The Helper

THIRTY-TWO

Doyle whirls. He raises his gun. Lines up its sights with the bridge of Gonzo’s spectacles.

Okay, he thinks. What are you going to do now, Doyle? Put bullet holes in a damn machine?

The image on the monitor smiles. ‘Sorry, Cal. Did I scare you?’ He pauses for a second, and when he next speaks, his words are in the high-pitched squawk of the Gonzo that Doyle has come to know and like: ‘Would you prefer it if I talked like this? Is that better, Detective?’

Doyle doesn’t know why, but he keeps his gun trained on the screen. He’s never trusted computers.

‘Where are you, Gonzo?’

Gonzo shifts back to his normal voice, the one that Doyle still finds hard to believe belongs to this man. It feels like he’s watching a ventriloquist act. Any second now the real perp will appear with his hand up Gonzo’s ass.

‘I think I’ll stick with this voice, if you don’t mind. The other one gets pretty tiring after a while. You don’t know how much of a struggle it was to maintain it in front of Tabitha for all that time. I had to keep the conversations to a minimum. Which is a shame, because she was so pretty and intelligent, it would have been nice to have a serious chat with her.’

‘I said, where are you?’

‘Not there, Cal. Not at the apartment, if that’s what’s worrying you. No, I’m long gone from there. I knew you’d figure out my part in all this eventually. Took you a while, but I’d say you were above average as far as the cops of this city go. I know that’s not saying much, but you can take it as a compliment if you like.’

This new Gonzo is so calm, so self-assured. Nothing like the gauche young man he now seems to have discarded, like a snake shedding its skin.

‘How’d you do it, Gonzo? How’d you pull it off?’

‘Pull what off?’

‘The homicides. How’d you get Everett to kill all those people for you?’

Gonzo puts a finger to his chest and raises his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Moi? No, you’ve got it all wrong. He didn’t do it for me. He did it for himself. He did it because it was his way of helping people. I told you what it was all about in our phone conversations. Helping. Everett helped his victims, I helped you. It’s what makes the world go around.’

‘You helped Everett too, though, didn’t you?’

Gonzo shrugs. ‘I guess I can’t stop myself. It must be in my genes.’

‘Why? What was he to you? How’d you even know he’d be willing to do this shit?’

Gonzo smiles. ‘Take a look behind you, Cal.’

Doyle whirls again. Another monitor has come alive. The image is dark and fuzzy. Doyle moves toward it, squinting to make sense of it.

He sees a bed, with someone lying in it. An old woman. There are tubes snaking out of her. A hospital?

‘I don’t-’ Doyle begins, but then there’s movement on the screen. A figure of a man comes into shot. He moves away from the camera and over to the bed. He leans over the old woman, takes her hand, says something to her. When he’s done talking, he walks around the bed, pulling the sheets out from below the mattress and then tucking them back in again. Smoothing them down. Getting them all nice and neat. When he walks away from the bed, there is sadness on his face and in the slump of his shoulders.

The man is Everett.

He disappears from view. The light goes out and the picture turns black.

‘Nice movie,’ says Doyle, ‘although a little Ingmar Bergman for my tastes. You got anything more upbeat?’

Gonzo says, ‘If it’s drama you want. .’

The same monitor flares back into life. Same image of the old lady. Everett appears again, does the same walk, the same talk. Circles the bed again, untucks, tucks. Gingerly slides the pillow from beneath the lady’s head, plumps it up a little, places it over her face. .

What?

Doyle finds himself being drawn closer to the monitor. He cannot believe what he’s seeing. Thinks, I’m watching a murder. As it happened. Jesus Christ!

The picture fades again.

Doyle turns. ‘The woman. Who the hell was she?’

‘His mother. She had cancer. Terminal. Everett’s view was that he was doing her a favor. It’s how he got started.’

‘Where was that? A hospital?’

‘Not a hospital. Everett’s house. He was her carer.’

‘His house? He filmed this shit? Jesus. How did you-’

‘Watch. There’s more.’

Doyle turns once again. We’re back in the room. No old lady this time. Instead, an attractive young one, sitting on the bed. Everett is on the bed too, next to her. They have drinks in their hands. The girl appears to be enjoying herself. She sways gently as she giggles.

And then she keels over.

Collapses unconscious on the bed. A little something extra in her drink, Doyle guesses.

Everett leans over her and examines her face. He puts two fingers to her neck to check her pulse. Then he gets up from the bed and moves out of shot.

A minute later he’s back again, a tumbler of water and a medicine bottle in his hands. He puts them down on the nightstand while he sits the girl up. She’s limp and unresponsive. He slaps her face a couple of times and she comes round just a little. Just enough to sit there unaided and stare blankly at him.

He takes the bottle and shakes a couple of tablets into his hand. He pops them into the girl’s mouth, then picks up the tumbler and puts it to her lips. He has to tip her backwards to make it go down. He repeats the maneuver. More tablets, more water. Then again. The girl just sits there, taking it. Not aware of what’s happening to her. Not knowing she’s being murdered.

Everett loses his patience. He picks up the bottle again, but instead of shaking a couple of pills out onto his hand, he simply puts the bottle to her lips and tries to pour its contents down her throat. He grabs her by the hair, pulls back her head, forces the whole fucking bottle into her mouth. .

The screen goes blank, and Doyle is glad of it. When he faces the disembodied head of Gonzo again, he can feel himself trembling.

‘She was the second,’ says Gonzo.

‘Don’t tell me. She once took an overdose. Or maybe she just thought about it. Because that seems to be enough for you sick motherfuckers. The slightest excuse. That’s all you need. How’d you find her, anyway?’

‘I didn’t. This was way before Everett even knew I existed. There were two others like this before I came on the scene. He established the pattern himself. I just made it easier for him to continue.’

‘Then how did you know he was doing this stuff? How’d you get hold of the home movie?’

Gonzo laughs. ‘You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you? I’m amazed. It’s really quite simple.’

Doyle waits for the explanation, but Gonzo isn’t forthcoming. The two stare at each other, even though they are not physically in the same room. Doyle has to keep reminding himself that he’s alone here. Just him and numerous boxes formed from metal and plastic. And yet he’s never felt so much the focus of attention.

The voice that breaks the silence also breaks his heart. It shouldn’t be heard here. Not amongst all this death and violence.

‘Whatcha doin’, hon?’ is all the voice says.

It’s the voice of Rachel. Doyle’s wife.

A different monitor this time. Doyle races over to it. He sees a close-up image of Rachel, staring right back at him. It’s like she’s been abducted from the real world and converted to a stream of bits that has been imprisoned in this machine.

‘Rachel!’ he says. ‘RACHEL!’

Gonzo says, ‘She can’t hear you, Cal.’

Rachel turns her head slightly. She’s listening to another voice. That’s when Doyle realizes she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to their daughter.

He doesn’t quite catch what Amy says, but Rachel replies with, ‘No, don’t wear that one. Wear the blue one.’

When Amy responds with a whine, Rachel rolls her eyes and moves away from the camera. Doyle watches her go. Watches her walk right out of the room. He knows that room.

It’s their living room.

It’s where he lives. He’s looking straight into their apartment. How the hell can he-

And then he figures it out. It’s the point of view. It tells him exactly where the camera is in his home. It’s where the computer sits on its desk.

The computer with a webcam.

The realization stuns Doyle. He never knew such things were possible.

‘You’ve taken control of our computer. You can see everything we do in that room. You can hear everything we say. That’s. . that’s how you know so much about me. And those movies of Everett. You got those in the same way, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right, Cal. He kept a computer in the spare bedroom where he looked after his poor sick mother. It’s how I found him. It’s how I found all of them.’

‘All of them?’

Gonzo smiles again, and another voice cuts in. Doyle turns to see Cindy Mellish in profile. She’s in her nightdress, and she’s talking on the phone. She’s crying as she tells her ex-boyfriend how she’s planning to cut her wrists.

Three desks along, another monitor flashes on. Lorna Bonnow. Sitting up in bed with her lover. Telling him the story that Alex later told Doyle, about how she wanted to jump out in front of that ambulance.

From behind Doyle, another voice. Doyle looks round to see Vasey. He’s sitting in his office chair, listening and nodding. The voice he’s listening to belongs to Sean Hanrahan, and he’s talking about how close he came to putting his service weapon in his mouth.

On yet another monitor, Vasey again. At his desk, but on the phone this time. He’s pleading with his wife. Telling her how he doesn’t think he can manage without her. Doesn’t know what he might do when he gets home. He’s even thought about ending his own life. .

Then there’s Tabitha. Curled up on a sofa. Tears running down her cheeks. Sitting alongside her, stroking her hand, is old Mrs Serafinowicz. Tabitha is telling her about her trip to the Brooklyn Bridge.

And to top it all, there’s a moment of fame in the collection for poor old Mrs Sachs too. Not her image. Not even her voice. What makes this hardest of all to watch is that it’s Doyle himself, telling his wife the story of the sad, wizened lady who once made the mistake of wishing she could swap places with her terrified daughter. It’s Doyle himself who is sounding the death knell for Mrs Sachs.

The recorded clips are brief — just enough to capture the moment each victim orally signed their death warrants — and they are on a loop. Each time they repeat, the volume level increases. Doyle finds himself rotating slowly on the spot, his gaze skipping from screen to screen as the words overlap and the sound builds. This is how he did it, he thinks. This is how he infiltrated lives. He’s the ultimate voyeur. He sees all, hears all. You don’t even need your own computer. You just have to know someone who does. That’s why Lorna Bonnow and Sean Hanrahan and even Mrs Sachs weren’t safe.

Incredible.

While Doyle tries to absorb all this, tries to cope with the enormity of it all, the volume from all the computer speakers continues to mount, the calls for execution being hammered into him, until all he wants to do is put his hands to his ears to drown out the cacophony.

And then it stops. The computer screens turn to black again. All the dead withdraw into oblivion. The only face remaining is Gonzo’s.

Doyle says, ‘Why would Everett be interested in these people? What were they to him?’

‘Everett was mad as a hatter. The only thing he wanted to do was kill people while telling himself he was doing them a service. I gave him that opportunity. I just called him up, the same way I called you. Told him I knew all about what he’d done to his mother and those girls. He was terrified at first. I think he believed I was God or the Devil or something. I used some fancy words — told him I would help him to pursue his calling, or something like that — and he jumped at the chance.’

‘So,’ Doyle says, ‘this is what you’ve been doing with your life. Spying on people, searching for victims to feed to your pet serial killer.’

Gonzo shrugs. ‘Beats television. Have you seen the crap they put out there these days? Having said that, most of what you guys get up to is pretty damned dull, you know. Sorry to be insulting, Cal, but what you do behind closed doors doesn’t exactly light any fires, you know what I mean? Except, that is, when you talked about Mrs Sachs.’

Doyle decides not to join in with Gonzo’s laughter at his own joke.

‘So why bother? If it didn’t look like I was going to be one of your precious victims, why bother with watching me?’

‘Why? Because you were valuable in a different way.’

‘How so?’

‘You were a cop. A detective, no less. That meant I could get you involved. That’s why I found Everett a victim in your precinct. It’s why I got him to write your phone number on Cindy Mellish’s wrist. I thought the message would eventually get back to you, even if you weren’t initially assigned to the case.’

‘Still doesn’t explain why you picked me. I’m sure you’ve found lots of detectives on your little box of tricks. You could have picked any one of them.’

‘True. But not all of them know Lonnie Adelman.’

It takes a second for Doyle to realize what Gonzo is telling him.

‘The diary.’

‘Yes, the diary. Who else were you going to take that laptop to but your computer expert buddy Lonnie? That was my way in. I knew Lonnie would pass the computer on to me. The plan was I would contact you directly after that. I wasn’t even sure it would be face to face. I thought maybe a quick phone call, using my fake voice. That’s why I used my real voice when I first called you at home. ’Course, what I didn’t expect was that Lonnie would actually bring you into my room to introduce you. Jeez, that was a panic moment. I couldn’t use that ridiculous voice in front of him, and I couldn’t use my normal voice in front of you. Luckily, Lonnie didn’t hang around long enough to hear me speak.’

It strikes Doyle that it was mighty convenient that Cindy Mellish kept something in her diary that linked her to Vasey. But then he gets a follow-up strike that is even more of a haymaker.

‘You altered the diary, didn’t you? Vasey was telling the truth. He never met Cindy Mellish.’

‘Well done, Cal. You’re learning. I’d told you the diary was important, so I had to give you something. What better than a clue to a future victim?’

Doyle has to struggle to prevent a sense of admiration creeping into his thoughts. It’s hard not to marvel at the sheer ingenuity of all this, let alone the technical wizardry. He has to remind himself just how evil and twisted this bespectacled clown actually is.

‘So then we met, and you got a taste for putting yourself so close to the investigation. You just couldn’t keep away after that.’

‘Yeah, that was fun. Being right next to you, with you having no idea what I was doing. It got kind of addictive. Meant I had to stick with the stupid voice, though.’

Another thought occurs to Doyle. ‘I got a phone call from the helper. When you and I were sitting in my car that time.’

‘Oh, Jesus, Cal. Now you’re letting yourself down again. You ever heard of speed-dialing? A simple press of a button on the phone in my pocket, that’s all. You weren’t taking calls from me at the time, so I knew you wouldn’t answer it. And even if you changed your mind, all I had to do was hang up again.’

‘Yeah, well you can wipe the smug smile off your face, Gonzo. You ain’t so perfect. You killed the wrong girl, remember?’

Annoyance flares in Gonzo’s eyes, and he raises his voice. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. Everett did it. The mistake was his. I gave him all the data he needed. I told him where she ordered her pizzas. I told him about her love for Harleys. I even told him what time she ran her bath, so that all he had to do was turn up and push her in the darn thing.’

‘Your data was insufficient, and not for the first time either. It’s why you were so surprised when I couldn’t find Cindy Mellish’s computer in her bedroom. You didn’t think to check it after you got all the information you needed on her, and so you didn’t know her mother had moved it. Same applies to Tabitha Peyton. You told Everett she was the only one who lived in that apartment. You told him that because you were relying on information you got before Tabitha’s computer broke down. Admit it, Gonzo. You’re not perfect, and neither is your system. You fucked up.’

‘NO!’

There’s an expression on Gonzo’s face that Doyle has seen many times before on others. It’s the look of fear and desperation that stems from not being in control. Technology is what gives Gonzo his power. He has nothing else. No looks, no physical strength, no charisma. He’s the kind of guy who would have been bullied mercilessly in his childhood. He would have been the butt of all the jokes, the victim of all the pranks. With his computers he has a way to get back at the world. Tell him it’s flawed and you might as well be belittling his manhood.

And then, slowly, Gonzo regains his composure. He re-affixes his malformed smile and wags a warning finger at Doyle.

‘Very good, Cal. You almost had me there with your feeble attempt at psychological manipulation. Can you take it as well as you dish it out? How about if I remind you of your part in all this? The things you knew and chose to keep to yourself? The mistakes you made in not reading all the clues I gave you? You don’t get to walk away from this, Cal. There’s blood on your hands.’

‘I can live with the choices I made.’

‘Can you? Really? Maybe I did make a mistake with Tabitha. There, I said it. But you know what? You know what the funniest thing of all is? You fixed it for me. It was you, Cal. You delivered her right to my door. I didn’t have to lift a finger. Don’t you think that’s priceless?’

Doyle’s gun is at his side now, but he can feel his fingers tightening around it. He so wants to start blasting away at the cackling maniac in front of him. It wouldn’t solve anything, but boy would it make him feel good.

Gonzo continues to revel. ‘All I had to do was call Everett to come get her. I told him how to break into the apartment building and I told him about this red-headed nerdy kid she was staying with. We never met, you see. To him I was merely a voice on the phone, just like I was with you. Before I went down to the basement I called him again. I told him this was his big chance to go in and take the girl. He wasn’t supposed to attack me, the moron. Although I suppose he did make me look more innocent.’

Doyle realizes now why Tabitha was abducted rather than drowned in the apartment upstairs. It wasn’t simply a case of Gonzo or the killer making a statement; it was to prevent the police from crawling all over this building and looking into Gonzo as a possible suspect. It was all about keeping him out of the picture — something with which Doyle was only too happy to comply.

‘You know why I did that?’

Gonzo appears confused. ‘Did what?’

‘Brought Tabitha to you. You know why? Because I trusted you, Gonzo. Maybe you’re not used to that, people trusting you. But that’s what it was. Sure, I made a mistake. A huge mistake. It’s something I’ll regret for as long as I live. But given the same circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing. Sometimes you have to accept people for what they appear to be. Otherwise, you’d never trust anyone. You’d never love anyone. Your life would stay empty. I don’t want to live that way.’

Gonzo pushes his tongue into his cheek while he mulls this over. When he responds, he seems almost human again.

‘Yeah, well, it’s not always so easy.’

He doesn’t elaborate, but Doyle can tell there’s a lifetime of bad experiences behind those words.

‘Nobody’s saying it is. You said this was all about trying to help people. So maybe I can help you. Maybe-’

‘No, Cal! Don’t even go there, all right? This isn’t an AA meeting. I don’t need your pity.’

‘I was just trying to-’

‘Yeah, I know what you were trying to do. Don’t patronize me, okay?’

‘All right,’ says Doyle. ‘Level playing field. Man to man. Explain this to me.’

‘Explain what?’

‘Why you did this. What’s this really about, Gonzo? With all that intelligence you got up there, why did you choose to do this instead of using it to really help people?’

‘Why did I choose to go to the dark side, you mean?’

‘If you like.’

‘I did it. . to prove a point.’

‘The point being?’

‘The point being that the NYPD is even more short-sighted than I am. The point being, Detective, that they can’t even see past their own fucking noses when it comes to solving crime. So what if I can’t do a mile-and-a-half run? So what if I have bad eyes and asthma? Where do brains figure into all this? Doesn’t that count for anything?’

Doyle’s eyes widen. ‘You applied? To the PD?’

‘Yes I applied. Didn’t even get as far as the Police Academy doors. I tried to tell them what a mistake they were making. I told them how valuable I could be to them. But would they listen? No. All they were interested in was turning lunks like you into assholes in uniform.’

‘Gonzo, you work for the NYPD. They need the kind of expertise only people like you can give them.’

‘I’M NOT A COP! I wanted to be a cop. I wanted to make detective. I wanted to show the world that there’s more than one way to catch criminals. And if the NYPD had let me, I would have become the best damn cop this city has ever seen. Their mistake, Cal. Big, big mistake.’

For a moment Doyle is dumbfounded. A sulk. That’s what this is. On a grand scale. A child lashing out after one too many rejections. An ‘I’ll show you’ gesture of the worst kind.

‘So do you think you’ve made your point?’

‘Oh, I think so, don’t you? Look at how you floundered when you didn’t have me to help you. You needed me, Cal. You needed my information. Without me you were nothing. Those murders would still be taking place now if it wasn’t for me. You didn’t solve those murders at all. It was me. Jesus, the rest of the NYPD didn’t even know they were connected — that’s how dumb they are. That’s why they should have accepted me, Cal. Their loss.’

Acceptance. That’s the crux of it. A sad and lonely misfit craving some kind of acceptance. And then the deadly ramifications when he doesn’t get it.

‘It wasn’t the right way to do it, Gonzo. There are better ways. You could have told us about Everett from day one. And we would have looked up to you for that.’

‘Sure you would. Or maybe you would have taken all the credit and then locked me up for computer crime. I know how you guys work. You don’t want to be made to look stupid by some kid fresh out of college. Well now I’ve shown you. I’m not a jerk. I can do things you can’t. Now you know.’

‘Yes, I know. But nobody else does, Gonzo. This bomb you dropped has limited impact. Was it worth it?’

Gonzo laughs, but there’s no humor there. Instead, he sounds almost weary.

‘Yet again, you disappoint me, Cal. It doesn’t matter what they know. I was doing it for me, not them. I was proving the point to myself.’

‘And now that you’ve done that, what’s next? Where do you go from here?’

‘What’s next? I told you a million times, buddy. It’s all about helping. Now it’s my turn.’

Gonzo raises his arm so that it comes into shot on the monitor. In his hand he is carrying a Glock pistol.

Doyle levels his own sidearm, and feels foolish when he realizes he’s drawing down on a computer.

‘What are you doing, Gonzo? Where did you get the gun?’

‘I work at 1PP, Cal. The building is full of these things. Somewhere there’s an embarrassed cop who still hasn’t admitted losing his weapon.’

‘Put it down, Gonzo. It doesn’t have to be like this.’

‘It does, Cal. You know it does.’

Around Doyle, all the monitors come on again. All showing the same image of Gonzo lifting the gun and pressing its muzzle to his temple.

‘Gonzo!’

For the last time, Gonzo slips back into his high-pitched geek voice.

‘So long, Detective. I enjoyed working with you.’

The explosion, blasting out from every computer speaker in the room, is deafening.

On the monitors, the side of Gonzo’s head erupts. His eyes cross as a geyser of blood spurts from his skull, and then he slumps forward, out of sight.

Then, one by one, the monitors go back to sleep. One by one, the lights on the computer towers blink and die. The whirring fans wind down and their noise fades.

All is silent.

On his way out of the room, something catches Doyle’s eye. It’s taped to the inside of the door. A little memento. He takes it down and slips it into his pocket.

And then he leaves.