The Face of Death

'Don't you have people for this?' he asks.

'For general surveillance, but I want a full-time professional bodyguard. I'll sell it to the boss and the Bureau will pay the bills.'

'Gotcha. Well, I have someone. A woman. She's good.'

I sense hesitation in his voice.

'What?' I ask.

'Just rumors.'

'About her?'

'Yeah.'

'Like?'

'That she spent some time killing people.'

I pause.

'What kind of people?' I ask.

'The kind of people the United States government needs dead.'

He pauses. 'Allegedly. If you believe in stuff like that.'

I digest this.

'What do you think about her, Tommy?'

'She's loyal and she's lethal. You can trust her.'

I rub my eyes, thinking. I sigh. 'Fine. Give her my number.'

'Will do.'

'You know some interesting people, Tommy.'

'Like you.'

I smile, again. 'Yeah. Like me.'

'I have to go.'

'I know, I know. You're in the middle of something. I'll call you later.'

He hangs up. I sit for a moment, wondering what someone described as 'loyal and lethal' will be like. A knock on the door interrupts this train of thought. James pokes his head in.

'Are you ready?' he asks.

I glance at the clock on my wall. AD Jones can wait a little while longer, I suppose.

'Yeah. Let's talk about our psycho.'

31

JAMES AND I ARE IN MY OFFICE, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. Just thee and me, my disagreeable friend.

James, misanthropic James, has the same gift I do. His lack of tact, his rudeness--the man is a consummate asshole, it's true--none of that matters when we sit down to commiserate on evil. He sees it like I do. He hears and feels and understands.

'You have an edge on me, James. You finished the diary. Did you read the notes I faxed you?'

'Yes.'

'Tell me what you think.'

He stares at a space on the wall above my head.

'I believe the revenge motive is correct. The video with Vargas, the messages on the wall--the references to justice in particular--it all fits. The thing that I felt reading the diary, however, is that he's begun to mix his paradigms.'

'English, James.'

'Look, the original purpose is a pure one, within its own framework. Revenge. He was the recipient of bad acts. He's visiting bad acts on those directly responsible--or in Sarah's case, we're theorizing--the descendants of those directly responsible. That's the path we're following, and I believe it will bear fruit.' He leans back in his chair. 'But let's examine the way in which he dispenses justice.'

'Pain.'

James smiles, a rare thing. 'That's right. The endgame is murder, sure. But how quickly you arrive at dead . . . well, that depends on how much pain he thinks you deserve. He's obsessed with the subject. I think he's crossed the line from dispensing justice with clarity to a true enjoyment of inflicting pain.'

I consider this. The behavior James is describing is common, too common. The abused becomes the abuser. Molest a child, and he often grows up to become the molester. Violence is contagious. I imagine The Stranger, on his knees like that poor blond girl in the video, while some drooling stranger whips his feet, again and again.

Pain.

He grows up, chock-full of rage, and he decides it's time for payback. He gets going on his plan, and everything is moving along, but then somewhere along the way, a switch flips. The rage he's attempting to expiate mutates into a twisted type of joy. So much better to be the one holding the whip than the one being struck. So much better, in fact, that it begins to feel good. Hell, it begins to feel great. Once an individual falls down that rabbit hole, the white lines blur into gray and a journey back is pretty much impossible. It would explain the contradictions at the scenes. The blood-painting and erection versus the calm, cool, and collected of a man-with-a-plan.

'So he likes it now,' I say.

'I think he needs it,' James replies. 'And the best thing is, he's got the perfect rationalization in place. That old standby: The end justifies the means. He's owed, the guilty will be punished. If innocents suffer along the way, that's unfortunate.'

'Not really unfortunate, though, you're saying.'

'Correct. Look at Sarah. He's loving what he's done to her. It moves him.' James shrugs. 'He's hooked. I bet his creativity extends further, to other victims. If we scratch the surface, I think we're going to find imaginative, colorful deaths, all of them variations on a quintessence of pain.'

Everything he's saying is unproven and for now, unprovable. But it feels right. It shifts something inside me, lets it slide into an oily waiting place. He's not delusional. He knows what he's doing and why, and his victims aren't just of a type--they're directly involved with his past. But--and it's a big but--he's hooked on death now. Murder isn't just a resolution to injustice anymore. It's become a sexual act.

'Let's talk about two specific things,' I say. 'The change in his behavior and his plan for how to end things for Sarah.'

James shakes his head. 'I'm concerned about the first. I can understand him going public with his actions and the reasons for that. It goes hand and hand with revenge as a motive. You don't just want them to experience justice, you want the world to know why.'

'Sure.'

'But he's become aware of changes, in himself. I think his original plan might have involved him getting caught, going out in a blaze of glory that would highlight his story for the world. But now he's discovered that he really enjoys killing people. If he dies, he can't do that anymore. That's a strong addiction to turn away from.'

'If he doesn't want to get caught, he's had plenty of time to plan for an escape route.'

'Exactly. I believe that the original intent of the plan remains the mandate. He wants everything to come out, wants the sinners and their sins revealed. But he'd prefer to walk away from that. Probably with the rationalization of continuing his 'work.' Lots of other sinners out there, after all.'

'We need to be careful,' I murmur. 'At some point he's going to try and lead us by the nose. We need to watch out for that, challenge our conclusions.'

'Yes.'

I sigh. 'Fine. What about Sarah? Does he end this by killing her?

Or does she get to live?'

James ponders this, staring up at the ceiling. 'I think,' he says,

'that it all depends on how successful he is in his goal to make her over in his own image, and then, how much he identifies with her as a result. Is she really him? If so, does he let her live, suffering, or does he perform a