Dexter's Final Cut

THIRTEEN

Echeverria left to find Anderson, with one more long look at Jackie, and I was not particularly unhappy to see him go. Of course, he had a right to ogle whoever he wanted, and Jackie was certainly ogle-worthy. But for some reason, I didn’t like it. Perhaps I was merely getting overzealous in my role as her bodyguard. Maybe it was something else.

In any case, I was glad to see the last of Echeverria, and it gave me a chance to think a little bit more about Patrick Bergmann. Knowing what he looked like was very nice, of course, but for my purposes it was more important to know what he thought like. Would he stalk Jackie as if she were a deer, staying in heavy cover and then leaping out when she wasn’t expecting it? Or would he be the kind of freak who showed himself to his victim a few times, just to build suspense? Would he approach in some bizarre, brilliant, unimaginable manner? Or just charge her with a lasso?

I knew what he liked to do after he caught his victims-I had seen it three times already. But I didn’t know how he liked to stalk, and it would certainly help if I could figure that out. And all that aside, I naturally enough felt a certain amount of curiosity about somebody who shared my interests.

“Could I read the letters?” I asked Deborah. She looked at me blankly. “The letters Patrick wrote to Jackie,” I said as patiently as possible.

Deborah cocked her head to one side. “Patrick,” she said. “He’s already ‘Patrick’ to you.”

“It is his name,” I said, trying very hard not to sound cranky.

“His name is sicko,” she said. “Or fucking psycho. Or the suspect or the perp.” She shook her head. “But to you he’s Patrick.”

“Oh, my God, he’s doing that thing again,” Jackie said, staring at me as if I was a piece of alien technology that had just turned itself on. “You know, where he goes inside the guy’s head.”

“If you’d rather,” I said with all the dignity I could muster under the circumstances, “I can go back to drinking awful coffee with Robert.”

Deborah made a snorting sound. “I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” she said. She picked up the sheaf of papers from her desk. “Read the fucking letters,” she said, holding them out to me. “Go away into your fucking trance. Bring back something I can use.”

“Thank you,” I said, and although I thought I had managed a tone of quiet but injured self-possession, Jackie and Deborah snickered in unison. But I fought down my quite natural impulse to lay about me with a chair and took the letters, settling into the folding chair beside Deborah’s desk as I began to read. The letters were all printed out from a standard computer printer.

“Dear Miss Forrest,” the first one began.

I guess I should just say Jackie but I wanted to be polite the first time, so here goes. I got to say I seen a lot of beautiful girls in my time and not all of them on the internet hahaha but you are something special. First I seen you I new you are something rilly special and now I watched everything you done and I new that you and me was spose to be together like it was something just spose to happen. I no I don’t have to try and discripe it to you because you are goin to feel it to soon as you see me and so I will just say for rite now I rilly need you to send me something maybe you were wearing and you don’t have to wash it first if you no what I mean. I no you will see me real soon.

youre soul mate Patrick Bergmann

I flipped through the next few letters; they were pretty much the same, telling her with increasing frustration that she was meant to be with him; anybody could see it, and she had to see it, too, and would definitely see it as soon as she saw him. They didn’t get really interesting until the fifth letter.

“I am sick of heering from that dum bitch you got working for you,” it started, and it just got better.

You dint anser me your own self and I told you you should. You dint sent me the thing you were wearing and I told you I need that. You have to start listing to me or this goin to turn rilly bad. Why cant you see what is so cristal clear and plain as day that you and me are goin to be together? You no I rilly love you and you will rilly love me if you just see me for two seconds. And you got to no that one way or other you are going to see me!!!

The next letter was even angrier, starting out with a string of misspelled curse words that really made me lament the state of public education in our once-great nation, and then settling down into a steady stream of thinly veiled and completely naked threats.

You better jus get it thru youre head that this is goin to happen and that is all there is to it and if you cant see it I am goin to MAKE you see it and make you see ME. I am not afraid to do some pretty bad things if its goin to make you open up youre eyes and look at me and no what I am sayin about you and me is the total hunred percent true.

Given what had led up to it, the final letter was fairly standard stuff, disappointingly predictable in its turn to cold rage, threats of violence, and general psychotic unhappiness. I read it twice, pausing in between to think grateful thoughts about the education I had been lucky enough to receive from Harry-and, as unlikely as it seemed, from the Miami-Dade public school system, which was really starting to look good compared to what Patrick got in Laramie, Tennessee. But of course, as I reminded myself, the schools in Tennessee were not totally to blame; several intelligent people had come from that state, and I was almost certain that another one could come along any day now.

I read through the last letter one more time.

If that is the way how you want to play it than that is the way how I am goin to do it. You want to go all cold and mean on me that’s fine because I can play that game even better and you will be so sorry you ever did that. I will fine you and I will make you see me and I will make you see what you could have had and than I will take it all away from you one little piece at a time. And I do mean ALL of it. I will show you that you are no diffrent but just a hore like all the other girls think they are so special and I will make you SEE what you could have had and that will be the last thing you ever see and I am coming for you bitch and you better believe it.

This last letter was not signed, “youre soulmate”; love is so fragile, isn’t it? And again, it really was just a little bit disappointing in the blunt and ignorant mind it revealed. I do not absolutely demand that every sick and twisted killer must show a bright gleam of intelligence and originality, but really. Something this pedestrian did seem to be letting down the side just a bit, don’t you think?

In any case, it was clear to me that this was not a subtle brain, searching for visceral poetry. This was a very direct, rather dull and ordinary sick and twisted killer. He was psychotic, yes, and capable of almost any kind of perverted violence, but he lacked all refinement, and altogether seemed to be without a single subtle or interesting thought on what was, after all, a very important subject.

Disappointing, but at least it meant he should be quite easy to find, once I put my own sharp and wonderful mind to it and began to track him to his lair and then …

… and then nothing at all, because my mind would not be tracking anything right now; my mind was firmly locked in place inside my skull, riding high atop my body as it performed its chores as Jackie’s protector. I could not step out into the bright and welcoming moonlight and slide through the shadows to find Patrick in what would certainly be a terribly obvious little hidey-hole, could not take him and tape him and end things the right way, my way … because I would be spending those precious dark hours hovering over Jackie with vigilance and cunning, and perhaps a little more dark rum.

I became aware that conversation had stopped in Deborah’s little office, and I looked up from the letters to see Jackie and my sister both staring at me. “What,” I said.

Jackie smiled encouragingly. “We were waiting for you to close your eyes and, you know,” she said, waving one hand vaguely. “Do that thing where you go inside his head.”

“I’m afraid I won’t fit,” I said, trying not to sound too smug. “This is a small and very ordinary mind.”

Deborah snorted and Jackie said, “Ordinary?! My God, after what he’s done-and you call him ordinary?!”

“That’s right,” I said. “Ordinary, garden-variety, demented, psychotic killer.” I shrugged. “Very predictable.”

“Then predict him,” Deborah said.

“Easy,” I told her. “He’s going to come after Jackie.” And I nodded at Jackie with a reassuring smile.

For some reason, that didn’t seem to reassure Jackie very much. She threw up her hands with an expression of sarcastic relief. “Well, shit, that’s good to know,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, come after me, that’s great-but didn’t we already know that?”

Deborah, at least, wasn’t quite so far gone that she had to resort to sarcasm. Of course, Patrick wasn’t after her. “How will he do it?” Deborah said.

“Very directly,” I told them. “Nothing subtle, nothing too clever. He’s a hammer, not a scalpel.”

“Well, goddamn it,” Jackie said, “a hammer can sure as hell cave in my skull just the same.”

“Not with me there,” I said, and although I admit it sounded rather boastful, not at all my usual style of modest self-effacement, I really did believe it. “Really, Jackie, this guy is not capable of any real surprises.”

“He surprised the shit out of those three other girls,” she said darkly.

“They didn’t know what he was. And,” I said, trying very hard to sound quietly, modestly confident, “they didn’t have me.”

She looked at me long and hard, her eyes scanning my face for some sign that I had secret superpowers. I don’t think she saw any such sign, but she did seem to relax a little bit. “Well,” she said, and she looked over to Deborah. “I mean, so, um … what?”

“Nothing has changed,” Debs told her. “I got you in daylight; Dexter has you covered all night.”

“Oh, covered,” Jackie said. And she opened her mouth to say more, then closed it again, looked at me, and, for some reason, she blushed.

“I mean …” She trickled off and looked away from me quickly, and for a moment she seemed so flustered that even her masterful use of sarcasm fled her. “Then, okay, so, right.” She nodded a few times and cleared her throat. “All right,” she said at last. “If you’re both so … confident?”

I simply stood there and, since I had no idea what had just gone through Jackie’s mind, I tried to look relaxed and overwhelmingly confident, leaving it to my sister to say, “Yeah, I think so. Dexter is usually right about this stuff.” And then she cocked her head and looked at Jackie thoughtfully. “You want to hire somebody else?” she said.

“Oh, no,” Jackie blurted quickly. “I mean, no. Dexter is very …” She cleared her throat and looked at me, and then looked away. “I trust you. Both of you,” she said.

Deborah continued to regard her with one eyebrow raised, and then at last she started to shake her head. “Well, shit, who’da thunk it,” she said softly, but before she could complete what must have been a very interesting thought, her desk phone buzzed loudly, and she turned away to grab it up. “Morgan,” she said into the receiver. She looked over at me, and then said, “Yeah, I just saw him. I’ll send him right down.” She hung up the phone and gave me a mean little smile. “Robert,” she said. “He’s lonely.” She jerked her head toward the hall door. “Git,” she said.

It didn’t seem quite right that babysitting a somewhat spoiled actor should take my time when there was a killer to catch-especially when it was a killer whose vulgar, pedestrian efforts were giving the craft a bad name-but life in the workforce seldom actually makes sense for the foot soldiers, and my nonsense job was to be with Robert. I gitted.

Robert was right where I’d left him, in the lab. But he was no longer alone. Standing beside him was a pudgy African American man in his mid-thirties, with a shaved head and large horn-rimmed glasses. He had five or six gold and diamond piercings in his left ear, and he wore a worn black T-shirt that said METALLICA in ornate letters, and a pair of baggy, faded madras shorts that hung down much too low. I looked at him, and he looked back blankly. Robert saved us all from what might have been a very awkward social situation by shouting out, “Hey! Jesus, that must have been the dump from hell, huh?”

I am known far and wide for my sophisticated poise and ready banter, but I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and on top of the difficulty of having a stranger in my space, I’m afraid it had me momentarily at a loss. I just stared at Robert and muttered something like, “Oh, well, you know,” before I remembered that my excuse for leaving him had been gastric difficulty. “Actually,” I amended, “I got kind of sidetracked.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Robert said. “Just kidding. Hey! Look who’s here!” And he nudged the other man forward a step.

“Oh,” I said. “Um, who?”

The African American man rolled his eyes, but Robert said, “He’s just kidding, Renny. Dexter Morgan, this is Renny Boudreaux!”

He pronounced it “boo-drow,” and since I am a man of the world and recognize a French name when I hear one, I nodded to him and said, “Enchanté, m’sieu.”

Boudreaux stared at me and then, with a look of wonder on his face, he said, “Is that French?! Goddamn, you are smooth. I like that. French, that’s- Tell me, Dexter, you ever fuck a black man?”

I really wanted to believe I had misheard him, but he’d said it so loud and clear that there could be no mistake. So I just shook my head and said, “Not yet, no. But the day is young.”

Robert shouted with laughter, but Renny just nodded as if we were having a real conversation, and said, “Uh-huh. Well, you ain’t gonna start with me, motherfucker. So you put your goddamn French back up your ass where it belongs.” He shook his head, eyeing me warily, and said, “French. Shit.”

I have always felt that the Art of Conversation is best served when all the parties involved have some vague idea of what they are talking about, and in this case, I had been left out of the loop. I was beginning to feel like I had wandered into some kind of Surrealist Performance piece-maybe one of those that tries to provoke the audience to some extreme reaction. But at least Robert seemed to be having a good time. He laughed again, a loud and brassy laugh that didn’t sound quite sane, and he pushed Renny toward me one more time.

“Renny is playing Aaron Crait, my forensics sidekick,” Robert said. “You know, in the show.” He winked and added, “Kinda like you and Vince, right?”

I had never thought of myself as having a sidekick at all, and if I did it would certainly not be someone like Vince, and suddenly to think of him in that role took me even further aback. But Robert gave me no time to ponder that uncomfortable relationship; he plowed right on cheerfully.

“Renny hit town this morning and I told him to swing by, ’cause I thought you wouldn’t mind giving him a crash course in forensics, right?” Possibly my mouth was still hanging open, because Robert suddenly looked a little uncomfortable, even a little anxious. “Um, you don’t mind, do you, Dexter?” he said. “Because it’s, you know, I thought it was important. That, you know, we’re all on the same page … So we get it right.” He lowered his voice and spoke confidentially, almost pleadingly. “Just a couple of hours, this afternoon …?”

“Well, I suppose,” I said. I was, after all, required to be at the beck and call of Big Ticket Network in general and Robert in person, and a few hours spent instructing Renny probably wouldn’t hurt.

“Thanks, that’s great, right, Renny?” He winked again, and added, “You’ve probably seen Renny on Leno or something.”

“I don’t watch Leno,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame you,” Robert said. “Anyway, Renny does stand-up comedy when he’s not acting.”

“Motherfucker, I told you twice!” Renny said, glaring at Robert, and I couldn’t tell whether he was actually angry. “I don’t do comedy-I do Social Commentary!” He shook his head and looked back at me. “God made this man so pretty ’cause he’s so fucking dumb,” he told me.

“Oh, I thought I was the only one who noticed,” I said, and Robert gave another of his awful shouts of laughter.

“Which part you notice, the dumb?” Renny said. “Or just the pretty-he hit on you yet, Dexter?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Is he likely to?”

“I ain’t sayin’,” Renny said. “But if he ask you to take a shower-”

“Take a rain check?” I said.

“No, dummy. Don’t drop the soap,” Renny said.

“Ha!” Robert cawed. “This is great; I knew you two would hit it off,” he said. And since I now knew that Renny and I were hitting it off, I knew exactly the right thing to do in the situation. I stepped forward and took his hand.

“Anyway-very pleased to meet you, Renny,” I said.

Renny stared for a moment, and then took my hand, and as he did he met my eyes, and time faltered into a slow and shadowed crawl-

— and for just a second I thought I saw something behind the veil of his eyes, something dark and wicked, and it was looking back at me and baring its fangs. I couldn’t be absolutely sure; it was just a brief flash, just enough to make the Dark Passenger hiss and unwind one small coil. But it startled me; I dropped Renny’s hand and took a step back, looking for some confirmation in his face. There was none; he just looked at me, and then turned away to Robert. “So what the fuck, isn’t it lunchtime yet? Your lover Dexter know someplace to eat where they got real food? Or is it all Cuban honky shit?” He looked back at me and added, “You ain’t gonna take me for no French food, are you, faggot?”

“Well,” I said, and I admit I was pleased by my quick and smooth recovery from what had so far been a very disconcerting encounter. But I gave him my best fake smile. “If you can’t eat Cuban honky, and you don’t like French faggot, there’s always Chinese.”

Renny stared at me, and then slowly nodded his head. “First smart thing you said,” he told me.