Eddie shook his head disappointedly as he re-entered his borrowed Camry, removed the ball cap from his head and tossed it to the back seat where he had found it.
“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” Eddie said in the dark cabin.
He put the car in drive and with the headlights off rolled forward to the next house and stopped, killed the engine, looked through the living room window. The man who had introduced himself as Gene was sitting on the couch beside his wife in front of the TV, undoubtedly watching the news anticipatorily, expecting a breaking headline of the serial killer caught. That story wouldn’t break because it wasn’t a story at all. It served a purpose, to send that snooping motherfucker back home. Neighborhood Watch used to mean peeping Tom. Now it was a station taken by self-important, self-congratulating power-trippers looking to flex some muscle they don’t have.
It was full-dark out. Eddie started the engine of the Camry when he saw a dark figure come from the driveway of the Parcher house, looking in both directions before striding in the other direction down the sidewalk. When he heard the engine start, his pace increased. Eddie put the car in drive and idled toward him. The guy leered to his left at the car now beside him. Eddie humored at the guy’s patent nervousness. A suspicious motherfucker if he ever saw one. How in the hell was this guy still on the loose? Or as his adopted dad would have said, still on the lam. There was an answer to that, you bet your ass. This dude might have figured Eddie to be a cop a light-bar switch away from ending his serial killing reign of terror. He lowered the passenger side window and while idling at an even pace with the man clad in black, said, “Get in.”
The guy increased his pace, damn near jogging now. Speed-walking, that’s what he was. That joke of a sport that had a brief stint in the Olympics before people had laughed enough and moved on out of boredom. Eddie laughed out loud, continued idling forward, cleared his mind, took a deep breath to shake the giggles. “For chrissake, Michael, get in the damned car. I’m your friend. Your only friend.” As an afterthought and in a kind of sing-song silly tone said, “And I’m a goood one!”
Michael stopped and stared dubiously at the stranger. Eddie stopped the car, leaned over and unlatched the door. “Come on, get in. Christ you’re young. What are you, nine?”
“Fuck off.” He wasn’t getting in, but staring undecidedly at him.
“Get in or I call the cops. How’s that sound? Would you prefer that? That’s the game I’m supposed to play, right? Do it or I call the cops, because I love the cops so much and hate bad guys. Michael! Get in the fucking car! Please?”
Slack-jawed, Michael stared stupidly at the driver before getting in the car and closing the door. Eddie drove off with a smile.
“It’s amazing you haven’t gotten caught yet,” Eddie said more to himself than to his passenger. Then muttered, “And you have no idea that you have someone to thank for it.”
“Who are you? How do you know me?”
“It’s best you don’t know my name. At least not yet. If you get caught for this I don’t need you mentioning my name. Who I am is your newest friend. It doesn’t matter how I know you’re the SacTown Slayer, I just do. I know everything I want to know; it’s as simple as that.” He looked over at Michael and said, “And you’re going to take a request for me. You’re going to kill someone. Someone of my choosing, and you’ll do it because I said so. I have all the leverage here, not you. I’m the only motherfucker in the world who knows you’re the killer. And I swear to God if you kill his girlfriend too, I’ll hammer nails into your brain through your eyeballs. She’s off fucking limits.”
Michael was speechless. He stared at him stupefied. “Why do you want him dead?”
“Because he’s been fucking over a friend of mine. Indirectly, but still. The penalty for it is death. Death by your hands.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself? This isn’t how I operate.”
“I would if it came down to it.” He looked over at Michael, who patronized him with a nod. “You don’t believe me?”
“Whatever you say.” He looked out the dark side-window.
Eddie chuckled. “You little prick. It doesn’t really matter to me what you think. If you don’t have the nerve or fail at killing him, I’ll do it myself. But not otherwise. You’re already a killer; one more won’t make your sentence any worse—you’ll get the death penalty when you’re finally caught. Me, on the other hand, I have a clean record. And it’s not just that, Michael.” The two met eyes. “Call it poetic justice. Trent should be murdered by the SacTown Slayer.”
“Why is that?”
Because Trent killed Mae’s parents, and like the chickenshit he is, pinned the blame on the SacTown Slayer, that’s why. That’s the poetic justice part, but not the reason why Trent needed to die. He was poisoning her mind with drugs. But there was no use in telling Michael that. He didn’t want emotions getting in the way of the job. Less information was more. “Don’t worry about it. The guy’s name is Trent Blackwood. He lives alone in an apartment in Roseville. He’s at school in the mornings and afternoons, but home in the evenings, unless he’s playing baseball. Give me your cell number, we’ll keep in touch.”
“What will you do if I refuse to kill him? Call the cops on me?”