SERIAL UNCUT (2 page)

Donaldson appraised Mr. K again. This was a
smart guy.

"
How about you?" Donaldson ventured.
"Did you kill the owner of this car?"

"
Not yet."

"
Not yet?"

"
He's tied up in the trunk. I'm taking
him someplace private."

Donald worded his next question carefully.
"Do you want to kill me?"

Mr. K drummed his fingers on the steering
wheel.

Donaldson counted his own heartbeats, trying
to keep cool until Mr. K finally replied.

"
Haven't decided yet."

"
Is there anything I can do to, uh,
persuade you that I'm worth keeping alive?"

"
Maybe. The Pinto owner you killed. He
wasn't the first."

Donaldson thought back to his father, to
beating the old man to death with a baseball bat. "No, he
wasn't."

"
But he was the first
stranger."

This guy is
uncanny.
"Yeah."

"
Who was it before that? Girlfriend?
Family member?"

"
My dad."

"
But you didn't use a gun on him, did
you? You made it more personal."

"
Yeah."

"
What'd you use?"

"
A Louisville Slugger."

"
How did it feel?"

Donaldson closed his eyes. He could still
feel the sting of the bat in his palms when he cracked it against
his father's head, still see the blood that spurted out of split
skin like a lawn sprinkler.

"
I felt like Reggie Jackson hitting
one out of Yankee Stadium. Afterward, I even went out and bought
a
Reggie Bar.
"

Mr. K gave him a sideways glance. "Why buy
candy? Why didn't you eat part of your father? Just imagine the
expression on his face."

Donaldson was about to protest, but he
stopped himself. When he broke Dad's jaw with the bat, the old man
had looked more surprised than hurt. How would he have reacted if
Donaldson had cut off one of his fingers and eaten it in front of
him?

That
would
have shown the son of bitch.
Bite the hand
that feeds you.

"
I should have done that," Donaldson
said.

"
He hurt you when you were a child."
Mr. K said it as a statement, not a question.

"
Yeah. He used to beat the shit out of
me."

"
Did he sexually abuse
you?"

"
Naw. Nothing like that. But every
time I got into trouble, he'd take his belt to me. And he hit hard
enough to draw blood. What kind of asshole does that to a
five-year-old kid?"

"
Think hard, Donaldson. Do you believe
your father beat you, and that turned you into what you are? Or did
he beat you
because
of what
you are?"

Donaldson frowned. "What do you
mean
what you are
? What am
I?"

Mr. K turned and stared deep into his soul,
his eyes like gun barrels. "You're a killer, Donaldson."

Donaldson considered the label. It didn't
take him long to embrace it.

"
So what was the question
again?"

"
Are you a killer because your father
beat you, or did your father beat you because you're a
killer?"

Donaldson could remember that first
beating when he was five. He'd taken his pet gerbil and put it in
the blender. Used the
pulse
button, grinding it up a little at a time, so it didn't die
right away.

"
I think my dad knew. Tried to beat
the devil out of me. Used to tell me that, when he was whipping my
ass."

"
You don't have the devil in you,
Donaldson. You're simply unique. Exceptional. Unrestrained by
morality or guilt."

Exceptional?
Donaldson had never felt like he was exceptional at anything.
He did badly in school. Dropped out of college. Never had any
friends, or a woman he didn't pay for. Bummed around the country,
job to job, occasionally ripping someone off. How is that
exceptional?

But somehow, he felt that the description
fit him.

Maybe that's the problem. I've been trying
to be normal all of these years, but I'm not. I'm better than
normal.

I'm exceptional.

"
How do you know this stuff?"
Donaldson asked.

"
The more you understand death," Mr. K
said, "the more you appreciate life."

"
Sounds like fortune cookie
bullshit."

"
It was something I learned in the
war."

"
Vietnam?" Donaldson had been exempt
from the draft because he didn't pass the physical.

"
A villager in Ca Lu said it to me,
before I removed his intestines with a bayonet."

"
Was he talking about himself?"
Donaldson asked. "Or you?"

"
You tell me. Did you feel alive when
you killed your father, Donaldson?"

Donaldson nodded.

"
And when you killed the owner of the
Pinto?" Mr. K continued.

"
Goddamn piece of crap car. I wish I
could kill that guy again."

"
How about someone else in his
place?"

Donaldson squinted at Mr. K. "What do you
mean?"

Another half smile. "The man in my trunk. If
I gave you the chance to kill him, would you?"

"
What'd he do?"

"
What did the Pinto owner do?" Mr. K
countered.

"
Nothing. But I wanted his
car."

"
So you killed him for his
car?"

"
Yeah."

"
Couldn't you have just pointed the
gun and told him to give you his keys?"

"
He would've called the
cops."

"
You could've knocked him out. Or tied
him up."

"
I guess."

"
But you didn't."

Donaldson folded his chubby arms across his
chest. "No. I didn't."

"
This man in the trunk. I promised him
it would take a long time for him to die. Do you think you could do
something like that? Draw out a man's agony for a long
time?"

Donaldson wasn't sure what Mr. K's angle
was. "Sure."

"
Is that something you'd like to
do?"

Donaldson shrugged. "I dunno. Never tried it
before."

"
You know what the alternative is,
don't you?"

"
You kill me."

Mr. K nodded.

Donaldson made his decision in a nanosecond.
"How do you want me to do it?"

"
You can use your imagination. I have
plenty of tools you can choose from."

Donaldson stared off into the miles and
miles of endless marshland. Thought about this strange request.
Found himself becoming aroused.

"
I'll kill him," he said. "And I'll
make it hurt."

Mr. K checked his rearview mirror, eased his
foot off the gas, and then drove onto the shoulder. He put on his
emergency lights, then ordered Donaldson out of the car.

Donaldson didn't even attempt to run away.
He walked around to the rear of the car without being told and
waited, butterflies amassing in his stomach.

The man in the trunk was awake, completely
naked, his wrists and ankles tied with rope. He was older, late
forties maybe, and he squinted in the powerful sun. In his mouth
was a gag made out of a rubber ball.

He looks positively out of his mind with
terror.

Donaldson licked his lips again.

"
I prefer clothesline," Mr. K said.
"You can buy it everywhere, so it's untraceable. And it won't hold
a fingerprint. Get him out of the car. Hurry, before another car
comes by."

Donaldson muscled the man out. It wasn't
easy. The guy squirmed and fought, and he was pretty heavy and
tough to lift. Donaldson quickly gave up trying. Instead, he
dragged him nude across the asphalt as the man moaned around his
gag.

That's gotta hurt,
Donaldson thought.
But that's
nothing compared to what I'm gonna do.

Mr. K took a tool case and a gas can out of
the trunk, then closed it. He instructed Donaldson to pull the man
into the marsh. It was wet, moss clinging to Donaldson's shoes,
muck seeping through. High reeds seemed to reach out and tug at the
bound man, making it even harder to pull him.

After fifty yards, Donaldson was
exhausted.

After a hundred yards, Donaldson was
seriously pissed off. He hated being in the sun again, hated the
throbbing in his nose and muscles, and hated this heavy son of a
bitch for squirming so much and for being so goddamn heavy.

"
That's far enough," Mr. K said. He
set down the tool chest and opened it up.

Donaldson stared inside at the contents like
a kid ogling presents under a Christmas tree.

"
Can you give me my ball gag back?"
Mr. K held out a rag. "It's my last one."

Donaldson unbuckled the gag from the man's
mouth, disgusted by the spit dripping from it. He handed it to Mr.
K and then kicked the naked man in the stomach for making such a
mess.

The man screamed. The first of many to
come.

"
I'll pay!" he cried. "I'll
pay!"

"
What should I use first?" Donaldson
asked Mr. K.

"
Try the ball peen hammer. Breaking
before cutting or burning always seems to work better."

The next two hours blurred by for Donaldson,
his entire world reduced to hurting this unknown, screaming, naked
man in this deserted marsh. Even Mr. K seemed to vanish to
Donaldson, though he took pictures during the proceedings, and
occasionally interrupted to offer advice or encouragement:

Don't cut there too deep. He'll bleed to
death.

Try the pliers.

Tell him what you're going to do next. It
makes it worse.

That part's particularly sensitive. Use the
blowtorch.

He's not looking at you. Make him look at
you, or cut off his eyelids.

He's passed out again. Use the ammonia rag
to wake him up.

There's still a patch of skin there.

Now would be a good time for the salt and
vinegar. Rub it in good.

It doesn't make you gay. Enjoy yourself.
He's at your mercy.

How does it taste? Different than that other
part you tried?

Try feeding his eyelids to him.

Don't worry, it's not your fault. He had a
heart attack. It happens sometimes. You did well.

Donaldson sat nude next to the dead thing.
The portly killer was covered with blood and bits of tissue, and he
couldn't think of any time in his twenty-something years of life
that he'd ever been happier.

Mr. K finished wiping off the cheese grater
with a rag and some bleach, and placed it back into his tool kit.
Then he told Donaldson to douse the corpse with gasoline.

"
Fire will take care of any evidence
you've left behind. But wait until I'm gone. I don't want you
attracting any attention."

Donaldson emptied the can and stared up at
Mr. K, who stood silhouetted against the setting sun. He looked
enormous.

Donaldson offered him the empty can, said,
"Take me with you."

"
You're naked and covered in blood,
Donaldson. You'd ruin the interior of my car."

"
I thought you stole the
car."

"
Stealing cars is for stupid children.
The police have radios. It's too easy to get caught. If you manage
to get out of here, remember that. You'd be wise to remember
everything I've said to you."

"
You're not going to kill
me?"

"
Why should I? Even if you remembered
my license plate number, which I don't think you have, I just shot
two rolls of you torturing a man to death. I have nothing to fear
from you."

Mr. K picked up his toolbox and turned to
walk away.

"
Can I get my gun back?" Donaldson
asked.

Mr. K dropped the box, took out the .38, and
wiped it off with the rag. He emptied the bullets onto the ground
and tossed Donaldson the weapon, then reached into his breast
pocket and tossed something else at him.

Wet wipes, from a fast food chicken
place.

"
I'd recommend getting some of that
blood off before you try hitchhiking again."

Donaldson nodded, picking a morsel of
something out of his front teeth. "Next time I won't get so much on
me."

"
There'll be a next time?"

"
Yeah. Oh yeah."

Mr. K stared at him for a moment, then
lifted his toolkit. "Goodbye, Donaldson. I wish you luck on your
future exploits."

"
You, too."

Mr. K smiled. Not a hint of a smile. Or a
half-smile. But a full one, like he was genuinely happy.

"
And you be careful hitching," Mr. K
said. "Never know who's going to pick you up."

PART
TWO

Indianapolis, 1995

Lucy sat down at one of the few empty tables
on the perimeter of the hotel bar and hoped none of the waitresses
would notice her. She was fifteen years old, and even wearing the
makeup she'd taken from her mother's vanity, she knew her chances
of getting served a drink were remote. Worse, she was taking up
real estate that legal customers willing to pay ten dollars for a
mediocre glass of wine could have inhabited. And there were plenty
of them about, the bar nearly full and the hotel lobby bustling
with well-dressed adults older than her mom.