How good could He have been, Moth thought, if this was where you ended up?
The cemetery was slightly off the beaten tourist path, but a spot where the occasional homeless drunk passed out in the shade beside a white marble crypt or a former mental patient off his medications stared with fascination at the endless array of names of the departed. Angela Street-where their target lived-was a single narrow and untraveled lane on the west side of the cemetery.
Moth and Andy Candy ducked down near a crypt belonging to a former charter boat skipper and let night shadows flow over them. They expected either the Key West police or some sort of cemetery security guard-Moth imagined there had to be some mood-lightening joke in that job description. He didn’t try one.
They stiffened when they saw a light go on in the house. Andy’s breathing was shallow, and in her crouch she could feel her legs tightening up and was suddenly afraid that they wouldn’t respond when she asked them to. This seemed like the stupidest thing to her. She could feel herself sliding into a type of catatonic uncertainty, where every doubt that lingered in her life threatened to roll her into a ball and kick her into a shapeless mass. She wished, in that second, that there was just one, simple, solid thing in her life. Something that wasn’t complicated, confused, or elusive. She would have traded everything for one small taste of normalcy.
She stole a sideways glance at Moth and realized no she wouldn’t. She thought curiously that he would have the oddest of lives-he would become a professor, teach history to undergraduates, attend faculty meetings, write biographies that just might make it onto best-seller lists, raise a family, and find all sorts of different levels of accomplishment and fame, and all the time he would remain silent about the night he killed a man. With justification, she hoped. That was assuming they could get away with it.
And assuming he wouldn’t return to alcoholism and drunkenly spill his story to a bartender somewhere.
This was a question she couldn’t answer. Nor could she any longer picture her own life to come. All she imagined was an ending, and that was this night. Dying scared her, but not nearly as much as killing did.
Moth, for his part, didn’t dare look over at Andy. He wanted her to run away. He wanted her to stay at his side. He could no longer tell what was right and what was wrong. All he could do was wait for slabs of dark night to grow a bit more thick and black and humid around them. To busy himself, because the waiting part made him want to scream like a banshee, he started to remove his filthy change of clothes from his backpack.
He heard Andy inhale sharply.
“There,” she whispered. “Oh my God.”
Moth saw the shape of a man-their man?-framed in the light that poured through the front door to the small bungalow. He was going out, locking the door behind him.
This was what Moth had hoped for. “It’s him,” Moth said coldly.
Moth felt his tongue instantly dry. Inwardly he screamed orders to himself: Act! Think! This is the opportunity! He croaked, “Stick to the plan. Follow him. Don’t let him see you. When he comes back, signal when he’s a block or two away.”
Moth was unsure whether watching a killer or waiting for a killer was more dangerous. He realized he didn’t have a choice.
Andy rose stealthily, and with a ballet dancer’s grace she moved through the graves, paralleling the man walking down Angela Street. Moth could just catch a glimpse of the target, unconcerned as he turned toward town. A few seconds later, Moth saw the floppy hat, following a safe distance behind, moving from shadow to shadow, staying behind the wide banyan trees whose twisted bodies guarded each sidewalk. Then he started to strip off his clothes.
48
Student #5 ate a nice piece of yellow snapper filet and washed it down with a glass of cold Chardonnay. As he ended his meal with a sweet and tangy slice of Key Lime pie and a small cup of decaf espresso, he sat at his outdoor table and watched couples walk by. It was warm and humid and the night air seemed slippery. He tried to catch bits of conversation-arguments, pleasantries, even the punch lines of jokes. There was some laughter, and more than once a “Hurry up,” although one of the virtues of Key West was that there was precious little to ever hurry for. From time to time young people on rented motor scooters buzzed by, and he could hear carefree voices raised above the angry-bee sounds of the bikes. It was, he thought, a typical resort-town night: loose and easy.
He paid the waitress and stepped out onto the sidewalk, half-wishing he had a cigar to celebrate with, unsure whether celebration was actually in order quite yet. Leisurely walking the half-dozen blocks home, he whistled, thinking he probably should save his tune for when he arrived at the cemetery. Salamanders scuttled away from his feet. He was inordinately pleased with his decision. He had, he thought, once again assigned purpose to his life.
Preoccupied with killing plans, Student #5 hardly registered the sound of the foghorn coming from some distance behind him. Three sharp blasts faded up into the starry night sky.
Andy Candy had her back against a banyan tree, hiding in its dark folds. She listened to the foghorn blasts dissipate around her. She did not know if the noise would carry far enough to warn Moth or not. They were supposed to, but she was uncertain. She patiently counted to thirty, to give the target a little more time to add distance and just in case he’d heard the warning blasts, been curious, and turned around to look. Then she stuffed the foghorn into a waste container next to a house, tossing it in with bags of trash and empty beer bottles. She did not feel like an assassin completely, but she realized she was getting closer.
She picked up her pace, a quick march, hoping to silently and anonymously close the space between her and death.
The three peals were like triggers. They seemed odd, faraway noises from some other world, but he knew what they signaled. He’s on his way and nearly home. Moth tried to blank everything from his head except actions. Don’t think about what you’re doing. Just do it. He gave himself shrill orders, like a drill sergeant frustrated with a raw recruit:
Put the clean clothes in the backpack. Shove it next to the grave. Remember the name on the headstone, the numbered row of graves, the distance to the entry gate so you can find it again. Hurry.
Empty the bottle of vodka on the ground. Pour some of the Scotch on your chest. Drain the rest out so you have two empty bottles. Don’t let the smell of the liquor intoxicate you.
Check the.357 Magnum. Fully loaded. Safety off. Hold it tight.
Run.
He sprinted amidst the gravestones, reminded of football practice in high school when cruel coaches added laps as punishment for perceived errors. He could hear his shoes slapping against the pathways and he nearly stumbled once. In one hand he had the weapon, in the other the two now-empty bottles of booze. He raced toward the house.