بخش 03 - فصل 01

POISON BAIT

1 Brady Hartsfield doesn’t need long to figure out how he’s going to poison Jerome Robinson’s canine pal, Odell. It helps that Brady is also Ralph Jones, a fictional fellow with just enough bona fides–

plus a low-limit Visa card–to order things from places like Amazon and eBay. Most people don’t realize how easy it is to whomp up an Internet-friendly false identity. You just have to pay the bills. If you don’t, things can come unraveled in a hurry. As Ralph Jones he orders a two-pound can of Gopher-Go and gives Ralphie’s mail drop

address, the Speedy Postal not far from Discount Electronix. The active ingredient in Gopher-Go is strychnine. Brady looks up the symptoms of strychnine poisoning on the Net and is delighted to find that Odell will have a tough time of it. Twenty minutes or so after ingestion, muscle spasms start in the neck and head. They quickly spread to

the rest of the body. The mouth stretches in a grin (at least in humans; Brady doesn’t know about dogs). There may be vomiting, but by then too much of the poison has been absorbed and it’s too late. Convulsions set in and get worse until the backbone turns into a hard and constant arch. Sometimes the spine actually snaps. When death comes–as

a relief, Brady is sure–it’s as a result of asphyxiation. The neural pathways tasked with running air to the lungs from the outside world just give up. Brady can hardly wait. At least it won’t be a long wait, he tells himself as he shuts off his seven computers and climbs the stairs. The stuff should be waiting for him next week. The best way to get it

into the dog, he thinks, would be in a ball of nice juicy hamburger. All dogs like hamburger, and Brady knows exactly how he’s going to deliver Odell’s treat. Barbara Robinson, Jerome’s little sister, has a friend named Hilda. The two girls like to visit Zoney’s GoMart, the convenience store a couple of blocks from the Robinson

house. They say it’s because they like the grape Icees, but what they really like is hanging out with their other little friends. They sit on the low stone wall at the back of the store’s four-car parking lot, half a dozen chickadees gossiping and giggling and trading treats. Brady has seen them often when he’s driving

the Mr. Tastey truck. He waves to them and they wave back. Everybody likes the ice cream man. Mrs. Robinson allows Barbara to make these trips once or twice a week (Zoney’s isn’t a drug hangout, a thing she has probably investigated for herself), but she has put conditions on her approval that Brady has had no trouble

deducing. Barbara can never go alone; she always must be back in an hour; she and her friend must always take Odell. No dogs are allowed in the GoMart, so Barbara tethers him to the doorhandle of the outside restroom while she and Hilda go inside to get their grape-flavored ice. That’s when Brady– driving his personal car, a

nondescript Subaru–will toss Odell the lethal burger-ball. The dog is big; he may last twenty-four hours. Brady hopes so. Grief has a transitive power which is nicely expressed by the axiom shit rolls downhill. The more pain Odell feels, the more pain the nigger girl and her big brother will feel. Jerome will pass his grief on to the fat ex-cop, aka

Kermit William Hodges, and the fat ex-cop will understand the dog’s death is his fault, payback for sending Brady that infuriating and disrespectful message. When Odell dies, the fat ex-cop will know– Halfway up to the second floor, listening to his mother snoring, Brady stops, eyes wide with dawning realization. The fat ex-cop will know.

And that’s the trouble, isn’t it? Because actions have consequences. It’s the reason why Brady might daydream about poisoning a load of the ice cream he sells the kiddies, but wouldn’t actually do such a thing. Not as long as he wants to keep flying under the radar, that is, and for now he does. So far Hodges hasn’t gone to his pals in the police

department with the letter Brady sent. At first Brady believed it was because Hodges wanted to keep it between the two of them, maybe take a shot at tracking down the Mercedes Killer himself and getting a little post-retirement glory, but now he knows better. Why would the fucking Det-Ret want to track him down when

he thinks Brady’s nothing but a crank? Brady can’t understand how Hodges could come to that conclusion when he, Brady, knew about the bleach and the hairnet, details never released to the press, but somehow he has. If Brady poisons Odell, Hodges will call in his police pals. Starting with his old partner, Huntley.

Worse, it may give the man Brady hoped to goad into suicide a new reason to live, defeating the whole purpose of the artfully composed letter. That would be completely unfair. Pushing the Trelawney bitch over the edge had been the greatest thrill of his life, far greater (for reasons he doesn’t understand, or care to) than killing all those people with

her car, and he wanted to do it again. To get the chief investigator in the case to kill himself–what a triumph that would be! Brady is standing halfway up the stairs, thinking hard. The fat bastard still might do it, he tells himself. Killing the dog might be the final push he needs.

Only he doesn’t really buy this, and his head gives a warning throb. He feels a sudden urge to rush back down to the basement, go on the Blue Umbrella, and demand that the fat ex-cop tell him what bullshit “withheld evidence” he’s talking about so he, Brady, can knock it down. But to do that would be a bad mistake. It

would look needy, maybe even desperate. Withheld evidence. Fuck off, asshole. But I did it! I risked my freedom, I risked my life, and I did it! You can’t take away the credit! It’s not fair! His head throbs again.

You stupid cocksucker, he thinks. One way or the other, you’re going to pay, but not until after the dog dies. Maybe your nigger friend will die, too. Maybe that whole nigger family will die. And after them, maybe a whole lot of other people. Enough to make what happened at City Center look like a picnic.

He goes up to his room and lies down on his bed in his underwear. His head is banging again, his arms are trembling (it’s as if he has ingested strychnine). He’ll lie here in agony until morning, unless– He gets up and goes back down the hall. He stands outside his mother’s open door for almost four minutes, then

gives up and goes inside. He gets into bed with her and his headache begins to recede almost at once. Maybe it’s the warmth. Maybe it’s the smell of her–shampoo, body lotion, booze. Probably it’s both. She turns over. Her eyes are wide in the dark. “Oh, honeyboy. Are you having one of those nights?”

“Yes.” He feels the warmth of tears in his eyes. “Little Witch?” “Big Witch this time.” “Want me to help you?” She already knows the answer; it’s throbbing against her stomach. “You do so much for me,” she says tenderly. “Let me do this for you.” He closes his eyes. The smell of the booze on her

breath is very strong. He doesn’t mind, although ordinarily he hates it. “Okay.” She takes care of him swiftly and expertly. It doesn’t take long. It never does. “There,” she says. “Go to sleep now, honeyboy.” He does, almost at once. When he wakes in the early morning light she’s snoring again, a lock of hair spit-stuck

to the corner of her mouth. He gets out of bed and goes back to his own room. His mind is clear. The strychnine-laced gopher poison is on its way. When it arrives, he’ll poison the dog, and damn the consequences. God damn the consequences. As for those suburban niggers with the white-people names? They don’t matter. The fat ex-cop

goes next, after he’s had a chance to fully experience Jerome Robinson’s pain and Barbara Robinson’s sorrow, and who cares if it’s suicide? The important thing is that he go. And after that . . . “Something big,” he says as he pulls on a pair of jeans and a plain white tee. “A blaze of glory.” Just what the blaze will be he doesn’t know yet, but

that’s okay. He has time, and he needs to do something first. He needs to demolish Hodges’s so-called “withheld evidence” and convince him that he, Brady, is indeed the Mercedes Killer, the monster Hodges failed to catch. He needs to rub it in until it hurts. He also needs it because if Hodges believes in this bogus “withheld evidence,” the other

cops–the real cops–must

believe it, too. That is

unacceptable. He needs . . .

“Credibility!”

Brady

exclaims to the empty kitchen.

“I need credibility!”

He sets about making

breakfast: bacon and eggs. The

smell may waft upstairs to Ma

and tempt her. If not, no big

deal. He’ll eat her share. He’s

pretty hungry.