties to go wildly out of control. Take away their language, so that the only method of communication left between them is the most basic of hand gestures, blinking lights and a horn. Cram them onto highways and try to make them act not like living creatures but parts of a machine: stop, go, turn left, turn right.
This system encourages the worst behaviors of man and machine. The creature that evolves is frustrated and overstressed, in control of tremendous power but forbidden to use it. Insulated from his fellow creatures but forced into close proximity with them, a herd of angry, armored beings thunders forward every day. It’s no wonder some of them go rogue.
And for the good of the herd, the rogues must be removed. Permanently.
From the Portland
Oregonian
, January 14:
RULES REDUCE RAGE
Are drivers in the Portland area becoming more polite—or just more afraid?
Whatever the reason, the number of reported violent incidents between drivers has dropped in the last two months by approximately thirty percent—ever since the publishing of the so-called “Road Rage Manifesto” by the
Oregonian.
Originally thought to be a hoax, the Manifesto was printed at the request of the police after certain details in the letter were verified.
“Our primary concern is in saving lives,” Chief Berenson said. “We saw nothing wrong in the letter being published—all it does is endorse common sense. If it had been inappropriate in some way our response would have been different. And so far, he’s kept his word—there haven’t been any more killings since it was printed.”
At least not until yesterday, when Peter New was discovered behind the wheel of his 1998 Ford Explorer.
Evidence at the scene, a police spokesperson said, confirmed it was the work of the same killer who’d struck five times before. Despite the falling number of con-
frontations between drivers, it seems local residents are still not living up to his standards.
Although the
Oregoniandoes not endorse his meth
ods, we are reprinting his demands in the interest of public safety:
1. ALWAYS signal lane changes.
2. If another driver is signaling to enter your lane, let them in.
3. Never tailgate.
4. Refrain from obscenities directed at other drivers, verbal or otherwise.
5. Slow down when you see a yellow light.
Five simple rules—hardly worth dying for.
DJINN-X: You disrespect a man’s wheels, you disrespect the man.
ROAD RAGE: Exactly. In many ways, your vehicle is you.
DJINN-X: I remember the first car I ever owned—a ’77 Rabbit. Not very powerful, but it got me around. Did great on gas, easy to park. I can still spot one from a mile away.
ROAD RAGE: Mine was a 1965 Chevy Malibu. Two-door, black. Six-cylinder engine, three-speed transmission.
DJINN-X: Nice car. I could never afford anything like that.
ROAD RAGE: The type of car you drive isn’t important. It’s how you conduct yourself behind the wheel.
DJINN-X: Yeah, I get that—but to people like us, vehicle type is definitely a consideration. I mean, not so much for you or me, ’cause we generally do our kills onsite—but what about someone like the Gourmet? He’s got to get his dinner back to the kitchen.
ROAD RAGE: I suppose. But wouldn’t anything with a trunk do?
DJINN-X: Not necessarily. Putting someone in a trunk means you risk being seen. Better to get them inside on their own, then you can control the situation. You don’t even need a lot of room—Ted Bundy used to do his kills in a Volkswagen Bug. Me, I prefer something with a little more room—I got an old white panel truck I picked up for cheap. White panel trucks are like fucking ghosts in any city, man—there’s so many nobody even sees them. Lots of room inside, easy to swamp out with a garden hose.
ROAD RAGE: I know what you mean. I drive a late- model white car myself—a Taurus, actually— largely because it fits in so well. Did you know that, statistically, white is the most common color among mid-size cars between five and ten years old?
DJINN-X: Yeah, it does seem they’re everywhere you look. But most people never actually
recognize
what they’re fucking looking at, do they? I mean, when I pick out a sheep, I study them—but they
never
see me. I’m just another fucking bike courier, in their office to pick up or drop off more bullshit paperwork. As far as they’re concerned, I’m nonexistent.
ROAD RAGE: No. You’re
invisible.
That’s completely different—it gives you power. It lets you move among them unseen.
DJINN-X: I guess.
ROAD RAGE: Don’t you know how strong that makes you? How exceptional? You, me, all the members of The Pack—we’re a breed apart. It’s true that others—coworkers, women, our families— don’t truly see us, but it’s because we’re above them, not below. We do what they can only dream about.
DJINN-X: But we can’t fucking
tell
them. Man, some days all I want to do is scream into the next bland face I see,“I could kill you without a second
thought,
motherfucker!” How do you deal?
ROAD RAGE: I find certain rituals help. I take a small object from my victim, something innocuous but personal, say, a key chain—and keep it in my pocket. When things get stressful, I just put my hand in my pocket. It reconnects me to the act; it reminds me of who I really am, not the person others think me to be.
DJINN-X: Yeah, but a trophy-buzz just gets me all pumped up, man. I’m more likely to just
do
the fucker than calm down.
ROAD RAGE: You have to learn to focus. Channel your anger. Kill them in your mind, where there are no consequences.
DJINN-X: And that works for you?
ROAD RAGE: Let me tell you a story. The last time I struck, I was late for work. I had gone straight from the kill to the office; I’m sure there were still traces of gunpowder on my hands.
My supervisor reprimanded me. Despite the fact that he’s a career civil servant with no interest in his job beyond one day collecting his pension, he still thought he could criticize me. I was still “pumped
up” from the kill; I felt like pulling the gun out of my pocket and shooting him on the spot.
But I didn’t. Instead, I made him beg for mercy.
I paraded him around the office and then out to the front counter to tell everyone what a pathetic excuse for a man he was. And
then
I blew his brains out.
But only in my imagination.
DJINN-X: Well, I guess if you can show that kind of selfcontrol right after a kill, I can, too. Thanks for the insight.
ROAD RAGE: Any time. Remember—The Pack Hunts
Together.
Jack surfed the web, hit news sites and searched archives. He read everything he could find on Road Rage’s crimes.
Police seemed to think he was an opportunistic killer—that he cruised around until a driver did something to anger him, then followed that person to their home. He didn’t kill them right away, though, waiting one or more days until the time was right. The media had identified the stretch of freeway most of his victims had frequented, but thousands of cars used it every day.
Jack knew the authorities must have decoy cars on the road, trying to lure the murderer into a trap—but he also thought he knew why the strategy wouldn’t work.
Road Rage’s online remarks indicated he was a civil servant. He could be using a government database to look up his victims’ license plates, might even work for the DMV itself. He didn’t have to follow his victims home; he could drop in on them any time he liked. Jack knew the police must have already considered the same theory—so Road Rage was obviously smart enough to use the system without being detected, or he’d already have been caught.
But Jack had information the police didn’t.
Road Rage had referred to a “front counter.” That suggested an agency that dealt with large numbers of people every day: Immigration, Social Security, the DMV. He could even work for the police in some capacity, though Jack doubted he was a cop.
Jack called up a map of the Portland area. There were government offices everywhere, of course—but if he encountered his victims on the freeway, he probably lived at one end of his trail and worked at the other. Road Rage was meticulous, methodical; Jack thought he probably drove the same route every day.
His first car had been a ’65 Malibu. First cars were usually hand-me-downs from parents or cheap pieces of junk; the Malibu would seem to fit the former. Assuming his parents gave him a ten-year-old car when he was sixteen, that would put Road Rage in his midforties.
A middle-aged civil servant, driving to and from work every day during rush hour in his white, late-model Taurus. Jack sighed and rubbed his temples.
It wasn’t enough; he needed more.
“The Pack hunts together,” he muttered. He didn’t know why. “The Pack, The Pack…”
He closed his eyes. Saw them, suddenly, as an actual pack of wolves. Road Rage was a sleek, white wolf with blazing red eyes; the Gourmet was a hulking gray beast with enormous, slavering jaws; the Patron was simply a black silhouette. Even Djinn-X was there, a four-legged ghost whose skeleton shone right through its skin.
And lurking at the edge of The Pack was Deathkiss. The new one. Tested, but not yet trusted.
Slowly, Jack smiled.
DJINN-X: We got trouble.
GOURMET: How so?
DJINN-X: You may have noticed Deathkiss hasn’t logged on in a few days. That’s because I’ve restricted his access while I checked a few things out—namely, that he may be a fake.
ROAD RAGE: I thought our verification system made that impossible.
DJINN-X: It does. Deathkiss was the real deal—or at least he was until the Closer got to him.
PATRON: Stanley Dupreiss.
Jack stopped, stared at the screen. The Patron hadn’t logged on since the exchange where Jack had posed as Dupreiss—at least not while Jack was online.
DJINN-X: Yeah. I didn’t put it together until started comparing Deathkiss’s kills with Dupreiss’s victims. The media is saying the Closer did Dupreiss, even though Deathkiss has been active since Dupreiss’s death. That means only one thing.
GOURMET: The Closer is posing as Deathkiss.
ROAD RAGE: He must have gotten the information from Dupreiss before he killed him.
DJINN-X: But he doesn’t know that we know. This is the perfect opportunity to get rid of the son of a bitch.
PATRON: Indeed. Do you have a plan?
DJINN-X: Yeah. We whack the motherfucker.
ROAD RAGE: Easier said than done.
GOURMET: Anonymity is our cornerstone. He knows that.
Suggesting a physical meeting will look suspicious.
PATRON: Not if the bait is irresistible.
DJINN-X: And that would be?
PATRON: All of us. All together in one location.
ROAD RAGE: Giving him the opportunity to eliminate the entire Pack in one blow. I doubt he could resist—but what if he does something crude? Using a bomb, for instance?
PATRON: He won’t. I’d like you all to look at something.