The Closer

I’d like to thank the following: my agent, Lucienne Diver, for her tireless work on my behalf; my editor, Kevin Smith; Chris and Nikki, for tent-trailer assistance; the Vancouver Freaks group for various kinds of support, technical and otherwise; the Templeton Café and Bon’s Off Broadway, for providing atmosphere, dazzling waitresses and lots of coffee; and all the people who believed in me, stuck by me and treated me as fairly as I treated them.

A special thanks goes out to Coyote—one storyteller to another.

Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements.

—Milton,
Paradise Lost

It was a slow night on the Stroll, and Susanna grinned when the late-model Taurus with the rental plates pulled over. Rental plates meant an out-of-town businessman with an itchy credit card and a lonely hotel room; it meant a quick hundred dollars, maybe one-twenty with tip. It meant she could kick off her damn shoes for a few minutes, and go someplace where the wind wasn’t turning her nipples into raw pencil erasers.

She leaned over and stuck her head into the passenger-side window. The guy driving was a surprise— younger than she’d expected, with a shaved head, scruffy goatee and chrome rings piercing his eyebrows and lower lip.

Street instincts sized him up in the time it took her to smile. Once, anybody looking like him was sure to be trouble; these days, everyone under the age of thirty seemed to have something pierced. Susanna herself had a ring through her belly button.

What the fuck. Maybe he’s got some coke.

“Hey,” she said. “Wanna date?”

“Nah,” he said, matching her grin. “I just pulled over for a few fashion tips.”

She laughed despite herself. The outfit she was wearing—black latex minidress with four-inch matching heels—was brand new. She knew it showed off both her long legs and her waist-length black hair, but she didn’t expect a john to appreciate it as any more than a candy wrapper.

“Well,” she said, “I know what’d look good on
you.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.”

He chuckled and nodded, his piercings glinting chrome green in the glow of the dash. “Okay. I’m in.”

“Not yet,” she said sweetly, “but you will be.”

She got in on the passenger’s side. He pulled smoothly away from the curb.

“I’m Todd,” the driver said.

“Susanna.”

“For a second, I thought you were going to tell me to get lost,” Todd said. “What, I don’t look like I have a Gold Card?”

“Just checking you out. A girl can’t be too careful, you know?”

“Sure, I understand. Lotta freaks out there…”

Afterward, he lay in the hotel bed, smoking.

Man, that was sweet. Not as good as the real thing, of course, but pretty good all the same.

He put his arms behind his head and stretched out luxuriously.
And the stupid bitch never suspected a thing. Thought I was Mr. Normal. Hah.

The bathroom door opened and Susanna stepped out, wearing the minidress but barefoot. She bent down and grabbed her stiletto heels from the floor.

“That was great, Todd,” she said. “I’m gonna go wait for my cab downstairs, okay?”

“Sure,” Todd said with a lazy grin. “Hey, I’m going to be in town for a few days—you got a number I can reach you at?”

“I left my business card beside the sink. It’s got my pager number,” she said, wincing as she put on her shoes. “Call me any time you feel like a party.”

She was halfway out the door when he said, “Hey, wait a sec!”

She turned back. He motioned toward the table beside the door. “At least finish your drink….”

She grabbed the scotch and water he’d mixed for her and downed the last half of it. “Thanks,” she said. “That’ll keep me going.”

“And everybody else coming,” he said, grinning.

As the door swung shut he called out, “And hey— be careful! Lotta freaks out there!”

Click.

He got out of bed naked and padded over to the door. He took a tissue from the box on the table and used it, very carefully, to pick up the glass Susanna had used.

He held it up to the lamp on the nightstand and squinted at it. He could see several usable fingerprints already.

“Oh yeah,” he murmured. “Whole lotta freaks out there…”

The hooker’s name was Nikki. She was in her early thirties, pretty, her hair currently long and blond. Makeup hid the lines in her face. She got her tan from a UV booth and her smile from years of practice; her eyes were as sharp and blue as a pissed-off Siamese cat’s. Skintight white pants and a black halter top showed off her flat belly—she had the hard physique of someone who treated her body the same way a soldier treated his gun.

Her feet sported a pair of stylish white sneakers with four-inch soles. A thick chain bracelet, heavy with charms, was her only jewelry. She chewed gum constantly, and blew big pink bubbles from lips exactly the same shade.

Nikki had been on the street circuit since she was seventeen; she knew how it functioned. The first thing she’d done when she’d gotten into town was find the all-night coffee shop where the working girls hung— there was always a place near the Stroll—and get a quick feel for the scene. She’d worked Seattle before, but things shifted; it was always a good idea to check out the flow first. She didn’t want any territory hassles.

A black car pulled up. Nikki bent down to talk into the open passenger-side window, then got in. The car pulled away.

A second later, a white van rolled out of the alley. It swung in behind the black car and followed it at a discreet distance.

Nikki turned in the seat to face the driver and studied him coolly. He was middle-aged, white, balding. Typical. His suit was wrinkled and badly out of style, and the car smelled of old tobacco. “So, Stanley,” she said. “What do you like?”

“I, uh—nothing unusual, really. And call me Stan.”

“Okay, Stan—so what’s
usual?”

“Uh, well—I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to get into any trouble. You’re not—you’re not a police-woman, are you? I’ve heard they sometimes disguise themselves—”

“Oh, is that the problem? Okay.”

She leaned over and slid a hand into his crotch. He gasped, but she left her hand there.

“If I was a cop, think I’d do this?”

“N—no, I guess not.”

He gave her an embarrassed smile. She smiled back and blew a big pink bubble.

Ah,
Todd thought as he dropped his duffel bag on the floor.
It’s good to be home.

Not that “home” was much. A studio apartment with a pull-out bed, a desk and a dresser, a tiny kitchenette that could hold two people at a time. He hadn’t bothered to put anything on the bare white walls, and the small space reserved for a dining table was occupied by a mountain bike. He usually ate out, or over the sink.

The apartment was really only a place to sleep— and to keep his most prized posession, which he headed straight for. It was his lifeline, his doorway into the Real World.

As soon as he sat down and logged in he began to relax. He stretched, yawning. It had been a long flight— but hey, you did what you had to. Besides, it wasn’t like the job didn’t have its perks. He thought about the hooker’s legs wrapped around his waist, and grinned.

He dived into the datastream of the web with the same fierce joy a snowboarder would show the Matter-horn. Graphics blurred past as he jumped from website to website, checking out postings, gossip, rumors. The websites had names like Serial Killer Hall of Fame, True Gore, and Monsters of the 20th Century; they were as familiar to him as the local mall, and about as tame.

Time for the real deal.

The chat room was called the Stalking Ground. It was his own system, a dedicated server accessible only through an intricate system of encryption and rerouted messages. He logged on with his name—not Todd, which was about as genuine as the name the hooker had given him—but his real name, the one he’d taken for himself: Djinn-X.

The screen split into three horizontal bands of color: black, red, and white. At the very top of the screen was the word
Discussion
in elegant script. Djinn-X’s name appeared in the right-hand corner of the top band, which was black. There was a picture of a blindfolded woman screaming on the far left margin; when he typed, her mouth moved and his words appeared in a dripping, blood-red font.

DJINN-X: Hey, fellow hunters…looks like we’ll

have a new member of The Pack pretty soon!

The second band on the screen was a swirling red, and the name in the right-hand corner was The Gourmet. His icon to the left of the screen was an animated meat cleaver, which split a skull and released a little gray brain, over and over. When he typed, the thick black letters slowly coalesced as if appearing out of a scarlet mist.

The third band on the screen was a crisp, clean white. The name in the corner was Road Rage, in elegant script. The font used was the same, verging on calligraphy but simple and easy to read.

Djinn-X grinned. “All right! The master of disaster returns….”

He jumped to another area of the site. The expression on Djinn-X’s face went from intense interest to shock to outright awe as he scanned the screen. “Fuck
me
….” he whispered in admiration. He scrolled down greedily, then returned to the discussion page.

Djinn-X shook his head and leaned back. “He’s both, boys,” he said softly. “He’s both.”

Stan’s house was two stories high with the first built flush to the ground, and looked exactly like every other house in the suburban cul-de-sac: painted white with red tile roofing, a white iron-railing fence with stone pillars every few feet and cheesy plaster lions on top of them.

The automatic garage door opened as the car approached. The van pulled over a block away.

Nikki followed Stan from the garage through a connecting door to the kitchen. Beige linoleum on the floor, appliances in Harvest Gold. Formica counter-tops in a sunshine yellow that didn’t quite match the fridge or stove. A sink piled with dirty dishes, but otherwise clean. Her wet sneakers squeaked on the linoleum.

“The bedroom’s this way,” Stan said. He seemed more relaxed now. They always did, once they were on their home turf. She followed him down a short hallway.

The bedroom itself was about what she expected: nondescript, unmade double bed, pile of dirty clothes on a chair by the window. Heavy drapes on the window, drawn shut. A musky odor was evident, a mix of unwashed sheets and stale air.

“Would you mind, um, washing your hands?” said Stan. “Before we start? The bathroom’s right through there.”

He pointed. The bathroom door was just off the bedroom, and opened inward.

“Sure. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?”

He circled the house silently. All the doors were locked, but he found a sliding glass door off the sun-deck. He pulled a glass cutter from the pack slung over his shoulder. It took him less than a minute to etch a circle in the glass, pop that out and reach inside to unlock the door.

He pocketed the glass cutter and pulled out something the size and shape of an electric razor. He tested it; a blue spark leapt from electrode to electrode where the rotating heads would have been. Holding the stun gun at the ready, he stepped across the threshold.

Nikki entered the bathroom, keeping the door open.

The bathroom was narrow and claustrophobic, done completely in white tile. There was no towel rack, no towels, no mirror and no window. A recessed light was set into the ceiling, and an inset fan above the toilet. There was a bathtub that had a shower head, but no shower curtain. There were no toiletries of any kind except for an almost empty roll of toilet paper hanging on the wall.

The sink was against the far wall, forcing Nikki to go all the way into the room to wash her hands. She wrinkled her nose; the place smelled like the basement of a parking garage.

She entered warily and turned on the faucet in the sink. No water came out.

“Hey, your sink’s busted—”

The door slammed shut. The other side of the door had a poster of a kitten hanging from a branch, with the words
Just hang in there!
printed on it.

“Stan?”

She tried the door. Locked. She looked around, then pulled a cell phone out of her purse and hit a button. The phone gave her a
No Carrier
message.

There was a loud thump from the other room. Nikki put her cell phone back in her purse—and pulled out a .38 instead.

“I’ve got a gun,
Stanley.
Unlock the door or I’ll blow the fucking doorknob off.”

A voice crackled from the other side of the door. It sounded like someone whispering into a bullhorn, with the volume cranked way up.

“Stanley isn’t available at the moment. He’s…
busy.”

Nikki fired. The doorknob was some kind of heavy-duty industrial model; the bullet ricocheted off it and shattered a tile beside the shower head.

“Go ahead, shoot the door,” the voice whispered. “How many bullets do you have?”

Nikki hesitated, then rapped the butt of the gun against the door. It rang like metal. She traced her fingers over dents in the metal, recently painted over, and nodded slowly.

“Look behind the poster,” the voice whispered.

She peeled the poster away. There were six photographs taped to the door behind it; three were obviously from a black-and-white video feed, taken from a POV above the bathroom door. They showed three different women, all obviously prostitutes, all with long blond hair. The first woman was looking at a cell phone in her hand with a confused expression; the second woman was angrily pounding on the door with a gun in her hand; the third was naked and pleading, hands clasped together and tears ruining her mascara.

The next three were color Polaroids. They showed the same women with their throats cut.

She looked up. Now that she knew it was there, she spotted the pinhole camera above the door immediately. She took the gum from her mouth and blocked it.