“What do you mean — ‘Wait for Stephen’?” Jack asked. He craned his neck to see what the man was doing to his thigh. The pain came to Jack in little bursts and throbs. It didn't hurt as much as he had feared — maybe he still had some of that anesthetic in his system after all.
“I’m almost certain that Stephen’s going to try to fight back,” said the man.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Jack. “He…” Jack started to continue and then gasped for breath because of a new stab of pain. “He was pretty pissed that I tied him up.”
The man looked at Jack and slid the magnifying glasses up so he could look Jack in the eye. “You wouldn’t believe how loyal kids your age are. Everyone else is an outsider, and they bond almost instantly against outsiders,” he said. “That’s another thing I would have taught you. How to spot the bonds between people. Those bonds inform you exactly how to divide your prey from the herd.”
Jack didn’t return the man’s stare. He instead tried to see the damage to his thigh. The man blocked most of Jack’s view with a spotlight.
“How are you signing that? And isn’t it risky to ‘sign’ a victim?” asked Jack. With his questions, Jack hoped to slow the man down. He also wanted to take his mind off the pain.
“I fold back the skin and burn the muscle. It looks really good — much better than a brand or a tattoo,” said the man. “And it will be destroyed when I dispose of you. It’s completely temporary, that’s part of what makes it so beautiful. It’s a wilting flower from the second it’s complete. For most artists, their reward comes when others appreciate their work. I’m more evolved. I know that I’m the only one that can appreciate what I’ve created, and I have no interest in getting caught. But I also know that it’s time to pass on my wisdom to the next generation, just as it was passed to me.”
“So you were taught?” asked Jack.
“Yes, didn’t you guess that from your research? Of course you did, you’re just trying to stall,” said the man.
“No, I’m not,” said Jack. “But why do you want to teach someone?”
“When you perfect something, you want it to be passed on,” answered the man. “Imagine a detective intelligent enough to see the pattern. He’d soon find out the pattern went back over one-hundred years. That would blow his mind.”
“Sounds like you do want an audience,” said Jack.
“Just an audience of one: my eventual pupil,” the man pulled his glasses back down over his eyes and returned his focus to Jack’s thigh.
Jack tried to think of another question that might recapture the man's attention. “How long did you study with the last guy? And what happened to him?” he asked.
“Honestly, not long,” replied the man, pausing again. “I had to get rid of him pretty quickly and then figure out most of the stuff on my own. It’s almost like I replaced him.”
“How did you learn everything on your own?” asked Jack.
“He had a couple of journals stored under the floor of his place. I eventually found them,” replied the man. “Some things I pieced together when he caught me.”
“He caught you? How did you get away?” asked Jack.
“He was careless. Probably wanted me to get the upper hand,” the man looked away and seemed distracted. He perked up very quickly and looked Jack in the eye. “That’ll never happen to me though,” he said.
The doorknob turned. It startled Jack, but the man seemed unfazed. In fact, the man didn’t even turn around to see the door opening.
“Hello Stephen,” said the man to the slowly opening door.
Stephen’s shoe entered first — he slid the door open with his toe so both his hands could grip the gun.
“Turn around,” said Stephen. The man still bent over Jack’s thigh. First, he looked up at Jack and raised his glasses again. He gave Jack a small shrug as if he was perplexed by Stephen’s order.
“Slowly,” said Stephen.
“Okay,” said the man. He pushed away from Jack and turned on his rolling stool to face Stephen. “Is that better?” he asked as he held up his hands; his left still holding his instrument.
“Farther away from Jack,” said Stephen. “And put that thing down.”
“This thing is very expensive,” said the man. He tilted his head down slightly and leveled his cold eyes on Stephen. “I’m not going to just drop it on the floor.”
“Put it down or I’ll shoot your fucking hand off,” said Stephen. He spoke at an even pace, careful not to sound panicked, but a tremor crept into his voice.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said the man. “Let me reason with you, Stephen. By the way, you can call me ‘Patrick.’ It’s a name that Jack made up for me, but it fits nicely.”
He reached to put his instrument back in its holder. Pausing halfway, he looked at Stephen and raised his eyebrows. Stephen nodded assent and the man set the instrument down.
With that done, he placed his hands in his lap and resumed speaking — “First, I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. Honestly, I don’t want you to hurt anyone either.”
Stephen tried to hold his stance. His arms trembled from exertion.
Stephen had intended to silently slip behind Patrick’s bureau and use the tunnels to get to the vending machines. His memory had failed him miserably, as he found himself in the exam room with Jack. Now he stood face-to-face with the crazy guy — Patrick — and Patrick was right. Stephen desperately didn't want to shoot anyone.
“Second,” Patrick continued, “when I captured Jack and you had your adventure in the ceiling, I found that gun and removed the ammunition.”
He sounded confident; Stephen believed him completely. Narrowing his focus on the back of the revolver, he could see a sliver of the chambers on the left and right, and they looked empty.
Stephen could only think of one idea, and it required complete commitment.
“You’re lying,” said Stephen.
“I just saw you look at the cylinder,” said Patrick. “You know it’s empty.”
Stephen assessed his options. He'd seen empty chambers on both sides of the cylinder. Unless someone had unloaded the gun, he should at least have seen the spent casings. Could he bluff Patrick? Jack spoke before Stephen could decide.
“He's wearing my backpack,” said Jack. “I had extra bullets in there. Stephen could have reloaded.”
Patrick paused and looked into Stephen's eyes.
“You boys are not very convincing,” said Patrick. “And I’m the one who unloaded the gun, so you’re not going to bluff me.”
Stephen kept quiet. A new plan formed in the back of his mind; he had to keep it from showing in his eyes.
“The probability of that is very close to zero, based on his reaction,” said Patrick, gesturing towards Stephen. “I think I’ll take my chances.”
Patrick rose from his stool and brushed his hands on his lab coat. He took a step towards Stephen and hesitated only slightly when Stephen raised and re-aimed the gun. With two confident strides across the floor, he stood with his chest directly against the barrel of the gun. Stephen let the man press into his arms a bit, getting a few inches closer.
With his left hand, Patrick reached up and took the gun from Stephen. Sighing deeply, shoulders falling, Stephen raised his hands in surrender. As if explaining a simple concept to a small child, Patrick opened the revolver and showed Stephen the empty cylinder, holding it directly in front of his face.
This was his moment — Stephen cast back his right hand, tilted his head to the left, and landed his fingers perfectly on Kate’s kitchen knife. He had rescued it from the shelf in the closet and tucked it into the pack, at the ready.
He pulled the knife from the pack in a perfect shallow arch. When he brought the knife down, the blade faced Patrick.
Stephen tightened his grip as his right hand had reached eye-level, where Patrick held the gun for his inspection. The knife was tilted, and when it struck Patrick, it slipped nicely between Patrick's knuckles and split the skin and muscle, down to the wrist. The knife rebounded off Patrick’s wrist, and only the tip of the knife scratched the next few inches. The tip scraped down Patrick’s arm, and Stephen pressed forward again and dug the blade in deep.
Patrick inadvertently aided Stephen’s cut, reacting by raising his arm up and away. His reflex helped the blade plunge deeper. Then Patrick leaned back enough to be out of the blade’s path.
“Bitch!” screamed Patrick. He flung the empty gun at Stephen’s head. Expecting retaliation, Stephen easily ducked the gun, but got splattered with a streak of Patrick’s blood. He took a short, crouching step towards Patrick, flipped the blade, and swiped it again. He caught only a tiny part of Patrick’s right arm, but caused Patrick to back up another step.
Stephen pressed ahead, still desperate; he had nothing to lose. He wanted to take full advantage of the surprise. He thrust the knife ahead and lunged.
Trained for this type of attack, Patrick turned his midsection and dodged. Patrick grabbed Stephen’s wrist as it passed by and pressed his hip against Stephen’s falling body. Soon Stephen was upended, flipping over with his knife-wrist as the fulcrum. Halfway through his flight, his wrist bent painfully back and the knife slipped from his hand.
Stephen had studied martial arts enough to know how to fall. He used his legs and free arm to soften his landing, tucked in his head to prevent concussion, and slapped the floor with his free hand. With his chin pressed to his chest, Stephen could see his own left hand hit the floor, and he saw the flipping, flashing knife bouncing just an inch away from it. He turned his hand to intercept the handle of the knife, and grabbed it. His fingers fell perfectly into the grooves of the handle.
Patrick followed the throw with a crouching left-handed punch, aimed right at Stephen’s nose. This was a move he had practiced a thousand times, but had never employed to the point of contact. A smile turned up the corners of his mouth as he anticipated the satisfying crunch of Stephen’s nose. In mid-punch, Patrick remembered the fresh wound and pulled back slightly, not wanting to injure his hand further.
Stephen looked up to see Patrick’s ruined hand descending towards his face, and jerked his left hand up. With his arm fully extended, Stephen would have just reached Patrick’s chest with the knife, but Patrick helped him again. Unable to stop, Patrick’s momentum carried his chest directly into the knife held by Stephen’s locked arm.
The knife slipped easily between Patrick’s ribs and sliced through his heart just as Patrick’s fist reached Stephen’s nose. Stephen jerked his head to the side and his cheek took the brunt of the dying punch. Gasping and pulling both hands up to his chest, Patrick toppled over. For a second Stephen flailed and kicked to get away, but soon saw that Patrick wasn’t trying to pin him down — Patrick's life was quickly fading away.
Extricating himself from the dying man, Stephen got to his feet and stood a pace away from Patrick. He watched as the crazy man’s eyes turned glassy and unfocused; listened as the man’s breathing hitched and stopped. When he had seen no movement for several seconds, Stephen closed his eyes. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before he turned around and faced Jack.
“Can you untie me now?” asked Jack.
“I don’t think I should,” replied Stephen. “I think I’ll just go to your house and get your parents.”
“You can’t do that,” said Jack. “You’re in this now — you just killed that man.”
“That,” said Stephen, pointing, “was self-defense. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.”
“Except for the fact that you don’t have any evidence,” said Jack. “How will this look? It’s his hotel — we’ve just been breaking in. One day he catches us in his place, so you stab him?”
“There’s got to be some evidence around here. That guy’s a killer. You said so,” argued Stephen.
“I think he’s a killer. But I don’t have any hard proof. The worst he did was cut up my leg,” said Jack.
Stephen took a step closer to Jack and surveyed his leg — “Actually he didn’t really cut up your leg. Looks like he was doing a tattoo.”
“Really?” Jack craned his neck to see. “I thought it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Yeah, so what proof do you have of anything?”
“Shit,” said Stephen, thinking about Jack’s logic. “So what do I do then?” He was sure that he could get his parents to understand, but it did seem like a pretty outlandish story. Stephen started to consider talking to police about the hotel.
Jack seemed to be reading his mind — “Can you even imagine what the sheriff would say? He already thinks we’re up to something. I don’t think he’s going to give you the benefit of any doubt.”
“Hey, don’t forget — you shot a man,” countered Stephen. “I think they’ll be able to test your hand and find out that you shot him.”
“Yes, that’s why I need to convince you not to talk,” explained Jack. “If we just do things my way, we’ll be okay.”
“Alright, what’s ‘your way’?”
“Simple,” began Jack, “we get cleaned up, go back to my house, and then we’ll just act like nothing happened. You go back home tomorrow anyway, and I’ll come back here and clean up.”
“How are you going to clean up?” asked Stephen.
“There’s a closet with a bunch of chemicals I can use to dissolve the bodies. He’s got a room set up for it, and it doesn’t leave any evidence,” said Jack. He had actually read the details of this process in Patrick’s library, but he didn’t want Stephen to know about the existence of any tangible evidence.
“What, like acid? I heard that doesn’t work,” challenged Stephen.
“It’s more than that — there’s a whole process with an oven and stuff,” said Jack.
“What if you get caught?” Stephen asked.
“Then you’ll already be gone and I’ll just take the blame. After all, I tricked you into coming back today — I really feel bad about that,” said Jack.
Stephen considered this. He didn't trust Jack. “I don’t know, I think I’ll just tell your parents and let the cops figure it out.”
Both boys stayed silent while while Stephen considered this course of action and Jack tried to think of a way to talk him out of it.
“How about this,” Jack finally said, “you untie just my right hand and I’ll write a confession. Then, you just have to mail it to yourself, and you have an alibi if I ever get caught.”
If he had thought about this idea for more than a few seconds, Stephen would have recognized all the potential problems with this alibi, but he wanted a clean way out — without having to tell any parents or police about all the break-ins and especially not killing the crazy man.
“Okay,” Stephen relented, “but I get to tell you exactly what to write.”
“Deal,” said Jack. “See if there’s any paper in one of these cabinets.”
Stephen had to venture to Patrick’s room to find paper and an envelope, but he eventually got a full confession letter in Jack’s hand. It had all the points that Stephen considered important — how Jack had acted alone, how Jack had accidentally killed the men, and how he was sorry. He imagined getting the letter in the mail once he was safely back at home.
“Will you promise me something?” asked Jack.
“What?”
“Will you promise not to use the letter unless you absolutely have to? Like if I get caught and the police are investigating?”
“They’re going to want to know why I didn’t tell anyone that you had gone on a killing spree,” said Stephen.
“You just say that you thought it was a big joke,” said Jack. “Tell them I was always joking around like that.”
Stephen thought about it and agreed — “Okay, but the second I hear something about the hotel, I’m going right to the cops.”
“Thanks,” said Jack. He looked down at his bonds and then back to Stephen. He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh yeah, right,” said Stephen.
He untied Jack and Jack got his first look at his new tattoo. High up on his thigh, the tattoo seemed invisible except for the weeping blood. “Baal,” read Stephen. “Is that his name?”
“It was,” said Jack.