Knowing (20 page)

“Her trusted aide, Steve Crandall, has been chosen as her successor. At this difficult time, we hope everyone allows us to effect a smooth and effortless transition as we move forward and continue with the many objectives that Congresswoman Weller believed in so strongly.” He smiled a crooked grin. “Without further ado, let me be the first to introduce to you, Mr. Steve Crandall.” The red-haired man motioned to the side of the screen.

Jane quickly punched the Pause button on the remote control. There was the indelible, bright crimson, three-inch mark on his right hand—the same way it looked from a distance at the
Anubus
explosion.

Harlan opened the bathroom door and emerged wearing the overalls and flannel shirt. He rubbed the back of his neck as he said, “I look like a damn pig farmer in this get up, Jane.” Turning to the TV and the still image on the screen, he stopped in his tracks. “What in the hell, Jane?” He pointed to the television. “He’s alive! My buddy, Rudy, is alive!”

Jane was still trying to figure out what was going on. But Harlan’s statement forced her jaw to drop. “
That’s
your friend from the hospital?”

“Yeah,” Harlan sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the screen. “He cleans up pretty well, eh? Never saw him wearin’ a suit.”

Jane buried her head in her hand. “Holy shit, Harlan.” She steadied herself. “Tell me again how you and Rudy met.”

Harlan kept rubbing the back of his neck. “He come to me when I was in the rehab unit. Said he was a volunteer and wanted to help me get back on my feet.”

“Is that right? Stayed real close to you?”

“Oh, yeah. Hardly ever left my side—”

“Told you to call him day or night, no matter what?”

“You got it, Jane. They don’t make a lot of people like that no more.”

“Yeah, actually they do. They call them psychopaths.”

Harlan turned to Jane, his face twisted in confusion. “Huh?”

A wellspring of anger rose up within her. “You’ve been set up from the very beginning.” The realization sent Jane backward, flat on the bed. “Who in the fuck are these people?” she whispered to herself.

“I don’t get it, Jane.”

She gathered her thoughts and sat up. “You really couldn’t tell that he wasn’t your friend, Harlan?
Really
? Look at him!” She jabbed her finger at the TV screen. “Can’t you see the darkness dripping off this asshole?”

Harlan looked at the screen. After about a minute, he finally spoke up. “He was my friend, Jane. He sat up with me when he didn’t have to. He stayed late at the rehab unit just to hang out with me. He brought me groceries when I got home and never asked to be paid back. He treated me real good.”

Jane looked at Harlan. It was like hurting a child but she had to. “He was with you at the bar before you blacked out and woke up in that hotel room with the dead, black prostitute.” She waited for him to get it but he was still struggling. “You were so worried that Rudy was in danger? Are you kidding me? Hell,
he
was the one who most likely put something in your beer that night to knock you out. Just like your Mr. Ramos? He may have a law degree but that’s not his first occupation. Rudy—or whatever name he goes by—is part of the same group that is trying to kill you.”

Harlan was not wrapping his head around any of it. “No, no, no. This don’t make no sense. Rudy was a—”

“Remember when I told you about that woman I met who cleared your name? The one who admitted that she set you up? The one who is now dead?”

Harlan nodded. “Yeah. You never said how she died.”

“She was blown up in a bus explosion. I watched it happen. And that man right there,” she pointed angrily to the TV screen, “was leaning on a black sedan, just outside of the debris field. I ran the plates on his car and they belong to a private corporation that goes by the name of ODIN. I think it’s got to be a cover corporation for Romulus. I’m starting to think that the Romulus crest you drew in your notebook…the one with the female wolf suckling the two human babies, Romulus and Remus—” Jane stopped. “
Remus
! Fuck! Sounds a lot like
Ramos
,
doesn’t it?” It made sense, Jane deduced. Lilith’s comment to her about how she had “entertained four guys named Ramos and they all had dark hair,” while
this
Mr. Ramos had “reddish gray hair.” And the way that people made assumptions about how names are spelled based on how they sound would account for the often-sloppy translation of
Remus
to
Ramos
.

“Hang on, Jane! Who’s Remus?”

“It’s not his real name, Harlan!” Jane reopened the window on her computer where she found the meaning of Gabriel’s name. “You said Rudy liked to be called Rudolph, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

She plugged in the name “Rudolph” and waited for the website to spit out the meaning. “What in the hell is going on?” Staring back at her on the screen were two words: Famous Wolf. “Romulus,” she whispered. The whole thing was a strange combination of Occult symbols blended with ancient lore. Nobody used their real names and the names they chose seemed to impart some hidden significance. “If Mr. Ramos is acting as Remus and Rudy is the wolf—”

Harlan kept staring at the TV screen. “I just want to know why Rudy’s in a suit.”

Jane paced around the room. “It doesn’t make sense. Rudy must not be the one in charge of all this.”

“How do you know that?”

“You don’t put the guy who is truly in charge in front of the cameras. The people who pull the strings in this world require a wall between them and the ones they fuck over. They don’t run for public office, they don’t have their names plastered in the papers, they don’t advertise their existence. They stay in the background and operate behind a lead curtain.” Jane glanced back at the video that was paused on her computer screen. Rudy was the go-to guy. He was the chameleon who could act according to whatever was required of him. She thought back to the sequence of events over the past few days, beginning with her car being heisted. Realizing now that the video of Rudy dressed in the motorcycle gear was shot at a different time and a different location but intentionally made to look like the actual Quik-Mart, Jane reached the only logical conclusion in this increasingly illogical case: every single part of the scenario was planned except for Harlan stealing Jane’s car. That required a fake interview that was somehow fed to the local news stations. But Dora Weller’s shooting was looking more like a set-up to oust her and replace her with whomever they needed to manipulate in that slot. However, what Weller’s shooting and Harlan Kipple had to do with each other was still a mystery.

Jane hit the Play button on the TV remote and watched the news conference continue. Steve Crandall approached the microphone while Rudy retreated behind him, yet still remained in the camera frame. Steve looked like your typical affable local political figure who had been forged from chewing gum, then molded and stuck into whatever position his handlers felt he could cope with. He was weak, Jane realized from the few seconds of watching him. As he spoke, Jane tried her best to educate Harlan on some of the visual and audio “tells” she witnessed from Crandall. He hesitated a microsecond too long before he spoke. His inflections curved downward, indicating someone who wasn’t sure of himself, as opposed to those whose inflections were upward rising, denoting confidence and a firm grasp on what was being said. He was scrawny too, barely filling out his uninspired suit. A strong wind could blow Steve over and she was positive that he startled when trains tooted their horns.
Malleable
. Easy to control. Yes, that’s what Jane knew about Steve Crandall.

Turning her attention to Rudy who was still featured in the camera frame, she realized that as criminal as he was, he also didn’t have the right vibe to be the guy in charge. On the psychopathic scale of ruthlessness, Jane put Rudy at about a five or six out of ten. He certainly could easily control and handle Steve Crandall with his crimson marked hand tied behind his back. But he seemed to fit more into the management branch on the psychopathic tree of death, skillfully organizing those below him but still answering to the top echelon that hovered far above him. His name that meant “famous wolf” could easily have been a tip of the hat to Romulus. But as far as him being the epitome of the she-wolf depicted in the Roman myth, that theory felt completely false to Jane. Whoever seized that top position within this nefarious band of psychopathic henchmen had to have a much deeper skill set; a heartless sensibility to accomplish the job at hand. Like any true psychopath, Jane understood that the top dog knew where all the bones were buried but had never lifted a shovel of dirt to cover them up. That’s what the lemmings like Rudy and Mr. Ramos were good for. Whoever was the ringleader of this unholy circus was damn near invisible, just as Gabe explained to Nanette about his mysterious employers. And if the group known as Romulus was anything like the handful of corrupt “private contractors” who were hired to do the bidding of an elite few, they would be almost impossible to penetrate.

Jane let the news conference play in the background but she’d already tuned it out. Her tenure at DH had given ample opportunities to engage with psychopaths who murdered family, friends or complete strangers and never uttered a breath of compunction. She knew the beast very well. They aren’t always rotting away in a solitary prison cell. The fact is, psychopaths inhabit every occupation on earth. From law enforcement and politics to education and science, their ilk is embedded in the fabric of our daily existence. Starting with her own tarnished bloodline, Jane was aware of the flint-like intelligence that often accompanies those who are hardwired to create destruction and eschew peace and harmony. Too often, they are the ones who are admired in their chosen professions, considered to be irreplaceable and honored for what is perceived as their “steely resolution.” But what the ignorant masses never realize is that “steely resolution” translates into targeted chaos, torture, cheating, lying, maneuvering and meting out enormous suffering upon others without feeling a spark of remorse. From the true psychopath’s point of view, people are either commodities that can be traded or they are pawns on a chessboard, easily moved and used with impunity. A man or woman’s usefulness is measured by what they can deliver, and once their worth is sucked dry they are discarded. “Security through domination,” Jane remembered once reading about the psychopath’s mindset. Peace through war. Freedom through devastation. Psychopaths in places of power perfect Orwellian speak and whenever possible, encourage their followers to mindlessly repeat their slogans so that their messages could be broadcast on a wider platform.

Their collective approach is so carefully planned and executed that they can often go unnoticed in public. The psychopaths wear their masks of normalcy, they know the right buzzwords because they invented them, and they understand how to use those words with assurance so that everyone in earshot will believe that all is fine. But it’s a grand deception meant to undermine everything that is good and optimistic. Optimism is the enemy of the psychopath’s ultimate agenda. Opportunity is born from devastation and the greater the damage, the better the opportunity for profit and power. A well-trained psychopath will always play on fear and if they have to manufacture the fear, so be it. In fact, Jane recognized how the worst psychopaths—the ones who operate in elite industries or within other public arenas—are held up by their colleagues as “movers and shakers” and “guys who get things done.” The idea that the end justifies the means is accepted and a blind eye is often turned if the “end” is lucrative.

The fact remaines that the higher one climbs up the ladder of “success,” the more likely one is to interface with one of these sharply dressed snakes. And while they might not get their hands dirty like their brother and sister psychopaths who cling to the lower rungs, their resources are far reaching and able to exact terror on a whim. And yet, the naïve souls who orbit in their murky realm never really accept the vicious power their bosses are capable of generating. Even when the innocent ones are in their presence and held hostage in those iron fists, none of them seem to see the cool, soulless, calculating side of these monsters. Nobody cares enough to look into their eyes and see what is so obviously staring back at them.

And if those innocent ones allow themselves to contemplate for one second that the person in front of them is evil, they usually doubt themselves for even considering it. The perfect psychopath makes sure of that through the waves of manipulation and mind games he enjoys. His razor-sharp intellect produces a personality that can outthink anyone and maintain that level of acumen indefinitely. The seasoned psychopath knows how to penetrate another person’s mind. They understand with pinpoint accuracy what motivates another person to act and respond and they exploit that knowledge to their benefit. They understand all of this and more because they study the human mind. In fact, they are obsessed with the mind and how breakable it can be. Even though psychopaths are certainly members of the human race, Jane knew they perceive themselves as vastly superior and removed from the rest of us. They aren’t just separate from the unwashed masses; they are detached from humanity. And thus, through this belief that they are extraordinary beings, they regard the rest of the world as nothing more than amoebas—single celled consumers who live in a Petri dish and deserve the same treatment given to a flea on a pig’s ass. They conduct random experiments on humans as if they are running a rat through a maze and charting how long it takes for it to get to the cheese. They proclaim edicts from their executive thrones that serve only themselves, but they expertly give the impression that through these proclamations everyone will benefit.

It is a “brilliant evil,” as Jane saw it. Nothing is left to chance. The true psychopath has all their bases covered and is adeptly prepared for the first person to rise up and accuse them of atrocities. But instead of eluding their accuser, they confront them head-on. That is part of the game for the psychopath. There is a devilish fun in staring someone in the eye and lying so skillfully that it sounds like the harp strings of truth. The experience is useful to the psychopath because it keeps their muscle memory alive and tunes them into new tricks so they can fight and win with greater resolve the next time they are confronted.

But Jane was well aware that the psychopath’s greatest power lies in the cozy belief that he either doesn’t exist or that his intentions are not as catastrophic as others fear. True evil, unto itself, is difficult for the average person to contemplate. For many, it’s a radical notion that there are people born into this world who want nothing more than to inflict pain and suffering on others. Furthermore, the idea that wickedness could somehow be burned into a person’s psyche before they take their first breath is controversial. All those well-intentioned neophytes who need to feel safe desperately cling to the idea that if these psychopaths really do exist, all they need is a gentle hand and someone to love them. That type of stupidity infuriated Jane. She’d seen the glint of real evil too many times to deny its existence and she knew that rehabilitation was a joke. She’d felt the full brunt of their torture and insanity and lived to suppress it. And she also understood that trying to explain this level of moral turpitude to someone else who does not want to conceive of it is like banging your head against the proverbial brick wall—it only feels good when you stop. Thus, through the blind ignorance and denial of others, the gifted psychopath is given a wide berth that allows him to exact his ruin without being held responsible.