Dexter was a clever guy, maybe not as clever as he thought he was, but still pretty smart, all things considered. He’d done some reading, and liked books on psychology. Dexter figured that if you were going to be dealing with people, then you should try to find out as much as possible about the general principles behind them. He particularly liked the abnormal stuff because, in his line of work, abnormal was what he dealt with on a day-to-day basis. He knew all about sociopaths and psychopaths and assorted other deviants, and had begun to categorize the freaks he had met according to his diagnosis of their particular abnormality.
But Willard…
Dexter hadn’t found a book that dealt with anything quite like Willard before. Willard was off the scale. In fact, Dexter wasn’t even sure that Willard was entirely human, although that wasn’t the kind of thing that he was about to say out loud in the company of Moloch or anybody else. But sometimes he found Willard staring at him, and when he looked into the kid’s eyes it was like falling into a void. Dexter figured that dying in space might feel something like seeing oneself reflected in Willard’s eyes: there was only nothingness masquerading as blackness. It wasn’t even hostile. It was just blank.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Moloch.
“Stuff.”
“Don’t you go giving too much away now.”
“Like I said, just stuff.”
Beside him, Leonie just stared silently at the passing cars.
“Willard stuff?” said Moloch.
“How’d you know that?”
“I was watching you. I saw you look in the mirror. Your face changed. I can read you like a book, Dex.”
“I don’t like him. I’ve never been anything but straight with you, and I’m telling you the truth of it now. He’s out there.”
“He’s been useful.”
“Yeah.”
“And loyal.”
“To you.”
“That’s all that matters.”
“With respect, man, you been in jail these past three years. Difficult to work with someone who don’t answer to anyone but a man in a prison suit.”
“But you managed it.”
“I got a lot of patience, and the Verso thing was a piece of luck.”
“Yes,” said Moloch. “I take it something is being done about him.”
“As we speak.”
“You should have gotten Willard to do it. He never liked Verso.”
“I never liked him either, but I didn’t dislike the man enough to sic Willard on him. You see what he did to the woman? He cut on her pretty bad.”
“Before or after?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Then I’m not planning on asking either.”
“Me, I figure before.”
“Is this conversation leading somewhere, Dexter?”
“Take a look at the newspaper. It’s somewhere back there.”
Moloch, seated in the semidarkness at the back of the van, checked among the boxes and drapes until he found the newspaper. Its front-page story detailed the discovery of four bodies in a house south of Broughton.
Four bodies-three male, one female-and two heads-one male, one female-in the refrigerator. One female body, minus a head, remained unaccounted for.
“It’s all over the TV too. Way I figure it, Willard was probably holed up there for a time. You can bet your last nickel that somebody saw him around there and pretty soon his face is going to be plastered right up there beside yours. He’s getting worse.”
In the darkness of the van, Dexter heard Moloch sigh regretfully.
“You’re saying he’s a liability.”
“Damn straight.”
“Then I must be a liability too.”
Dexter glanced back at him.
“You’re the reason we’re here. Willard ain’t.”
It was some minutes before Moloch spoke again from behind Dexter.
“Keep a close eye on him, but do nothing for now.”
Man, thought Dexter, I been keeping a close eye on him since the first time I met him.
Powell was dozing, and there was no conversation between Braun and Willard in the van behind. That suited Braun just fine. Unlike Dexter, the redheaded man didn’t have too much against Willard. He just figured him for another one of Moloch’s crazies, but that didn’t mean he wanted to talk to him more than was absolutely necessary. Of the five people who now accompanied Moloch north, Braun was probably the closest to being a regular guy. Although a killer, he, like Shepherd, did not favor unnecessary violence, and had willingly acceded to their request to watch the road while they disposed of the investigators. Braun was in it for the money: he was a good wheel man, a reliable operator. He stayed calm, even in the worst situations. Every group needed its Braun.
Braun just wanted his share of the cash. He figured that some people were going to get hurt in the process, but that was nothing to do with him. That was down to Moloch. Braun would quite happily have walked away without hurting anyone as long as the money was in his hand, but Leonie and Dexter and Willard and the others needed more than that. They liked a little action. He looked over at Willard, but the boy’s attention was elsewhere, his gaze fixed on the road. Braun didn’t mind the silence, just as he didn’t mind Willard.
Still, he patted the hilt of the knife that lay along the edge of his thigh, and felt a small surge of reassurance.
Braun didn’t mind Willard, but he sure as hell didn’t trust him either.
Braun was smarter than any of them.
Willard stared at the blacktop passing beneath them, and thought of the woman. It had taken her a long time to stop screaming after the man had died. She had tried to start the car, and had almost succeeded before Willard got to the window and broke it with the blade of the machete. When he took the car keys in his fingers and yanked them from the ignition, something faded in the woman’s eyes. It was the death of hope, and though she started pleading then, she knew it was all over.
Willard had shushed her.
“I ain’t going to hurt you,” he had told her. “I promise. Just you calm down now. I ain’t going to hurt you at all.”
The woman was crying, snot and tears dribbling down her chin. She was begging him, the words almost indistinguishable. Willard had shown her the machete then, had allowed her to see him tossing it away.
“Come on now,” he said. “See, you got nothing to be scared about.”
And she had wanted to believe him. She had wanted to believe him so badly that she allowed herself to do so, and she had permitted him to take her hand and help her from the car. He had turned her away from the remains of the man-“You don’t have to see that”-as he led her toward the house, but something about that gaping doorway, and the blackness within, had set her off again. She tried to run and Willard had to tackle her and take her down by holding on to her legs. He let her scream as he hauled her toward the house by the legs, her nails breaking as she tried to get a grip on the dirt. There was nobody to hear her. Willard cast a longing glance over at the machete lying in the grass. It was his favorite. He could always go back and get it later, he thought.
And he had lots of other toys inside.
Shepherd saw the pizza-delivery car first. The Saturn had a big plastic slice strapped to the roof, like a shark fin. Shepherd hoped the guy was making a lot in tips, because the job didn’t come with a whole heap of dignity. He started the van and pulled in alongside the kid as he retrieved the pizza boxes from the insulated bag on the backseat. He heard the back of the van open and pulled his ski mask down over his head. Seconds later, Tell, his face also concealed by a mask, forced the kid into the van at gunpoint. There were no other people in the parking lot of the motel.