Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

I entered Gary’s cell and sat without being asked. I was tired of asking for permission from people. Gary’s eyes were pinned to the ceiling. They seemed pushed back into his skull. I was certain he knew that I was there. Heeere’s Alex!

“Welcome to my psikhushka, Doctor,” he finally said in an eerie, gravelly monotone. “Do you know psikhushka?” It was Soneji all right.

“The prison hospitals in Russia. It’s where they put political prisoners in the Soviet Union,” I said.

“Exactly so. Very good.” He looked over at me. “I want to make a new deal with you. Clean slate.”

“I’m not aware of any deal,” I told him.

“I don’t want to waste any more of my time here. I can’t keep playing Murphy. Wouldn’t you rather find out what makes Soneji tick? Sure you would, Dr. Cross. You could be famous yourself. You could be very important in whatever circle you choose to participate in.”

I didn’t believe this could be a fugue state, one of his “escapes.” He appeared to be very much in control of what he was saying.

Had he been Gary Soneji all along? The “Bad Boy”? Right from the first time we’d met? That had been my diagnosis. I held to it.

“Are you with me so far?” he asked from his cot. He stretched his long legs out in a leisurely manner and wriggled his bare toes.

“You’re telling me now that you were fully conscious of everything you did. There was never a split personality. No fugues. You played both parts. Now you’re tired of playing Gary Murphy.”

Soneji’s eyes were focused and extremely intense. His gaze was colder and more penetrating than usual. Sometimes, with severe schizophrenics, the fantasy life becomes more important than the real one.

“That’s right. That’s the ticket, Alex. You’re so much brighter than the others. I’m very proud of you. You’re the one who keeps things interesting for me. The only one who can hold my attention for long stretches at a time.”

“And what do you want from us?” I tried to keep him on track. “What can I do for you, Gary?”

“I need a few little things. But mainly, I just want to be myself. So to speak I want to be recognized for all my achievements.”

“Do we get anything in return?”

Soneji smiled at me. “I’ll tell you what happened. From the beginning. I’ll help you solve your precious case. I’ll tell you, Alex.”

I waited for Soneji to go on. I kept going back to the pronouncement over Gary Soneji’s bathroom mirror: I want to be somebody! He had probably wanted to take credit from the very beginning.

“I had always planned to murder both children. I couldn’t wait. I have this love-hate thing with childhood, you know. Cut-off breasts and shaved genitals, so my adult victims are more like kiddies. Anyway, killing the little bunions would be the logical and safe conclusion of the whole affair.” Soneji smiled again. It was such a weird, inappropriate smile, as if he were confessing a white lie. “You’re still interested in why I really decided on the kidnapping, aren’t you? Why I chose Maggie Rosebud and her friend Shrimpie Goldberg?”

He was using the nicknames to be provocative—and flip. He loved the “Bad Boy” act. He had revealed a very dark sense of humor over the months.

“I’m interested in everything you have to say, Gary. Go right on.”

“You know,” he said, “one time I figured out that I’ve killed over two hundred people. A lot of children, too. I do what I feel like. Whatever hits me at the moment.”

The greasy, automatic little smile appeared again. He was no longer Gary Murphy. No longer the all-American-looking yuppie husband and father from Wilmington, Delaware. Had he been killing since he was a boy?

“Is that true? Are you still trying to shock me?”

He shrugged. “Why should I?… When I was a boy, I read volumes about the Lindbergh kidnapping case. Then, all the big crimes! I made copies of all the clippings I could find in the Princeton library. I’ve told you some of this, haven’t I? How I was fascinated, absolutely enthralled, obsessed with kidnapping children. Having them completely under my control…. I wanted to torture them like helpless little birds. I practiced with a friend. You met him, I believe. Simon Conklin. Just a small-time psycho, Doctor. Not worth your time… not a partner. Not an accomplice. I especially like the idea that kidnapping gets the parents so upset. They will destroy other adults, but God forbid if someone takes one little child. Unthinkable! Unspeakable crimes! they shriek. What rubbish. What utter hypocrisy. Think about it. A million dark-skinned children die in Bangladesh, Dr. Cross. Nobody cares. Nobody rushes to save them.”

“Why did you murder the black families in the projects?” I asked him. “What’s the connection?”

“Who says there has to be a connection? Is that what you learned at Johns Hopkins? Maybe those were my good deeds. Who says I can’t have a social conscience, hmmm? There must be balance in every life. I believe that. I Ching. Think about those victims I chose. Hopeless drug users. A teenage girl who was already a prostitute. A small boy who was already doomed.”

I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He was flying. “Do you have a warm spot for us?” I asked him. “I find that real moving.”

He chose to ignore my irony. “Actually, I had a black friend once, yes. A maid. Woman who took care of me if you must know, while my father was divorcing my real mother. Laura Douglas was her nameo-nameo. She went back to Detroit, though, deserted me. Big fat lady, with a howling laugh I adored. After she left for Motown was when Mommy Terror started locking troublesome, hyperkinetic me in the basement.

“You’re looking at the original latch-key kid. Meantime, my stepbrother and stepsister were upstairs in my father’s house! They were playing with my toys. They used to taunt me down through the floorboards. I was locked in the basement for weeks at a time. That’s the way I recall it. Are little light bulbs and warning bells going off in your head, Dr. Cross? Tortured boy in the cellar. Pampered children buried in a barn. Such nice, neat parallels. All the pieces starting to fit? Is our boy Gary telling the truth now?”

“Are you telling the truth?” I asked him again. I thought that he was. It all fit.