Desert Places (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 1)

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“How do my books kill?”

“When I read The Killer and His Weapon, I didn’t feel alone anymore. Andy, you know how killers think. Why they kill. When it came out ten years ago, I was confused and terrified of what was happening in my mind. I was homeless then, spending my days at a library. I hadn’t acted on anything, but the burning had begun.”

“Where were you?”

He shook his head. “City X. I’ll tell you nothing about my past. But every word in that book validated the urges I was having. Especially my anger. I mean, to write that protagonist, you had to have an intimate knowledge of the rage I lived with. And of course you did—” he smiled—“my twin. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the tool of writing to channel that rage, so people had to die. But your book …it was inspiring. It’s kind of funny when you think about it. We both have the same disease, only yours makes you rich and famous, and mine makes me a serial murderer.”

“Tell me something,” I said, and he sat up on one arm. “When did this start?”

He hesitated, rolling the idea around in his head. “Eight years ago. Winter of nineteen-eighty-eight. We were twenty-six, and it was the last year I was homeless. I usually slept outside, because I didn’t leave the library until nine, when it closed, and by then the shelters were full.

“If you wanted to survive a cold night on the street, you had to go where the fires were—the industrial district, near these railroad tracks. It was an unloading zone, so there was plenty of scrap wood lying around. The homeless would pile the wood in oil drums and feed the fires until morning, when libraries and doughnut shops reopened.

“On this particular night, the shelters were full, so when the library closed, I headed for the tracks. It was a long walk, two miles, maybe more. Whole way there, I just degenerated. Became furious. I’d been getting this way a lot lately. Especially at night. I’d wake myself cursing and screaming. I was preoccupied with pain and torture. I’d run these little scenarios over and over in my mind. It was impossible to concentrate. Didn’t know what was happening to me.

“Well, I got down to the tracks, and there were fires everywhere, people huddled in tight circles around them. I couldn’t find a place near a fire, so I sat down on the outskirts of one, people sleeping all around me, under cardboard boxes, filthy blankets.

“I was getting worse inside. Got so angry, I couldn’t sit still, so I got up and walked away from the fire. Came to the edge of the crowd, where the people were more spread out. It was late, near midnight. Most everyone was sleeping. The only conscious ones were by the fires, and they were too drunk and tired to care about anything. They just wanted to keep warm.

“There were these train cars close by that hadn’t been used in years. I was standing near one when I saw a man passed out in the gravel. Didn’t have anything to keep warm. I stared at him. He was a black man. Squalid, old, and small. It’s funny. I remember exactly what he looked like, right down to his red toboggan hat and ripped leather jacket. Just like you vividly remember the first girl you’re with. He smelled like a bottle of Night Train. It’s how they made it through the night.

“Nobody was paying attention to anything but the fire, and since he was drunk, I grabbed his feet and dragged him behind the train car. He didn’t even wake up. Just kept snoring. Adrenaline filled me. I’d never felt anything like it. I searched for a sharp piece of scrap wood, but I thought if I stabbed him, he’d have a noisy death.

“When I saw the rock, I smiled. So fitting. It was about the size of two fists. I turned the man gently over onto his stomach. Then I pulled off his hat and dashed the back of his head out. He never made a sound. I had an orgasm. Was born again. I left the body under the train car and tossed the rock into a river. Who’d give a shit about a dead homeless man? I walked the streets all night, bursting with limitless energy. Never slept a wink, and that was the beginning.

“The one thing I didn’t expect was for the burning to return so soon. Two days later, it was back, stronger than it had ever been, demanding another fix.”

Orson rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. I felt nauseated.

“I’m gonna lock you in your room now, Andy, so I can get some sleep.”

“My God. Don’t you have any remorse?” I asked.

Orson turned over and looked at me. “I refuse to apologize for what I am. I learned a long time ago that guilt will never stop me. Not that I wasn’t plagued by it. I mean, I had …I still do have a conscience. I just realize it’s futile to let it torment me. The essential thing you have to understand about a true killer is that killing is their nature, and you can’t change something’s nature. It’s what they are. Their function. I didn’t ask to be me. Certain chemicals, certain events compose me. It’s out of my control, Andy, so I choose not to fight it.”

“No. Something is screaming inside you that this is wrong.”

He shook his head sadly and muttered Shakespeare: “‘I am in blood/Stepped in so far, that should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o’er.’”

Then he looked at me strangely, as if something had just occurred to him. There was honesty in his voice, which unnerved me more than anything he’d said all morning: “I know that you’ve forgotten. But one day, I’ll tell you something, and this will all make perfect sense.”

“What?”

“Today is not that day. You aren’t ready for it. Not ready to use what I tell you.”

“Orson…”

He climbed off the bed and motioned for me to rise. “Let’s get some sleep, brother.”

10

Day 10

I feel free again. Orson gave me the afternoon, so I’m sitting on top of that bluff I always write about, looking out over a thirsty wasteland. I’m a good four hundred feet above the desert floor, sitting on a flat rock, and I can see panoramically for seventy miles.

A golden eagle has been circling high above. I wonder if it nests in one of the scrawny ridgeline junipers.

If I look behind me, five miles east beyond the cabin, I see what appears to be a road. I’ve seen three silver specks speeding across the thin gray strip, and I assume they’re cars. But that does me no good. It wouldn’t matter if a Highway Patrol station were situated beside the cabin. Orson owns me. He took pictures of me cutting that woman. Left them on my desk this morning.