Joe Victim: A Thriller (32 page)

Chapter Fifty-Three

There is blood all over the floor, and there’s some on the wall too. The wall blood is in the form of two handprints, each with lines of blood leading from the palm to the floor, each from a left hand even though I can’t remember either Cole or Kenny touching it. I’m still sitting on the toilet. I don’t want to be, but I have to be. The room smells of blood and shit and Kenny shit himself too and I guess it’s one more thing he’ll be remembered for. Santa Suit Kenny—singer of songs, lover of children, and savior of the Christchurch Carver. I wonder what they will say at his funeral. I wonder who the real Kenny was and I guess nobody will ever know.

Glen and Adam come in. Glen grabs Kenny by his feet and Adam grabs Kenny by his arms, and they don’t even look at me. They just pick him up and he sags in the middle and for a brief moment I think they’re about to fold him in half like a bedsheet, but they don’t, they take him out of the cell. When the police come and ask what happened, they’ll say they rushed him off for treatment. Only there was no rush. They’ve let him bleed out because a guy like Kenny wasn’t worth saving. They just had to make it look like they did something.

Kenny saved my life. I wish I could thank him. Best I can do is imagine I would have bought one of his books if he’d ever written one. At the least I should buy one of his CDs.

I finish up on the toilet and flush it and get my clothes tided back up. I stare at the blood on the floor knowing how easily it could have been mine. There is blood on my shirt that isn’t mine. I take it off. I lie down on my bed. I can still see the look on Kenny’s face, the disbelief of being stabbed, the acceptance that he was in trouble, and the hope that he wasn’t dying. I’ve seen that hope in others before, and I always enjoyed seeing that hope fade away, but not this time. This time was different and I don’t want to think about it anymore, I want to move on—after all, I have a big day ahead of me. Kenny would want me to. He’d hate to think he’d died just for me to mope around my cell feeling sorry for myself.

I pick up the wedding invitation my mother sent me. There will be no support from her during the trial, and I don’t know why that even surprises me. By the end of the day she will be married. I fold the card in half and tuck it into my pocket. My mom won’t be with me today, but having the wedding invite with me goes some way to making me feel less abandoned. Maybe it will bring me some luck. I start to wonder whether I’ll still have to go to trial today, or whether the events of the last few minutes will keep me here.

I have my answer less than a minute later when four guards come back into my cell. One of them throws me a fresh shirt—at least it’s fresh compared to the one I’m wearing. None of them discuss what just happened as I change into it. It’s almost as if the last five minutes just didn’t happen—the only evidence of it is the blood on the floor and walls, which, I imagine, will be gone when I get back. Santa Kenny’s cell will be filled with somebody new, a different kind of Kenny, but one equally bad.

They lead me down to the exit, the other prisoners quiet and staring at me out of the slots in their doors. I can’t walk straight from the shock of what just happened—and I can’t walk straight because of the cramping pains in my stomach. This is, without a doubt, what birth must be like—only worse.

I’m escorted to the front of the prison. It’s just like Saturday. The warden is there and Kent is there and Jack is there and a bunch of other assholes are there and I feel like shit. The warden is wearing the same suit and tie and has the same disdain on his face. I’m given laces and a belt and everybody watches me as I thread them into my outfit. The warden looks annoyed at me. Then I’m chained up.

It’s sunny outside but cold, though not frosty. There are six police cars out front, and in the middle of them is a van. In each car are two armed officers. There are a few in the van too. It looks like they’re ready for a war. I take a step toward the van and somebody puts their hand on my shoulder and tells me to stop. So I stop. The officers get into the van and into the cars and half a minute later they’re all heading away without me and without Jack and Kent and without the same two officers who were with us on Saturday.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is the trial already over?”

Kent frowns at me. “I can see why people fell for your act, Joe.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Just shut up, okay?”

The stream of cars is leaving and at the same time a van is arriving. It’s similar to the other one, but that one was white and this one is red. It’s dirty and looks a little beaten-up in places and has
Whett Paint Services
stenciled all over it, along with the name Lenard Whett and his mobile-phone number and a star that says
Money-back guarantee.
The money-back guarantee on the side of a tradesman van is a dead giveaway that it’s a fake. It comes to a stop next to us.

“Come on, Joe, you know the routine.”

I climb up into the van. I crouch over so they can handcuff me to the eyelet. Like I’m going somewhere. Then it’s all the same as Saturday only we don’t turn off to go past the airport to go for a stroll through the edge of a farm to go body hunting and to take a vote on whether or not they should all open fire on me. Instead we carry straight on toward town. I haven’t seen it in a year and didn’t realize I’d missed it until now.

“Ah, for fuck sake,” the officer opposite me yells as I vomit onto his shoes.

“I’m . . .” I say, but I can’t add
sorry
because then I’m throwing up again, plus I’m not really sorry. My stomach is heaving. I didn’t even feel it coming. I don’t know what the hell is down there—a pancreas, liver, other meaty stuff that was weakened by Saturday’s sandwich and then compressed violently by Caleb Cole’s fist.

Jack starts to pull over.

“Don’t,” Kent says. “Just keep on driving.”

“It stinks back here,” the officer with the messy shoes says.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Kent asks.

“He doesn’t look too good,” the other officer says. “Pretrial jitters, I guess.”

Pretrial jitters mixed in with a bout of pretrial attempted murder, mixed in with a dash of shit sandwich.

“Joe? Hey, Joe, are you okay?” Kent asks and, for the first time in a long time, somebody sounds concerned about me. It’s touching. So touching I start gagging and then something burns my throat on its way out, ruining my second shirt of the day.

“Joe?”

I look up at her. I nod. I’m fine. Super fucking perfect. I wipe my face in my hands and my palms come away wet and there’s vomit on them. I wipe them on the shirt since it’s ruined anyway. There are dark spots in some corners of the van and lights spots in others. Jack seems to be driving in extremely tight circles and quickly too, but when I look through the wire mesh I can see he’s not, that we’re still heading in a straight line. There is a steady stream of people flowing in the direction of the courthouse. There’s something really wrong with me, because I see Jesus and the Easter Bunny and the Lone Ranger. I see men dressed as schoolgirls, girls dressed as fairy-tale characters, fairy-tale characters drinking beer.

I see the Grim Reaper walking alongside another Grim Reaper.

I wonder if they are here for me. If it will take two of them.

I see a man wearing a Tampon of Lamb T-shirt with
The Queen and Cuntry Tour
stenciled across it, along with a set of dates that all passed by years ago. I close my eyes and I can see Santa Kenny looking up at me with his dying eyes, the sadness in his features. I can see him trying to cling on to a life that was spilling between his fingers.

The view darkens and changes. I think I’m going to pass out. I hold my breath and do my best to hold on as we get closer to the courthouse.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Raphael opens the gun case on the floor. He takes out the box with the two bullets in it and places each of them into the magazine. He takes out the armor-piercing bullet and kisses it. For luck, he supposes, though he never thought about it and can’t rightly say, it was something that just happened. It’s cold. He slots it on top of the others. He assembles the gun. He’s getting better at this. Next time he shoots a serial killer he could probably assemble the gun in the dark. He clicks the magazine into place. He stays in his own clothes for now.

He sits by the window with a corner of the cloth tucked aside and stares out at the courthouse. He thinks about the three bullets. One for Joe. One for Melissa. And one spare. Hopefully he won’t need the spare. Traffic starts to build as eight o’clock arrives and builds even more the closer it gets to nine. Then a police car shows up and puts out road cones to block off the street. Good thing he got here early. Good thing he parked around the corner. Groups of people are walking from the direction of the bus station—he can see them from his viewpoint starting to fill the streets as they come his way. They’re carrying placards and signs down by their sides. Soon they start coming from every direction. If he went to the office across the hall and looked north he’d see the same amount of people carrying the same kinds of signs coming in his direction. The protestors are wrapped in thick jackets and have scarves to keep their vocal chords warmed up for the yelling to come. Some he recognizes from group. They’ve brought friends and family. Media vans start to show up. They drive around looking for parking spaces, but can’t find any, the drivers double-parking and reporters and camera operators jumping out. He sees brothers and sisters of people Joe has killed. He sees people carrying signs that say
Execution is murder
and
Only God decides who lives and dies.
He sees trouble brewing. He sees both signs as being wrong. He supposes that would make them
bad signs.
He sees Jonas Jones, the psychic who was on the news all day yesterday, arrive at the back gate and not go any further. Other people see that too, and a small squadron of them gather there, but mostly people are making their way to the front of the courthouse, where they are out of his view.

Around quarter past nine comes the chanting. “Two, four, six, eight, let us eradicate.” Over and over it comes from the front of the courthouse, the words traveling easily on the cold, still air. The numbers start to grow. Soon people are arriving at the end of the block and can’t go any further, the street right outside the courthouse is packed. They spill out onto the other roads. The intersection becomes jammed. Then Elvis appears. He’s walking with Dracula and they’re carrying a six-pack of beer. They are followed by four beer-drinking Teletubbies and a couple of thin girls dressed up as maids. There is a moment, a comical moment, where he wonders if he’s having some kind of stroke, but no, what he is seeing is real. He doesn’t understand why it’s real, but it is. They disappear into the crowd.

At nine twenty a car waits for the gate to roll open, then enters the parking lot behind the court. Detective Carl Schroder—or just Carl these days—climbs out. The gates roll closed behind him.

Walking past the gates is Magnum PI and two nuns, Magnum saying something to make the two nuns laugh. With them is Smurfette. Raphael observes as Schroder watches the group walk past, then Schroder is slowly shaking his head before he disappears inside. Raphael pulls more of the drop cloth aside and reaches around the back and opens up the window. The air is chilling. The murmurs of street life kick up a few notches, he can hear people shouting and laughing and people arguing. He secures the curtain back into place.

He changes into the police uniform. He stuffs his clothes back into the bag along with the thermos, then he reaches up into the ceiling and throws it as far as he can. He knows he’ll probably be in jail by the end of the day, but no reason to make it easy for the police.

At nine thirty Raphael lies down on the platform they made. He has the urge to unload the magazine and reload it, just to make sure everything is how it should be. The same urge makes him want to take apart the gun and put it back together. But ultimately there’s no point. It wouldn’t go any different to how he already has it—and he’s satisfied it couldn’t be any better. He looks at his hands for any sign of the shakes and doesn’t see one. He positions the gun and he waits for Joe and Melissa to arrive.

Chapter Fifty-Five

“Which one of you has children?” Melissa asks.

“What?” the woman asks.

“She does,” the guy says, “but I don’t.”

“Then that makes this easy,” she says, and she hands him a syringe.

“What is it?” he asks, without taking it.

“It’s your chance to live,” Melissa says. “You take that shot, and you get to fall asleep for the next hour. You don’t take the shot and I shoot you in the face right now,” she says, wiggling the gun a little. “Take your pick.”

“Is it safe?” he asks.

“Safer than this,” she says, wiggling the gun again.

“No,” he says.

“If I wanted you dead, I’d shoot you,” Melissa says. “The fact is I need you very much alive, but right now I need you very much out of the way. Now I know you’re confused and scared, so I’m going to give you five more seconds to think about how you’d rather be unconscious than dead.”

“And what are you going to do with her?” he asks.

“She’ll get the same option when I’m done with her,” Melissa says.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“James,” he says, “but you can call me Jimmy.”

“This is a silencer, Jimmy,” Melissa says, tapping the end of the gun. “I can shoot you both in the head and nobody would hear a thing. I can drive the ambulance myself.”

Her words have an effect. You Can Call Me Jimmy takes the syringe. He rolls up his sleeve and uses his teeth to pull the cap off it, then holds the needle upright and taps the tube to get rid of any air bubbles. He looks like he wants to stab it into Melissa. Instead he puts the tip into his arm and keeps pushing until the needle disappears, then he pushes his finger down on the plunger.

“I don’t feel so good,” he says.

“Climb over into the back,” Melissa says.

“I . . . I don’t think I can.”

“Yes you can. Come on.”

He starts to climb over. He gets halfway then looks up at her. “I don’t feel so good,” he says again, and then proves just how un-good he’s feeling by collapsing.

“What did you do to him?” the woman asks.

“He’s only sleeping,” Melissa says, then drags him all the way into the back.

“What are you going to do to us?”

“Give me your driver’s license,” Melissa says.

“Why?”

“Because I asked nicely,” she says.

The driver lowers the sun visor. Her license is tucked into a pouch up there. She hands it over. Melissa looks at the photograph. It’s five years old. She looks at the name and at the address. Trish Walker. Lives in Redwood.

“This address still current?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Trish,” she says. “Rather than me explain everything to you, just listen in as we drive and you’ll figure it out.”

“Drive where?”

“You have a schedule, remember? Just stick to it.”

Melissa gets out her cell phone. Trish starts driving. Melissa dials a number that doesn’t exist and then talks to a person who isn’t there. Trish sits at a red light, which ten seconds later becomes a green.

“It’s me,” Melissa says. “Here’s the address,” she says, and she reads out the address from the driver’s license into the phone. “You got that? Now repeat it back to me,” she says, and she listens to nothing as the address isn’t repeated back. “No, I said sixteen, not fourteen. Repeat it back,” she says, knowing the small detail makes it believable. “That’s it,” she says.

She hangs up.

Trish has gone pale. Very pale.

“Okay, Trish, by now you’ve figured out that you’re in a very deep hole, and your children are in there with you. Think of it like this. Think of that hole slowly caving in, there’s dirt all around you, and you have one chance to claw your way out of it along with your children. Are we on the same page here?”

“What are you going to do to them?”

“If you help me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You don’t do what I say . . . well, then it gets interesting.”

Trish nods. Melissa glances behind her at Jimmy. Not too many places to hide an unconscious body, but she can make do. First she just has to strip him out of his uniform. She’s going to need it.

“I want you to tell me we’re on the same page,” Melissa says.

“We’re on the same page,” Trish says.

“Good,” Melissa says, “because we’ve got a few things we need to discuss on our way. And you can start by giving me your cell phone—best you don’t have it, because something like that in the wrong hands is only apt to see that hole of yours get a whole lot deeper.”