“To be honest,” Hernandez continued, “after years of this job, I wish I knew a little less about people.”
“I drive around this town,” Ben said, “and think about all the shitty things that are happening inside those tidy little houses.”
“That’s the price of knowing,” Hernandez said. “That’s the price of this job.” They were silent a moment. “Doesn’t matter, anymore, what happened to the serial as a kid. Feel sorry for that kid, sure, but that kid’s gone now. He no longer exists.”
Ben nodded and watched the fog erase Quail Hill. He knew it, yes. He’d seen the bodies left behind, seen him choking that woman, and the look in his eyes on the freeway the other night. The serial had taken the evil done to him and turned it into a greater evil. It didn’t matter anymore that once he was a kid and that kid was delivered into the hands of a person who would destroy him.
“Any leads?” Ben said.
“Thousands of them,” Hernandez said. “The serial’s everywhere, if you believe the tips. Everyone’s bogeyman.” Hernandez took a sip of the beer. “Last confirmed was an hour after you played demolition derby with him. OC sheriff’s helicopter had visual of him on the 91 before being called off because of the wind. Highway patrol got a roadblock up out near Anaheim Hills, but…” He held up his open palms.
“Disappeared?”
“Disappeared.”
Hernandez finished the can and opened another. Tossed a second to Ben. “He’ll bleed to death, probably, if one of us doesn’t catch up to him first. You got a good shot off.”
390: Drunk and disorderly. Hernandez turned the dial down on the scanner.
“Really,” Hernandez said. “Your dad would be proud.”
“My dad would be pissed I’m getting the keys to this city.”
Hernandez laughed and shook his head. “You’re probably right. He was a good man, your dad. No bullshit from him.”
“Nope.”
“You know,” Hernandez said, “I’ve been wondering about some things. Been thinking that since you’ve got some time to mull things over, you might be able to help me out.”
“I’ll do my best,” Ben said, taking a sip of the beer, trying to play it cool.
“I’ve been wondering how you came to be first one on scene at Puente Madera when you were supposed to be cowboying it up in Loma Canyon.”
“Hunch.”
“A hunch?”
“That the killer wasn’t wasting his time up there in the hills,” Ben said. “That he’d know we were hunting for him there.”
“When you didn’t sign off on this Mexican kid’s suicide,” Hernandez said, “I looked into a couple of things. Found out that Coach Wakeland keeps a rental property near the crime scene.”
Ben remembered Hernandez watching him at the crime scene, when he blew up on Wakeland. Hernandez could piece things together; you didn’t make lieutenant by being stupid.
“About a quarter mile away.”
Hernandez nodded and sipped his beer.
The morning after the accident, Natasha called Ben to let him know that Wakeland wasn’t strangled dead in the apartment. She called him that afternoon, too, to tell him she’d checked in with dispatch at the department and no assault claims had been filed, at least not yet.
“You were on that scene pretty fast.”
“It was near Rachel’s place,” he said. “Freaked me out.”
“Want another?” Hernandez said.
“No,” Ben said. “I’m good.”
Hernandez looked hard at him.
“You hungry?” Ben said. “I’ve got some tacos left over. My daughter makes some mean pico de gallo.”
“No thanks,” Hernandez said, slapping his knees and standing up. “Just wanted to check in on you, see how you’re doing.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Get that head of yours healed up,” Hernandez said. “Then let’s talk when you sign off on that suicide.”
THE FEAR BASIN
When it was done, when he had become not fear but death, he looked up and saw that the television was on. He hadn’t noticed the flashing screen when he had followed her into the room; when he grabbed her, the pain in his arm had exploded and the inside of his mind had gone white. His head had felt distant from his body, a mile away from his hands, which clamped down until she stopped struggling and death had taken over fear.
He heard them call his name, Night Prowler, and when his vision puzzled back together, he was staring at his own face on the screen. It was him, but it was another him, the him when he’d first been arrested long ago and he’d only begun to understand what he had become. The face of the almost-him filled up the screen, and even he was moved by it—the dark, hollow eyes, the mangled teeth, the worm-brown skin. His face on the screen made him look bigger than real life, as though he were six feet tall, a fully formed monster. His face was being transmitted into every living room in Southern California. They saw him. They would see him now.
He covered her with a quilt he found on the couch—his blood had marred her face and made her ugly—and turned up the volume on the television. He found a bathroom at the end of a hallway, opened the medicine cabinet, and knocked aside lipstick and medicine vials until he found the gauze and the metal clips. The television said the police were looking for him, said people were terrified. It said all of the L.A. basin was on alert, a basin full of fear. A fear basin, he thought. He liked the sound of that, said it out loud to himself just to hear it. He rolled out the gauze and ripped a section off with his teeth. The television talked about the policeman who shot him and the woman the policeman had stopped him from killing. He unwrapped the old gauze, wet and pulpy with his insides. He wrapped the new gauze around his arm, the blood still leaking down his elbow and dripping onto the floor. The television read the names of the people he’d killed, and he smiled; they were a part of him now, and he a part of them, too. Other people wouldn’t remember their lives; they’d remember their deaths; they’d remember the one who killed them. Even when he was gone, his name would send a shudder down their bodies. They saw him now and they’d remember him. Basin of fear.