The Hundredth Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughts. See the park .
    I breathed away my anger at Squill and Burlew and visualized what the killer saw as he met the victim, perhaps on the path. The steetlight so near, they slip back into the bushes; here Squill seemed correct, sex the lure, if not the motivator. The victim dies, gunshot maybe, or a hard blow. If the head is crucial to the killer’s delusion, it should have been removed deep in the shadows, the blade sliding quickly through its task. But, inexplicably, the killer pulls the body into the ribbon of streetlight, petals streaming in their wake. He kneels, performs his grotesque surgery, and disappears.
    My mind played and repeated this scene until the phone rang at 2:45. I figured it was Harry. He’d be considering the scene as well, in a lit room with his stereo playing “thought jazz,” Thelonious Monk perhaps, the solos where he breaks through the membrane and flies alone in the raw wind of music.
    Instead of Harry I heard a trembling old woman. “Hello? Hello? Who’s there? Is anyone on the line?” Then, as if years were dropped from the voice, I heard the voice of a woman in her thirties, my mother’s voice.
    â€œCarson? It’s me, Mommy. Are you hungry? Can I fix you some lunch, son? A nice Velveeta sandwich? Some cookies? Or how about A BIG BOWL OF FUCKING SPIT?”
    No, I thought, this can’t be happening. It’s a nightmare, wake up.
    â€œCARSON!” The voice shrieked, no longer female. “Talk to me, brother. I need to feel some of that OLD FAMILY WARMTH!”
    I closed my eyes and slumped against the wall. How could he call out? It wasn’t allowed.
    The caller banged the phone on something hard and shouted. “Is this a BAD TIME, brother? Do you have a WOMAN with you? Is she HOT? I hear when they get hot, juice POURS out of them. Hi, fellas, I’d like you to meet my date, the Johnstown Flood. WEAR BOOTS WHEN YOU FUCK HER!”
    â€œJeremy,” I whispered, more to myself than the caller.
    â€œThere once was a girl from NANTUCKET, you wore boots each time that you’d FUCK IT . . .”
    â€œJeremy, dammit . . .”
    â€œBut the men in the town, one by one were each drowned, in the poison that poured out by BUCKETS!” He switched back to my mother’s voice, solicitous. “It’s all right, Carson, Mommy’s here. You haven’t finished your spit. Is it cold? Can I warm it back up for you?” He made a hawking sound.
    â€œJeremy, will you please stop—”
    In the background I heard a door opening, followed by scuffling and a man cursing. My caller screamed, “NO! GO AWAY. It’s a PERSONAL CALL! I’m talking to MY PAST!”
    A loud crack turned to skittering, as if the phone had been dropped and kicked across the floor. Other voices joined in with grunts, cursing, sounds of struggle. I stood in my cool room and listened breathlessly as sweat poured from beneath my arms.
    His words became distant and I pictured men in white dragging him across the floor: “THE MURDER, CARSON! Tell me about it. There must be more than a MISSING HEAD, there’s always more. Did he take THEIR DICKS? Is he JAMMING SAUSAGES UP THEIR BUTTS UNTIL THEY SHOOT OUT THE NECK HOLE? Call me! You NEEEEEED ME AGAIN. . . .”
    More sounds of scuffling. Then nothing.
    Channel 14’s affiliate in Montgomery must have picked up thebeheading-in-the-park story, run it on the late news. Television was one of the few luxuries Jeremy was allowed, and he would have studied the story with a scholar’s focus. I blew out the candles and lay on the couch with my face in a pillow. Sleep, when it finally arrived, was paper thin and shot through with rats and the smell of burning silk.
    Â 
    My alarm fired just past daybreak. I stumbled numbly into the Gulf and swam straight into the waves for a half mile, then turned and dragged myself back. I followed with a four-mile beach run