Neptune Island was more than a home to the Jorgenson clan; it was also an integral portion of the coastal highway that ran all the way up from Jupiter City to Hobe Sound. The mega-wealthy family might have purchased the island, but they couldn't stop the flow of traffic up and down the coast. The route provided an alternative to the I-95, the picture perfect tourist route, so at certain times of the year was packed with holidaymakers travelling along the coastline between Miami and Orlando. On the sandbanks and dunes that made up much of the coastal lands, holidaymakers would often camp out, wandering down on to the beaches and searching for sea turtles in the shallow tropical waters. Overnight camping wasn't permitted on Neptune Island, but there was no law against people stopping for short spells at any of the layovers next to the road.
Slightly further to the south and west tropical palms and trees such as mahogany and gumbo-limbo were prolific, but here on the Atlantic shoreline the predominant trees were the usual oaks, pines and willows. Much of the forests had been cut down to make way for the highways and towns that sprawled up the coast, but out on Neptune some copses had survived. Grass dominated, in the form of waist-high sharp-toothed saw-grass. Sporadically, the occasional limestone outcrop, formed hummocks of higher ground where the indigenous wildlife made its home. Holidaymakers, cameras in hand, would traipse through the grasses in hope of snapping pictures of raccoons, marsh rabbits, and – if they were truly lucky – bobcats.
Dantalion had no interest in wildlife, but in the guise of a bird-watching tourist, he had free rein to conduct surveillance of the Jorgenson compound without fear of discovery. He was only one of approximately a dozen tourists he'd seen armed with high-powered binoculars. He had dressed appropriately for the scene in a cream hat and dark glasses. His shirt was a gaudy Hawaiian number, designed, by the look of things, by a disciple of Jackson Pollock on a serious LSD trip. Pants were long khaki shorts, and on his feet he wore a pair of shabby deck shoes. Hydrocortisone cream was liberally applied to his exposed arms and shins, but was in keeping with others he'd seen with smears of high factor sun cream on their lily-white skin. He blended nicely with those first- or second-day Europeans arriving in the belting sun. Over one shoulder he carried a bag that bounced uncomfortably on his hip with each step. Inside was his 90-two Beretta, a half-dozen spare ammunition magazines and his book of numbers.
The bullet wound he'd taken to his thigh caused him to limp. But that was good, added to the disguise.
He didn't look at all like a killer.
At its southernmost tip, the island was artificially raised up to support the road bridge that then arched on towards the mainland. Under the structure of the bridge, Dantalion walked, his deck shoes disappearing beneath the silt. There was a family out on the tidal sands, turning over rocks, a child hoisting a trophy in the air with a shout of glee. The trophy squirmed in his hand, chitinous legs working furiously, and the little boy dropped it with a squawk of alarm. The family laughed at him as he ran away to avoid the crab's fury.
Dantalion paid them only minimal attention. He wasn't one for human interaction. Human beings were beneath him, good for only two things. Doing his bidding and paying him money. Correction, there was a third thing they could do for him: they could die in agony and fear.
Momentarily he considered pulling out his gun and shooting the entire family. Their laughter grated on his bones, reminding him of all the spiteful laughter he'd had to endure growing up. What saved them was that he wasn't in a counting mood. The formula for writing their individual numbers wasn't the most simple of processes, and one that demanded concentration. Didn't want to spoil his list with incorrect calculations.
Away from the shadows of the bridge, he walked again in direct sunlight. He could feel the prickle on the back of his neck, and his calf muscles felt like someone was holding a blowtorch to them. Sand stung where it adhered to his skin. He pushed into the tall saw-tooth grass. If anything things got worse. The grass snagged him and made tiny itching cuts in his flesh. Enough to send him insane.
But he wasn't insane. He was a professional.
He didn't give in to mild discomforts such as these.
In the past, he'd stoically taken the beatings doled out by the older kids. Smiled at them when they were too exhausted to strike him again. Enduring many hours in hospitals, he hadn't once complained. He accepted the reality of his existence. From birth to death, existence is measured in a series of chapters governed by various levels of pain, some greater than others. Some are easy to recognise. Birth is a screaming, howling experience. Growing, stumbling, taking the knocks in life; all are forms of physical, mental and emotional torture. There is loss and then there is grief. Then you die, and it's a lucky one who doesn't perish in agony. In comparison to some things he'd put up with, pressing on through the grasses was akin to bliss.
He was a professional.
He wasn't insane. Fair enough, his penchant for killing probably was tied to a psychopathic quirk, but he wasn't mad in the sense that other killers were mad. He was not a deviant who killed for the pleasure of collecting trophies, or for sating his need for sexual dominance over a weaker creature. He did not flay the hide from women to make himself a housecoat or lampshade and he did not keep the petrified remains of his mother locked up in an attic then run around in her clothes slicing up nubile young women.
He killed because that was what he was good at.
He killed because it paid him well.
He killed because he had a strict purpose.
The others, those that he personally chose to kill, were merely a by-product of his assumed persona. It didn't take a talented assassin to drive by a victim, poke a gun out of a window and shoot a man dead as he stepped down from his front porch. Any half-assed idiot with a gun could do that. But such actions quickly got them caught, or killed. Dantalion murdered in a fashion that was more thoughtful, planned to create impact. The style of his killings mimicked the actions of a deranged serial killer, not of a hired assassin. It wasn't always apparent who his intended victim was. They were lost among the body count. Law enforcement and FBI VICAP teams were scratching their heads, searching for elusive maniacs that would never be identified with him.
Plus, the randomness of the deaths made his clients fear him. It added to his mystery and ensured that his reputation as a master of his craft guaranteed full and prompt payment. No one wanted to chance upsetting him. They knew where that would get them.
Most of his victims were collateral damage. But they served his purpose well. Success bred success. The more he killed, the more often he was sought out. The higher the fee he could set.
He had no reservations about killing those innocents he chose. They were mere props for the theatre of his schemes. Also, he did share the blame around. Everything shouldn't be ladled on his conscience. He allowed his victims a choice. Who dies first? How do they die? If they pointed the finger at their loved ones, then so be it, it was out of his hands. He was only the tool that completed their wishes. It was fucked-up reasoning, he accepted that, but it was a coping mechanism he embraced. It relieved him of the burden of guilt and allowed him to continue doing what he did best.
No, he wasn't insane.
Crazy men don't know they are crazy. And neither do they question their actions.
Psychopaths don't deliberate over death the way he did. They certainly don't share out the glory. They keep it all to their greedy selves.
Crazy men do sometimes take on personas. But so do hired killers. They never use their real names. Not in a craft that demands anonymity and mystery. Jean-Paul St Pierre wouldn't bring the clients running to pay high fees for his services. When in his teens he'd shed his old Mississippi beliefs, he'd turned to esoteric books and lore for the incarnation of the professional killer he would become.
In the Book of Enoch he'd found the perfect match. Dantalion, one of the angels cast out of heaven by Gabriel and the army of God. The panoply of the Fallen were numbered. The seventy-first spirit was Dantalion. He was a great and mighty duke of Hell. According to legend, he appeared in the form of a man with many countenances, all men's and all women's faces. For one as androgynous as he, and with his talent for disguise, what better physical description could there be? The angel Dantalion was said to know the thoughts of all men and women and carried them in a book; he could change them at will. This modern Dantalion also had the knack for bending people's resolve and for jotting down the sum of their lives within his own book. He had the power of life and death over them.
Crossing the grasslands, he paused to bring the binoculars to his eyes, looking like every other bird-fancier in the region. Then he casually swung his view past the turreted gate on the Jorgenson estate wall. Near to the shoreline, this gate wasn't used daily – possibly not even yearly. It was a relic from almost half a century ago, a sally port down to the coast, long before the suspended road had been built nearby. He could imagine the folk from simpler times wandering out of their gardens on to the beach here. Perhaps carrying a picnic basket and a blanket. Maybe Valentin Jorgenson had enjoyed boyhood playtime on this very portion of the beach. Before he was moulded into the successful business man who would continue the legacy started by his own father. Before the cancer that blighted him in his last few months. Before Dantalion put some well-placed rounds through him last night.
A wrought-iron gate barred progress into the grounds. It was in need of a coat of paint, and the corrosive sea winds had turned the gates, and the chain and padlock holding them in place, rusty. A sign was riveted to the wall next to the gate. NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMISSION – PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Like that was going to deter Dantalion.
A fortunate occurrence presented itself. A rare snail kite soared through the sky and perched on the wall near to the gate. Dantalion, binoculars fixed to his face, walked closer. Studying, studying. Not the bird. He could see that the lock would be easily shattered by a 9 mm round from his Beretta. He could be inside in seconds.
The bird streaked away. Dantalion wandered away, too.
But he'd be back.