CHAPTER 24
I HAD NO DREAMS, NO SENSE OF TRAVELING OUTSIDE my body; I saw no parade of ghostly images or headless, bloodless bodies. No visions of sugarplums danced in my head. There was nothing there, not even me, nothing but a dark and timeless sleep. And yet when the telephone woke me up I knew that the call was about Deborah, and I knew that she was not coming. My hand was already sweating as I grabbed up the receiver. “Yes,” I said.
“This is Captain Matthews,” the voice said. “I need to speak to Detective Morgan, please.”
“She isn't here,” I said, a small part of me sinking from the thought and what it meant.
“Hmmp. Aahh, well, that's not— When did she leave?”
I glanced at the clock instinctively; it was a quarter after nine and I fell deeper into the sweats. “She was never here,” I told the captain.
“But she's signed out to your place. She's on duty—she's supposed to be there.”
“She never got here.”
“Well goddamn it,” he said. “She said you have some evidence we need.”
“I do,” I said. And I hung up the telephone.
I did have some evidence, I was terribly sure of that. I just didn't quite know what it was. But I had to figure it out, and I did not think I had a great deal of time. Or to be more accurate, I did not think Deb had a great deal of time.
And again, I was not aware of how I knew this. I did not consciously say to myself, “He has Deborah.”
No alarming pictures of her impending fate popped into my brain. And I did not have to experience any blinding insights or think, “Gee, Deb should have been here by now; this is unlike her.” I simply knew, as I had known when I woke up, that Deb had come for me, and she had not made it. And I knew what that meant.
He had her.
He had taken her entirely for my benefit, this I knew. He had been circling closer and closer to me—coming into my apartment, writing small messages with his victims, teasing me with hints and glimpses of what he was doing. And now he was as close as he could get without being in the same room. He had taken Deb and he was waiting with her. Waiting for me.
But where? And how long would he wait before he became impatient and started to play without me?
And without me, I knew very well who his playmate would be—Deborah. She had turned up at my place dressed for work in her hooker outfit, absolutely gift-wrapped for him. He must have thought it was Christmas. He had her and she would be his special friend tonight. I did not want to think of her like that, taped and stretched tight and watching slow awful pieces of herself disappear forever. But that was how it would be. Under other circumstances, it might make a wonderful evening's entertainment—but not with Deborah. I was pretty sure I didn't want that, didn't want him to do anything permanent and wonderful, not tonight. Later, perhaps, with someone else. When we knew each other a little better. But not now. Not with Deborah.
And with that thought of course everything seemed better. It was just so nice to have that settled. I preferred my sister alive, rather than in small bloodless sections. Lovely, almost human of me. Now that was settled: What next? I could call Rita, perhaps take in a movie, or a walk in the park. Or, let's see—maybe, I don't know . . . save Deborah? Yes, that sounded like fun. But-How?
I had a few clues, of course. I knew the way he thought—after all, I had been thinking that way myself.
And he wanted me to find him. He had been sending that message loud and clear. If I could put all the distracting stupidity out of my head—all the dreams and New Age fairy-chasing and everything else—then I was certain that I could arrive at the logical and correct location. He would not have taken Deb unless he thought he had given me everything a clever monster would need to know in order to find him.
All right then, clever Dexter—find him. Track down the Deb-napper. Let your relentless logic slash across the back trail like an icy wolf pack. Kick the giant brain into high gear; let the wind race across the rocketing synapses of your powerful mind as it speeds to its beautiful, inevitable conclusion. Go, Dexter, go!
Dexter?
Hello? Is anybody in there?
Apparently not. I heard no wind from rocketing synapses. I was as empty as if I had never been. There was no swirl of debilitating emotions, of course, since I didn't have any emotions to swirl. But the result was just as daunting. I was as numb and drained as if I really could feel something. Deborah was gone. She was in terrible danger of becoming a fascinating work of performance art. And her only hope of maintaining any kind of existence beyond a series of still pictures tacked up on a police lab board was her battered, brain-dead brother. Poor dog- dumb Dexter, sitting in a chair with his brain running in circles, chasing its tail, howling at the moon.
I took a deep breath. Of all the times I had ever needed to be me, this was one of the foremost. I concentrated very hard and steadied me, and as a small amount of Dexter returned to fill the echo in my brain cavity, I realized just how human and stupid I had become. There was really no great mystery here. In fact, it was patently obvious. My friend had done everything but send a formal invitation reading, “The honor of your presence is requested at the vivisection of your sister. Black heart optional.” But even this small blob of logic was wiped out of my throbbing skull by a new thought that wormed its way in, oozing rotten logic.
Could that mean that once again I had done it without knowing it? What if I had already taken Deb apart somewhere, stacked the pieces in some small, cold storage room and-Storage room? Where had that come from?
And there I would find Deb, too, and find either myself or my not-self. Wasn't that simple?
No. It wasn't simple at all, just simpleminded. It made absolutely no sense to pay any attention to the ghostly secret messages floating up at me from my dreams. Dreams had no existence in reality, left no Freddy Krueger–crossover claw marks on our wake-up world. I couldn't very well dash out of the house and drive aimlessly around in a psychic funk. I was a cool and logical being. And so it was in a cool and logical manner that I locked my apartment door and strolled to the car. I still had no idea where I was going, but the need to get there quickly had grabbed the reins and whipped me down to the building's parking area, where I kept my car. But twenty feet away from my trusty vehicle I slammed to a stop as though I had run into an invisible wall.
The dome light was on.
I had certainly not left it on—it had been daylight when I parked, and I could see that the doors were closed tightly. A casual thief would have left the door ajar to avoid the noise from closing it.
I approached slowly, not at all sure what I expected to see or whether I really wanted to see it. From five feet away I could see something in the passenger seat. I circled the car carefully and peered down at it, my nerves tingling, and peeked in. And there it was.
Barbie again. I was getting quite a collection.
This one was dressed in a little sailor hat and a shirt with a bare midriff, and tight pink hot pants. In one hand she clutched a small suitcase that said CUNARD on the side.
I opened the door and picked up the doll. I pulled the little suitcase from Barbie's hand and popped it open. Some small something fell out and rolled onto the floorboard. I picked it up. It looked an awful lot like Deborah's class ring. On the inside of the band was etched D.M., Deborah's initials.
I collapsed onto the seat, clutching Barbie in my sweaty hands. I turned her over. I bent her legs. I waved her arms. And what did you do last night, Dexter? Oh, I played with my dolls while a friend chopped up my sister.
I did not waste any time wondering how Cruise Line Hooker Barbie had gotten into my car. This was clearly a message—or a clue? But clues really ought to hint at something, and this one seemed to lead in the wrong
