Chapter Thirteen

From inside his pickup parked along the curb at a city park, Toby Dinkins took a bite of breakfast burrito. He turned on the radio, and his favorite pop music from the eighties poured into the enclosed air. But the music failed to soothe his jangled nerves.

After diving for lost change among his sofa cushions, he’d barely scraped together three dollars for a mini-burrito—the cheapest thing on the fast-food menu. Not the life he’d envisioned for himself.

What he needed was to win the lottery. No, what he really needed was to find a treasure. And, based on what his cousin Mort told him, that was within the realm of possibility.

Toby’s upper lip curled. How he hated what he had to do to pay his bills. Gigolo was such an ugly word, and the job description was getting harder and harder to take.

If his plans solidified, however, that lifestyle would soon be history.

He watched as kids shouted at one another, laughed and shrieked, happy to be out in the open. Mommies watched and chatted with other mommies—despised creatures Toby referred to as Breeders.

Toby had never fit into the mass of human cattle, even as a kid. He could almost feel sorry for the poor beasts. They with their slow wits, their bestial habits, their enmities and hatreds. They coddled their dogs and cats while destroying their children.

The world was a battlefield, and survival required vigilance. But no one paid attention nowadays. No one took the time to walk around and observe, or to just sit and think. Too busy yakking on their phones, staring into tiny screens, texting everyone in the world, chirping out their miserable activities—as if anyone cared. A turnip was more aware than today’s average Homo sapiens.

But from the moment of his birth, Toby had perfected a level of hyper-vigilance that would make the CIA look like cub scouts. As a result, although he’d never before been to the park where he sat, within three minutes of his arrival he could have closed his eyes and described the milieu in detail.

Six children ranging in ages from toddler through about eight or nine cavorted on, around, under, and through the playground equipment. Their laughter floated on the breeze as they flitted in their element.

A brief and quickly squelched feeling of sadness pulsed through Toby’s mid-section. Cute little kids, but really just malleable Tabulae Rasae mirroring their parents’ behaviors until they actually became their parents.

Four Breeder-mothers kept vigil over their offspring. Perched like exotic birds on a couple of benches at the edge of the playground, they chatted and laughed. Their watchful eyes darted back and forth among each other and their fledglings. Occasionally, one jumped up and ran to a fallen little one to kiss a boo-boo. Then the child would run back to play, everything made better by the mommy-smooch.

Something toxic moved in Toby’s gut. Some boo-boos couldn’t be kissed away—just one of the many life lessons he’d learned at the knee of his own Mommy-Dearest.

And then the images before him morphed into another life lesson.

A middle-aged man leaned against a huge elm tree at the edge of the park, his hooded eyes fixed in an unblinking stare at the scene, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his khaki slacks.

Toby clenched his jaws nearly tight enough to crack his tooth enamel. Although he didn’t know the guy, he recognized the type: a bottom feeder, preying on those too young and weak to defend themselves.

Of course, there’d be those who’d point a finger in Toby’s face and call him a hypocrite. Maybe even call him evil. But evil was open to definition, wasn’t it? One man’s evil is another man’s survival strategy.

He chuckled as the words of a television psychologist popped into his head: Nearly guaranteed recipe to bake a disturbed personality? Continuous, prolonged criticism, neglect, and lack of affection by the caregiver.

Some might call Toby a disturbed personality, but so what? He’d read enough to know no one could be characterized as completely sane. Every human had glitches, some more than others. It was all just a matter of degree.

Drumming his fingers on the bottom of the steering wheel, Toby looked back and forth between the breeders and the pervert. He’d bet money that if he knuckle-knocked on any given breeder-head, the resulting sound would be like a mallet striking a wooden block.

He jiggled his right leg up and down on the ball of his foot while wondering if the adoring mommies would grab up their offspring and run screaming back to their hidey-holes if the law of psychic osmosis miraculously kicked in and allowed them to divine what the old man by the tree was thinking? What he wanted to do to their little ones?

He studied the women’s faces. Not one of them reflected an iota of awareness of the world beyond their personal space. They all chatted and tittered the forced laughter required in social settings, careful not to allow their glances to stay overly long on another’s out-of-style hairdo or too-worn footwear. Plastic smiles firmly in place, they assessed each other’s status.

A light breeze wafted through the pickup window, carrying snippets of conversation. “We feel it’s important for our little Moonlight to meet people outside our usual orbits,” one breeder said, “so we come here at least once a week.”

The second mother nodded sagely. “Oh yes, a social conscience is so important to balanced development.”

As the women continued their vapid conversations, Toby fought down the urge to jump from his vehicle, strip naked, and run toward them just to see what they’d do. He snickered at the mental image of the mommy-mob shrieking and grabbing up their little ones, their mommy-hands covering the wide-eyed little faces.

Then again, maybe they’d pretend not to see him as long as he didn’t get too close. Humanoid turnips, that’s what they were. Nothing more than dark green-leafed plumage presented to the world, while their bulb-heads stayed safely jammed into the dirt.

They assumed everyone else thought and felt as they did. But, of course, that was the tragic mistake made by those who just wanted to live and let live. They didn’t want to hurt anyone, so no one could want to hurt them. No hard reality would be allowed in their cotton candy lives.

The never-happen-here attitude was a phenomenon Toby called the Normalcy Bias. And this scene was a prime example.

The Bias made people blind and vulnerable to those who’d moved outside the constraints of morality, humanity, or conscience. It made them prey. It made people ignore the instinctive twinges in their gut and told them bad things always happened to someone else.

The Bias assured them the hideous stuff people perpetrated on others—the horrors splattered across the front page and heard on the nightly news—could never touch them or theirs. It filled their heads with white noise and told them to look neither to the left nor to the right.

Undoubtedly put in place by Mother Nature to help keep the population in check, the Bias was strongest in the minds of those who’d never had to fight to survive, who’d never had to stay home from school until broken bones mended and bruises faded. Or who’d never stared into the darkness of a soulless breeder intent on obliterating their spirit.

Strange sounds in the night? The Bias says it’s just the wind. Shadows on the wall? It’s only the trees scratching at the windows. Whispers in the darkness? You’re imagining things. Sleep well, children, our world is safe.

With a heavy sigh, Toby studied the man whose gaze was riveted on a spot hidden from Toby’s view by a tall hedge. With his hands shoved deep inside his pockets, had the guy been a bird dog, he would have been in full point mode—target spotted and locked.

As if sensing he was being watched, the man looked toward Toby. Their eyes met, and the man quickly dropped his gaze to study the grass in front of him.

Toby shot a look toward the breeders to see if they’d finally registered the elevated danger. No surprise that after a perfunctory glance, none of them paid further attention to either the pervert or him.

That’s right, don’t look. If you don’t look, the danger’s not there.

Then, like dogs responding to a whistle only they could hear, the mothers gathered their chicks and flocked toward the parking lot. They waved at each other, called out their goodbyes, and promised to return soon.

Of course, some of the oh-so-loving-mommy attention would evaporate once behind closed doors. Then some of the pseudo-doting breeders would turn into flesh-shredding, eviscerating, soul-cauterizing harpies, weaving their webs of enmeshment—

Toby interrupted the flood of thought before it spiraled upward into what he’d dubbed a “Hate-Spate.” He ordered himself to breathe slowly.

Left unchecked, a hate-spate could override his caution and catapult him into doing something reckless, something that would make the police take an interest in him. He couldn’t have that now, not when a new life was so close, he could nearly smell it.

Toby finished his cold burrito, wadded up the wrapper and started the engine. Before pulling away, he took one last look around the park.

As if the pervert’s shoes had suddenly caught fire, he scuttled toward a small compact car at one end of the park. But instead of getting into the vehicle, he reached through the open passenger side window, pulled out a brown paper bag then retraced his steps.

A kid wearing a baseball cap stepped out from behind the bush and hurried away. Too far distant for Toby to ascertain gender, the kid broke into a run and disappeared up an alley. The pervert furtively glanced toward the mommies as if to ensure they hadn’t noticed him, then followed the kid.

Evil is, as Evil does.

Toby sucked air through his teeth. Never taking his eyes off the pervert, he started his engine and followed the follower.