Deviant (2 page)

He looked at the bag in his left hand. “See? You think it's easy, but it's not that easy,” he said.

He poked the bag with his finger and the cat thrashed weakly against the sides. There was a little fight left in it, but not much.

“Well, I suppose we better get started,” he said.

He set the bag on the sand and took off his backpack.

He breathed the night air and looked at the stars. The Dipper had moved in the sky, but the moon was still hiding itself.

“I wonder what time it is,” he muttered.

He looked at the luminous hands on his watch. Twelve! Already twelve! He was troubled, but not really that surprised. All aspects of this plan had taken him much longer than he had bargained for. Longer to get his gear, longer to get to the girl's house.

And then of course her parents had decided not to go to the cinema after all.

Foiled at the very first attempt!

He had headed home utterly dejected.

But then he had spotted the stray, merely by chance next to the Dumpster behind the gas station.

A small black-and-white tomcat who was trusting,
far too trusting
, of humans.

He wondered if the Master would be happy with this. Would he commend him for his improvisation?

And maybe it wasn't a stray. Maybe it belonged to someone who right now was calling the police …

A slight stir of panic.

A quickening of the pulse.

But then he calmed himself.

No one had seen him. No one would ever find him here.

Even so, the next time he would have a backup plan.

He breathed deeply and shone the flashlight around the rocky amphitheater until he found the famous “sacrifice stone” that was covered with ancient symbols and modern graffiti.

“There it is,” he said aloud.

He walked over, placed the backpack on the rock, unzipped the central pocket, and took out his multi-tool.

On a whim he turned the flashlight off.

Total darkness.

He liked that.

Mr. Boyle, the mathematics teacher, claimed that on planets whose spin was fast, night did not last very long and in binary star systems there were planets with no night at all—as one sun set, another rose.

What a hideous prospect, he thought.

He turned the flashlight back on, picked up the cat bag, unlooped the string from the top, reached in, and grabbed the animal. The cat cried. Not a hiss but a full-bodied cry of pain and terror.

He grinned. “Oh but you haven't seen the half of it, my little friend,” he said.

It clawed at him but he was holding it by the scruff of the neck and wearing the thick falconer's glove the Master had bought on eBay. A cat could scratch and bite him but couldn't penetrate the thick leather. He watched as the animal desperately tried to harm him. It didn't have a chance.

The cat fought pointlessly for a minute and then gave a great screech of terror.

“Ssshhh,” he said and pushed it down onto the rock, holding it tightly by the neck. He squeezed on its carotid, choking the flow of oxygen to its brain. The cat ceased fighting and stared at him out of almond-shaped, starlight-reflecting eyes.

“Well, now, cat, I'll bet you have no idea what's in store, do you?” he said.

The cat hissed.

“What's the matter? Don't you know who I am?”

The cat hissed again and he squeezed harder.

“I'll tell you who I am. I am the object of your transfiguration. I deliver you from this vale of tears.”

With his left hand around the cat's throat he picked up the penknife multi-tool with his right.

He tried to unhook the blade but he found that this was awkward in the dark.

He pushed hard on the knife blade, but it wouldn't come. One-handed, he couldn't quite get purchase on the blade tip and was unable to lever it out.

“Always something unexpected,” he muttered.

Next time he would open the multi-tool first and place the blade on the rock, ready to go.

The cat began shivering. Convulsing. What was the matter with the thing? Was it having a heart attack? Did cats have heart attacks?

He once again tried to hook the blade out on the rock but still it wouldn't come.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” he muttered. “Come on.”

He pushed and pushed, but what was needed was an opposable thumb. He considered his options for a moment. The best thing to do was to put the cat back in the bag and start it all again with the multi-tool open.

Yes.

He shoved the cat back inside the canvas sack. “Only a reprieve, not a pardon; don't get any ideas, cat,” he said.

He shook off his gauntlet and with both hands working the problem this time the multi-tool blade came easily. “There we go,” he muttered when finally the blade was out.

It was long, sharp, pointed, serrated—perfect for skinning a small mammal.

“Reprieve over,” he said, excitement making his voice sound high and strange.

He put on the glove again and carefully reached into the bag and got the cat around the throat.

This time it didn't even fight but merely lay there limp and trembling.

He imagined the deliciously pitiful yell, the blood pouring over the sacrifice stone, the light dying from the cat's eyes, the smell of fear and intestinal gases … his spine tingled, his attention wandered, his grip slackened, the cat seized its opportunity.

Probably a pampered indoor cat wouldn't have stood a chance against the cat killer, but this particular creature had lives aplenty yet. It was a stray that had been adopted by the inmates of the Cobalt Colorado Minimum Security Prison. It stayed there during the day in one cell or another and at night made its way through the wire to hunt all over town. They called it Houdini after the great escapologist.

Houdini felt the pressure ease on his throat and he sensed
that the human's attention was elsewhere. Just a little more. Just a little more. He let the muscles in his neck slacken. His whole body flopped, becoming as flexible and pliant as a water balloon. His stomach slid through the thick gauntlet fingers, then his shoulders, then the back of his neck, then one ear, then another.

Gravity did the rest.

The cat killer looked at the blade glinting in the starlight. The effect pleased him. It was nice to be outside. So much purer. So much crisper. Killing indoors lacked poetry. The Ute had been right to come here, and of course when Abraham had come to sacrifice Isaac it was in a place like this.

There hadn't been a sacrifice here for a thousand years, but perhaps above him and around him the legions of the dead were watching in approval.

The cat killer swayed back on his heels, high on endorphins, his eyes glazed.

“And now, my beauty, the moment of truth has—”

He looked down, surprised.

There was no cat.

He swung the flashlight in all directions, but it did no good; the animal had gone.

He howled in frustration.

He howled and smashed his fist on the rock.

The Master would not be pleased.

Oh no, he would not be pleased at all.

Perhaps he would tell him only about the girl's parents canceling the trip to the cinema. He need not know about any of this.

Yes, he thought. That's what I'll do. And next time …

Next time nothing will escape me.

Snow was falling on the Empire State Building and the pyramid of the Luxor. The taxi driver shivered as he loaded suitcases into the trunk. The poor guy was only wearing a T-shirt, Danny noticed. People forgot how cold it could get here in January.

“Dan, are you sure you don't want to come in the car?” Walt asked.

The taxi driver slammed the trunk, got in the driver's seat, and warmed his hands over the vents.

Danny shook his head. “If there's traffic, I'll probably beat you anyway,” he said.

Walt closed the passenger door. “OK, son, but don't dillydally. If we miss the flight, your mother will skin us alive.”

“Sure,” Danny replied.

The taxi drove down Prince Scotty Street and turned on Westminster Avenue.

“Make sure you take good care of Jeff!” Danny shouted after them, but they didn't hear.

He stared at the sky. Normally by now the deep blue would be filled with crisscrossing vapor trails until it resembled every bored-senseless drawing he'd ever done on PaintBox; but today it was gray, low, foreboding.

He laid down his best skateboard—Sunflower—and looked back at the Strip. From the empty lot next to their house he could see all the way from the Luxor up to Circus Circus. The pyramid, the castle, the New York skyline, Paris … It didn't look weird to him—it was familiar, comforting.

He wondered when he'd be back here again.

Probably not for years and years.

He kicked with his right foot and rolled down the hill.

He cruised through the junction feeling the cold wind in his ears and nostrils. On Hacienda he could see mountains to the east. That's where we're going, he said to himself without enthusiasm.

In fact, his mother was already there.

He kicked again and looked at his watch—10:44. He'd have to get moving if he was going to beat the taxi. The best route was west on Swenson because the other slip roads to Wayne Newton Boulevard were complicated; but then again it would also be nice to see something of the old neighborhood before he left.

He went north. He switched to goofy-foot and kicked with his left, then centered himself in the middle of Sunflower, one sneaker on either side of the blue grip tape on the deck.

“Bye, Danny,” Mrs. Connor said.

“Bye,” he replied.

“We'll all miss you,” she said.

He doubted that. Joe and Tommy Connor had done nothing but chase him and beat the crap out of him since they had moved here from North Las Vegas two years ago. Claire Connor was nice sometimes, but the brothers were the worst.

He zipped the front of his black hoodie and pulled it over his head. He leaned to port and the board turned left on Maryland. This part of town was bad news. Empty lots, garbage in the yards, pine boards nailed over broken windows, stripped cars and pickups. The population here was transient and he'd never gotten to know any of the kids.

On Escondido someone had tipped a shopping cart full of beer cans upside down in the middle of the street and left it there. At two cents a can, that was about five bucks' worth going to waste. A sheet of pasteboard drywall was lying in front of it. Danny could easily steer around it, but the drywall could possibly be a vert, so he decided to ollie it instead. He hit the ramp and kicked the tail down while jumping and sliding his front foot toward the nose. Almost magically Sunflower lifted off the ground. Momentum carried board and boy over the shopping cart, and skill brought them together again on the road.

He landed horizontal on the blacktop and freewheeled farther downhill.

Danny knew it would cost him minutes, but for old times' sake he cut through an alley and skated to the Tropicana Wash. It had been a while since a river had once flowed here, and he pushed past tires, stray dogs, and some kind of improvised homeless camp. The recession was already squeezing Vegas harder than other parts of the country. Maybe they were getting out just in time, Danny thought. He skated up the forty-degree bank and hit the street near the Hard Rock Hotel.

He looked at his watch. It was time to go. He maxed the volume on his iPod, laid down Sunflower, and kicked hard all the way to McCarran Airport.

Walt had gotten there first, but only just.

Danny spotted him at the Frontier desk and walked over.

“Hi, Danny, we're all set. So ya gonna miss the old place?” Walt asked.

“I guess,” he said, but he didn't really know how he was feeling. Sad, maybe. Confused. Nervous.

Danny said good-bye to Jeff as the Frontier Air check-in lady took him to the oversized baggage area. Danny didn't like the way she was swinging the cat carrier left and right in her hand. He unplugged Winds of Plague and said, “Excuse me, ma'am, he's very old; can you be super careful with him?”

“Of course,” the lady said, and swung the carrier about a little bit less.

“You wanna get a coffee?” Walt asked. He seemed tired. Danny knew he was only fifty, but he looked a lot older than that. He kept his hair long, almost to his shoulders, and it was so streaked with gray now that really it was better to say that it was gray hair streaked black. His face was wrinkled and that little pug boxer's nose of his looked uncomfortable and awkward on that big, flat face. Sometimes Danny wondered what his mom saw in him. He was thin, wiry, almost frail, and by his own admission a screwup. He'd gone to Annapolis, and if he'd stayed in the Navy for six more years he'd be on half pay by now living on easy street, and if he'd stayed on at the Glynn Casino he could be earning big bucks too, but he had screwed up that job just like he had screwed up half a dozen others since.

Walt was Danny's stepdad, of course; his real father was a married guy living in Illinois with a whole other family and kids. Juanita—Danny's mom—never talked about him, but that was the information he'd been able to get from his aunts over the years. Some guy who had lied to her and made her promises and got her pregnant and then skedaddled. Danny was an only child, but sometimes he thought about those half brothers and sisters out there. How many of them were there? Were there boys? Girls? Whereabouts in Illinois? Chicago?