In Key West he would from time to time attend the drag queen shows on Duval Street, where he would nurse a Key West Sunset Ale and appreciate not merely the cabaret-style singing, Broadway dance numbers, and exotic outfits, but the fact that the shows displayed the ability of people to change who they were into something utterly different. Chameleons singing show tunes. I wonder if they would appreciate what I am about to put together.
Student #5 was driving a little too fast, heading to a half-dozen different hardware stores for containers-the same containers, at stores spread all over the valley he lived in. Cash each time. He also planned a trip to a Radio Shack for an old-fashioned tape cassette recorder. On the list he’d written, he’d scheduled a stop at Home Depot for electrical switches and wires, a large floor fan, cans of spray odor eraser, bungee cords, Velcro strips, and sixty-pound-test fishing line. All typical purchases for someone living in this rural area.
Student #5 was deeply concerned that he hadn’t left himself enough time to prepare, so he avoided conversation, even pleasantries, as he collected his items. He kept a baseball cap tugged down on his head, wore sunglasses. He didn’t have any real concern that a security camera might pick him up on video, but overpreparation was an important consideration. He didn’t want to forget a simple item that might derail what he had in mind.
At a wilderness store, he purchased a secondhand one-person kayak. It was orange and slid easily into the back of his truck with his other gear. At a hunting store, he obtained the cheapest-model shotgun he could-there was irony in his choice, he thought, because he wasn’t like Jeremy Hogan, purchasing a top-of-the-line gun that did the dead psychiatrist absolutely no good.
He made a plane reservation. He made a reservation with a rental car company-the company that advertised, “We’ll pick you up!”-and got their smallest vehicle, promising to drop it off at the airport.
Two thoughts plagued him:
How long before they arrive?
A different me must greet them at the door, and that different me will have to remain with them forever.
He knew the answer to the first was: soon. He was confident he had left enough disparate clues in Miami to get them to Western Massachusetts. They will put dropped license and baseball cap and area codes all together. The idea, he knew, had been to create fear-but the sort of fear one is inexorably drawn toward, not the sort that causes one to run away screaming.
You show someone a door and invite them inside. This was basic psychology. Compulsion.
He was counting on Timothy Warner’s inability to stop when he got near. Think you are closing in. Think all the answers you need are right behind that door. Think that no matter what the danger might be, you must enter. Think that you are steps away from success.
You will be.
Just not how you expect it.
He was troubled by only one element of his plan. The different me was a definite challenge. But he knew where to go to find what he hoped would serve as a reasonable facsimile of his self.
None of the three packed much: a change of underwear, a couple of pairs of socks, a gun.
At Miami International, Moth had the odd thought that he was retracing the killer’s steps. He wondered whether the same ticket counter attendant had helped his quarry. He wondered whether he was standing in the same position, having the same conversation: Any bags to check? No, nothing except reason and intelligence. Andy Candy, on the other hand, was preoccupied with the sensation that she was leaving much more than a city behind, that each stride she took was sending her deeper into some jungle of uncertainty.
Susan Terry-having cleaned up as best she could-was being practical. She used her state attorney’s office badge to explain why she had two weapons-Moth’s.357 Magnum and her own.25-caliber semiautomatic-in her small overnight suitcase. She had been surprised when Moth had told her about bringing his weapon back from New Jersey, underscoring how much of the safety the flying public assumes is actually nonexistent. Susan did not inform the flight personnel that her badge was suspended, and she was relieved that this detail hadn’t shown up on a perfunctory computer search.
They boarded their flight and sat quietly together. Moth found it interesting that they didn’t speak or read or watch the tiny television sets implanted in the seat-backs in front of them. None of them needed any distraction other than their thoughts.
Andy spent the entire trip looking out the small window at the expanse of night beyond. The darkness seemed mysterious to her, filled with shades of uncertainty and unusual, unrecognizable shapes. Occasionally, she would reach over and touch Moth’s hand, as if to make certain that he was still at her side. Midway through the flight she realized that it wasn’t the night that was threatening, it was all the doubt concealed by the black sky.
More or less at the same time that the trio was boarding their flight from Miami, Student #5 was perched on a small rise near the parking lot of a Friendly’s restaurant. On the other side of the lot was an access road that led to a large grocery store. At the intersection with a main road, there was a stoplight and a small traffic island.
The island was a favorite place for the out-of-work, alcoholic, or drug-addicted and homeless to stand. They would fashion handwritten signs out of cardboard: “Will do odd jobs.” “Anything will help.” “Homeless and Alone.” “God Bless You.”
This evening, there was one man holding a sign and begging from passersby in grocery-laden cars whom Student #5 watched carefully. Most people ignored the man. A few rolled down their windows, offered some spare change or a stray dollar bill.
There are places like this in every town and city in every country around the world, he thought.
Student #5 waited until the traffic coming from the grocery diminished. Light was fading around him at the end of the day-but not so much that what he intended to say wouldn’t make some sense. He went back to his truck. On the floor by the passenger seat were two cheap bottles of booze-Scotch and gin. There was also a six-pack of the most inexpensive beer he could find. He drove over to the sign-holding man, who seemed resigned to failure and was probably starting to wonder where he’d find a warm spot to sleep.
Rolling down his window, Student #5 said to the man, “Hey, you want to make fifty bucks?”
“You bet,” the homeless man said eagerly. “What do you need?”
Student #5 knew this opened the door to anything, from lawn mowing to a blow job. He had expected this up-for-anything reply. The homeless man was already a victim-of society, his own needs, mental illness, or perhaps just bad luck-and this made him vulnerable.
“Got some cut wood I need loaded in the back of my truck. I’ve been at it all day and my shoulders are killing me. Just got one or two more loads to do. You do the lifting for me and I’ll give you the fifty. Okay?”
“You got it, boss,” the man said. He tossed his sign aside and hurried to the passenger seat, pulling open the door and jumping inside. Student #5 saw the man spot the alcohol on the floorboards, eyes quickly widening.
He took a quick look around and saw that they were alone. No security cameras on that street intersection, he thought. And no one anywhere, paying any attention at all. “Hey, you want a beer or two, help yourself,” Student #5 said pleasantly.