If Angels Fall

FORTY-THREE

If Virgil Shook worshiped anything in this world beyond himself it was the Zodiac,the personification of power.

The Zodiac was the hooded executioner who had murderedfive people in the Bay Area during the late 1960’s and mocked police in thecryptic letters he wrote to newspapers. His cunning eclipsed the best minds ofthe SFPD and the FBI. He owned the city, mastered its fear, yanking it by aleash at his leisure. The Zodiac was a visionary, a seer who knew that when hedied, his victims would be his slaves and he would be a king in paradise.

They had never captured him. Shook signed.

For a time last year, like the Zodiac, he had sippedfrom the cup of power. He had enjoyed Tanita, the little prostitute. Loved herto death and forced the city to tremble in the wake of his omnipotence. He hadmanipulated Franklin Wallace, outsmarted police, and taunted the priest withhis confessions, spitting in the face of his God, compelling him to genuflectto the power of The One.

That was then. Now the city was under the spell ofanother. A new player was reaping the harvest of Shook’s work and Shook wasenraged.

Who did this new fuck think he was?

Shook snapped off the late-night TV news afterabsorbing the reports of Gabrielle Nunn’s abduction in Golden Gate Park. Thehorror in Nancy Nunn’s face had seared him. Her pain should have been his torelish. Yet he watched mournfully from afar, like a starving wolf contendingwith the mark of a new predator.

Shook paced his dirty flophouse room, oblivious to theopera of sirens piercing the foul of night air of the Tenderloin. If he wasgoing to be immortalized like the Zodiac, it was time to up the ante. Time toteach the challenger a lesson in a way even more thrilling than it had beenwith poor little Franklin Wallace, when he plucked him like a harp, savoringthe danger of it to the point of arousal.

Franklin? It’s me.

Oh Lord, don’t call me at home like this. Lorddon’t!

They know, Franklin, he lied. They know aboutTanita. Me. You.

NO!

They know everything. And the press knows, too.

No!

They found the pictures of you with her in DoloresPark. They are coming for you soon. You know what that means.

No!

Remember our pact, Wallace. We must pay for oursins. We both know that.

But, Virgil, I-

Think of your family, the insurance. They won’tpay if you’re connected to anything criminal, Franklin. They are coming foryou.

Wallace was sobbing, a sickly, man-child kind ofweeping.

Virgil, please! I don’t know what to do.

You do know. We both know. Good-bye, Franklin.

Virgil-No, wait.

May God have mercy on you, Wallace.

Shook fired the blank from the.22, dropping itwith the phone on the floor. Wallace screamed through the earpiece, his voicetiny, distant. An hour later, Shook stood safely out of sight near Franklin’shouse, smiling to himself when that fool he called at the Star appeared onFranklin’s doorstep, like an obedient lapdog.

Everything flowed. Beautifully. The Zodiac wouldapplaud him.

Time to move on. Time to teach a new, painful lesson,one that would transcend his work with Franklin, one tempered with rage for thenew fuck.

Shook pulled on a pair of gloves and went to thecorner newspaper box, returning with two fresh editions of the Star.

He went to his bed, a huge steel-framed monstrosityfrom a St. Louis hospital that had burned down. He unscrewed the middle hollowbar from the head and carefully tapped out several rolled-up Polaroidssnapshots of himself with Tanita Donner. None one had seen these pictures. Andno one knew of the tantalizing clue he had left police before he dispatched thelittle prostitute to paradise.

Shook traced gloved fingers tenderly over the photosbefore selecting two. He ripped the Nunn abduction story from the firstnewspaper and scrawled a note over the text, using a blue felt-tip pen like theZodiac. He folded the clipping, put it in a plain, brown envelope, scanned thephone book, then addressed the envelope to Paul Nunn.

He made an identical envelope and addressed it toDanny Becker’s family. Then Shook left his room, taking the subway to Oakland,where he would drop the two letters in a mailbox.

Another yank on the leash.