“He didn’t kidnap me, Dexter,” she said. “I went with him. He loves me.”
“Do you love him?”
She snorted. “Course not,” she said. “But he’s going to get me into movies.”
“He can’t do that from prison. Or if he’s dead,” I said.
“But he says we can get away!” she said. “We can hide from the cops!”
“And how will he get you into movies if he’s hiding from the cops?”
She put her lower lip between her teeth and frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. And I thought I might have convinced her at last.
“Astor,” I said. “Robert’s acting career is over. His life is over. And yours is, too, if you stay with him.” I wiggled closer to her and held my wrists up as far as I could. “Now untie me.”
Astor looked at me, and then turned and looked at the door. Then she looked back at me and shook her head. “I better not,” she said. “Robert might get mad.”
“Astor, for Christ’s sake!”
She put a hand across my mouth. “Shhh,” she said. “He’ll hear you.”
“I already did,” said a voice from the door, and Robert came into the room. He flipped the light switch beside the door and the ceiling light came on. It was a lot brighter than I remembered it, and I had to squint. So I didn’t see anything until Robert knelt down beside me, his head blocking the light. Then I could see, but I wished I couldn’t; Robert was carrying a very large butcher knife, and he looked like he knew what he wanted to do with it.
Robert studied me for a moment, head cocked to one side. Even in the glaring light of this room, his tan looked great, his skin seemed smooth and soft, and his teeth were still perfect as he peeled his lips back to give me a brief automatic smile. He hefted the knife and there was no doubt what he was thinking, but he was still the most unlikely executioner I could ever imagine. “You shouldn’t have come here, Dexter,” he said, rather sorrowfully, as if it was all my fault.
“You shouldn’t have killed Jackie,” I said.
He grimaced briefly. “Yeah, I hate that,” he said. “I just don’t have the stomach for it. But I had to,” he said, and he shrugged. “It gets a little easier each time.” He looked at me like he thought I would be easiest of all, and I could see I was running out of time. “Anyway,” he said, “I had a good reason. I did it for Astor.”
He turned and looked at her, and to his credit, if that is the right word, the look he gave her was either genuine abiding affection, or he was a much better actor than I’d thought. Astor looked back at him, but she didn’t look quite as smitten, and I thought I saw one small chance to save poor Dexter’s bacon.
“If you like Astor so much,” I said, “you never should have lied to her.”
Robert jerked his head back around to face me and frowned. “I didn’t lie to her,” he said. “I would never do that; I really love her. She knows that.” And he smiled at her again, putting the knife down on the floor beside him so he could take her hand reassuringly.
“You lied to her,” I said, and it was the only card I had to play, so I pushed it hard. “You told her you could get her in movies, and that’s a lie.”
“No,” he said, “I have a lot of connections and-”
“Your connections will run from you like the plague,” I said. “Just as soon as they find out you’re a lying, murdering pedophile.”
Robert turned bright red. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Nobody understands.”
“That’s right,” I said. “And the cops don’t understand, either, and they will make sure you go to jail for the rest of your life-if you’re lucky. We do have capital punishment in Florida, you know.”
He was shaking his head, faster and faster. “No, no way,” he said. “They’ll never catch me. I can get away.”
“How, Robert?” I said. “They’re already watching the airports, the docks, even the bus depot.”
“I have a car,” he said, almost like he hoped that was worth something.
“And if you use your credit card to buy gas, they’ll know it. They’re going to get you, Robert. You snatched a little girl, and they are coming for you, and they will never, ever stop until they get you.”
Robert bit his lip. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. “I can … I can bargain,” he said.
“You’ve got nothing to bargain with,” I said.
“I do,” he said. “I have a … a hostage.”
“A what?” I said.
“That’s right,” he said. “I can get a boat and make Cuba-I just need a head start. They’ll give me that if I give them Astor.”
Right beside Robert I saw Astor’s face change. She had been watching us like she was seeing a Ping-Pong match, head swiveling from Robert to me, while a frown slowly bloomed on her face. But when Robert said “give them Astor,” her face hardened into a mask of cold dark rage, and she aimed it right at Robert.
“Give them Astor? I thought you loved her,” I said.
He shook his head. “I can’t go to prison,” he said. “I know what they do to people like me.” His jaw moved from side to side, and he blew out a breath and repeated, “I can’t go to prison. I just can’t. I will do anything to stay out.” He leaned over me, blocking everything out of my sight except his perfectly tanned, far-too-handsome face, and he actually looked a little regretful. “So I’m really sorry,” he said. “But that means I have to, um, you know.” He sighed heavily. “Kill you. I’m really sorry, Dexter. Really. I like you. But I can’t take the chance that- Urkkh,” he said, and his eyes got very big. For a long moment he didn’t move and didn’t breathe, just knelt over me looking faintly surprised. Then he frowned and opened his mouth to say something. But instead of words, a great horrible gout of vile hot awful red blood came out and it splattered onto the floor and onto me, and even though I jerked my head to one side some of it dripped onto my face.…
And then Robert toppled over to one side and did not move, and behind him, snarling triumphantly down at him and holding a very bloody, very sharp knife-behind him in her little white silk negligee with its pale blue bow and a new set of bright red polka dots, was Astor.
“Stupid asshole,” she told him.
THIRTY-SIX
Astor used the knife to cut the ropes off my hands. It was just nylon clothesline and it parted easily, and in just a few seconds I was sitting up and rubbing at the nasty wet blood on my face. I felt unclean, soiled, and very close to panic until I untied my feet, too, and stumbled in to the sink to wash the awful stuff off. I looked in the mirror above the sink to make sure I’d gotten it all, and I saw a strange, uncertain face looking back at me.
Who are you now? I wondered. It was a good question, and I could not answer it. I had tried to be a new and different Dexter-tried and failed. I had seen what I thought was a wonderful, shiny new life, a place where luxury was common coin and everyone was beautiful and no possibility was out of reach. I had seen it, and I had wanted it, and I had even been invited in, and I had thought that in a place that shone so brightly, even love was possible-love, for someone like me, who had never felt any emotion stronger than irritation.
And I had looked around at my little perch, a tried-and-true place of proven safety, sanctified by years of experience and the Harry Code, and suddenly it had not been enough. So I had jumped feet-first off my perch, and I had landed in the bright and gleaming New World-only to find that the bright and shining place that looked so warm and solid was no more than thin and brittle ice that could never hold my weight. And it had shattered and dumped me in the frigid salt sea.
And when I had needed most of all to be the real me, Saint Dexter of the Knife, I had taken one standard, well-practiced step into the Dark Dance, and fallen off my plié. I had been tricked and trapped by a man so dull and hollow he was practically a hologram, and he would have finished me off if I had not been saved by an eleven-year-old girl.