It was icy cold. Windy. Down below he saw a pond and a collection of ducks seeking shelter from the wind under a bridge, feeding calmly in the midst of a herd of black Angus. As he flew overhead, the ducks wisely waddled toward the bridge's center, instinctively warned of a sudden, approaching danger. He admired the lessons to be learned from hawk and ducks. He felt some affinity for birds, as he did for fish.
He let himself almost play her out of juice and then he headed for an open field near a place he'd seen a ways back. The field was beside a highway that adjoined a county road, and he'd seen the pumps out in front of a small service station. He found the field and it was long and open so he allowed himself the luxury of a gentle and hawklike landing approach, letting the ultra-light ease itself down closer and closer to the soil until finally, bump, the wheels gently touched and he eased her on down, taxiing perfectly across the fairly level ground.
He took a small container and unstrapped himself, extricating his six-feet-plus from the leather bucket seat and killing her engine. He glanced at his watch as he sprinted across the road to the gas station. Helped himself to one of the regular pumps. Exchanged a few faked amenities with some moron who came out to investigate the stranger helping himself to the full-service-aisle gas, paid for his fuel, and was back filling her tank, adding quicksilver, which she preferred to oil, and checking his autopilot.
He had devised the autopilot himself. Sometime, he was concerned, the feelings might hit him while he was aloft. The few times he'd felt anything he'd been able to control it and nothing had ever happened, but he knew how unpredictable and how sudden the feelings could hit. When they came over him he wanted to make sure he would not overcontrol his ultra-light and stall her before he could check himself, and he'd devised an autopilot by utilizing a common bungee thing he'd bought at a K-Mart for sixty-nine cents—and what started life as a tie-down strap ended up as a sophisticated autopilot. He was always inventing things. It was second nature for him.
He had an automatic starter but he preferred to “prop” her by hand, enjoying the added intimacy as he held the wooden propeller running his fingers over the beautifully formed surfaces, sliding his hand down along her and remembering the time she'd playfully bitten him. An oafish mechanic was in her bucket and she had chastized him for letting a stranger touch her like that, when he'd made contact—just as he'd propped her, the idiot had shifted his weight momentarily, lifting his butt from the bucket, and she'd angrily nosed forward two inches, biting him deeply on a finger, her wooden tooth sinking down to the bone to let him know she did not approve.
He got back into her, buckled the belt across him, and sorted through a large container of maps in the leather pouch fastened beside him; Farmer's Branch, Carrolton, Richardson, Mesquite, he found the one he was looking for and put it in place by the control surface, fastening it there with alligator clips. He knew he'd find the woman's home from the air as easily as you'd find it in your car. He prided himself on the unerring accuracy of his personal gyro. He pulled the ski mask back on, making a mental note to remove it and put it away BEFORE he landed. No point in suggesting any sinister images.
He touched a few controls, changed the mixture, choked her slightly then ran her all the way up to her roaring, wide-open maximum. He had changed her from a 40 to a 60 horse when he first bought her, and added various refinements, and within a couple of seconds he had her already trying to get her sleek nose up and then—zzzzoooooommmmmm—he let her loose and she lifted up, clearing the tree line and the power lines easily, and his foot moved slightly and she changed her course and soon the open fields gave way to suburbs and tract home rooftops and then to the subtle and then not so subtle look of North Dallas, and Highland Park, and sculptured, huge lawns, and, reminding him of River Oaks, a plethora of blue concrete in the backyards-pools, every size and shape—and then before long banking over some homes where he imagined the woman lived and flying in a low strafe over the big houses, and her little stick figure visible below as she came outside, running slowly from the house and waving at him, and he put on his public face and gritted his teeth for another confrontation and dropped down over the lines and into her yard, almost instantly killing the power as he rolled to a noisy stop a few feet from her.
“Hi,” he could hear her say, and he smiled as he unbuckled and ducked under the low wing.
“Did I scare you?” She was visibly shaken.
“Yeah—a little,” she lied. “My God, I thought you were going to hit me, I mean you know, you were coming right at me—"
That's kind of an optical illusion. No. I wasn't anywhere near you, actually. It's sort of like parking a car, it's rather intimidating but once you get the feel et cetera. No big deal. So. Isn't she pretty?” He looked at her as he gestured to the plane, implying that he thought she was pretty or so she wanted to believe.
Joe had moved out of the hotel on Turtle Creek, moving near the woman. Allowing her to think it was her idea, letting her find him a suitable rental, taking it through another name for security they agreed and that being done through a blind corporation title sometimes utilized for such purposes by Jones-Seleska. He had shown her how they might carefully make their way to the new “hideaway” and enjoy each other's company free from the prying, inquisitive eyes of media and police.
He cannot take much more of this woman, although she is physically attractive. He functions heterosexually by evoking certain images, but there is no great thrill for him, for example, in the magic erogenous zone of fatty tissue on the female pubic symphysis. He is excited by darker lusts.
In his mind he belongs to another time. He often fantasizes about ancient times. When inventive people killed by means of a strappado machine. He vows that he will one day do likewise as time and circumstances permit. His joys are in the suffering and extinguishing of human lives. He luxuriates in the anguish of others.
He dreamed last night of a variant of the strappado and he willed himself to remember the design upon awakening. During the dream he considered “picturing,” which is what he calls the process by which he takes his weak and cringing brother to the neural pathway for a bit of mental-torture fun and games. He loves to hear his brother's pathetic scream. He always has. But for the time being he must exercise a degree of restraint.
As long as he has memory—age three, he thinks—he has controlled the destiny of his weaker twin. By “picturing,” by allowing his mind to penetrate through to the other half of his being, he is able to send whatever imagery pleases him. He can take control of William Hackabee's mind effortlessly, holding it in his grasp for as long as he chooses, making his sniveling, brother Bill experience the most exquisite tortures and humiliations.
Several years ago Joseph Hackabee let himself experiment with his lifelong fantasy: that of actually taking a human life and getting away with it. For a number of years he killed sparingly. But then the feelings the hot desires the overpowering needs for the act of random murder began to assail him at every turn. He made a plan and began to lay groundwork for a plausible scapegoat: his loathsome and weak sibling.
By surreptitiously inserting himself into the Dallas—Fort Worth area he was able to carefully structure a plan of grave sites and underwater locations where he could hide some of the dozens of victims. Others, he would show in the “picturing,” and then he would create an irresistible scenario into which Bill could then be placed. He knew his other half inside out. Knew that Bill could never extricate himself. And he would find the lure of notoriety impossible to resist.