Dexter's Final Cut

NINE

And now here I was in the lap of luxury, far from the hooting and screeching and dirty socks of my normal domestic life. It probably wasn’t fair to compare, of course, which was a good thing. This hotel made even my new, swimming-pooled house seem squalid-made my whole little life seem just a bit less bright and shiny.

I watched Jackie. She was lifting a large red strawberry off the platter and she looked as fresh and perfect as a human being can look. It definitely wasn’t fair to compare her to Rita.

“The seafood is very good here,” Jackie said, biting the end off the strawberry. She swallowed and licked her lips. “I guess it should be.” She smiled and sipped from her own mojito. “You probably get great seafood all the time,” she said.

“Actually, I don’t,” I said. “The kids won’t eat it.”

“Kids,” she said, and she gave me a strange and quizzical look.

“What?” I said.

Jackie shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just … you seem so, um.” She fluttered one hand while she took another sip of the drink. “I don’t know,” she said, putting the glass on the table. “So … independent? Self-contained? I mean, I don’t really know you that well, and maybe I’m being, um …” She touched my arm, very lightly, and then took her hand away again. “Tell me if I’m being too personal,” she said. “I just got this feeling like I know you? And it seems like, you know.” She reached for a slice of kiwi fruit. “Like you are complete all by yourself. It’s hard for me to picture you with kids.”

“It’s even harder for me,” I said, and Jackie laughed. It was a nice sound.

“What’s your wife like?” she asked.

“What, Rita?” I said. The question took me just a little bit by surprise. “Why, she’s, um.” Jackie watched me, unblinking, and from the hours of daytime drama I have watched in order to understand human behavior, I knew that I was supposed to say something flattering about Rita, since she was, after all, my wife. And I thought about it, thought about how worn she had looked earlier, and I tried to think of a nice phrase for her, but all that came to mind was that I was used to her, that she was blind to my harmless little foibles with knives and felons, and that didn’t seem to be what the situation demanded. I thought some more. Jackie kept looking at me. The expectant silence grew, and in desperation I finally said, “She’s a terrific cook.”

Jackie tilted her head to one side and kept looking at me until I began to wonder whether I had said something wrong. “That’s kind of funny,” she said at last.

“What?”

A small smile flickered on and then off her face. “If you ask most guys about their wife, the first thing they say is, ‘Oh, she’s really beautiful, wonderful.’ Something like that. And you think about it forever and all you come up with is, ‘She’s a good cook’?”

I wanted to tell her that, after all, I had my priorities, and as far as I was concerned Rita could have looked like Shrek as long as she made mango paella the way she did. But it didn’t seem like quite the right note to hit, and I wasn’t really sure what was, so I stammered out, “Well, but you know. I mean, she’s very nice-looking.”

“She should be,” Jackie said, reaching for her glass again. “Married to a hunk like you.”

Human conversation is something I have studied diligently, since it makes no sense at all to me unless it follows the comfortable path of cliché, which it does ninety-nine percent of the time. So in order to fit in, I have learned the formulas of small talk, and I must follow them or I am lost in a jungle of feelings and impulses and notions that I do not share. I am blind to nuance. But I would have had to be deaf and dumb as well not to realize that Jackie was paying me a compliment, and I groped for an appropriate response, only managing to say, “Oh, thank you,” which sounded pretty feeble, even to me.

Jackie clutched her glass with both hands and looked out across Biscayne Bay. “Sometimes I catch myself wondering,” she said. “You know. Like … maybe I should have found a nice guy like you and settled down. Had a real life.” She went very still, just holding the glass and staring at the horizon, and I watched her. I admit I was surprised to hear what sounded like wistful regret in her voice-after all, she was beautiful, rich and famous, a star, and even the most levelheaded observer would have to say she had just about everything one could wish for.

And to her very great credit, she proved to be rather levelheaded herself, because she gave a small laugh and shook her glass. It rattled; it was empty, except for the ice. “I know,” she said. “It’s not very convincing, even to me. Besides, I’ve met plenty of nice guys and none of ’em made me want to give this up.” She made a rueful face and set the glass on the table. “Plenty of not-so-nice guys, too,” she said. “But the real truth is, I wouldn’t trade my life for anything.”

“Not even a Greek arms dealer?” I said.

“Not even two,” she said, smirking at me. “And anyway, those guys are horribly possessive, so I’d be like his property, you know. I guess they have to be that way, but …” She shrugged. “That doesn’t work for me.”

She looked at me, and I looked back, and the moment seemed to stretch past what was comfortable, but I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, and since she didn’t appear to feel uneasy with the silence, I decided not to, either. Behind us the sun was just starting to sink into the horizon, and the water in front of us had that golden glow it gets at sunset, and that reflected up onto Jackie’s face, and I suppose onto mine, too. Finally, the corners of her mouth went up into a smile, and she said, “Anyway. We should probably think about dinner. Are you hungry?”

I might have said that of course I was hungry; the mighty engine that is Dexter’s body runs perpetually at a very high level, and requires regular fuel. But I settled for a polite, “Actually, I am a bit,” and Jackie nodded, suddenly looking very serious.

“All right,” she said. “Is there a really good place nearby? The network is paying, so don’t be stingy.”

Truthfully, my taste in food tends to be more robust than refined, but in any case, there were other considerations at the moment that were more important than what might be on the menu. “Um,” I said. “How about room service?”

Jackie raised an eyebrow at me and started to say something, then seemed to catch herself. “Oh,” she said. “You mean because …” She frowned and shook her head. “You think it might be dangerous to go out,” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s getting dark, and I have to assume he’s figured out where you’re staying by now.”

“Oh,” she said again, and she seemed to deflate a bit, slumping down into her chair and letting her chin sink onto her chest. “I keep forgetting,” she said. “I was just enjoying …” She sighed heavily, which seemed like a strange reaction, unless she really wanted a fancy high-priced dinner. “Anyway, room service is fine. Since you are”-she waved one hand vaguely-“looking after my safety.”

“That is why I’m here,” I said.

She looked at me just a moment too long. “I’ll try to remember that,” she said. And before I could figure out what that meant, I heard a kind of scrabbling noise coming from the direction of the suite’s door.

“That’s-” she started to say, but I held up a hand and cut her off, listening hard for a second. There was no doubt; somebody was trying to open the door and get in.

We had not ordered anything yet, and since Jackie had been here almost a week I didn’t think the management would be sending up a fruit basket. That left one very obvious and unpleasant possibility.

I got carefully to my feet and pulled the Glock from its holster. “Dexter,” Jackie said. “I think it’s-”

“Lock yourself into the bathroom,” I said. “Take your phone, just in case.”

“But I just-”

“Quickly!” I hissed at her, and I moved rapidly and silently toward the door, making sure the pistol’s safety was off and holding it in the ready position, just the way my adoptive father, Harry, had taught me so long ago. I don’t like guns-they’re noisy and impersonal and really leave very little room for true artistic expression. But they are effective, and Harry had taught me how to use them as only a combat veteran and career cop could teach, and with a weapon as good as this one I could put holes in things at a very good distance.

In this case, however, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to shoot. So I hurried across the floor to one side of the door, holding myself and my Glock in readiness.

As I got there the door began to ease open slowly, almost shyly; whoever it was, they were being very careful not to alert anyone that they were coming in. Unfortunately for them, I was already alerted. With my left hand I grabbed the edge of the door and yanked it open. I stepped quickly around, snatched at the arm holding the doorknob, and jerked hard, and as a head of short brown hair followed the arm into the room I slid behind and pressed the barrel of the Glock into the right ear.

A clatter of papers, keys, cell phone, and a Starbucks cup fell to the floor, and as they hit I heard a soft moan of terror, and I looked at what I was holding at gunpoint.

She was a square, plain-looking woman in her mid-thirties, wearing large Elton John-style glasses and a lightweight tropical sundress, not at all what I had pictured as our killer, and she was trembling violently. “Please,” she croaked. “Please don’t kill me.” There was an unpleasant smell, and I looked down at the floor by my feet. Coffee was puddling out of the Starbucks cup, and a pool of urine around the woman’s feet was growing to meet it-and spreading now toward my shoes, too, a very nice pair of New Balance running shoes, practically brand-new.

“Please,” the woman whispered again, and she was shaking so hard now I could barely keep the gun in her ear.

“Ahem,” said Jackie, and I looked up. She was standing about ten feet away, looking at us with an expression of real concern. “That was very impressive,” she said. “I mean, it’s nice to see you really know what you’re doing, but …” She bit her lip. “I, uh, I tried to tell you,” she said, and nodded at the woman I had captured.

“Um …” Jackie said with a kind of appalled flutter of her hands. She gave an embarrassed half smile and waved one hand at my prisoner. “Can I introduce my assistant, Kathy?”

I looked at the woman I was holding. She was still trembling, and she looked back at me with wide and terrified eyes. “Pleased to meet you,” I said.