The man grimaced but didn’t cry out. “Which one?” he replied with a grin.
Decker noticed the tips of his fingers. They were blank. The loops, arches and whorls of his prints have been chemically peeled. “I want to know who you’re working for.”
“I don’t know.”
Decker pressed the nerve endings again. The man let out a howl that didn’t sound human.
“I told you, I don’t know. He paid me remotely. I’m telling the truth. He always pays me remotely. The same client who ordered me to take out Unit 110 in Dandong and H2O2.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just business. I don’t want to know.” He stared down at his chest, at the way his leg was curled up underneath him. “I should have killed you in Dandong,” he continued, “when I first had the chance. But you weren’t on my list then. Now, look. You’ve killed me.”
“Business,” said Decker. He climbed to his feet. He pointed the gun down at the assassin’s blood-splattered face. “Just business!”
But the man didn’t say anything. He simply stared up at him with a blank look in his eyes.
Decker peered down the gun site. It was a four-inch Model 500. A big gun. With a magnum fifty caliber cartridge.
Still, the man didn’t stir.
Decker kicked him with the tip of his shoe. The assassin’s head lolled to the side.
“Fuck you,” Decker spat. “I didn’t say you could die on me.” Without warning, he emptied each chamber directly into his face, until there was nothing left but a hot pool of goo and pink skull fragments spilling out of his neck.
In the distance, police sirens wailed.
Decker reached into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet, knelt down, and stuffed it into the dead man’s jacket. Then he did the same thing with his cell phone and car keys. The assassin had a pair of Safariland Comp II Speed Loaders in his jacket which Decker stuffed into his pants as he climbed back to his feet.
They were about the same size and height, Decker estimated, looking down. The assassin and he. The same build. A matched pair.
They want you to just go away. Isn’t that what Hellard had told him? Of course, it wouldn’t give him much time. A day, perhaps. But by exchanging his ID with the blond man, everyone would believe Decker was dead, at least for a little while, and he could move about without scrutiny.
As Decker slipped his house keys into the assassin’s jacket, something caught his attention. Something was glowing on the headless man’s wrist. At first, Decker thought that it might be a watch. But when he rolled up his sleeve, he saw that it was no ordinary machine. At least, not on the outside.
“What the…” Decker said under his breath.
The glow was coming directly out of his skin. It was as if he had some kind of monitor about three inches long buried directly under the flesh, mounted on the inside of his forearm between the elbow and wrist. The screen was displaying what appeared to be a satellite image of the area, although most of Georgetown was obscured by the clouds.
Decker knelt down by the dead man to get a better view of the strange electronic device buried just under his skin. He pressed it. The material was soft, just like skin. Then the image started to flicker. Seconds later, the picture faded from sight. The image was gone, and the skin appeared normal again.
The police sirens wailed closer. They were only a few blocks away now.
Decker climbed to his feet. There was no time to lose. He would need to find a new car. He was tired and it was a long drive to Boston.
PART II
CHAPTER 23
I remember when it all started. It was at Tommy and Mary-Lou’s Christmas party. Susan was flying somewhere over the weekend so they’d decided to hold the party mid-week. My neighbors and friends were all milling about, chatting and laughing, and nibbling on salsa and chips. My wife sat beside me, dressed in a bold floral print, like a walking Georgia O’Keefe, with splashes of violet and pink. This was two days before I put two holes in her chest.
We were sitting in Tommy’s sunken living room on one of his overstuffed ottomans, enjoying some eggnog. Bing Crosby was crooning “White Christmas” when Susan’s friend Derek mentioned another neighbor named Teddy who hadn’t been able to make it. Out of sorts, Derek said, and depressed. Unable to get out of bed. Susan insisted it must be some sort of virus. She’d heard of others not feeling well too.
When Derek suggested it was something in the water, some chemical agent intentionally put there by a secret government agency, everyone laughed. Derek was a notorious conspiracy theorist.
Everyone looked over at me then. They’d often wondered what I did for a living. They knew that I worked for the government, a researcher/analyst type. Some kind of egghead.
Just then, a young boy in pajamas appeared in the hallway. Tommy’s six year old son. He was crying and rubbing his eyes.
Mary-Lou jumped up to console him. “A monster,” the boy said to his mother. “He came through the wall. It just kinda… opened up,” he explained, “and this strange man appeared.”
“A monster or a man?” asked his father.
“A monster who looked like a man.”
Mary-Lou ushered the boy from the living room.
“Third nightmare this week,” said his father, re-filling his glass at the punch bowl. “We don’t know what to do with him.”
Soon, the party broke up. My wife and I walked back to our house. It had grown chilly and I slipped my arm around her waist, drawing her close. The neighborhood was sparkling with Christmas lights. Blues, greens and reds. The saguaro on fire. It was a magical sight.
When we got near our lot, I turned toward my wife without warning, swept up by the eggnog, I guess, and the evening. I just leaned down and kissed her.
At first, she recoiled, without thinking. Then, she kissed me right back, all too passionately, with that little moan at the base of her throat. The way that she did when she was really excited. Like the purr of a cat.
I should have known then, I suppose, when I kissed her, that something was wrong. She’d been distant for weeks, withdrawn and depressed. Was she sick, just like Teddy, out of sorts? Was she having a sordid affair? I should have known then but I didn’t. How could I?
“Don’t, honey,” she told me, finally pulling away. “The sitter may see us.”
She paused and stared up at me with that look in her eyes. Her eyes. They were dead.
Like the eyes of a doll.
CHAPTER 24
Lulu whipped around the corner of the parking garage and squealed to a stop in her spot. Slipping out of her Ford Fusion Hybrid, a silver coffee mug in one hand, she reached into the back seat with the other and pulled out a green Whole Foods shopping bag full of papers and folders and books. It was heavy, and she struggled for a moment before kicking the door closed and making her way toward the elevator.
One of the lights by the exit door had burned out. Lulu stopped for a moment to tap it with the top of her mug. The bulb flickered and blinked, popping on as the elevator finally arrived. She was about to step in when she noticed a movement beside her and a man materialized at her side.