Hot Sur (67 page)

“Sleepy Joe did that?” María Paz asked in barely a whisper, enraging Rose even more.

“Oh, my God, girl, are you still defending him? Get out of the car, damn it. Now, get out, I can’t stand to look at you.”

Eventually, things calmed down a bit. Rose knew such a brawl between them made little sense when Violeta’s life was at stake. It would do little good for them to kill each other, when the real murderer was loose.

“Who is this man?” asked María Paz again, now more forcefully. “The burned one. Why was he burned?”

“That man is Bubba, Wendy Mellons’s son. Do you recognize him? No, of course not, he’s burned beyond recognition. Do you know of any fucked-up pyromaniacs who may have been responsible?

“Sleepy Joe did this?” María Paz insisted on asking. “How do you know that?”

“How do I know? Don’t start with that again. What are you, stupid? Sleepy Joe burned him and sent that picture to your e-mail address. A message for you to know what he’s going to do to your sister. And to me, of course. Why did he burn him alive? Is that what you’re asking? Why did he whip Pro Bono to death? Why did he murder Cleve? Why did he crucify your dog? I have no idea, but surely you do.”

“Calm down, Rose, and answer me,” she said.

“Sleepy Joe burned that man because that man was going to kill Sleepy Joe. And that man was going to kill Sleepy Joe because I paid him to do it. But things went wrong. The only bad thing was that, how I screwed up, and Sleepy Joe walked away a man possessed instead of being dead. Let’s just stop talking about it, alright? No more arguing, no more questions. Stop crying and clutching that bag. Concentrate on the map, and I’ll concentrate on driving. All we have to do is reach Vermont before him.”

Pro Bono had been murdered at night, around eleven, the lawyer still looking very formal, as usual, even though he was alone at home. He had been about to brush his teeth: a fact known because they had found his toothbrush on the bathroom countertop. Apparently, Pro Bono wore a velvet robe with a lace cord at the waist, white pajamas with a monogram on the breast pocket, a silk scarf around his neck, maybe even a carnation on the lapel: such bombastic elegance, à la Oscar Wilde, through which he always concealed his birth defect.

Buttons had told Rose how Sleepy Joe had snuck into the apartment at that time.

“Do you want to know how?” Rose asked María Paz, a rash of anger again burning in his throat. “You’re not going to want to hear it, because it very much has to do with you. Buttons told me Pro Bono had been looking for you for a while. The trip to Paris had not gone well.
The Marriage of Figaro
fizzled because Pro Bono was in no mood for Mozart and had spent his second and final honeymoon making long-distance calls asking about you. He wanted to know if someone had been able to warn you about the clamp. And when he got to New York, he went right back to looking for you. So steeped was he in the task that, being told the visitor was connected to you, he had no qualms about letting a stranger into his house late at night.”

Afterward, the doorman said he had been suspicious. It was late, no time to be bugging residents, especially a guy like that, very shady, demanding to see the lawyer, all arrogant, telling him he needed to see Pro Bono, “I’m Paz’s cousin, he knows what it’s about.” Very strange, the whole thing. But the doorman had learned to be discreet, had mastered his trade for years, and knew that sometimes the residents of the building had contact with unusual people, drug dealers, for example, or prostitutes even, and who was he to butt in? So he rang Pro Bono. “Excuse me, sir,” he said quietly, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Tell him to come up to my office,” Pro Bono had ordered. “Better yet. Hold on.”

For some reason, Pro Bono changed his mind about receiving the visitor in his office, although it was just a floor above. Maybe he didn’t deem it appropriate to do so in robe and slippers, a matter of principle, because the offices were empty, the last worker having left hours before. Or maybe Pro Bono didn’t want to catch a cold, or couldn’t find the key: one of those simple twists of fates, minor in and of themselves, but of great consequence. Whatever the reason, Pro Bono did not want to go up to the office. He must have thought it better to attend to the man at the door of his apartment. It would be a matter of a few minutes, and he could ask about María Paz. That’s what the man must be here for, with news about her.

“Send him up to my apartment,” Pro Bono directed the doorman.

If the visitor had gone up to the office and not the apartment, the doorman would have been required to ask for identification, which would have confirmed his suspicions. But since it had become a private visit, he let the visitor in without asking anything of him. The image of Sleepy Joe was there in security cameras, and despite the winter gear, his face registered clearly: a white male, young, about six feet tall. The time stamp on the security camera video showed him entering the building at 23:05 and leaving twenty-eight minutes later.

During that time, Sleepy Joe sealed Pro Bono’s mouth with duct tape and forced him to strip—to expose what he never exposed, not even to himself. He robbed the old man of his shell, leaving him as naked as the day he was born, forcing him to look at himself in the great antique mirror with a silver frame hanging in the foyer. Or maybe not. There was likely no mirror in that foyer. Pro Bono would not have wanted to undergo the daily tyranny of that object waiting for his arrival, dismissing him as he left—like a black hole, pulling him into the void to confront the naked truth of his pink and twisted anatomy, thus vanquishing the perfect image he had managed to build of himself as a defender of just causes, a loving husband, an admired, rich, elegant, and cosmopolitan man.

The ceremony must have taken place then in Gunnora’s bathroom, where there were plenty of mirrors, yes, and which, facing each other, must have endlessly multiplied the derision. And that, not what came later, had to be the worst part for Pro Bono: this presentation of the evidence, that his monstrosity was not in the distortion of the mirror or in the eyes of the observer, but painfully embedded in his very nature from the day he was born and until that night, which would be his last. That was the real knockout punch. In the truth of his nakedness, Pro Bono succumbed to the perpetrator. So it could be said that Sleepy Joe lacked subtlety in his cruelty. He did not realize that Pro Bono was suddenly no longer Pro Bono but just a shadow of the man whom Sleepy Joe bent over and tied to a column. He made fun of his hump and mocked his luxuries, put the silk scarf around his neck, hobbling and crouching like an ape, and when he grew tired of monkeying around, he pulled out the whip he had hidden under his coat.

The rest was predictable: the procedure of flogging a poor old man is routine, harder and harder, over and over again, taking it beyond pain toward death. The true sacred flash, the epiphany, the mystical spark was in the whip itself, this fetish with a life of its own that whistled like a bird when it shattered the air with its crack, being, as it was, the first object created by man to break the sound barrier. Ian Rose knew something from Wendy Mellons that the investigators of the case would never hit upon: for years the murderer had been exploring the infinite ritualistic possibilities of the instrument that he had used for the first time in the Morada of the Penitent Brothers on himself. To officiate over the person of Pro Bono, Sleepy Joe did not just use any old whip, but the quintessential one, the so-called Roman flagrum, which had been used in Judea, in the palace of Pontius Pilate, to whip the Son of God. The Roman flagrum has three straps with metal nails embedded at the tips that break off the skin with each stroke, that is, opening it into wedges, creating furrows, a fact that became more common knowledge because of Mel Gibson’s film
The Passion of the Christ
.

The body of Pro Bono, still gagged and tied to the column, but long bloodless, was found the following day by the cleaning lady.

“Stop at the first service area we come to,” María Paz asked Rose, only an hour into their journey to Vermont.

Rose protested: they couldn’t stop, that rest time had not been programmed into their plan. They couldn’t go stopping every minute. They would have to wait at least until Kansas. “Do you have to pee? Can’t you hold it, María Paz?”

“There, a mile away, stop at the service area,” she ordered. “Keep an eye on the signs, Rose. There must be a phone there somewhere. We have to call Violeta to warn her.”

In the Food Mart, they read through the daily newspapers and listened to the TV news broadcasts. Everywhere there were bursts, like wildfire, of the commotion created by the felon of the moment, whom journalists had poetically christened The Passion Killer. And not passion as in love, not love for María Paz, who apparently had not surfaced in the investigations. Nor love for Maraya, or Wendy Mellons, or anyone. Rather Passion with a capital
P
. And while Rose let the dogs out to pee, and María Paz did the same in the bathroom, the world was shocked at the sight of Sleepy Joe, this serial killer who was so beautiful. Amazing, how could someone so pretty and so blond be so evil?

“Look, María Paz,” Rose said pointing to one of the newspapers, “looks like your Hero was not alone.”

“Don’t tell me the bastard killed other dogs.”

“None that are known, but he crucified other people.”

The Passion Killer had been linked to at least nine serial murders committed in different parts of the country but employing similar methods, and most of the victims were people that neither Rose nor María Paz knew. Two of them had been crucified over the past year, one nailed to a door and the other to an armoire, with all the trappings of incense and candles that were considered the trademarks of the killer.

From a pay phone, María Paz called her sister’s school. She knew it would be a difficult, short exchange, but a crucial one on which the girl’s life could depend. María Paz would have to say the right words, so Violeta would act accordingly. She could not scare her with generalities, or create abstract fears, or pretend she could clearly explain the whole thing. Each sentence had to be short and to the point. And there was Violeta, on the line.

“Little Sis, it’s me, Big Sis,” María Paz told her.

“Not Big Sis, it’s the voice of Big Sis.”

“Listen to me, Violeta.”

“Listen to me, Violeta. I saw Sleepy Joe and I got scared. Sleepy Joe. If he comes near me, I’ll bite him.”

“Don’t leave your school, baby!” María Paz felt the blood empty from her head. “
Do not go to Sleepy Joe.
Do you hear me, Violeta? With Sleepy Joe,
no
. Sleepy Joe does bad things, very bad, and Violeta should not go with him.”

“Sleepy Joe was on the news.”

“Think hard, Little Sis. Think hard about what you’re telling me. Did you see Sleepy Joe, or did you see a picture of Sleepy Joe on the news?”

“On the news.”

“Good, Violeta, good.” María Paz felt as if her soul had returned to her body. Sleepy Joe was still not there, and Violeta was somewhat aware of what was going on, so it wasn’t necessary to go into endless explanations that would do nothing but lead to terrible confusion. “You heard about the bad things that Sleepy Joe has been doing. So you should not leave the school.
Do not leave the school.
Wait there, Little Sis, I’m coming for you.”

“Don’t come, Big Sis. The police came asking about you. I said nothing to the police. The director didn’t let them speak to me.”

Shit,
María Paz thought.
Shit, shit, shit. That’s all they needed.

“Now, just stay by the phone,” she told Violeta, after carefully weighing what to do. “Don’t go far from the phone. Big Sis will call you in five minutes.”

“Why twice?”

“Just listen to me. Stay by the phone, I’ll call back.”

María Paz hung up, and then started quizzing Rose in the same tone she had used with Violeta, uttering short and precise instructions and queries, emphasizing each syllable.

“Listen, Rose. Do you know anyone in New York or nearby whom you can trust absolutely?” she asked.

“What?”

“You heard me. A friend, a smart, clever, and good person you would trust with your life.”

“Let me think . . . hold on. Yes, there’s someone.”

“Good. Do you have your friend’s number here?”

Rose told her it was Ming, and María Paz already knew more or less who he was through Cleve, who had mentioned him a few times.

“Will Ming be able to deal with Violeta?” she asked.

“Ming deals with himself, so he can deal with anyone.”

“Great.” María Paz gave her approval. “Then call him. Call him immediately. He must have heard the news as well, so you don’t need to go into long explanations with him either. Tell him to go to Violeta’s school today. Give him the address of the school and directions. Today is Saturday, visiting day, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Where does Ming live?”

“New York.”

“How long does it take to get from New York to Montpelier?

“About five hours.”

“It’s one now. Five hours, it’ll be about six thirty. Perfect. Tell Ming that he has to be there by six thirty. Have him ask for Violeta at the receptionist. Tell him to take her out of there right away, and wait two or three days, whatever it takes, in that motel where you and I stayed when we were in Vermont, North something . . .”

“The North Star Shine Lodge,” Rose said. Since he had befriended Pro Bono, he made sure he remembered the names of all hotels and motels where he and María Paz stayed.

“Yes, that one. Can you tell Ming where it is?”

“Right off I-89, about fifteen minutes before Montpelier. He’ll see it advertised on a large billboard, indicating the exit. From there, he just has to follow the signs.”

“Good, Rose!” María Paz hugged him. “And I did love your son, do you hear me? I loved him very much. And I love you too, when you don’t scream at me. Now, call Ming. Give him directions, and be very concise.”

“Ming is not autistic, María Paz, and neither am I.”