[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
gate and said something to Doakes, who glanced up the drive to me, shook his head, and then rolled
up the window and drove away.
Chutsky didn t say anything when he rejoined us. But he did look at me a little differently before he
climbed into the front seat of the car.
It was a twenty-minute drive south to where Quail Roost Drive runs east and west and crosses Dixie
Highway, right beside a mall. Just two blocks in, a series of side streets leads into a quiet,
working-class neighborhood made up of small, mostly neat houses, usually with two cars in the short
driveway and several bicycles scattered across the lawn.
One of these streets bent to the left and led to a cul-de-sac, and it was here, at the end of the street,
that we found the house, a pale yellow stucco dwelling with an overgrown yard. There was a battered
gray van in the driveway with dark red lettering that said HERMANOS CRUZ
LIMPIADORES Cruz Brothers Cleaners.
Debs drove around the cul-de-sac and up the street about half a block to a house with half a dozen cars
parked out front and on the lawn, and loud rap music coming from inside. Debs turned our car around
to face our target and parked under a tree. What do you think? she said.
Chutsky just shrugged. Uh-huh. Could be, he said. Let s watch a while. And that was the entire
extent of our sparkling conversation for a good half hour. Hardly enough to keep the mind alive, and I
found myself mentally drifting off to the small shelf in my apartment, where a little rosewood box holds
a number of glass slides, the kind you place under a microscope. Each slide contained a single drop of
blood very well-dried blood, of course. I wouldn t have the nasty stuff in my home otherwise. Forty
tiny windows into my shadow other self. One drop from each of my small adventures. There had been
First Nurse, so long ago, who had killed her patients by careful overdose, under the guise of easing
pain. And the very next slot in the box, the high-school shop teacher who strangled nurses. Wonderful
contrast, and I do love irony.
So many memories, and as I stroked each one it made me even more eager to make a new one, number
forty-one, even though number forty, MacGregor, was hardly dry. But because it was connected to my
next project, and therefore felt incomplete, I was anxious to get on with it. As soon as I could be sure
about Reiker and then find some way
I sat up. Perhaps the rich dessert had clogged my cranial arteries, but I had temporarily forgotten
Deborah s bribe. Deborah? I said.
54 of 147
She glanced back at me, with a small frown of concentration on her face. What.
Here we are, I said.
No shit.
None whatsoever. A complete lack of shit, in fact and all thanks to my mighty mental labors. Wasn t
there some mention of a few things you were going to tell me?
She glanced at Chutsky. He was staring straight ahead, still wearing the sunglasses, which did not
blink. Yeah, all right, she said. In the army Doakes was in Special Forces.
I know that. It s in his personnel file.
What you don t know, buddy, said Kyle without moving, is that there s a dark side to Special
Forces. Doakes was with them. A very tiny smile creased his face for just a second, so small and
sudden I might have imagined it. Once you go over to the dark side, it s forever. You can t go back.
I watched Chutsky sit completely motionless for a moment longer and then I looked at Debs. She
shrugged. Doakes was a shooter, she said. The army let the guys in El Salvador borrow him, and he
killed people for them.
Have gun will travel, Chutsky said.
That explains his personality, I said, thinking it also explained a great deal more, like the echo I heard
coming from his direction when my Dark Passenger called out.
You have to understand how it was, Chutsky said. It was a little eerie to hear his voice coming from
a completely unmoving and unemotional face, as if the voice was really coming from a tape recorder
somebody had put in his body. We believed we were saving the world. Giving up our lives and any
hope for something normal and decent, for the cause. Turns out we were just selling our souls. Me,
Doakes . . .
And Dr. Danco, I said.
And Dr. Danco. Chutsky sighed and finally moved, turning his head briefly to Deborah, then looking
forward again. He shook his head, and the movement seemed so large and theatrical after his stillness
that I felt like applauding. Dr. Danco started out as an idealist, just like the rest of us. He found out in
med school there was something missing inside him and he could do things to people and not feel any
empathy at all. Nothing at all. It s a lot rarer than you think.
Oh, I m sure it is, I said, and Debs glared at me.
Danco loved his country, Chutsky went on. So he switched to the dark side, too. On purpose, to
use this talent. And in El Salvador it . . . blossomed. He would take somebody that we brought him and
just He paused and took a breath, blew it out slowly. Shit. You saw what he does.
Very original, I said. Creative.
Chutsky gave a small snort of laughter that had no humor in it. Creative. Yeah. You could say that.
55 of 147
Chutsky swung his head slowly left, right, left. I said it didn t bother him to do that stuff in El
Salvador he got to like it. He d sit in on the interrogation and ask personal questions. Then when he
started to He d call the person by name, like he was a dentist or something, and say, Let s try
number five, or number seven, whatever. Like there were all these different patterns.
What kind of patterns? I asked. It seemed like a perfectly natural question, showing polite interest
and keeping the conversation moving. But Chutsky swiveled around in his seat and looked at me as if I
was something that might require a whole bottle of floor cleaner.
This is funny to you, he said.
Not yet, I said.
He stared at me for what seemed like an awfully long time; then he just shook his head and faced front
again. I don t know what kind of pattern, buddy. Never asked. Sorry. Probably something to do with
what he cut off first. Just something to keep himself amused. And he d talk to them, call them by name,
show them what he was doing. Chutsky shuddered. Somehow that made it worse. You should have
seen what it did to the other side.
How about what it did to you? Deborah demanded.
He let his chin fall forward to his chest, then straightened again. That too, he said. Anyway,
something finally changed at home, the politics, back in the Pentagon. New regime and all that, and
they didn t want anything to do with what we had been doing down there. So very quietly the word
came that Dr. Danco might buy us a small piece of political accommodation with the other side if we
delivered him.
You gave up your own guy to be killed? I asked. It hardly seemed fair I mean, I may be untroubled
by a sense of morals, but at least I play by the rules.
Kyle was silent for a long moment. I told you we sold our souls, buddy, he said at last. He smiled
again, a little longer this time. Yeah, we set him up and they took him down.
But he s not dead, Deborah said, always practical.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]