Will agreed … But he resisted. He had held the line for too long, the fortress had been under siege for too long, his strength was running out. He was afraid of losing what was left of himself and dissolving into the abyss, into madness, into a maze of disparate images ground up in a meat grinder.
It was easy to take over joy, happiness, euphoria, and peace, to accept them and appropriate them for oneself; and it was so difficult to admit that the abomination of this world is in every living being, including in himself.
While Special Agent Gatti was engaged in philosophical reflection at the reception desk of an elite gym on Whitelock Street, Allex Serret was chatting with a senior grocery store assistant.
Overweight, smiling, but tough Miriam Hill shrugged her shoulders, looking at photos of blondes with full lips. They also looked the same to her …
“I remember every single one, but I never look closely, I don’t even try to look for differences,” she said, simultaneously watching the interns’ work from afar, like an omnipresent mother cat. “Every day, a couple of hundred people, I’d go crazy if I paid attention to them!”
So far, the general information has been of little use. The customer traffic is small but constant, mostly local rich kids, less often random ones like Allex, delivery men, nannies, service workers who will be confused by the prices and the menacing look of the security guard.
There have only been two robberies in the several years that Ms. Hill has been working, and the last one was yesterday, with an epic heroic act by the young FBI agent.
“Blame the seasonal exacerbation,” the woman chuckled, “for psychos it’s like a chain reaction. Now even we’re panicking, everyone’s afraid of the serial ladykiller – as if he needs us!”
“Who does he need then?”
“Like you don’t know yourself!” Miriam Hill’s black eyes widened. “Wealthy heartless bitches in Gucci and Givenchy! He eats their hearts because they don’t have a heart, they don’t need one!”
Is it really that simple? Envy, anger – for their comfortable existence and beauty?
“If you think about it that way, the killer is a woman,” Allex hemmed.
“Why not? Women are cruel creatures, Agent Serret.”
Allex shrugged. A woman who hates women, is as strong as a weightlifter, bites her nails and is unhappy with her appearance … But this woman has a man’s size feet, a heavy hand, cold-blooded calculation, and strict logic.
“The Heartthrob is too big and strong to be a woman.”
“Well, that means women offended him! Or his cock doesn’t get hard!”
This is closer to the truth … The killer has no time for sex – at least not for the conventional one – he is too immersed in eating the treat, becoming a demon.
Will said he had to do some kind of ritual, he had an anchor – to trigger the entrance to the state of dissociation. A spell, a gesture, a mask …
For example, like Wilhelmina Gustavsson’s, from the Great Red Dragon music video.
Cruz is right, feature films often present a beautiful, aesthetic, attractive wrapper, romanticize violence and murder, idealize antagonists. Miss Gustavsson, with blobs of paint running down her chin, neck and half-naked breasts, singing about rebirth through death, is dangerous in her ability to impose the greatness and power of the dark side of the human soul.
But if Allex weren’t a rational-thinking FBI agent, he would be squealing like a teenage girl and running to the front rows of the dance floor to look at the beautiful artiste.
The store employees did not find the backpack. Allex was not upset at all, even though he understood perfectly well he would have to make ridiculous excuses and throw up his hands over the lost uniform.
“Can you recommend someone else to talk to, someone observant?” Agent Serret asked.
Ms. Hill walked along the shelves, her subordinates, noticing her approach, immediately stopped idling and got down to work, Allex walked beside.
“Dario Pesce2 and Sarah Roth,” the senior store assistant replied after a pause to think. “And Sabrina Maxwell, but she’s off today.”
Everyone worked on a four-two schedule, twelve hours a day, plus time to prepare the sales area and clean up after the shift. Everyone was friendly, replaced each other when necessary, and did not refuse additional work, including the one to deliver heavy bags of groceries to customers’ homes.
Dario, who was busy laying out the products on the stands, began his story by saying that he had always dreamed of becoming a detective, so he would be happy to help the investigation in any way he could. He hadn’t noticed any strange customers, they didn’t even steal, they just inattentively forgot something in the basket, or their children dragged the sweets in bright wrappers they liked into their pockets. There were some weird ones, though they were all local rich folks with a dash of madness, he had already gotten used to them, but he hadn’t noticed any dangerous or creepy ones … The cashier Sarah was one of those people who find a common language with everyone, would always offer to buy something, and form a large average bill. Sarah’s breasts and hips were also large, and her waist was thin, this had a positive effect on her productivity indicators.
On the best employee of the month board, they were in the same row as Dylan Vermillion, the only one without a photo.
Allex asked Sarah about Dylan when they went out into the backyard during her break.
“He’s hardly any use to you,” she chuckled, exhaling cigarette smoke. “He doesn’t speak.”
“Well, how—” Allex was confused. “He was talking to me.”
Sarah studied Agent Serret more closely than she would have studied an FBI agent. There was a mischievous glint in his green eyes, like the glowing end of a cigarette between her fingers.
“Not with us. He’s unsociable, he doesn’t care about his colleagues, he doesn’t stay for a beer or a cake on someone’s birthday, he’s never come to a corporate party – while we often have something for the staff.”
“Is it bad that he chooses what is more comfortable for him?”
“No, it’s not … Probably,” Sarah drawled. “I generally forget that he exists. If you hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have remembered about him.”
So that’s it … A familiar situation – both with the unsociability in the style of Special Agent Gatti, and with the role of an invisible man.
Allex hated his father’s indifference so much as a child that he tried to draw attention in any way … In the end, it became part of his personality, to be in the spotlight, to always be loud, to always be the main hateful concern, a pain in the ass, a reason to blush.
Dylan didn’t seem to him as downtrodden or shy, unable to assert himself. Dylan was comfortable in the shadows, not needing attention.
Having finished with the interview at the store, Agent Serret headed to the office of Dr. Gasztold – where he and Will had agreed to meet. A familiar black car was driving away from the house with high windows and stone columns of the porch, Allex couldn’t help but watch it until it disappeared around the corner of an elite neighborhood narrow street.
9. Control
“You