The sound that his body made was sickening. It was the sound of green wood snapping, sap exploding. It was the sound of a human spine twisting until severed.
When it happened, my head was tucked hard against his back, applying pressure. The noise, transmitted through the man’s own viscera, seemed deafening. I could feel the trembling of his body as his muscles spasmed out of control… and then there were no more spasms, no movement, nothing.
I stood.
Acky was a dark mass at my feet. Dead. If Merlot really had filed away letters about the men and the Venezuelan girl that Acky had supposedly killed, they were useless now.
I didn’t much care one way or the other. I’d been involved in the deaths of much better men than this, plus there was a feeling in me now… a feeling of terrible energy that was fueled by the most basic of elements: moon, moving water, wind, blood…
Blood. Had I drawn blood? I fought the urge to check.
Yet the feeling remained, a kind of instinctual madness that ruled from the marrow; a feeling that I knew in my memory and despised in my soul because I’d drawn on it too often years before, and it drained from me that which I value most: my reason, my self-control.
Moon, wind, water, blood…
In that instant, those things were in me. Those elements were me.
I moved away from the body. Everything around me had been blurred by my intensity, but now I took a look at my surroundings. We were screened from the house by trees. Only a few yards behind me was the Panama Canal. The water was black in the moonlight. To the northwest was a transiting cruise ship. The newly wed and nearly dead. It was lit up like a floating city, moving toward Gamboa and the locks at Miraflores. It was far away. No one could have possibly seen me snap this man’s neck. Flawless!
Now I had things to do.
Yes, things to do…
I used Acky’s flashlight to hunt around until I found the pistol. A cheap little. 38 special. But loaded.
I tossed it into the water.
I found the sap. I’d dropped it when I wrestled with the man. Now I jammed it into my back pocket No clues, no man-spore. Didn’t want to leave any sign of me.
From the direction of the porch, I then heard Merlot’s voice. “Acky? Acky! Get your ass back in here! The computer’s working again and I’ve got something to show you!”
I heard the back door slam. A petulant sound.
I didn’t hesitate. I ran; ran hard along the hill and up the back stairs to the door where Acky would have reentered. As I reached for the knob, though, the door was suddenly flung open and Merlot thrust a revolver out. From the expression on his face-a mixture of expectation and terror-my first thought was: He knew I was coming…
When he threw open the door, we each froze for a microsecond, both of us stunned to be standing nose to nose. So close I could smell him: a fried bacon odor, sweat cigarettes. I could look through his eyes into him.
It was that moment of shock that saved me. He backpedaled slightly, me still coming hard through the door, and as he brought the pistol up, I knocked the barrel away from my face just as he pulled the trigger-ker-WHAP-the bullet’s cone of percussion deafening me but missing.
Merlot’s voice was shaking and he sounded near tears as he yelled, “Stay away from me or I’ll kill you. I mean it! Stay back!”
I was still moving toward him; wanted to stay close as he brought the pistol down for another try. I caught his wrist in both hands, twisted counterclockwise as I used my knee to bang him hard beneath the ribs… and then I was holding the revolver as he stumbled backward and fell hard on his butt.
“Oww-w-w! You kicked me!”
Merlot was buckled over in pain as I pointed the revolver at his belly. I still felt the intensity, that appetite, but was fighting it. Shoot a man in cold blood? That was something I had never done. Yet the urge, the craving was there. I spoke to diffuse that feeling of want, of need. How could my voice sound so calm? I might have been joking around with a locker-room buddy. I said: “Know what? You really hurt my feelings, Darkrume. One fun night on the computer, then you never call, you never write. I feel downright used.”
Something about the way I was smiling must have frightened him, because he began to cry now. Boo-hoo- hoo, actually making the distinctive noise, the skin on his face jiggling as the head bobbed. He had his hands out, palms toward me — Please stop! — as he said, “That was all a joke! You thought I was serious? I was kidding. It’s one of those on-line E-mail things that everybody does. My God, if I thought you’d actually take the time to come looking for me, I’d have apologized right there!” Crying and shaking. His black eyes looked abandoned in the massive pink face; this gigantic baby with perfect hair and a baggy brown guayabera who had to weigh four hundred pounds but it was like Jell-O.
I turned to Gail. She wore jeans and a navy crewneck pullover. They were wrinkled and splotched as if she hadn’t changed in a week. Her black Latina hair was combed back, heavy on her shoulders. She looked gaunt, badly used, but her face truly was lovely, haunting. That song, “The Twelfth of Never,” it made sense now. For the first time, I understood. I said, “Are you okay?”
Her expression said she didn’t know what to think. Scared, too. If I killed Merlot, was she next? She said, “Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of your husband’s.”
“My husband? You mean Frank sent you.”
“No. Bobby’s friend. A long time ago, I was Bobby’s friend.”
I watched her sag; watched her exhale, trembling as if just hearing that name had created within her an overwhelming surge of loneliness and regret Very softly, she said, “Bobby’s friend? My Bobby
… “
I said, “Yes. Your Bobby.”
She moved to stand near me, her hand touching my shoulder, saying Amanda? I knew Amanda? For God’s sake, please tell her that Amanda was okay and didn’t hate her, although she had every reason…
I comforted her, dealt with the first concern of a good mother before I said, “You may not want to answer this, but I really have to ask: How’d you get hooked up with a freak like this?”
Merlot was on his feet again, following the conversation. Kept inching back. I knew the wheels were turning, trying to figure a way out.
She still seemed a little dazed. “I… I truly don’t know.” She was shaking her head slowly, as if trying to remember something. “I was so lost… so badly hurt that I must have lost touch with… reality? No. I must have lost touch with my sanity. I’ve spent the last month trying to figure it out thinking of almost nothing else. How did it happen? Why did I end up with him? He was just always there, always… always right in front of me, no matter which way I turned. It got so I didn’t even have to think because he did all the thinking for me, and I didn’t have to cook or clean because he took care of that, too, and he was always saying the nicest things… and the next thing I knew, all my family and old friends were gone and he was selling me to men, to women and men, making me do things that I never thought… never thought-”
She couldn’t continue. More tears, that sound of utter exhaustion.
Merlot didn’t like the direction this was going, his shrill voice interrupting: “It was consensual, I’ll swear to that! Everything this woman did with me or anyone else, it was always always consensual. I have her model release on file! I’ll show you if you want. The pictures, the videos, she consented to everything-”
Merlot stopped abruptly. I was looking at him, looking into his face because he would not meet my eyes, and I could feel it in me stronger than I had ever felt it before, and he knew it. He knew. The voice that spoke did not sound like my own, as I said, “Did she consent to blackmail?”
Gail said, “What?” And then: “I was wondering about that. A second ago, why did you call him Darkrume? That’s the only thing Jackie actually helped me with. I got mixed up with this person, this sick criminal from California. On the Internet, his name was Darkrume. Not-”
I interrupted. Said to Merlot, “Do you want to tell her or should I?” I was still looking at him, wanting to do it, and he could see it in me, how badly I wanted to do it. I said, “A buddy of mine says that the way you worked it was with PIN numbers. Lots of fake accounts and ATM machines. Was he right?”
When Merlot didn’t answer, I cleared my throat and said in a much softer voice. “Last time I’m asking. Was
