Killer Move

To the outside world, the two stories are unrelated, Barclay’s death merely one of those nasty things that nasty men deserve. We’re all pebbles on a beach. One lying here, one over there, another handful down by the tide line. They’re all brought there by the same ocean, though, quietly moving us to and fro when everyone’s asleep. Whichever way you’re looking, there’s a lot more going on behind your back than there is in front, where you can see. Count on that.

Only one other loose end remains, courtesy of a girl playing her own version of the game. That loose end is lying low. For now.

I have not been in contact with my mother. At first I kept away because I didn’t want to put her in the position of knowing anything that might lead the police—or anyone else—to me. But the more time I spent alone, the more questions I started to ask. How well did I know her, in fact? There was no question she’d been there all the time I’d been a child. But it could be that while I was down in Florida she’d become different, that she could have been approached. It could even be that it had always been that way. Did I even have proof that I was actually her son? People tell you things, but that doesn’t mean they’re true. From there, further questions. Did my father really die of a heart attack? He’d always been very fit and healthy before. Did there come a time when, for some reason or other, it became better that he was no longer around?

Silly ideas. Probably. But are we ever more than details around underlying determinants over which we never have anything more than illusory control? The couple who go to church like clockwork but put on masks to record homemade S and M videos for sale on the Internet; the man whose alcoholic (and unfaithful and violent) wife presents so functionally to the rest of the world that he feels he’s living in a dream; the mother whose angelic-looking child runs her ragged every morning to the point where she sits in the car for ten minutes—after she’s finally uploaded her daughter to school, chatting with the other moms, who all seem to have everything so together—and sobs her heart out, fingernails cutting crescents into her palms.

We’re all of us living Stepford lives, pretending in ways we don’t even realize, having faked it for so long that we don’t remember we’re doing it, or why. But sometimes the edifice collapses, and we want nothing more than to burn down the entire world, just for some peace from the lies.

I have scoured the Internet for mention of the Straw Men. I don’t even know whether there’s anything there to be found. It could be that was just part of Cass’s game, a red herring, an injection of apparent meaning into a meaningless narrative. The only thing I found was a paperback thriller. I read it. It was about a shadowed conspiracy of well-connected murderers, people killing others because that’s what they do, and because they believe it’s our natural way of life. It was a decent read, but it was fiction. Part of the game, too, perhaps, something planted to muddy the waters, to reassure us that these things only happen in stories and could not possibly exist in real life.

Once in a while I post something on a conspiracy forum, asking if anyone knows anything. The posts seem to be removed more quickly than I would expect. But . . . I suppose I would say that, right?

Whenever I find anything, or think I may be onto something, or come up with a new angle, I tell Stephanie about it. I tell her these things under my breath, all the time. Sometimes other people hear. They look at me strangely. That’s okay. They have no idea what I’m learning. They have no idea who I’m talking to. They have no suspicion, either, that beneath the layers of thrift store clothes and what I’ll admit is sometimes a significant layer of grime—my cabin does not have running water—my body is in the best shape it’s ever been. I spend hours every night running through the woods. I have rocks and chunks of fallen tree that I use for working out. I eat what I can catch in streams and what I shoot in the woods. I have spent many hours practicing with the gun. I am very good now.

I feel ashamed I did not use it before, when I had the chance. And so whenever I am in a town I spend periods focusing on the backs of people’s heads, imagining myself in the position of being behind them with the gun held out, readying myself: ensuring that when the opportunity comes I will be able to kill this time, to dispatch them as they deserve. If these strangers happen to glance around—which they sometimes do, as if they have felt a light touch on the back of their neck—I look away. They don’t see me. And neither will my enemies, until it’s too late.

They do not know how strong I am now, how developed I have become. I may be many things, but I am not crazy.

I am modified.

Acknowledgments