speedometer needle is always pegged out.”
In the past their back-and-forth had always been good-humored.
But now, he suddenly spoke sharply to Mom, “For God’s sake, Paige, I’m a
good driver, this is a safe car, I spent more money on it than I should
have precisely because it’s one of the safest cars on the road, so will
you just give this a rest?”
“Sure. Sorry,” Mom said.
Charlotte looked at her sister. Em was wide-eyed with disbelief.
Daddy was not Daddy. Something was wrong. Big-Time wrong.
They had gone only a block before he slowed down and glanced at Mom and
said, “Sorry.”
“No, you were right, I’m too much of a worrier about some things,” Mom
told him.
They smiled at each other. It was all right. They weren’t going to get
divorced like those people they’d been talking about at dinner.
Charlotte couldn’t recall them ever being angry with each other for
longer than a few minutes.
However, she was still worried. Maybe she should check around the house
and outside behind the garage to see if she could find a giant empty
seed pod from outer space.
Like a shark cruising cold currents in a night sea, the killer drives.
This is his first time in Kansas City, but he knows the streets. Total
mastery of the layout is part of his preparation for every assignment,
in case he becomes the subject of a police pursuit and needs to make a
hasty escape under pressure.
Curiously, he has no recollection of having seen–let alone studied–a
map, and he can’t imagine from where this highly detailed information
was acquired. But he doesn’t like to consider the holes in his memory
because thinking about them opens the door on a black abyss that
terrifies him.
So he just leaves.
Usually he likes to drive. Having a powerful and responsive machine at
his command gives him a sense of control and purpose.
But once in a while, as happens now, the motion of the car and the
sights of a strange city–regardless of how familiar he may be with the
layout of its streets–make him feel small, alone, adrift. His heart
begins to beat fast. His palms are suddenly so damp, the steering wheel
slips through them.
Then, as he brakes at a traffic light, he looks at the car in the lane
beside him and sees a family revealed by the street lamps. The father
is driving. The mother sits in the passenger seat, an attractive woman.
A boy of about ten and a girl of six or seven are in the back seat.
On their way home from a night out. Maybe a movie. Talking, laughing,
parents and children together, sharing.
In his deteriorating condition, that sight is a merciless hammer blow,
and he makes a thin wordless sound of anguish.
He pulls off the street, into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant.
Slumps in his seat. Breathes in quick shallow gasps.
The emptiness. He dreads the emptiness.
And now it is upon him.
He feels as if he is a hollow man, made of the thinnest blown glass,
fragile, only slightly more substantial than a ghost.
At times like this, he desperately needs a mirror. His reflection is
one of the few things that can confirm his existence.
The restaurant’s elaborate red and green neon sign illuminates the
interior of the Ford. When he tilts the rearview mirror to look at
himself, his skin has a cadaverous cast, and his eyes are alight with
changing crimson shapes, as if fires burn within him.
Tonight, his reflection is not enough to diminish his agitation. He
feels less substantial by the moment. Perhaps he will breathe out one
last time, expelling the final thin substance of himself in that
exhalation.
Tears blur his vision. He is overwhelmed by his loneliness, and
tortured by the meaninglessness of his life.
He folds his arms across his chest, hugs himself, leans forward, and
rests his forehead against the steering wheel. He sobs as if he is a
small child.
He doesn’t know his name, only the names he will use while in Kansas
City. He wants so much to have a name of his own that is not as