The Tin Man (15 page)

His testic
les drew up when “Zeus” stepped toward him, pointing the drill at his chest like a pistol.

“Where is it?”

He came still closer. Aslan began to shake all over.

“I have nothing, know nothing.”

The way the professor figured it, he was a dead man either way, so why admit anything? He only hoped he’d find the strength to hold his tongue. The only way to stop them was to expose their scheme. And his granddaughter could do that, if only she received and understood the clue he’d left behind.

“Hold him.”

As the twins gripped Aslan’s arms, Zeus circled around behind him.  

“W-what
are y-you g-going to d-do?”

His voice was quaking so badly, he could barely spit out the words. Sweat was pouring down his face and back. He felt queasy, woozy,
weak in the knees.

“The way I figure it,” Zeus replied, “if two heads are better than one, shouldn’t the same logic apply to assholes?”

The twins snickered in stereo. Behind him, he could hear the drill screeching like a bird of prey.

“Please,”
Aslan beseeched, legs shaking. “Don’t do this. I’m begging you.”

He could hear the whirring coming ever closer. Bile rose in his throat, but he quickly choked it down. And then, he felt a searing stab in the tender flesh just below his tailbone.

* * * *

Buchanan and
Thea were halfway to Philadelphia before he decided to risk saying something to try to break the tension suspended between their two seats like a double-sided shield. She’d been sitting there for more than an hour, wrapped in a cocoon of silence. One of them had to summon the courage to talk first, and it looked like the dirty job would fall to him.

“Listen,
Thea,” he began, clearing his throat. “It isn’t that I don’t find you attractive….”

How could any man not? She was so fucking
beautiful, it took his breath away to look at her.

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said
astringently. “I get it. You’re not interested. Let’s not belabor the point.”

He swallowed.
“That’s not entirely true.”

She looked at him then for the first time since that moment
in the bedroom. Her eyes were red and puffy. Jesus wept, she’d been crying. Now he really felt like a jerk.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I
am
interested,” he said, meaning it. “I just don’t know how much. And I think it would be a mistake to sleep with you until I’m sure.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Aye, but—”

He hesitated, licking his lips, not knowing quite how to tell her about Helene
or even if he should.

“But what?”

What the hell? Better to be honest, right?

“There’s another woman in the picture.”

Her brow furrowed. “You have a girlfriend? Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said. “She’s my landlady.”

She let out a surprised laugh. “You’re sleeping with your landlady? No offense, but it sounds like something out of a bad TV sitcom.”

“She’s not Mrs. Roper,” he
pointed out as he raised his shields. “She’s a documentary filmmaker. I sublet the apartment from her. It’s an affair of convenience. Nothing more.”

He could feel the heat of her gaze on his face.
“Then what’s the problem?”

He reached to the dashboard for his cigarettes an
d lit one. Lowering the window, he blew out a cloud of smoke before saying, “I’ve never been in love. And I’m afraid I might not have it in me.”

When she fell silent, he turned to look at her, but met the back of her head.

“I don’t get it,” she said after a while. “You’ve never been in love, but you’ve obviously slept with other women, including your landlady. So why not me?”

“I don’t know,” he told her, and he meant it. He honestly couldn’t say what it was about her that felt different.

She turned to him with a dewy gaze. “What if I said no strings attached?”

He
wanted to make an acerbic remark, but bit his tongue. For a long time, he rooted around inside for the key that might unlock the door to his feelings. Finally, thinking he’d found at least part of the answer, he said, “I’d say that maybe, for the first time in my life, I might want a few strings. More than a few, maybe.”

When her eyes lit up, it scared him a little.

“Are you serious?”

She reached for his hand, which rest
ed on the console, and stroked the back of it with her fingers. Her touch was tender, but also disconcerting. The feeling of it sent a shiver down his spine—a good kind of shiver.

“I need a little time to figure things out,” he said, throat
tense. “Do you think you can give me that?”

She pushed her fingers in between his and squeezed his hand.

“Sure, Buchanan,” she said, “if that’s what it takes.”

He cleared his throat, wanting to be
clear. “I can’t make any promises.”

“I understand,” she said, lifting his hand to her lips and kissing it, “and I’m not asking you to.”

He glanced at her legs, feeling a jolt of desire as he noticed the boots and short skirt. He more than liked the look, which brought to mind Emma Peele. Thea, he realized then, was like his feminine ideal in lots of ways. A wee bit more insecure perhaps, but he saw nothing wrong with that. In fact, he rather liked that the Ball Buster had a vulnerable side.

“I don’t suppose you’ve trained in any of the martial arts,” he asked with a meaningful grin, “or fencing?”

“As a matter of fact, I used to take Kung Fu,” she told him. “I would have rather taken ballet, but my mother wanted me to be able to defend myself.” She laughed before adding, “But I never took fencing—given that muggers so rarely wield rapiers these days.”

* * * *

Zeus was now at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, meandering through the halls in search of three exhibits touted in the visitor’s brochure: Ted Bundy’s Volkswagen, a medieval torture display, and a capital punishment room replete with an authentic electric chair used to fry more than a hundred death-row inmates in Tennessee.

Old Sparky.

His heart beat a little faster when at last he spotted the infamous beige Beetle. Drawing nearer, he slowly circled the vehicle, examining every detail: the rust-eaten front end, the splotches of Rust-Oleum on the doors, the cracked windshield, even the faded Utah state inspection sticker on the rear license plate.

He’d been fascinated by serial killers like Bundy fo
r as long as he could remember—partly because of the gruesomeness of their crimes, which titillated him in deliciously wicked ways, but mainly because of their psychiatric profiles. The majority of serial killers, from what he’d read, were classified as sociopaths, meaning they had no conscience, no feelings of guilt or remorse, no compassion nor empathy toward others. Most psychiatrists believed they weren’t born that way—that some screwed-up thing in their childhoods—be it alienation, abandonment, abuse, or all three—triggered the disorder. Early warning signs included chronic bedwetting, fire starting, and cruelty to animals—a trio of symptoms known as the Macdonald Triad—after the psychologist who proposed the theory. Some people pooh-poohed the premise, but it seemed pretty right-on to Zeus.

He smiled at the
boyhood memory of shooting small animals with his slingshot—squirrels, chipmunks, rats, stray cats, birds—nothing anyone cared much about or was likely to miss. He would watch, fascinated, as their dying little bodies quivered and twitched. When the light in their eyes started to dim, he would grab a big rock and put them out of their misery. What an exhilarating feeling of power it gave to take life!

H
e’d always known he was different from other children, but it wasn’t until junior high that he realized he was superior. All through elementary school, he’d stupidly clung to the narcissistic delusion that he was the only one being honest. The others were just like him on the inside, he reasoned—selfish, manipulative, and cold-hearted. None of them cared any more about others then he did; they simply pretended they did for reasons that made no sense to him.

Back then, he saw the planet as a stage and all the people on it as players. Like him. Then, at thirteen, a new truth began to dawn: The world wasn’t a stage; he stood alone in the footlights.
And other people weren’t fellow actors, they were his audience.

E
ver since, he’d been putting on the best show he knew how.

Focusing again at the Volkswagen, he shook his head. People said Bundy was clever, but
Zeus knew better. A smart sociopath would never end his days in Old Sparky. Oh, no. Not when there were so many people in the world just begging to be abused by legal means.

Once the glacier between Buchanan and Thea began to melt, they started talking. Really talking. When she got around to asking about his school days, he could almost smell the cafeteria’s foul bouquet of sour milk, boiling meat, children’s farts, and rotting fruit.

“In those days, the teachers still wore gowns and carried the
tawse
,” he told her, “a leather strap for those who stepped out of line. Six lashes across both hands, one above the other, alternating.” The memory of it made him wince, even now. “The bigger lads, like me and Kenny, were told to take off our watches and pull up our sleeves. All within earshot would cringe, knowing what was coming. Hitting on the wrist, although strictly forbidden, was common practice. And even the biggest lads were quickly reduced to tears. Once, at the start of a term, I saw a boy nearly six feet tall made to cry by our math teacher—Mrs. MacKinnon—who was a wee thing of just over five feet tall. Needless to say, nobody gave her any shite for the remainder of the term.”

She laughed.
And talked, too. Mostly about her family. Her brother’s battle with drugs, her mother’s bitterness over the divorce, her grandfather, with his warmth and good humor, being the one person in her life who could make her feel not only safe, but also worthwhile. The more he heard, the more he grew to like her.

Eventually, the conversation circled back to his reasons for leaving Scotland. This time, he told her: “If you must know, I came to New York hoping to make a fresh start after losing my job at the
Edinburgh Times
. I’d been working there since I was seventeen. Started as a copy boy, didn’t I? But, after Osbourne bought the paper, those with seniority—and thus, higher salaries—were let go under the guise of corporate downsizing.” Suddenly bitter, he added, “Needless to say, journalistic standards played no part in the process.”

His
attention was fixed on the road, but he could feel her watching him.

“When have journalistic standards ever mattered after a corporation buys a newspaper?”

He shot a glance in her direction. “Have you ever been subjected to corporate pressure at
The News
?”

“No,” she replied, “which is why I’m still working there.” She fell silent for a few moments before adding, “What about you? I’ve often wondered what prompted you to leave
World View.
”

He
laughed, but dryly. “You mean besides the meeting where we were told to stop reporting on the troop casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan because it was upsetting to the readers?”

Thea
rolled her eyes. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish I w
ere.”

“I admire your courage,” she said
then, “and what you’re doing at the
Voice.”
She took a deep breath. “Truth be told, I’ve thought more than once about calling you to ask for a job.”

“As it happens
, I have a few openings,” he said with a sideways glance. “But who in their right mind would leave a venerable paper like
The News
to come and work for a fledgling enterprise like mine?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said
musingly. “I find something really compelling about the idea of being able to tell it like it is and call bullshit
bullshit.
”

He arched a quizzical brow.
“And you can’t do that at
The News
?”

“I can,” she said, “but not with the same
unfettered honesty.”

* * * *

On the outskirts of Philadelphia, the journalists agreed the Amtrak Station would be the best place to leave the Mustang. After parking in an out-of-the way spot, they very carefully wiped down every surface they might have touched to remove any telltale fingerprints. Afterward, they walked quickly to the front of the depot, hailed a cab, and slid into the back seat together.