The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (10 page)

Garrett cried out, full of rage. He pulled away, took two steps, was lifting something from behind a loose board. Philip looked around to see what he was doing just as there was a deafening blast. Garrett had a pistol in his hands.

Stacey slumped, weight suspended only by the handcuffs, body shaking in unnatural spasm. There was a little blood, though Philip couldn’t make out where she’d been hit. But then she was quiet, and then she was gone.

Philip sobbed his despair. “Damn you - Damn you - Damn you!”

Garrett dropped the pistol, went back to the boy, fucked the bloody flesh, pumping hard. It was good. The boy screamed, beyond petty curses.

Afterwards, Garrett chain-smoked almost a whole pack, standing in the shadows out of sight. He left the boy on the bed, let him lie there all twisted up while he died. The kid was merely whimpering by then, utterly pathetic. Garrett liked the depths he’d brought the boy to. It was very good.

At last the shakes caught the kid up, something internal rupturing, bleeding, convulsing him. It was over.

No - this time was over. This was over, though it could have been better. Next time - Garrett would wait out the month, find another boy, and he’d get it right, make it perfect. Next time.

CHAPTER FIVE

WASHINGTON DC

MARCH 1983

Albert stood in his backyard, considering the latest outbreak of a groundcover. The parent of this plant belonged to some neighbor of common tastes. Its misbegotten siblings had been weeded and cut back any number of times, yet it persisted, and he didn’t want to resort to chemicals to be rid of the thing. It wasn’t that the plant was unattractive - it had variegated leaves, of cream and apple-green, and a five-petaled flower of a blue somewhat lighter than delphiniums - but it did not belong here in Albert’s garden.

A single flower was staring back at him now, pert in its stubborn survival.

Sighing, Albert returned to the mowing. It took him a while, usually at least two hours, not because he owned a large block of land, but because he used a hand-driven mower. The noise and the stink of motorized mowers offended him, and this way he exercised and could enjoy the fresh smell of the cut grass.

“Hello!”

Albert turned, having recognized the voice. Fletcher Ash had come to Washington to speak at a conference being held during the following week, and had arrived early in order to see another of his women friends. It wasn’t as if the neighbors greeted Albert, anyway - they had long since gotten the message that he wasn’t interested. “Ash,” he said as he walked up to meet the man by the house. Then, bluntly, “What do you want?”

Sitting on one of the wickerwork chairs on the veranda, Fletcher stretched his long legs out before him. He seemed perfectly at home. “It’s a beautiful day. What else could I want?”

“If you like that sort of thing.”

“Well, you obviously do.”

“Really.”

“It’s self-evident, Sherlock. Here you are, outside, enjoying the sunshine.”

Albert squinted up at the sky. It was, indeed, blue and free of clouds. And the sun was gently shining, the air was full of spring’s sweetness, a breeze was soughing the trees that shaded them, and a myriad flowers dotted the burgeoning green. There was laughter every now and then from the neighbors. He said flatly, “I  am merely tending the garden.”

“If that’s all you’re doing, then why don’t you have someone tend it for you?” It was a rhetorical question, and Fletcher was smiling, that mischievous glint in his eye.

Albert wouldn’t have brooked anyone else laughing at him. And he wouldn’t have told anyone but Ash the truth. “I  don’t expect others to take on my responsibilities.”

“And you don’t want to have to owe them, even so much as a few polite words.”

“Perhaps.”

“And you don’t like relying on other people, it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It’s true that I strive for self-sufficiency.” His parents had paid a woman in an adjoining apartment to help them with the housework but Albert thought this had been just another way for Miles and Rebecca to redistribute their wealth. They had rarely let anyone intrude on their family, or in their home, for any reason.

Ash was continuing, “Even when it comes to the gardening.”

“But I do, in fact, rely on the Doyle brat next door to keep an eye on the garden, if I’m absent on a case.”

“Which is only the exception that proves the rule: you have the watering set up on an elaborate timer, you have a decent security system for the house, your mail is held at the post office. You rely on the minimum number of people possible.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“I think so,” Ash said easily. “For now.”

“If you’re trying to encourage me not to trust or rely on you, there’s no need.”

Fletcher looked away. “No, that’s not what I’m trying to do.”

“Fine.” Albert considered him for a moment. “Is this a social call, or was there something you wanted to discuss?”

Ash’s face brightened again, then slowly began to outshine the spring sun. “Purely a social call.” He shook his head. “I  can’t believe you made me forget why I came.”

“I can’t believe I reminded you,” Albert said dryly.

“Too late now.”

“You came to tell me that you’ve fallen for her, though I have told you a number of times that I am not interested in such matters.”

“I’m in love, Albert. I’m completely, three-hundred percent in love.” The grin supported this extravagant claim, but there was a note of despair along with the joy.

Albert grimaced. “You’re worse than a cheap romance novel.”

“You know, deep down inside, we all just want to be loved.”

“Speak for yourself,” Albert advised. “And, if you really believed that was true, you’d break this tedious habit of falling for the most impossible women you can find.”

“It’s not the women who are impossible,” Fletcher protested.

“Tell me about this latest star-crossed tragedy, then.”

“Her name’s Tyler - Ty. And she’s a remarkable woman. It’s not my taste that’s at fault, or Ty herself. It’s the fact she’s still married to a fellow she broke up with some two years ago. She sees him at least once a week, and she’s nuts about him, they act as if they’re dating. We went to a movie last night, and she wouldn’t stop talking about him.” He added, with a wry twist to his smile, “Nevertheless, I  fell in love.”

“Well done, Ash,” Albert said sarcastically. “You deserve some kind of award.”

“I have terrible luck with women,” Ash agreed. “She’s having lunch with him today,” he continued, “but she’s meeting me afterwards to show me the cherry blossom. Washington’s renowned for cherry blossom in spring, isn’t it?”

“Haven’t you ever asked yourself why you have this terrible luck?” To Albert, Ash seemed even more self-destructive when it came to these matters than Albert himself. The tawdry transactions of flesh and currency that Albert had once indulged in were honest and uncomplicated when compared to Fletcher’s tangled, emotional, and usually short-lived affairs.

“But I obviously don’t know the answer yet.”

Albert turned away, began mowing the last quarter of lawn. Fletcher Ash was one of the few people who rarely disappointed him, and the only one of those few whom he knew personally. But this was the issue on which Ash failed to live up to even his own standards, let alone Albert’s. And it was growing worse. What disaster would it take before the man quit wasting all his love on these increasingly farcical relationships?

I’m impossible
.

He kept mowing, but it hit him then - all the dizzying blue of the spring firmament tumbling, cascading down upon him in slow motion. Surely he was supposed to be happy about this. Instead, Albert felt sick, crushed by the weight of it all. Was he supposed to be the disaster or the solution? No doubt the former - was there anything more ludicrous than an FBI employee falling in love with a colleague of the same gender? Perhaps he should be glad that Fletcher was so determined to find a woman, any woman, no matter the consequences.

But, while it was certainly ridiculous, Albert soon began to realize that this was virtually inevitable. He considered Fletcher Ash to be the one person closest to fulfillment of all humanity’s potential. That was an objective opinion formed over the years of their acquaintance. So perhaps Albert should have anticipated the danger of this sudden and overwhelming subjectivity, perhaps he should have been prepared, even though at thirty-five he should have known better.

In any case, the whole idea was completely out of the question. He would simply have to bury it deep, and let it wither.

He walked slowly back to the house to fetch the rake. When he was closer, he looked at Fletcher, and met his gaze. There wasn’t anything in Albert’s expression to betray him but Ash’s smile faded, and he grew serious.

Albert picked up the rake and went back to work.

CHAPTER SIX

OREGON

MARCH 1983

John Garrett had spent the afternoon helping a pair of muscular young men move him into his new house. The moving company he’d used seemed to recruit with Garrett’s taste as the main criterion. So, he was almost twice their age, but he hefted and lifted and carried along with them; as strong, as tireless, as ready with a joke and a laugh. There was cold beer in the car and he had pizzas delivered for lunch. It surprised them, to have that much fun on the job with a client. He suggested they drop by the construction site, to see if he could offer them something more.

Once he was settled, he drove into town and watched the five o’clock crowds. It seemed there were young men everywhere he turned. There were the college students, of course. And the boys earning a living, with their brawn or their brains, the former ones fit and the latter weight-trained under the well-cut suits. Then there were the sailors who docked and the whores who serviced them. Portland had been a wonderful idea.

He liked them straight best. John Garrett liked the college quarterbacks and the tough tender young construction workers. The ones with spunk and maybe a little ambition. The ones with a string of girlfriends. So naïvely provocative.

Sometimes, Garrett thought that was the most perverse part of it. They were hardly the smartest choice for victims, after all, even if they rarely confessed to anyone where they were heading, who they were drinking with that night. He intrigued them yet embarrassed them, with his invitations for a beer and the football, his eyes promising more, daring them to accept. But because it wasn’t smart to even seduce, let alone kill, too many of society’s Most Likely To, Garrett often made do with the strays and runaways, the hookers - the ones who wouldn’t be missed, the ones who society had already discarded.

Perhaps he would make do with one of the whores tonight, just for sex. Which would be fine; he was still riding high on the memories of last fall. Wandering the streets, letting the crowds jostle him, Garrett thought of them: Philip, with his mess of blond hair, and his nervous but mischievous response to Garrett’s barely veiled sexuality; then a college boy from the gym, with a dash of Latino blood to add a little spice - they had talked half the night away before Garrett took him, though Garrett couldn’t recall his name now; and Mitch, picked up while hitching a lift, who’d given Garrett a black eye and bruised ribs in the scuffle to get upstairs to the attic, infuriated that Garrett had only enjoyed it all the more. Yes, Garrett had loved his righteous fury. All three of them left behind in Georgia, given to the ground until some meddlesome cop dug them up.

Let them, Garrett thought. Let them disturb the boys if they wanted. Who cared? It was over. It was over, and no one knew who the hell he was. Rather than immediately move here from Georgia, he’d traveled, taking odd jobs when he’d felt like it, spending time in the country when he didn’t. It had been good, like taking a holiday, and it had also been smart, drifting under a variety of assumed names.

As dusk drew in, Garrett walked towards a guy bouncing around by the last set of traffic lights before the docks. It seemed too absorbed a dance to be a display but Garrett nevertheless stood waiting to be noticed. Finally, the guy’s arms threw wide, his head fell back, his legs spread with knees bent - which only drew attention to the crotch of his jeans - the pose miming a dramatic chord before collapsing back into the cool of self-consciousness. The eyes opened, the fingers pulled the headphones away from the ears. “The lights have changed, mister.”

“Why did the man cross the road?”

“Is that a joke?”

Freckles - the guy still had freckles, and even a chipped tooth. Garrett almost laughed at the apple pie cuteness. He said, “Are you looking for a little pocket money? A place to spend the night?”