CHAPTER

TEN

EACH KILL MAKES HIM BOLDER AND HUNGRIER.

Now he can relax after the three-hour drive from Boston. The man he wants is with him. It’s after 1 a.m.

Jack sits in a chair at the foot of the bed and stares at his prize. The man is naked, duct tape across his mouth, arms bound behind his back, feet tied at the ankles. Jack scoots his chair closer and picks up Mein Kampf. He reads the first page aloud. His body twitches as he turns the page; a stringy, nervous high takes over, like drinking too much coffee or eating too many Twinkies. Jack knows he’s lucky he got him. How smart to know the time and place. Damn clever. How fortunate that his prize would step outside the hotel, like he was looking for someone, as Jack waited across the street out of security camera range. He knew the man immediately from his picture in the newspaper column. Jack was quick, around the dark corner, the gun against the spine. A quiet walk to the van and the whole incident was over.

But first, to know this man…to let him know what he’s facing. His biological father would be proud. He’s not the little faggot anymore. He’s a man now and men fear him. You can read any newspaper, tune into any news broadcast for proof. They talk about The Combat Zone Killer.

His little brother. The shroud covers his brother’s body, but the soft, pale skin is visible under the transparent white cloth. When the shroud falls, the naked boy floats to him, hovers, and touches him gently with his hand. Touch. Crying and pain.

His brother disappears, but the touch lingers. Jack shakes his head and cries because the pale skin is a lie. His brother’s face should be bruised and purple.

He lifts the man’s ankles. Black hairs bristle against his hands. Hate. He pounds his fists into the bed. The man manages a muffled scream through the tape. Should he kill him? No.

Mein Kampf. Too boring. Books and more books. What do they mean? The Fall of Liberalism, Christian Ethics, The New World Order, The Turner Diaries. A three-foot pile of Soldier of Fortune magazines rests precariously against the wall under the picture of Jesus praying in the Garden.

The Turner Diaries is his favorite. Jack will read Chapter 23 to his prize—The Day of the Rope—and the man will understand why he has to die for the good of the nation.

The man sucks in air through his nose in tortured breaths. Jack studies the eyes—the man has the hollow, vacant look of terror.

“Answer some questions,” Jack says and props his feet on the bed.

The man is still.

“Can you hear me, pervert?” Jack kicks the man’s bound feet with his boot. The prize arches his back off the mattress.

Jack laughs and then asks, “Are you a man or a woman?” No response.

“Answer me, faggot! I’ll take the tape off, but if you yell, I’ll kill you.” Jack rips the tape from the mouth. The man bites his lip to keep from screaming.

“Please don’t kill me,” the man whispers.

Jack remembers the voice from the night he stood in the alley in Boston, after his first kill. “Shut up. Are you a man or a woman?”

The prize laughs at the question. Jack falls on him, his hands squeezing his throat until the man bucks on the bed. “Answer me, damn it!”

Jack releases his grip and sits back in his chair. The man draws in huge, heaving breaths.

“Please, let me go. Look…I’m a man.”

“Too obvious. Is your brain too small?”

A choking cough. “I don’t understand.”

“No? Don’t you read Time? Are your genes fucked up?”

“No.”

“Do you like being a cocksucker?”

The man closes his eyes and rests his head on the bed as if he’s asleep. He coughs. Tears drop from the eyes, curve off the cheeks, and fall onto the blue coverlet.

“How can I answer that?” the man asks.

Jack ignores him and fires more questions: “How many perverts in your family? How many men have you fucked? Do you like shit on your dick? How much AIDS have you spread?” Jack stops, breathless from his fury.

“I’m negative,” the man says.

Laughter. The man on the bed laughs, too.

Jack studies the prize. The slight paunch, the hairy chest and abdomen. The adult. The man. The father. The hate. His vision blurs, he winces and smacks his fists against the side of his head.

“Do I know you?” Jack asks as if he has shaken himself out of a dream.

“I’m Stephen Cross.” Stephen lifts his head from the soiled bed. “Tell me what you want. If it’s money, I can get money. Who are you?”

“You can call me Jack. Jack the Ripper.” Jack smiles and says, “Or you can call me The Combat Zone Killer. That’s what they’re calling me. Me and my friends are going to kill you—all of you. The pervert lovers, too.”

Stephen drops his head back on the bed and sobs. “Oh, God… .”

“God won’t help you,” Jack says. “God’s on my side.”

Stephen’s throat gurgles with little choking sounds.

“I like to kill queers,” Jack says, “but maybe if you change, see things my way, I might let you live.”

Stephen nods his head.

“So, you’ll change?”

“I’ll try,” Stephen whispers.

“Louder.”

“I’ll try,” Stephen says, raising his voice.

“Good.” Jack squats on the floor so he can look directly into Stephen’s face. “Do you like being called a faggot?”

“Sometimes it hurts. It hurts more than you know.”

“Good. Good answer.” He rises, sits on the bed, and cradles Stephen’s head in his arms. “Go ahead. Cry.”

Jack caresses the hair of the crying man.

“Cry.”