Embers
The Jeep sat for days before anyone thought to take a look. It was nothing unusual for the area; any passerby native to the county assumed it was one of many dads taking their sons out to hunt. Perhaps a small Boy Scouts meeting, or just a group of young, stoned thrillseekers hoping to test their strength of character by surviving a while in the desert--despite being too innocuous to leave the comfort of their most industrial possession, of course. It was old news to the residents of Boonerman, Utah. What's the harm in a few idiots deluding a way of life they can't afford or handle?
Leopald Faradon grimaced as he skimmed down the edge of the ditch toward the Jeep, his hand taking a vicious beating from the rocks several times to save him from a tumble. The secret of the sands now exposed by several policeman in dusty uniforms canvassing the steel mammoth, Faradon knew exactly what harm was awaiting him at the end of the trench. And because it was he that had been called in, he knew who had brought it about.
Surprisingly, the other half of the Boonerman homicide department awaited him.
"Leo." Tomas Andurrow, as short in words as in stature, was all business. Faradon sensed the facade.
"You caught that Watson boy?" Faradon asked mundanely, retrieving a weathered cigarette case from his inside pocket.
"You could tell, huh?" Tomas rationed himself half of a smile.
Faradon glanced up from lighting his smoke. "You had that look. Like you just scratched three cherries. Nobody looks like that on the scene of a murder."
As Tomas stumbled for a reply, Faradon moved on, his free thumb hooked into his belt as he walked around the Jeep, crouching where something caught his eye. The big offroader had been a firetruck red at one point, but almost a week of the bitter desert winds had dulled the color, whittling it away to a mild rust. Those who saw the Jeep saw it as though shrouded in a selective fog. Several rookies scuttled about, photographing the vehicle and its vicinty from every possible angle. Faradon didn't waste time looking for footprints, or fingerprints, or any hair and skin samples. There were plenty of eager kids to prattle about looking for the flaw in another of the perfect killer's perfect crimes.
Faradon glanced in the driver's side window. A bulky man in his forties was slumped against the horn, his arm splayed through the steering wheel. Beside him leaned a young boy of about eight, his skin bleached the kind of pale a B-movie vampire would be. Deep in his stomach, Faradon's last meal sizzled into acid. It only got worse as he noticed the contusion on the boy's cheek, and the burgundy split in the father's hairline, long since clotted. He looked around the father's arm. The ignition key was twisted all the way forward, and the orange gas needle sat well beneath the chalky E.
He heard Tomas step behind him. "This one was supposed to look like a CO suicide." He paused. "Like a different version of that woman who pushed her car into the lake with her kid in it."
Masking tape stretched around each door, effectively sealing the crack between the frame and the window. Faradon shook his head and peeled it back. "Here it is."
Tomas shifted beside him. "His card?"
"No less. What a nice caprice. He knows nobody can tape a car shut from the inside." Faradon shook his head before taking a long, hard drag on his cigarette. When he exhaled, the remnants of the tobacco puffed out in machine gun bursts. "What kind of sick fuck does this?"
"This one." Tomas shrugged. "And Gacy. We're talking about kids, right?"
Faradon started to stride back to his car. "We're talking about his goddamn games." He called over his shoulder. "Comb the place a thousand times and call me the second you think you've got anything."
O
He'd been sitting at the usual booth for half an hour before Tomas came in. As he sat down across from Faradon, the red cloud washing in from the neon sign slowly filled his glasses like rain barrels.
Faradon shivered. "Could you...?"
"Oh, yeah." Tomas quickly pulled his glasses off and snapped them into their case. "We didn't find anything much. A few hair samples and fingerprints are in the lab right now."
"They'll be theirs. Not his." Faradon buried his head in his palms. A chisel in the front of his brain worked its way forward. "He's up to ten now. It could have been six." He mopped his hair out of his eyes as he extinguished the cigarette in his hand, letting it join two others in the ashtray. Like an assembly line, he retrieved another one without thinking or blinking.
"Stop that." Tomas was well above slipping into Faradon's self-pity.
Faradon nodded, a sardonic grin cracking his face horizontally. "There was another note. That bastard, how does he avoid the cameras?"
Tomas narrowed his eyes. "What did it say?"
"The usual shit. 'Watch for the blaze. Just don't get caught up in it.' All that stupid gibberish."
"Do you want me to check it for prints?" Tomas asked helplessly. He was no talent in motivational speaking. His eyes beseeched Faradon to tell him what to say or do to end the misery he was being sucked into.
Faradon laughed. It was a snivelling, unsure laugh, the front of his top teeth showing. They were angular, slanted. They didn't fit with his jaw. As always, Faradon reached and touched at the long, wide dimple beside his eye. Down the side of his cheekbone it ran; thick at first, it stretched his face on that side into almost Oriental features. Slowly, it thinned, as the bottom of the cavity just grazed his jawbone.
"Do you have to pick at that all the time?" Tomas snapped. "Can you just leave it alone for an hour?"
"Probably not. Could you ignore your own face, if you had to?" Faradon leaned back in the booth, into the shadows created by the wall obstructing the sign just out the window. He lit a new cigarette, the fiery brimstone end revealing his face for just a moment before it faded back into the darkness. Blue smoke blasted through his nostrils and drifted across the table toward Tomas.
Tomas said nothing. It wasn't respect that kept him from standing and pacing out of the restaurant. It was appreciation for what his partner had endured in the last year. Not even the victims merited as much pity as Faradon, for he carried them on his shoulders.
Faradon's arm swooped in from the ebony void to retrieve his beer. When the arm replaced it, the red bottle was empty.
"The second fuckin' serial killer in our town's history," Faradon muttered. "And he had to be on my watch." The silver cloud of mist replenished as a waitress arrived, opening a legal pad and smiling brightly. Her nametag said Casey.
"It could be you, Casey. It could be you next." Faradon paused. "You're welcome." He dropped the cigarette butt in with the others and slapped Tomas on the shoulder while shrugging on his coat. "Enjoy your food. I lost my appetite."
O
True to its reputation, the desert heat that rained mercilessly enough to cause tricks of light during the day had swung back, like a pendulum, to temperatures that were almost freezing. In some ways, the residents of Boonerman were like soldiers. Each day they would rise and battle nature in pursuit of objectives given to them by a higher order while facing extreme conditions both ways, all alike only in their brutality. Their flesh baked and chiseled into kevlar, they kept up their armor day and night, pervious only to assault from within.
The sky above was the deep blue of the ocean in the darkest hours of night, churning and folding into itself with a violence that could never be man-made. All the way home, Faradon expected rainfall, but it never came. All the same, he tightened his collar. Down the street and through the halo of each streetlight, he thrust in and out of sight with mathematical precision, his flickering silhouette disturbed only by the occasional passing car. With the consistency of the road's lane divisions, Faradon left a dotted line of dead cigarettes, marking his path like Hansel without a companion.
As he had on so many nights before, Faradon wished with each horrible step for the walk to end. A long trek allowed for far too much introspection, and in his mind, any thought given pass would move. And like every other night, he felt his chest harden into granite, his thighs and arms encircling and crushing themselves into boulders. Like Atlas and the known world, Faradon dragged the overpowering weight of his failure behind him.
Flashes of the night he escaped seared through Faradon's mind, as he shook his head from side to side, hoping to cast the memories from his ears. But he could not forget what had been branded there. He could not forget his eyes as they caught his flashlight. Could not forget that only his torpidity had allowed the man to roam free.
For every blackened filter in his wake, Faradon had winced, remembering the blow as the man leaped out from the blackness.
For every wince, he thought of the four people who were now mere recollection, embodiment of past tense.
Something caught his eye. Faradon knelt and lifted the object before his face. It was an old brass key, unused for at least ten years, as evident by the dulled teeth. For a long time, he remained stooped under the streetlamp. Something about the key eased him. It did not sparkle, but through its grime, it managed to retain a placid luster when held beneath the light. When Faradon gazed into the key, he could relax. He could release. He could forget. Even after such a momentary diversion, when he rose and pocketed the key, Faradon felt more rested than he ever had before.
His next steps were lighter.
O
The final report was thirty-three pages long. Every details about every missed detail was there. Every lead he'd failed to find. Faradon sat back in his vinyl chair, sighing as he looked over the report. He scrawled his name across the bottom line of the last page, wrapped it in a manilla folder, and dropped it in his no longer empty outgoing tray. Faradon pulled back his sleeve and checked his wristwatch; it was five in the afternoon. The crazy fuck was probably eating dinner, slopping food all over the front page of his newspaper as he giggles at his exploits. He seemed like the type.
Faradon hadn't bothered to include the note in his report. He had reported dozens of similar incidents over the past year, always the same nonsense. The home invasions always resulted in their own report and tiny investigation, during which he would be doubly stressed as he answered the questions of detectives from the larger burglary department. Prying questions that rubbed his face in the pile of shit he'd left behind. Always the same questions. Always the same dead ends.
He hauled himself out of his seat, carried the report to filing, and started down the stairs toward the exit. He didn't care if the perp showed up at his home while he was there anymore. Faradon had a more reliable safety solution than an ineffective alarm system, or a direct line to his coworkers. He bought guns. A baker's dozen, now. Revolvers, shotguns, automatic handguns and bolt-action rifles, accurate to a quarter mile, thanks to his fine tuning. His enemy had a more creative arsenal--one that included elemental surprise--but Faradon was determined to at least have a larger one.
Shouldering the front door out of his way, Faradon mused as to how he would react if he ever caught his man. The Biblical eye for an eye treatment commanded already more than the bastard could repay--more than anyone could take from him, as well. Sometimes Faradon would think proudly of handcuffing him, tussling him over to the back of a squad car and locking him up inside. When he was in a more spiteful mood, Faradon would ignore that part of the future, instead thinking giddily of the man's face as the jury agreed to the pressured death penalty. His power gone, his control yanked out from beneath him like a magician's carpet. His nonsensical utterings silenced. Faradon grinned, fantasizing about drawing saliva from deep within his esophagus and releasing it all over the doomed man's eyes, nose, and lips. He felt like a child awaiting Christmas--albeit without the comfort of certainty.
All glee was lost, however, when Faradon remembered the children that had been murdered, bludgeoned like sick cattle, their bodies used as rooks in some twisted freak's flanking technique. He struck a match on the cracked brick hurrying opposite him and fired up a new cigarette. When he thought of these things, Faradon's hands begged for blood.
He pursed his lips, drawing the key from his breast pocket. Its vague glimmer soothed him, as it had for the last week. The rounded edges of once sharp teeth nulled his own razor-edged rage before it built, as the pressure within a volcano might, before eruption. Faradon swallowed, then shrugged to himself. It was useless to contemplate such things before he caught his killer. Before he even got close--yet, somehow, he knew he would. His soul would not rest even in death if that man walked free. Faradon would find him because he had to.
Always the same denial.
O
Faradon received a sailor's welcome from Annie, his ever-faithful yellow Labrador. She was crouched on her haunches before he could even open the foyer closet.
"Alright, alright," he grumbled, tossing a biscuit to her as he wrapped his coat around a hanger. It was a ruse, of course. He enjoyed the company of the dog, and envied her ignorance to all but the simplest pleasures of life. Faradon followed the dog into the living room, watching a moment as she plopped down on the carpet, releasing a tuft of shedded fur, to enjoy her treat.
Sam awaited him in the den, lounging on a comfortable couch, the television babbling faintly. The white flashes crawling over her body almost hid her drooped eyelids, or the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest. It was ordered and neat. Like the key. No curve or angle out of place. Faradon creeped over to the couch and slipped over her, propping his head higher on the pillow and wrapping his arm around her. Sam's eyes fluttered open.
"You're home early," she murmurred, without looking back.
Faradon yawned and pressed his cheek into her hair, each lock scented like a lilac petal. "I needed a day without overtime, for once."
"So did I." She pulled his arm tighter, and her body tensed the way it only did when she was smiling.
There were two things about Sam that Faradon loved so much. The first was her bright, endless youth. Even in her late thirties, she was as vibrant and exuberant as when he met her. The second was that she never, ever asked how work was. In the last year, it had become less an appreciated virtue and more a Godsend.
The news came on. Week-old closeups of the Jeep were splayed about, eyecatching headlines dazzling across the bottom of the screen. Faradon tensed, remembering the gleaming eyes behind his flashlight so long before.
"Do you want me to change it?" Refeshingly, it sounded like real concern, not patronization.
Faradon took the remote from her hand. "No." He pressed the volume button until the words were decipherable.
"...eaths have been confirmed by police officials to be the ninth and tenth victims of the Puzzler." The woman shifted uncomfortably, not because of the story itself, but due to the thought of the grisly man she was to describe. "The Jeep, registered to one Nathan Danlor, was found a week ago by Brendan Steager, who said he called right away. Danlor and his child were found with severe abrasions, the gas tank run dry and windows taped shut. Nathan Danlor was forty, a father of two." She twisted her lips pragmatically. "It's a truly awful thing. Coming up on the evening news, Elizabeth Danlor talks about burying her-"
The woman and her million dollar hair imploded.
"Too much?" Sam asked, looking up at him.
Faradon grimaced. "It's just a big top. Flashing colors. But the red isn't paint they're using." He sighed. "The Puzzler. Christ, they make him sound like a spandex-wearing crimecruncher."
Sam squeezed his hand. "You're the crimecruncher."
Awareness spread of the key in his pocket. Its cool outline embroidered itself in his chest.
"I suppose so," Faradon said glibly. Sam rolled forward and set her bare feet on the floor as Annie came galloping through the door with a tennis ball.
"Hey girl!" She turned back to Faradon. "You want a drink, Leo?"
He nodded. "Please." Annie followed Sam to the kitchen. As Faradon hauled himself to a sitting postion, he fished his old cigarette case out of his pocket and, as an afterthought, flicked on the window unit before lighting it up.
Sam returned with a beer in one hand and a scotch in the other. Cautious of the open glass and the beige carpet, she handed Faradon his drink before sitting down. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her without a word. She didn't mind. They had learned to communicate on a plane elevated above speech.
Faradon's lips sputtered something inaudibly. Sam pivoted her head to see him. His bottom lip pulled down and then elongated into a spaghetti strand, creases showing at the edge of his mouth. Somewhere between, his tongue would give a tumultuous flick. Repeatedly.
Puzz-ler
Sam risked it. "You want to talk about it?"
His weight shifted farther onto her, if only slightly. "I had him, Sam."
She bit her lip, and said nothing. Sam was both frightened and grateful; Faradon had never talked about the night before. Not with her. Not at home.
"I shot him, but I missed. You know why I hesitated, Sammy?" He looked into her eyes. His own were deep pools with no shallow end, no way to reach what lurked at the bottom, afraid of daylight. "I was scared. I flashed my light in his eyes and I couldn't do it. I was scared he would kill me, and I was scared to kill him." He shook his head in disbelief at himself. "I'm a coward. Tomas tries to tell me different. Every month at the bar he tries to say otherwise, but I know he agrees. Deep down."
She held his hand over his chest gently. "Leo..."
Faradon clasped her hand, held it with a vice's brutality. "What icing was on our wedding cake?"
Sam blinked. "What?"
"What color was the icing on our cake, Sammy?"
Her eyebrows narrowed in puzzlement. "White. With blue flowers for borders and red writing."
"Was it..." Faradon's faced crunched into itself, his eyebrows and chin grasping to meet each other. Like the raid of the Crusaders upon Jerusalem, his face and his mind waged a war, but eventually retracted. He hung his head in shame. "I can't remember. I can't remember, Sam!" His eyes glistened briefly, but it was gone almost as soon as it was evident. "It's all this, this goddamn fracture." He pressed Sam's hand against the split, from temple to chin and back. "This fucking hole in my head, it's like is all draining and fading away. All those little details." He stared at the wall, as though it might replay his lost memories should he wish it too with enough conviction. "They're just washing out. Like the tide."
Faradon took a long swallow of his untouched drink and then set it on the coffee table beside him. "In a few months I might not remember this conversation." He sucked hard on his cigarette and then held his index and middle fingers pointed to the ceiling. "I swear, one day I won't even remember this damn case. I'l wake, I'll roll over and stare at the clock, and I'll have this same guilt... and I'll never know why."
"Stop it," Sam snapped. Her response was a gray nebula. Waving it from her face, she forced Faradon to look her straight in the face and did her best to reassure him while being assertive. "Yes. Yes, Leo." She nodded. "You were too slow. That's what you want to hear, right? You could have shot him in the head, and that boy and his father would be alive today. But you didn't." Sam smiled and kissed him on the forehead, letting her lips laze there afterward. "You didn't, because you're not a killer." She gazed back into his eyes, seeing a faint shimmer of hope in them. "But he is. And you'll catch him. I know you. You'll catch him."
The life that was there doused, as Faradon stood took a step backward. "How can you say that?" His forehead creased twice as his eyes widened. "How can you say that when every day there's a part of me missing? What if I wake up tomorrow and I don't know who I am?" He chewed his lip nervously. "Who will I be then?"
"Wait!"
But he was already through the door.
O
Somehow, Faradon had already expected to find the note that had lain on his front porch. Evidently, when something could so consume someone, the person it digested would begin to understand it. An emotional release with his wife. The safety on his Glock clicked off just before he stepped onto the porch. It was the perfect timing for a puzzler.
He seemed like the type.
Faradon held the yellow sheet before his eyes, scanning it over. Your marrow drained, you'll understand that it was all derived from your balls, which will soon be crushed. It went on and on. He made the Son of Sam look coherent.
Machismo gone, all that remains is soul, and you are already so hollow, Leo Faradon.
Mechanically, Faradon drew his Glock 22, checked the magazine, and tested the flashlight. All in working order. He jeered. Hitting him in the shoulder wouldn't matter this time. Not with fourteen shots to follow. Not with his key.
I know you'll find me. I know you want to find me! I want you to want it.
He read on, trudging down the street. The piper. Warning of the destruction yet to come. Faradon kept reading, picturing gutting the man with his special key.
The blaze burns twice as hard for the blind to see, but there's no sense in that.
Pictured gouging his eyes out--carving around and scooping up.
Except to you.
Fourteen gutshots and one to the chest to be sure.
Faradon hesitated. Something jangled in the distance. He ran over to a neighbor's yard, dug his toe into a crossboard, and hoisted himself over the fence. When he regained his balance on the other side, he saw what he expected. A burning building, the fire just starting to spread. The fire alarm looped like an unending school bell.
The letter from the previous week flashed through his mind.
Watch for the blaze.
He ran toward it.
O
The building was old. The iron frame on the window told Faradon that much. That they pulled free of their screws with only a marginal amount of negotiation told him they were older still. Faradon grabbed the aluminum trashcan behind him and tossed it through the old glass pane. Holding his overcoat over his face against the smog that started to leak from the new oriface, he wrenched himself into the windowframe and leaped over the amber flames beneath him, charging down the linoleum floor.
Except for the fire, which was spreading slowly, there was no light. What light there was fluctuated with all the stability of clay. Once clear of the roaring fire behind him, Faradon smashed his back against a wall and whipped out his pistol, flipping on the flashlight and tossing it back and forth. He would be quick, but he would not be wanton. He would not make the same mistake twice.
Faradon charged from corridor to corridor, checking every shadow along the way. His watchful eye would not miss a beat. Not tonight. But every room yielded another empty room. The mild fear began to rise that perhaps he had been lead into a trap. He remained determined, but he began to question his every step as he found himself moving in circles within the inferno.
Always the same questions.
Desperately, he cast a large board out of the way, surprised to see a door there. It merely said WING, as the rest of the plaque had been chipped off many years before. Faradon steeled himself, and thrust his heel into the edge of the door, next to the knob. The latch snapped and the door promptly clunked against the wall on the other side. His anticipation rising, Faradon swept the hallway, but found it empty.
The building had stretched into a long, singular catacomb. There was barely enough room to stretch his arms out, and each door was locked and barricaded. He checked hundreds of doors, none ever showing promise.
Always the same dead ends.
His hand turned on a knob. Faradon's face grew cold, and he knew all color in it had drained south. He held his Glock opposite his hand, ready to barge in, and pushed.
And the door did not move.
He had come this far and now it was over. Faradon knew he was in there. He smashed on the door until his knuckles split and bled on the coarse metal.
"Open the door, you fuck!" He stopped, calming himself. Yelling at a door wouldn't open it. But...
Faradon drew the key from his breast pocket. Reverantly, he slipped it into the deadbolt, hearing the pins click as the key melded to the puzzle inside. He crossed his fingers and turned.
And heard a click.
He wasted no time. Faradon whipped the door open and took a cursory scan of the room, his gun leading his eye. He found it empty, like all the others.
"You bastard!" He glared at the ceiling, praying for the man to appear so he could vent his wrath. He would have gone on, but he noticed something curious about the ceiling. And the walls. And the floor. It was padded, with a light bounce, like a taut rubber sheet or a trampoline.
Faradon swept the room again, and a tan folder caught his light. As though fearing some sort of booby trap, he moved toward it, not wanting to open the file yet compelled to. He sat down on the bed, keeping his gun in hand and ready for use as he flipped to the first page with his left.
His eyes quaked, and his chest squeezed tight around his ribcage. A reactionary boa constrictor.
On the front, a red stamp said COMMITTED. And, at the very top, was a name: Leopald Douglas Faradon.
Faradon sat for a long time. He did not read it once, and he did not read it twice. Faradon read the file that designated him as its subject seven times. Not a word was overlooked. The document contained facts he had already forgotten, but recognized when he saw them. It was certainly legitimate. It was also certainly planted there.
Someone stirred in the doorway. Faradon tossed the folder to the ground and aimed his gun at the figure there.
"The mind's a funny thing, isn't it?"
Faradon shined the flashlight on his face. It gleaned so brilliantly off of the man's eyes that the bright glare was more noticeable than his features, but it was him. The homisuicidal maniac. The Puzzler.
"Don't," Faradon barked. "Fucking. Move."
"It can pick up on clues," he continued. "It can follow a thread even if it doesn't acknowledge where it started. It's all just electrical signals bouncing off, cell to cell." He gestured with his hands as he talked, then shrugged. "What happens when a few misfire, eh Leo?"
In a film, Faradon would have cocked his gun, but he had already come prepared. He fired at the ceiling instead.
The man in the doorway jolted at the shot, but retained his composure. "You recognize me?"
"Yeah. Professor." William Pace, the head of the philosophy department at the local college. Faradon nodded again. "Yeah, I recognize you."
"I'm surprised." Pace walked forward, deeper into the light. His body took shape, a bit dumpy thanks to gravity's downward urges. His face gained clarity. "I haven't taught you since I was a young man, Leo. I'm honored to still be in your head." He tapped his face, approximating Faradon's fracture. "Do you get migraines?"
"Fuck you."
"What a quaint phrase." Pace was certainly taken aback by Faradon's animosity, but he was skilled at camouflaghing it. "And what a quaint usage. I would have thought you'd see it all, now. See the big... 'fuck you'... to you."
"I don't..." Faradon gripped his temple as his face and brain pounded and chiseled. "I don't remember."
"Of course you don't," Pace lifted his hands helplessly. "Who would want to remember being a teen arsonist? Though I suppose you couldn't forget. Ever wondered why you can't stop smoking lately?"
With barely a growl of warning, Faradon jumped from the bed and lashed out at Pace's forehead with the butt of his gun. Pace gasped briefly in pain, dropping to his knees as a gash split across his hairline and got a head start on crying crimson. Faradon stood over Pace, gasping for breath. He didn't know what to do. He wanted Pace dead, but he felt it. The same as before, that same fear. Of Pace. Of himself.
His face shrivelled in acknowledgment of the blow, Pace grit his teeth. "Any reason you chose to bludgeon my skull?"
"Shut up!" Faradon's shoe propelled into Pace's chest and knocked him flat onto his back. Before Pace had time to wheeze, Faradon was on top of him, ripping and tearing at his collar. Eventually, Pace's shirt pulled down over the left arm--and he saw it. A hole that had never quite healed.
"Christ," Faradon stammered. "It, it's you. Jesus." He regained some composure and pressed the barrell of his pistol in Pace's cheek, the fat there rolling around it like a pillow used as a makeshift silencer. "You ruined my life, you son of a bitch! I don't even know who I am!"
With Pace himself toppled his act. He was sweating and fidgeting, but his gray eyes never wandered and he never once stumbled on his words. "You do. You just don't want to. You don't want to know your little fascination, your little... fetish... took lives. Lives that might have meant something to someone." His eyes watered. "Like a son."
Faradon looked away briefly, foggy memories invading his mind's eye. Acrage Retirement Facility.
"No," he shook his head. "It was empty. It was..."
"Occupied," Pace said. His voice was measured, but his words were venom. "You should thank me. After I hit you, your press statements took a different mental arc." He wrapped his hands around Faradon's gun and moved it down to his chest. "Suddenly you got to be a zealot. You got to be the righteous cop every kid gets stars in their eyes over. You got to be Serpico and I got to watch you run around in the maze with no cheese. Why kill me?"
Faradon snarled. "Because you deserve it." It was all back, now. The sound of screams, the breaking of glass. He remembered committing himself. How many things had his friends and family neglected to tell him? Saved him from by omission?
"Okay," Pace smiled. He tugged on Faradon's sleeve, driving the pistol deeper into his own chest. "I see you're set on this. And I expected no less." He closed his eyes. "If I deserve it, then show me. Show me who you really are." His eyes flashed open. "A killer."
"Leo, drop the fucking gun now!"
Faradon grinned. "You've got plenty to say when you're not makin' the arrest, huh Tomas?"
"Don't give him what he wants," Tomas slowly walked into sight from the knee down. "Don't throw your life away for that."
"I already threw my life away," Faradon muttered bitterly. "I just wish I could've gotten some warning so I'd think to take a rope." A single blast of breath fell from his nose. "Or is that how you wanted it?"
"Let him go, Leo," Tomas warned. "If you kill him, I have to kill you." Tomas was all business. It was no charade, not this time.
Faradon rose to a crouch and rolled Pace onto his stomach, keeping his gun trained on the back of his head. From his belt he retrieved a pair of handcuffs.
"What are you doing?" Pace gasped, mortified. "What... I thought 'I deserve it'? Hmm? You hyprocrite little bastard?"
"You do," Faradon clasped the cuffs tight around his wrists. "But not from me. I don't deserve it." He stood and dropped his Glock to the padding, kicking it over to Tomas. "Get this piece of shit to a car."
O
Like nothing had happened, they sat in their squad car, eating Chinese food and listening to a baseball game on the radio. They pictured Pace getting a Utah welcome from the boys in burglary and narcotics. Tomas smiled. Faradon didn't. He looked down at his little key. He saw it for what it was, now. Encrusted by dirt and rust. Filthy. A key to a terrible place, and a terrible part of his life. Yet, it had liberated him, in a way. Pace was out of his life now. Faradon did not blame him anymore--with the truth uncovered, he now knew why he woke every morning unhappy and guilty. Perhaps now he could learn to mourn.
"You did the right thing," Tomas said. Short but sweet.
"Yeah," Faradon replied, popping a Nicorette into his mouth. "But you didn't."
-I
