“Yeah,” said Chutsky. “He was here.” Chutsky was silent, as if waiting for me to say something. I couldn’t think of much, so finally he said, “Something about the guy.”
“He knew our father,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Something else.”
“Um,” I said. “He’s from Internal Affairs. He’s investigating Deborah’s behavior in this whole thing.”
Chutsky was very silent for a moment. “HER behavior,” he said at last.
“Yes,” I said.
“She got stabbed.”
“The lawyer said it was self-defense,” I said.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “It’s just regulations, he has to investigate.”
“Son of a goddamn bitch,” Chutsky said. “And he comes around here? With her in a fucking coma?”
“He’s known Deborah a long time,” I said. “He probably just wanted to see if she was okay.”
There was a very long pause, and then Chutsky said, “Okay, buddy. If you say so. But I don’t think I’m going to let him in here next time.”
I was not really sure how well Chutsky’s hook would match up with Salguero’s smooth and total confidence, but I had a feeling it would be an interesting contest. Chutsky, for all his bluff and phony cheerfulness, was a cold killer. But Salguero had been in Internal Affairs for years, which made him practically bulletproof. If it came to a fight, I thought it might do quite well on pay-per-view. I also thought I should probably keep that idea to myself, so I just said, “All right. I’ll see you later,” and hung up.
And so, with all the petty human details taken care of, I went back to waiting. Cars went by. People walked past on the sidewalk. I got thirsty, and found half a bottle of water on the floor in the backseat. And finally, it got completely dark.
I waited a little longer to let the darkness settle over the city, and over me. It felt very good to shrug into the cold and comfy n
ight jacket, and the anticipation grew strong inside with whispered encouragement from the Dark Passenger, urging me to step aside and give it the wheel.
And finally, I did.
I put the careful noose of nylon fishing leader and a roll of duct tape in my pocket, the only tools I had in my car at the moment, and got out.
And hesitated: too long since the last time, far too long since Dexter had done the deed. I had not done my research and that was not good. I had no plan and that was worse. I did not really know what was behind that door or what I would do when I got inside. I was uncertain for a moment and I stood beside the car and wondered if I could improvise my way through the dance. The uncertainty ate away my armor and left me standing on one foot in the dangerous dark without a way to move forward in the first knowing step.
But this was silly, weak, and wrong—and very much Not Dexter. The Real Dexter lived in the Dark, came alive in the sharp night, took joy in slashing out from the shadows. Who was this, standing here hesitating? Dexter does not dither.
I looked up into the night sky and breathed it in. Better: there was only a chunk of rotten yellow moon, but I opened up to it and it howled at me, and the night pounded through my veins and throbbed into my fingertips and sang across the skin stretched tight on my neck and I felt it all change, all grow back into what We must be to do what We would do, and then We were ready to do it.
This was now, this was the night, this was Dark Dexter’s Dance, and the steps would come, flowing from our feet as they had always known they must.
And the black wings reached out from deep inside and spread across the night sky and carried us forward.
We slid through the night and around the block, checking the entire area carefully. Down at the far end of the street there was an alley and we went down it into deeper darkness, cutting back toward the rear of Doncevic’s building. There was a battered van parked at a covered and well-masked loading dock at the back of it—a quick and dry whisper from the Passenger saying, Look: this is how he moved the bodies out and took them to their display points. And soon he would leave the same way.
We circled back around and found nothing alarming in the area. An Ethiopian restaurant around the corner. Loud music three doors down. And then we were back at the front door and we rang the bell. He opened the door and had one small moment of surprise before we were on him, putting him quickly facedown on the floor with the noose on his neck as we taped his mouth, hands, and feet. When he was secure and quiet, we moved quickly through the rest of the place and found no one. We did find some few items of interest; some very nice tools in the bathroom, right next to a large bathtub. Saws and snips and all, lovely Dexter Playtime Toys, and it was quite clearly the white porcelain background from the home movie we had seen at the Tourist Board and it was proof, all the proof we needed now, in this night of need. Doncevic was guilty. He had stood here on the tile by the tub holding these tools and done unthinkable things—exactly the unthinkable acts that we were thinking and would now do to him.
We dragged him into the bathroom and put him in the tub and then we stopped again, just for a moment. A very small and insistent whisper was hinting that all was not right, and it went up our spine and into our teeth. We rolled Doncevic into the tub, facedown, and went quickly through the place again. There was nothing and no one, and all was well, and the very loud voice of the Dark Driver was drowning out the feeble whisper and once again demanding that we steer back to the Dance with Doncevic.
So we went back to the tub and went to work. And we hurried a little because we were in a strange place without any real planning, and also because Doncevic said one strange thing before we took the gift of speech away from him forever. “Smile,” he said, and that made us angry and he was quickly unable to say anything very definite again. But we were thorough, oh yes, and when we were done, we were quite pleased with a job well done. Everything had gone very well indeed, and we had taken a very large step toward getting things back to the way things must be.
And they were that way until it ended, with nothing left but a few bags of garbage and one small drop of Doncevic’s blood on a glass slide for my rosewood box.
And as always, I felt a whole lot better afterward.