Dexter Is Dead

TWENTY-TWO

Brian drove us to a coffee shop over in Coconut Grove. It was full dark when we got out of the car and went inside to a booth at the back. Neither of us had a great deal to say. Brian fiddled absentmindedly with the laminated menu, and I was trying to think of a logical next step, now that plan A had flushed itself away. Even more immediately, I was quite sure that Deborah would be sitting at home chewing through the furniture until I called, and I did not want to jeopardize our still-fragile reconciliation by keeping her hanging too long. And because My Plan had resulted in what Harry would have called a Total FUBAR, I also had to find some truly magical combination of words to explain things to her.

And Debs would unquestionably have heard about Anderson, and she could put things together as well as anybody. The short math here would quite clearly add up to Dexter Did It. Whatever else Debs was willing to do at this point, authorizing a hit on a cop — even a dirty cop — was not in the picture. Add that to her panicked worry over the kids, and she would no doubt be on the verge of insanity at this point. I was so certain of that I hadn’t even switched my phone back on.

Coffee arrived, in chipped porcelain mugs, and it was hot and very welcome. Brian ordered strawberry pie, and I settled on a tuna melt. Time was lurching past at a ridiculous pace. I even thought I could hear my watch ticking, and I still didn’t have any wonderful speech for Deborah. But I didn’t see how I could put it off any longer, so I pulled out my phone and turned it on.

Almost immediately it began to ping with missed calls, and all of them were from Debs. I waited another minute, but no inspiration came. I called her anyway.

“Where the hell have you been,” she said in a voice halfway between grating and snarling. “What the fuck is — Did you find the kids? And, Jesus, Anderson? Was that you? Because—”

“Deborah,” I said, much louder than I liked, and Brian cocked an eyebrow at me. But it got her attention, and with only a few more muttered bad words — none of them terribly original — she slid back down to a less hysterical grumpiness.

“Jesus fuck, Dexter,” she said. “You go trotting away with a pistol and Anderson turns up shot dead and…How does that get our kids back? Can you tell me that?”

“Not while you’re talking, I can’t,” I said, and I could hear her teeth click shut — but at least she was quiet, which allowed me to lower my voice. “As sad as it seems to me, I didn’t shoot Anderson,” I said softly. And at that moment, happily for me, I thought of the perfect explanation to let me off the hook. “But, Deborah — Anderson shot the men who could tell us where the kids are.”

Deborah made a remarkable sound, a moan that seemed to be hissed out through clenched teeth. “Fuck,” she said. “Oh, fuck.”

“But there are more of them,” I said.

“More of the kidnappers?” she said. “Can you get to them?”

“I…think so,” I said carefully, because it was an obvious question and I didn’t have an answer yet.

Debs was silent, and then suddenly blurted out, “I have to come with you this time. I have to, Dex.”

“No, Debs, not yet,” I said.

“I have to, goddamn it!” she said. “I can’t just fucking sit here and do nothing while you fuck around and my kids are still…where, Dexter? Where the fuck are my kids?!”

“I’ll find them, Debs,” I said.

“Goddamn it, I want to find them with you!”

“I’ll find them,” I said again. “And I’ll call you later.”

“Dexter, you miserable piece of shit!”

I already knew I was a miserable piece of shit, so I hung up.

“Well,” Brian said with his brightest smile, “and how is your sister?”

“As well as can be expected,” I said. “Brian, do you think we can work the same trick again?”

“You mean getting Raul’s men to come after you?” he said, and I nodded. He frowned thoughtfully. “Weeellllll…If I know Raul, he’s somewhere close by. He’ll have your children with him. But they aren’t bringing you to him on your knees, and he’s missed twice. So I’m quite sure he’s starting to get just a teeny bit, um — upset? Angry, frustrated, perhaps even approaching apoplectic.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “The man simply has no self-control. And he absolutely hates not to get what he wants, when he wants it.”

“I suppose that goes with being a drug lord,” I said. “Will he take it out on the kids?”

“Mmmm, noooo,” Brian said, not very convincingly. “Not just yet…”

“What will he do?”

“He’ll want to kill something, of course,” he said. “Preferably you and me.” He shrugged, as if that was the first rational thing Raul had thought about. “But he’ll be way past being patient. Or subtle.”

“So you think he’ll bite on the same bait?”

“At this point,” Brian said, “I think Raul would bite on bare hooks if it might get him to us.”

“All right,” I said. “And you did say he’d have more shooters?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Brian said. “Manpower is never a problem. Not for a successful man like Raul.”

“Good. So what’s the best way to do this?”

We both thought about it for a moment. Then Brian said, somewhat hesitantly, “Um…perhaps through Kraunauer?”

“Will Kraunauer go for it? I mean, he has to suspect something by now, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think so,” Brian said. He raised a finger and wagged it like he was lecturing me. “Raul when angry has a way of making everybody around him very jumpy. Very anxious to please. Even Frank Kraunauer.”

I frowned and I pondered and I didn’t see any other way. “All right,” I said, reaching for my phone. “But, Brian — we absolutely have to get one of them to talk this time.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Brian said.

I dialed.

Kraunauer answered right away. “Mr. Morgan, what the — Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I just…I heard — I mean, there was some kind of shooting at your hotel, wasn’t there? And that detective — that was the same one that, ah—”

“Yes, that was him,” I said. “But I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“Oh,” he said, and even he heard the disappointment in his voice. He cleared his throat hurriedly and rushed on. “I mean, that’s good, absolutely, but how — and what…what…where are you now?”

“Actually, I’m hiding out,” I said. “I’m up in North Miami.” Which was in reality quite far from where I was, since for some reason, I just didn’t trust him.

“Good, good, okay,” he said. “But that’s…How did you…with that detective. I mean, what happened?”

“He called me on my cell phone,” I said, letting my imagination run. “He, um, he said he had documents. That he said would prove I was innocent. And I would never get them — that he was going to burn them in front of me and I couldn’t stop him.”

“All right,” Kraunauer said. “And then?”

And then? Nothing — my mind went completely blank. “Then…then,” I stammered, waiting for something to occur; it didn’t. “I have the documents, Mr. Kraunauer. And they really do prove I’m innocent,” I blurted out. I could only hope that Brian was right and had Kraunauer so anxious he wouldn’t notice the rather large gap in the story line.

“Wonderful,” Kraunauer said with no hesitation at all. “Where are you now?”

I said a silent thank-you to Raul and sprinted for the finish line. “The thing is, I don’t think I can keep them safe,” I said, lowering my voice for sheer theatrical effect. “I want to get them to you as soon as possible.”

“Great!” he said, with very believable enthusiasm. “I’m having dinner at Tick Tock at ten o’clock; do you know it?”

“Um, South Beach?” I said.

“Right.” He gave me the address, and said, “Can you be there a few minutes before ten?”

“It’ll take me forty-five minutes,” I said. “But I need to be careful, make sure I’m not followed, so — maybe a little longer?”

“Perfect,” he said. “I’ll be there about a quarter of. Can you meet me out back then? There’s a parking lot.”

“Behind Tick Tock. Quarter of ten,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

I broke the connection and returned the phone to my pocket. Brian looked at me quizzically. “Tick Tock?” he said. “It’s a clock store?”

“A restaurant,” I said. “Supposed to be very good.”

“Would he really do this at a good restaurant?” Brian asked doubtfully.

“I know the area a little,” I said. “There’s an empty lot next door, and the parking lot behind is pretty well screened. It’s actually a perfect place.”

“If you say so, brother,” he said.

“I do,” I told him.

He nodded. “It might be wise to get there first?”

“Agreed,” I said, and I stood up. “Shall we?”

We dropped some cash on the table and went out to his car, and Brian rolled out onto U.S. 1. “I’m not sure what we do next if this doesn’t work,” Brian said as he drove us north and then up onto I-95.

“Then let’s make sure it works,” I said.

We crossed over to South Beach on the MacArthur Causeway, and drove straight up 5th. Brian cruised right past Tick Tock without slowing, and I looked carefully as we went by. Of course there was nothing to see but a small crowd waiting to get in. None of them seemed to be carrying assault rifles. A block past, Brian turned right and then into a parking lot with a concealing row of trees around the perimeter. He parked in a spot with a view of the restaurant, and left the engine running.

“How would you like to proceed?” he said.

“It would be nice to know the odds,” I said. “How many of them should we expect?”

“They think there’s only one of us — you,” he said. “There were two of them last time, but this time it’s public. So probably three,” he said. “The extra man will be the driver. He’ll wait with the motor running. And he’ll provide backup, of course, but the shooters won’t want to use him. Pride, you know,” he said, shaking his head. “They really take their work seriously. So I think three men. Any more would seem like overkill.” He gave me a large and very bad smile. “If you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Better you than them,” I said. “Three men, then — the two shooters, and the driver.”

“Probably,” he said, nodding.

“If they split up, it gets very difficult,” I said. “Three targets in three different places.”

“And probably a cross fire on us,” he said. “That’s what they’ll do.”

“But they have to get there first for that,” I said, thinking out loud.

“They won’t,” Brian said happily.

“So for just a minute or so, we’ll have all three of them together, in their vehicle.”

“And we will have a cross fire on them.”

“Right,” I said. “We have to assume that they will have assault rifles, at the least.”

“Almost certainly,” he said.

“But if we surprise them, an automatic weapon takes a bit longer to bring up and fire. And I would guess that the driver will probably not be as much of a shooter.”

“That’s why he’s driving.”

“Yes,” I said. “And his hands will be on the wheel. So, we each take one of the other two. One each.”

“The one nearest to me is mine,” he said.

“Likewise. And we take the driver alive.”

He made a pouty face. “For your so-called sister?”

“Because he will know where the children are, Brian,” I said. “That’s what this is all about, you know. Saving the kids.”

He sighed heavily and shook his head. “Easy to forget when we’re having such fun.”

“So I absolutely must take him alive. Okay? Alive, Brian.”

“Just for now,” he said agreeably.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Just for now,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was still only a bit more than twenty minutes since I’d talked to Kraunauer. But merely to be on the safe side, we needed to get in position as soon as possible. I looked at Brian and nodded. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” he said with undisguised glee. “Oh, I do love surprises.”

—

The car was another SUV, gold this time. It drove into the back parking lot about fifteen minutes after we got in position, and there could be no doubt at all about who they were. They came nosing in slowly, checking the area out carefully in a way that was completely unlike a trendy late-night diner looking for a parking spot, and just exactly like a crew of professional killers looking over a kill zone. From where I waited I could just make out one man in the passenger seat, turning slowly around and putting his eyes everywhere. Just visible, as the car crawled under one of the streetlights that lit up the parking lot, was another man on the far side, behind the driver. And the driver himself made three, just as Brian had said — unless someone was crouched down on the car’s floor, hiding. It didn’t seem likely. The two faces I saw seemed quite confident, relaxed. And why not? They were heavily armed, and they were here first. And they were professionals, setting up one frightened amateur who didn’t have the faintest suspicion that he was walking into a trap.

The car paused at the end of the lot farthest away from the restaurant and facing down a bordering alley. It was exactly where Brian and I had hoped they would stop, since it put the getaway car where they would want it, positioned for a quick departure, and also allowed the two shooters to see all around the area as they worked into position for their ambush.

It was also right where I was waiting, crouched in the darkness between the last car in the lot and the adjacent building.

And so, as the driver put the SUV into park and the two shooters reached down for their weapons, I stepped out of my hiding place and tapped on the passenger window with my left hand. An annoyed face looked up at me. He had an enormous mustache, three little teardrop tattoos at the corner of his eye, and a scar on his forehead. I smiled at him, and it took him almost two full seconds to recognize my face — far too much time, alas for him. Just as his eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to shout a warning, Brian stepped out from behind a parked car on the other side and shot the gunman behind the driver. As the one I was smiling at jerked around to see his partner die, I shot him in the back of the head, twice.

The car’s window exploded from my shots and Mr. Mustache pitched sideways into the driver. I reached in through the shattered glass and opened the car’s door. The driver gaped at me in horror, and then began to scrabble at the seat beside him for a pistol. I leaned in and shoved the barrel of my Ruger roughly into his ear hole. “Don’t,” I said.

Very obligingly, the driver froze. “Hands on the wheel,” I told him. He hesitated, and I twisted the pistol vigorously in his ear.

“Ayah!” he said.

“Manos,” I told him, nodding at the wheel. “¡Los dos!”

He put his hands on the wheel, and a moment later Brian opened the back door of the car. I heard a heavy thud as the gunman on Brian’s side fell out onto the pavement. “Oops,” Brian said, followed by, “Oh, Ee-bahng! Is it really you?” He leaned in and patted the driver on the head. “That’s how he says his name, ‘Ivan,’ ” Brian said. “Cuban pronunciation. Ee-bahng is Cuban.”

“Wonderful,” I said.

“Ee-bahng is Raul’s mad bomber,” Brian said happily, ruffling Ivan’s hair playfully. “I bet he brought some toys!”

“I’m sure he did,” I said. “Can we get moving, please?”

“One more second,” Brian said. He leaned in and looked into the back. “Thought so!” he said, and came up with a heavy canvas gym bag. “I’ve always wanted to play with these,” he said. “And it might come in handy.”

He put the bag down gingerly and then yanked open the driver’s door of the SUV, shoving his pistol in Ivan’s face, smushing the man’s nose roughly to one side. “Ee-bahng! ¡Afuera!” and for emphasis he rapped Ivan on the forehead with the barrel of his pistol. “¡Ahora!”

Ivan hissed in pain. A small rill of blood started down his face from where Brian had hit him, and he fumbled himself out of the seat, stumbled out of the car and into Brian’s grasp.

I heard a door slam, and glanced toward the restaurant. Frank Kraunauer was hurrying across the lot toward us. I hissed, “Brian!” and ducked reflexively back into darkness. My brother glanced up, and he actually smiled, very close to a believable smile, too. “How perfect,” Brian said. He slid down to a crouch directly behind Ivan and jammed his pistol into the base of the bomber’s spine. “Sonrisa,” he hissed. “No dice nada, ¿comprendes?” Smile. Say nothing. Ivan nodded numbly.

And then Kraunauer was there, moving quickly around to face Ivan. “Is it done?” he said. “Where’s the — Urk!” He jumped back as Brian straightened and faced him and then, as I stepped out of the shadows and came into view, too, Kraunauer stumbled back one more step. “How—” he said. And then, just as I was preparing a sharp, withering riposte that would settle Frank Kraunauer’s hash once and for all with great wit as well as with perfect justice, he moved his hand — moved it so fast that I didn’t really see the gun he was holding until a half second later, when Brian’s gun went off: once, twice, three shots.

Frank Kraunauer took a jerky half step back with each shot. And then, for a long moment, he stood there looking surprised. He frowned at the little pistol in his hand, as if it was all the weapon’s fault. And then he took a last slow step backward and collapsed as if his leg bones had been removed.

Brian watched him fall, still smiling, and then looked at me. “Oh,” he said. His smile vanished. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m afraid you’re going to need a new attorney.”

I was sorry, too, but I was more concerned with getting out of here before someone else came running out and saw us.

“I’ll find somebody online later,” I said, glancing around us anxiously. “We need to go. Sooner or later somebody will report that they heard shots.”

“Even in Miami,” Brian agreed.

In a few more seconds we got Ivan into the backseat of Brian’s Jeep, which was waiting for us in the nearby alley. I got in back next to the bomber, but he kept his eyes fixed on my brother the whole time. From the look on his face, he knew very well who Brian was and what he might do, and he was ready to do anything at all to keep Brian from doing it. He was so fixated on Brian he made no resistance at all as I secured him with a roll of duct tape I’d brought along. Brian drove away down the alley and out onto 6th Street as I taped Ivan’s hands, feet, and mouth. No matter what I did to him, though, Ivan kept his eyes on Brian.

“Well,” Brian said at last, “I thought that went quite well, on the whole.”

“We’re alive; they’re not,” I said. “And we have a new playmate, too.”

“Oh, yes, and I just know he’s going to be a real chatterbox for us,” Brian said. “Life is so good.”

Brian drove straight back to the MacArthur, which I thought was wise. On surface streets, too many things can happen that might result in an awkward conversation with an overdiligent officer of the law. Sometimes the nosy cops want to know trivial things, things that are clearly none of their business — like, “Why is your friend all bound up with duct tape?” In expressway situations, you are much safer from that kind of meddlesome interference, as long as you keep to the speed limit and don’t have an accident.

But once we were over the causeway and onto the mainland, Brian turned north on I-95. It shouldn’t really have surprised me, since I hadn’t thought at all about where we would go if we were triumphant. Clearly my brother had given it some reflection, but he had so far failed to share his thoughts with me. “Where are we going?” I asked him.

“A little place I rented, a storage locker,” he said. “Up near Opa-locka airport.” He caught my eye in the rearview mirror and showed a few teeth. “A modest retreat. It has come in handy in the past.”

“A very good choice,” I said, and it was. Opa-locka airport is a truly strange place, a kind of neutral zone in time and space and, more important, in law enforcement, too. So many different spies and spooks and smugglers and transients of uncertain origin and loyalty go in and out that over the years an unspoken agreement has evolved: Law enforcement, at every level, stays away. It is much simpler that way; it avoids the awkwardness of arresting a vile, drooling, tattooed monster who is clearly smuggling heroin, as well as every sort of weapon from pistols to Titan missiles — and then finding out that he is, in fact, a fully sanctioned, ex-Marine, former Eagle Scout, crew-cut and shoe-shined-in-his-heart federal agent working in deep cover on a project so secret it doesn’t even exist.

So the area around the Opa-locka airport is mostly unpoliced, which has many small side advantages — such as making it a perfect place for Brian and me to relax, unwind, and have a leisurely conversation with Ee-bahng. I looked fondly at my brand-new friend on the seat beside me, and I thought of all the fun that lay ahead. It had been far too long since I’d had a chance to relax, kick back, and encourage someone to really open up. And this nice man, quivering so quietly next to me, was an absolutely perfect candidate for some leisurely exploration. He had certainly earned some very careful attention; bombs are such nasty things, aren’t they? It would be pleasant to make him understand that society at large disapproves of blowing things up, especially when there are people inside. I thought we might find a way to show him the error of his ways. And oh, yes, as Brian had said, Ee-bahng would be a real chatterbox, no doubt about that. I just hoped he wouldn’t start talking too soon and cut short the fun.

So I was feeling quite chipper as we drove north, and really looking forward to having a chat with Ivan — and having Brian beside me, chatting with him at the same time. I’d been looking forward to that for a good long time. We both had; we had so much to learn from each other, so many technical and procedural techniques to compare and demonstrate. This could well be a truly exemplary combination of recreation, education, and sibling bonding, and I was happy as can be about what was just ahead.

Ivan…? Not so much. He had not taken his eyes off Brian, and he’d begun to shiver, though it was a very warm evening. His color was not good, either, and his teeth were audibly clicking together. I began to worry that he might have some awful medical condition that would kill him before we had our talk. That would be a very distressing development. Aside from the real disappointment of losing a new friend before I really got to know him, we would also lose our best shot at finding out where the kids were being held.

And so, because showing kindness to a stranger puts a little plus mark by your name in the karmic registry, I leaned over and patted his cheek. He jerked upright like he’d been slapped, and for the first time his eyes left Brian and snapped over to me.

“Are you all right, Ivan?” I asked with gentle faux concern. He said nothing, just stared at me with bulging, bloodshot eyes.

“¿Estás bien, Ee-bahng?” I repeated in Spanish.

Ivan blinked three times, but made no attempt to answer. Of course, his mouth was fastened shut with duct tape, but still, he might have tried to mime a reply, or waggle his eyebrows affirmatively. He did not; he just stared, and when he was done blinking, he looked back at Brian again, as if afraid my brother would punish him for looking away.

I shook my head sadly, thinking that he must be a very good bomb maker. Clearly he would never get a job based on conversational skills.

My brother had just as little to say, but the trip was short and uneventful, and soon we were at the gate of a sprawling storage facility a half mile south of the Opa-locka airport. Brian punched in a code, the gate lifted, and we rolled in. The area was illuminated by a battery of those ugly so-called anticrime lights, but I was not terribly worried that they would prevent anything. Naturally enough, storage lockers near a neutral zone like the Opa-locka airport are routinely used by the assorted spooks and spies that use the airport, and so they are also exempt from unwanted police scrutiny. And if there were any neighbors in a nearby locker, they would almost certainly avoid asking questions about the unusual noises Ivan was about to make. Many of them, in fact, would be far too busy creating similar sounds of their own.

A good storage unit is a wonderfully flexible space. It has lights, power, and even air-conditioning if desired. The walls and floor are generally of industrial strength and utilitarian design, so there is no need to fret about scratching the paint or leaving unsightly bloodstains on the floor. In truth, a unit is such a terrific place for mischief that it’s a real wonder that anyone ever uses them to store things.

Brian parked right in front of a large unit, with Ivan’s side of the car facing the heavy steel entrance. “All righty, then,” he said. He turned and beamed at Ivan. “It’s playtime!” He said it quite happily, and even Ivan could tell that his happiness was very real, and the knowledge of why Brian was happy made the poor nervous bomber tremble in all his limbs.

But when Brian opened the car door and reached in to help Ivan get out, the poor fellow began to buck and twist frantically, enough so that even when I tried to hold him steady, he jerked away. It was a true waste of time and energy, since his only way out of the car was through the door Brian held open, but he seemed quite committed to his display — until Brian leaned in and said, “Stop it, Ivan.” He said it quietly, even gently, but the effect on Ivan was electric. The bomber froze completely — and then he slumped forward, began to shake all over, and, to my amazement, started to sob and snivel. It’s never an attractive routine, even in the best of times. But when your hands and mouth are secured with duct tape it’s even more distasteful, and Ivan began to dribble moisture and mucus from every opening but his ears.

Still, at least it was much easier to get him out of the car than when he’d been bucking. We did, and I held him as Brian rolled up the door of the storage unit, turned back to us, and bowed us in.

Ivan walked as if he had no tendons in his lower body; his legs hung loose from his hips and his feet flopped forward with each step, which made it necessary for me to keep a strong grip on his arms from behind. And since I was busy with that, I didn’t really get a good look at Brian’s little playground until he had rolled down the steel door and flipped on a strip of fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling. But when Brian came and guided Ivan from my grasp and over to a waiting chair, I looked around me — and what I saw was enough to bring a full portion of quiet joy to my heart, if only I’d had a heart.

Brian had decorated the space in an understated but very tasteful style that I can only call Industrial Nazi Dentist. On the walls in neat and careful clamped rows was a full range of saws, drills, and other interesting power tools whose use I could only guess at — at least, their use in this context. I know very well how trees are trimmed, and I have seen commercial grinding equipment before. But seeing these things here was a pleasant surprise, and I had to give my brother new props for a creativity I hadn’t known he possessed.

I watched as Brian led Ivan to a dental chair, which was bolted to the floor and apparently complete with the hydraulic lifting function. It had also been slightly modified with a set of metal-mesh restraints for hands, feet, chest, and head, and these my brother fastened carefully onto our guest, whistling tunelessly the while, not quite loud enough to cover the sound of Ivan’s nasty wet whimpering.

I stepped over beside the chair, where a large rolling toolbox stood just behind Brian. “May I peek?” I asked him.

Brian looked up briefly and smiled. “Of course, brother,” he said. “Perhaps you could even ponder a few opening gambits?”

“With pleasure,” I said, and I turned to open up the top tray of the toolbox. I lifted the lid, and although I did not actually gasp with pleasure, I did pause for several seconds, speechless with delight. And then I leaned into it eagerly and began to open all the drawers, bubbling over with the joy of discovery.

I have always been very neat and well organized. It makes everything proceed a little smoother in this messy chaos we call life. My workspace at the lab and my little office at home were always clean, well ordered, and logical. But because of the dual nature of my life until recently, I had never been able to be as thorough as I would have liked with acquiring and organizing tools I might have used for my hobby. My space and my privacy were so very limited that my choice of apparatus, too, was far more constrained than I would have liked. Nearly every day I would see some intriguing item intended for a more pedestrian use, and think to myself that it had some wonderful untried possibilities.

Untried no more, for Brian had collected — and clearly used—all of these things, and many more I hadn’t even thought of. There were rows and rows of surgical instruments, of course, scalpels and saws of every possible size and shape. And then there were the kitchen implements — cutters and grinders and mashers and corkscrews and sharp little things for more delicate work. There were rows and rows of bright, gleaming, top-quality knives ranging in size from the tiniest little blade to some the size of machetes. There were straight blades and curved, needle thin, wide, and saw-toothed. It was truly a tool kit for a great artist, and I felt a quiet pride in being related to someone who was so thorough, creative, and well prepared.

“Brian…” I said, when I had finished my first quick inspection. “It’s breathtaking.”

“And finger, toe, and nose taking,” he said happily, his beaming face hanging over Ivan’s terrified and sweaty one like a pale and wicked moon. “Where shall we begin?”

“So hard to choose,” I said thoughtfully. I looked at the toolbox, thinking over all the wonderful choices I had seen, picturing a few of them, how they might unfold with a squirming squealing Ivan so snugly secured and my brother and I so wonderfully together above him—

— and as I paused a rising tide of anticipation rolled through me and seeped into all the nooks and crannies of Castle Dexter, flowing slowly down the dank and windy staircase from the ramparts to the cellars and down still more until it came at last to the very deepest sub-basement of Me, the place where Forbidden Things slumber and dream. And for the first time in far too many months I felt a quick stir of leathery wings and a dark uncoiling joy hissing its glee in the shadowy basement where the real Dexter waits in restless naptime. Yes, I heard it sing, and then it stretched in languorous glee and began to bat-wing its way up the shadowed twisty stairs, and in spite of the bright glare of the fluorescent lights It touched everything with perfect Darkness as it rolled up out of the basement and began at last to stretch its lovely wicked tendrils into every corner of daytime Dexter and out, into the wicked weary world around us until the temperature in the room began to drop just like the colors of the spectrum, and reality slid down into the cool shadows of Nighttime Truth and everything was once again bathed in a cool and dreadful twilight of so-very-soon delight that finally, at last, was about to unfold into utter long-awaited bliss. It would not solve the many problems my mundane self faced, and it would not make anything truly right outside the walls of this small chamber of glee, but that mattered less than the smallest drop of sweat now rolling from Ivan’s pale and trembling face. All that mattered, all that had any weight or reality in this world or any other was that at last, at last, we were free to be what we must and do what we must and we were now going to be it and do it.

“So hard to choose,” we said again, and even to our ears the voice was different: lower, darker, cooler, alive with the reptilian tones of the Passenger when it has taken the wheel, and Ivan’s eyes jerked sideways to see what new and terrible thing was lurking. “But certainly,” we said, “we should start with something small and refined—”

“And yet completely permanent,” Brian added. “If only for the effect.”

“Oh, yes, clearly permanent,” we said with a slow deliberate relish of a word that would come to mean so much to the contemptible wriggling mucus-producing thing in the chair. We opened the third tray down, where there was a delightful array of items for snipping and clipping, everything from manicure scissors to a small bolt cutter. With chilly glee we picked up a garden clipper, the kind used for trimming rosebushes. “Perhaps a finger or two?” we said, holding up the clipper.

“Mm, yeeesss,” Brian said reflectively. “Just the little one, I think. For now,” he added in a soothing tone.

“Of course,” we said. “For now.” And we took the instrument over to him and held it out. He reached to take it and our hands touched and our eyes met.

And for a wonderful long moment we looked at Brian and he looked back and as he did the shadowy something flickered to life in his eyes and uncoiled in its dark and potent glory and it reared up and roared at the Dark Passenger — which roared back a greeting of its own, and although we had many times encountered another Passenger in someone else and heard that challenge and given back one of our own, this was different. This was my brother, my same-self twin in twisty glee, and for the first time ever the two Passengers sent out their black fog of recognition and met in the middle, coming together in greeting and then flowing into a joining of brotherly equals, rearing up as one, with one blended voice, calling out joyfully in a sibilant chord of perfect harmony. Together…

It was Ivan who interrupted us, yanking fruitlessly at the metal bonds securing his hands and making a quick sharp clack that made us turn and look at him. He froze and looked back and he saw the two identical smiles aimed at him and he saw too what those smiles meant and another small and necessarily disposable piece of Ivan the Bomber withered and died.

“Shall we begin, brother?” we said, holding out the clippers.

“After you, brother,” Brian said with a tiny polite bow. We felt the joy of need-ending delight about to bloom and we turned to the chair and flexed the clippers once, twice, snick-snick, and Ivan watched and squirmed and made a nasty wet mucusy mewling sound that made us more eager than ever to begin, if only to wipe away the awful damp noise of his disgusting helpless flaccid weakness, and so we did it once more, snick-snick, closer, and watched his eyes bulge and his tendons stand out and his veins vibrate and it was a perfect siren symphony of pain-to-be calling us forward, onward, downward, into the chilly pain-filled promise of our mutual delight.

And so we began.