Lucian and Marsha appearing on the stairs. And, behind them, shy and wide-eyed, a college friend of Marsha's, who'd just shown up that afternoon, unannounced and unexpected, but welcome. And his name?
Isaac.
Could anything be more perfect, more of a sign from on high? But where is the ram for the sacrifice, father? The Lord will provide the ram for the sacrifice, my son, my beloved Isaac.
Gone now, all of them. Unforgettable, all of them, but replaceable, every one of them. Consider the knife. He'd loved that knife, loved the reassuring presence of it on his hip, the feel of it in his hand. It's gone- but now he has a better one!
He reaches into his open shirt collar, remembering the feel of the disc of rhodochrosite, remembering too the clarity it had provided. But one can absorb and internalize an amulet, he has come to realize. The rhodochrosite is gone, left behind in a city he need never return to, but the clarity it provided will be a part of him forever. He could get another amulet of the same mineral, it's neither rare nor costly, but, you see, he doesn't need to.
He draws out the stone he is wearing now, a crystal, almost colorless at its point, a deep purple at its broken end. He holds it, and feels its power.
He sits at the desk, boots up his computer, gets on-line. He liked the other computer better, liked the larger keyboard, liked his New York Night screensaver. This machine's a laptop, and he doesn't need a screensaver. He shuts it down entirely when he's not using it. He's less fond of it in many respects than his desk model, but he must admit it suits his lifestyle. When he's ready to put down roots again, that will be time enough to get a desk model computer.
And he'll be careful what he leaves on its desktop, too.
The cheery voice welcomes him, but does not tell him he has mail. He's just opened this account, and there's no one who knows of it, no one to send him mail.
He goes straight to alt.crime.serialkillers.
And catches up on the new posts in the several current threads centering on the late and variously lamented Adam Breit. Here again, he thinks, you can see the glass half empty or half full. On the one hand, Adam Breit is dead; on the other, Adam Breit lives!
Breit lives, indeed, as he had never lived before. Adam Breit has made a name for himself, a name with a long line of notches carved next to it. As he reads the new messages, he shakes his head at some of the comments. There are people out there who would credit Adam Breit with every dead massage-parlor whore from Maine to California, others who are sure he was personally acquainted with John Wayne Gacy. And, here and on the several Web sites devoted to Breit, there's a certain amount of speculation that Breit might somehow have survived, that the body burned beyond recognition might not be his, that he might have escaped to kill again.
Idiots.
Adam Breit is dead. Adam Breit will live on in memory, in legend, but in the flesh he has gone out in a blaze of glory, not unlike Jim Bowie at the Alamo. Another great knife-fighter, gone to his reward.
He won't be back.
Alvin Benjamin, on the other hand, is very much alive. Of course no one has heard of him.
But they will…
His fingers find his new amulet, and he caresses the stone. The mineral is quartz, and its color marks it as the variety known as amethyst.
For immortality.
About the Author
The prolific author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of American Grand Master, a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, and the recipient of literary prizes from France, Germany, and Japan. Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.
