After the call – which might not produce an answer for several days – I had one difficult chore remaining: informing Gary that his brother was growing more violent, and from my experience would only get worse. I suspected Gary harbored hopes of his brother being caught in a soft net and put in some therapeutic environment until gentle mental massage dissuaded him of his rougher instincts.
Gary was laying in his bed and watching one of the monitors, mouthing something to himself as a warm breeze filtered through the window. A sheet was pulled to his waist, but above it I saw the robe had been replaced with a voluminous coral sweatshirt. On the bedside table sat a plate holding the cores of two apples, a pear, and his water cup.
“Hello, Detective Ryder.”
“I hope I’m not disturbing lunch.”
“Just finished. Can you believe lunch used to be a bucket of chicken and a …” He looked down at himself and grinned. “Yep, bet you can.”
“You look happy.”
He pointed to the side room. “Look in there.”
I saw what appeared to be six feet of rail-sided rubber track melded to the transplanted cockpit of a small jet. “Your treadmill arrived,” I said.
He smiled proudly. “The first time I did four hundred feet, the second I did eight. It was tough, but I made it. Look –” He flipped off the sheet, displaying sweat pants the same color as the top, on his feet a huge pair of shoes, neon yellow with green pinstriping.
“Orthopedic running shoes,” he said. “Custom made.”
“I expect I’ll see you in a marathon one of these days.”
“Ha! Half, maybe.”
I pulled the chair to his bedside. One of the monitors was dark, the other paused on something called Yabla.
“Yabla?” I said.
“It’s a language program. I’m learning Portuguese.”
“For Rio, or course.”
He grinned. “Sim senhor, eu sou.”
“Nice.”
“Here’s another I’ll be using: ‘Qual o caminho para a praia?’”
“Got me, amigo.”
“Which way to the beach?”
I sighed, hating to be the bearer of bad tidings. “Listen, Gary, another victim showed up. It’s not good. Donnie hurt him pretty bad.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘hurt him bad’?”
“He smashed the victim’s legs. One has to be amputated. The guy was a dancer, emphasis on was.”
Gary stared. It was like my words had to take shape in his head. “He … injured him. Physically? But wasn’t Donnie just sort of messing with their minds, not really hurting them?”
It took a second to realize Gary didn’t fully conceive of being raped while hallucinating as an injury. It made me wonder what he’d seen as a child if he could think that way.
“If by messing with their minds you mean several days of hallucinations and sexual violence, yes. Something’s happening in your brother’s head, Gary. I think he’s coming out.”
“He? What do you mean?”
“Whatever Donnie’s urges, he’s been controlling them. But the wrappings are coming off, Gary. Donnie’s probably decompensating, to use the jargon.”
“What does that mean?”
I crossed to the window and saw the unmarked cruiser a half-block distant. “Right now it means I’m adding extra security here. I think you’re in more danger than even I figured.”
He swung his legs from the bed and began walking and muttering to himself. “It’s not supposed to … this is …”
“What?”
He wheeled to me, his face a mix of anger and confusion. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
“What’s not supposed to be like this?”
He balled his hands into fists and stomped the floor like an angry child.
“I just want to go to Carnevale!” He was near weeping.
“You can’t let this knock you down, Gary,” I said. “You’ve got to stay strong. Keep to the regimen.”
“He’s hurting people. Donnie’s actually hurting them!”
“He’s been hurting people.”
“Not like this. He took away a boy’s dancing!”
It seemed odd that Gary Ocampo was making such a differentiation between Donnie’s abductions and druggings and the physical violence, as if the former was but a pale shade of the latter, but it was a compensation mechanism: If the victims could walk away from their encounters with only a head full of horrific memories, how bad could Donnie really be? Not like a murderer, certainly … miles from that. He was only a misguided child, sadly wayward.
But now the twin had wreaked permanent physical damage to a victim. Gary Ocampo, his face pale and confused, padded to the window and looked out on a world that had just turned darker.