And seeing that Rita was still looking at me expectantly, I said, “He’s crazy. We may never really understand what he’s thinking.” She looked nearly convinced, so in the belief that a quick exit was often the most persuasive argument, I nodded at Weiss’s car. “I should probably see if he left anything important. Before the tow truck gets here.” And I stepped around the hood of Rita’s car and up to the front door of Weiss’s, which was hanging open.
The front seat held the usual assortment of car garbage. Gum wrappers littered the floor, a water bottle lay on the seat, an ashtray held a handful of quarters for tolls. No butcher knives, bone saws, or bombs; nothing interesting at all. I was just about to slide into the car and open the glove compartment when I noticed a large notebook on the backseat. It was an artist’s sketchbook, with the edges of several loose pages sticking out, all held together with a large rubber band, and as I saw it the voice in the back of Dexter’s Dark Room called out, Bingo!
I stepped out of the car and tried to open the back door. It was jammed shut, dented in from impact with Rita’s car. So I knelt on the front seat and leaned over, grabbing the notebook and pulling it out. A siren wailed nearby, and I stepped away from Weiss’s car and moved over next to Rita, clutching the book to my chest.
“What is it?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s have a look.”
And thinking only innocent thoughts, I removed the rubber band. A loose page fluttered to the ground and Astor pounced on it. “Dexter,” she said. “This looks just like you.”
“That’s not possible,” I said, taking the page from her hand.
But it was possible. It was a nice drawing, very well done, showing a man from the waist up, in a kind of mock-heroic Rambo-esque pose, holding a large knife that dripped blood, and there was no doubt about it.
It was me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I ONLY HAD A FEW SECONDS TO ADMIRE THE SPLENDID likeness of myself. And then, in rapid succession, Cody said, “Cool,” Rita said, “Let me see,” and—happiest of all—the ambulance arrived. In the confusion that followed I managed to slip the portrait back into the notebook and usher my little family over to talk to the medical techs for a brief but thorough examination. And although they were reluctant to admit it, they could find no severed limbs, missing skulls, or mangled internal organs at all and so, eventually, they were forced to allow Rita and the kids to go, with dire warnings about what to watch out for just in case.
The damage to Rita’s car was mostly cosmetic—one headlight was broken and the fender was pushed in—so I bundled the three of them into the car. Normally, Rita would drop them at an after-school program and go back to work, but there is an unwritten law granting you the rest of the day off when you and your children are attacked by a maniac, so she decided to take them all home to recover from the trauma. And since Weiss was still out there somewhere, we decided that I had better do the same, and come home to protect them. So I waved them away into traffic and started the long and weary walk back to where I had parked my car.
My ankle was throbbing and the sweat that ran down my back irritated the ant bites, so in order to take my mind off the pain I flipped open Weiss’s notebook and paged through it as I walked. The shock of that picture of me was past, and I needed to find out what it meant—and where it might be leading Weiss. I was reasonably sure it was not a mere doodle, something he had absent-mindedly scratched out while talking on the telephone. After all, who did he have left to talk to? His lover Doncevic was dead, and he had killed his dear pal Wimble himself. Besides, everything he had done so far had been pointed at a very specific purpose, and without exception it had been a purpose that I could do without quite happily.
So I studied the drawing of me again. It was idealized, I suppose—I could not remember noticing that I had such clearly defined washboard abs when last I looked. And the overall impression of a vast and happy menace was, while perhaps accurate, something I tried very hard not to show. But I had to admit he had captured something here, possibly even suitable for framing.
I went through the other pages. It was quite interesting stuff, and the drawings were good, especially the ones that featured me. I was sure I didn’t look that noble, happy, and savage, but perhaps that was what artistic license is all about. And as I looked at the other drawings and began to get an idea of what it was all leading up to, I was also quite sure that I didn’t like it, no matter how flattering. Not at all.
Many of the drawings showed ideas for ways to decorate anonymous bodies in the spirit of what Weiss had already done. There was one that featured a woman with six breasts; where the extras would come from was not mentioned. She was wearing a flamboyant feathered hat and a thong, the kind of costume we had seen at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. It hid almost nothing, but made everything seem so glamorous, and the effect of the sequined bras that barely covered all six breasts was absolutely riveting.
The next page had a letter-size piece of paper wedged into the binding. I took it out and unfolded it. It was an airline schedule from Cubana de Aviación, printed from a computer and listing its flights from Havana to Mexico. It was tucked in with a drawing that depicted a man wearing a straw hat and holding an oar. A line had been drawn through it and next to it in bold and neat block letters was written REFUGEE! I shoved the Aviación printout back in and flipped the page. The next page showed a man with an opened body cavity stuffed with what appeared to be cigars and rum bottles. He was propped up in a vintage convertible car with the top down.
But by far the more interesting drawings—at least to me—were the series featuring one strong central image of Dauntless Dimpled Dexter. It may not say a great deal about me that I found these pictures of myself so much more compelling than the ones that featured butchered strangers, but there is something endlessly fascinating about looking at drawings of yourself you’ve discovered in a homicidal psychopath’s notebook. In any case, it was this final series that took my breath away. And if Weiss actually created this, it would take my breath away literally and forever.
Because these, done in much more detail, were taken from the film loop that showed me working on Doncevic. They were accurately copied, showing almost exactly what I remembered from seeing that video so many times; almost. In several of the frames, Weiss had sketched in a slight change of angle so that the face showed.
My face.
Attached to the body doing all the chopping.
And just to underscore the threat, Weiss had written in photoshop underneath these pictures, underlining it. I am not really current on video technology, but I can put two and two together as well as anyone else. Photoshop is a program for manipulating film images, and you could use it to alter the images, put in things that didn’t belong. I had to assume it could be done just as easily with video. And I knew Weiss had enough video to last for several wicked lifetimes—video of me, and Cody, and gawkers at crime scenes, and Dark Passenger knows what else.
So he was clearly going to modify the clip of me working on Doncevic so that my face showed. As well as I was coming to know Weiss, or at least his handiwork, I knew this would not be a make-work project. He was going to use this to make some lovely piece of decoration that would destroy me. And all because of an hour’s frolic with his sweetheart, Doncevic.
I had done it, of course, and rather enjoyed it, too. But this seemed like cheating—it was unfair to put my face in after the fact, wasn’t it? Especially since, added afterward or not, it would be more than enough to start a series of very awkward questions coming my way.
The final drawing was the most terrifying of all. It showed a giant and wickedly smiling Dexter from the film loop raising up the power saw, projected onto the facade of a large building, while below him on the ground crouched what appeared to be a half-dozen or so ornamental corpses, all adorned with the sort of accessories that Weiss had used on his other bodies so far. The whole thing was framed by a double row of royal-palm trees, and it was such a beautiful picture of tropical and artistic splendor that it might have brought a tear to my eye if modesty hadn’t interfered.
It all made perfect sense in a Weiss-y sort of way. Use the film he already had, subtly changed to feature moi in a starring role, and project it onto a very public building so there could be no doubt at all that we were seeing Decapitating Dexter at work. Throw me to the sharks and at the same time create a large communal artwork for all to admire. A perfect solution.
I arrived at my car and sat in the driver’s seat, looking through the notebook one more time. Of course it was possible that these were just sketches, a paper-and-pencil fantasy that would never see the light of day. But this had all started with Weiss and Doncevic making public displays out of bodies, and the only difference here was one of scale—that and the fact that at some point in the last few days Dexter had become Weiss’s art-fair project. The Mona Dexter.
And now Weiss planned to make me a great
public-works project, too. Dexter the Magnificent, who doth bestride the world like a Colossus, many lovely corpses at his feet, brought to you in living color just in time for the evening news. Oh, Mama, who is that large and handsome man with the bloody saw? Why, that’s Dexter Morgan, dear, the horrible man they arrested a little while ago. But Mama, why is he smiling? He likes his work, dear. Let that be a lesson to you—always find a worthy job that keeps you happy.
I had learned enough in college to appreciate the fact that a civilization is judged by its art. It was humbling to think that, if Weiss is successful, future generations would look back on the twenty-first century and weigh its accomplishments with my image. This kind of immortality was a very tempting idea—but there were a few drawbacks to this particular invitation to eternal fame. First of all, I am far too modest, and second—well, there was the whole thing about people discovering what I really am. People like Coulter and Salguero, for example. Which they certainly would, if this video of my image was projected onto a large public building with a pile of corpses at its feet. Really a lovely thought, but unfortunately it would lead these people to ask certain questions, make a few connections, and before long the meal of the day would be Cream of Dexter Soup, lovingly cooked on Old Sparky and served up to you on the front page of the Herald.