Fuzzy Navel

8:22 P.M.
JACK

“LET’S PLAY A GAME,” Alex says.

I sit on the sofa. My hands rest in my lap, the handcuffs digging painfully into my wrists. My ankles are wrapped in silver duct tape. Latham has tape on his legs, wrists, and mouth. Alex dragged my mother, still bound to the kitchen chair, into the living room with us. Mom’s eyelids are drooping. She doesn’t look well.

Alex holds a nickel-plated revolver. It has a two-inch barrel and a rubber grip. A small gun. It probably only holds five bullets. My guess is confirmed when Alex swings the cylinder out and pushes the ejector rod, dumping five.32-caliber rounds into her palm. She thumbs one back into an empty chamber, spins the cylinder, and slaps it closed.

“I’m going to ask you some questions, Jack. If you get one wrong, I’m going to point the gun at either your mother or your fiancé, and pull the trigger. Like this.”

Alex aims at my mother and fires before the cry can leave my throat.

The hammer falls on an empty chamber with a metallic click.

“A one out of five chance,” Alex says. “Those are pretty good odds. Do you understand the game?”

I push the panic down, deep down, forcing myself to think rather than react to fear.

“What if I get the answer right?” I ask.

“Then I’ll ask another one.” Alex spins the cylinder. “Let’s begin.”

She walks over to me and stares down. Her eyes are empty. I wonder if she’s enjoying this. She doesn’t seem to be.

Alex doesn’t have the classic male psychopathic response, because her particular mental disorder isn’t linked to sex and testosterone. That means she stays calm, works within her peculiar kind of rationalization, without letting emotion take over. Her cruelty isn’t hot and breathy. It’s cold and calculating.

In my opinion, that makes it worse.

“How did I escape from Heathrow?” Alex asks me.

What is she looking for? Praise? Begging? Cowering? Or does she just want a wrong answer so she can shoot someone I love while I watch?

“You lured someone into your room, burned them, and took their ID. A guard, maybe.”

“It wasn’t a guard. Try again.”

“Another inmate.”

Alex snorts. “If I took another inmate’s place, I’d be sitting in her cell right now. One more guess, then we play some Russian roulette.”

I rack my brain, trying to remember what I know about Alex, about her past. She grew up with a family of psychos. She liked to kill animals. She was infatuated with her brother. She could act normal, function within society, until her peculiar tastes took over. She used to be a marine. She was an expert marksperson, and an expert martial artist. She murdered many people, torturing most of them first. She was of above-average intelligence. She had been analyzed by many specialists.

Many specialists.

“Your shrink,” I decide.

Alex has killed several of her psychiatrists. She seems to get a particular thrill out of it, and I could easily picture her carrying on that legacy at Heathrow.

I know I’m right, because the unscarred half of her face smiles.

“Dr. Panko. Shorter than me, but the same hair color. She was a Freudian. Kept wanting me to talk about my parents. Saw me as a victim, a weak little girl who had been abused by the world. I had to fake a lot of tears in front of that bitch. It paid off.”

“You got her to trust you,” I say. As long as Alex is talking, she isn’t shooting.

“So much that she allowed me to get a job in the laundry room. On our next session I snapped her neck and put her body in the laundry cart. Not easy to do in handcuffs and ankle restraints. When I did laundry rounds that night, I dropped her off in my room, switched clothes with her, and set her on fire after spraying her with three cans of Lysol. Then I walked out of prison while everyone stood around watching the blaze. How did I do that, Jack?”

“You took her keys. Her ID.”

“Good. What else?”

I stare at Alex’s cheek. “You also took her makeup.”

“I needed a whole tube of concealer to cover up the scarring, and it wouldn’t have stood up to close inspection. But no one even bothered to look at me. They were all too jacked up about the tragic suicide. I found Panko’s car by pressing the alarm button on her key chain. She had this cute little gun in her glove compartment. A Freudian with a gun. I wonder if she ever thought about how ironic that was.”

I steal a glance at Mom. She seems out of it. In contrast, Latham appears alert and determined. I try to tell him how much I love him using only my eyes.

“So how did I convince the authorities that Dr. Panko was me?” Alex asks.

I think about my earlier calls to Heathrow, how they insisted the dead body was Alex.

“You somehow switched dental records.”

“Wrong.” Alex holds up the revolver. “Who do you want me to shoot, your mother or your fiancé?”

My stomach falls to my ankles. “Give me another chance. You’re smarter than I am.”

“No. Choose.”

I’m tempted to say please, but begging Alex won’t help the situation. She feeds off of weakness. I promise myself I won’t beg, no matter how bad it gets.

I look at Mom. She doesn’t meet my eyes. I wonder if she’s being strong, or if she’s gone someplace in her head. Then I look at Latham. He nods at me. My sweetheart is giving me permission to shoot him.

“I refuse to decide,” I say.

“Fine. Then I’ll do both.”

“Wait-!”

Alex points the gun at Latham and fires, then turns it on Mom and fires.

Two empty chambers, but something inside me breaks. The panic worms its way to the surface, and a soft whimper tears loose. I don’t want to cry, don’t want to let Alex see it, but some tears make it out anyway.

“Hmm,” Alex says. “What were the odds there? A forty percent chance one of them would die? Looks like you got lucky, Jack. Now try again. How did I convince the authorities that Dr. Panko was me?”

I have no idea. My brain is mush, scrambled eggs. I’m being forced to watch the people I love get killed. Alex will keep going until they both are dead, then she’ll start on me. How am I supposed to be able to think?

“The clock is ticking, Jack. You have five seconds.”

I make myself focus, make myself reason it out. If Alex didn’t switch records, there’s only one other possible way to get a positive dental ID.

“You… you pulled some of your own teeth, put them in her mouth.”

Alex claps her hands together.

“Bravo, Jack! But you make it sound so simple. It isn’t easy, yanking out your own teeth. Especially without any anesthetic. Those suckers are in there tight! I used a toothbrush. Rubbed the handle against the cement walls until it got sharp. Then I jammed it into my jaw and pried the roots out. Does this look infected to you? Be honest.”

Alex sticks her pinky into her mouth, pulls her cheek back. I see red, inflamed gums where teeth used to be, and her breath smells like meat gone bad. I turn away.

“Why did I do that, Jack? Why did I yank out my teeth? Why didn’t I just get the hell out of there and not care if they realized I was gone?”

“For me,” I say, my voice small. I stare at my lap.

“Exactly. I did it for you, Jack. Because if they knew I escaped, they would have warned you, and you would have gotten away.”

Alex grabs me by my hair, twists my head until I look at her.

“How often did I think of you, when I was locked up? Take a guess, Jack. Guess how often.”

I don’t have to guess. I know the answer.

“Every day,” I say.

“Every hour of every day I was in that hellhole I thought about you, Jack. About this moment right now. It made things bearable. Knowing one day I’d have you, and the people you care about, at my mercy – that was the only thing that kept me going. That was how I could look at my ugly, scarred face and not slit my own throat.”

She releases my hair, and I force myself to hold her gaze.

“Tell me, Jack. Did you think of me?”

I don’t know what she wants me to say. Rather than try to guess, I tell her the truth.

“Only in my nightmares.”

“And what did you have nightmares about, Jack? Of me escaping?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”

“Because I’m not a killer.”

“But I am. You should have taken that into consideration.”

I don’t want her to ask another question, so I blurt out one of my own.

“Do you think this is going to make everything right, Alex?”

She narrows her good eye. The other one just twitches. “What exactly do you mean, Lieutenant?”

“You can’t get the time you did back. You can’t get your family back. You can’t get…” I force it out, “… your face back. Killing us isn’t going to change anything.”

Alex caresses my cheek, lets her fingers linger.

“I know that, Jack. I’m not doing this to make things right. The past is the past, and can’t be undone.” She winks her good eye. “I’m doing this because it’s a lot of fun.”

I don’t want to provoke her, but I can’t help whispering, “You’re a monster.”

Alex sighs. She looks at Mom, and Latham, and then at the ceiling, perhaps gathering her thoughts. When she speaks again, her voice is hard and even.

“Life is all about cruelty. You know that. You’re a cop. You see it all the time. Nothing on this planet lives without something else dying. You call me a monster because I choose to accept my nature. I embrace it, rather than deny it. Here’s a bonus question, since your moral compass is so true, since you’re so sure you know right and wrong. Where has your morality gotten you, Jack?”

“Hurting others is wrong, Alex,” I say.

Alex laughs, a harsh, cruel laugh. “Look at history. It’s filled with atrocities. War. Murder. Torture. Rape. We call that kind of behavior inhuman. But maybe the terminology is backward. Maybe being human means hurting others. That seems to be what humans do best.”

I shake my head. “Our species is successful because we nurture, not because we harm.”

Alex spins the cylinder again, then twirls the gun around her finger like a cowboy.

“Let me clue you in on something, Lieutenant. Nothing is black and white. There are no universal standards that determine what’s good and what’s evil. It’s subjective. You can’t kill for money, or recreation, but you can kill during a war. Why is there a difference? Dead is dead. I set someone on fire, I’m bad. The state fries me in the electric chair, and people sell T-shirts and toast champagne. Right and wrong is a matter of perspective.”

“Your perspective is warped. Killing is wrong.”

“Yet you’d probably give up everything just to have a shot at killing me right now, wouldn’t you? Let me enlighten you about something, Jack. Human beings are just animals, and all animals are selfish. Every single thing an animal does is selfish.”

“People can be unselfish,” I maintain.

“How so? Feeding the starving? Adopting unwanted babies? Sending aid when there’s a natural disaster? Giving blood? Donating to charity? People do these things to feel good about themselves. They’re all selfish acts, and pretty goddamn stupid as well. If you’re going to be selfish, it should benefit your life, not take away from it. Now I’m asking you again – where has your morality gotten you?”

I know the answer, and hate the answer.

“Answer the question, Jack.”

“Here,” I whisper.

“Exactly. Your high regard for life, and justice, and the path of righteousness, has gotten you here. You’re dead, and the people you love are dead, all because you’re so sure that there’s a right and a wrong. Be honest. Don’t you wish that you had killed me after you tore off my face?”

I nod slowly and speak the truth. “Yes.”

Alex half smiles. “Good. I’d hate for you to die without any regrets. And let me tell you something, Jack. For all I’ve done in my life, I never put anyone that I cared about in jeopardy. Your loved ones are going to suffer, and it’s your fault.”

Alex sticks her face in mine, lets me smell her rotten breath.

“And you call me a monster,” she says.