6

The asylum reopened its doors after three days in lockdown. There was a small story in the news about it but otherwise everything had returned to normal. Trista had already decided who she would request for her next interview. Victor Zasaz. Though considered more of a serial killer than super criminal, Zasaz stands out as the most prolific killer in the country with well over 300 victims from every race, class, and religion. His body is covered in hundreds of scars which represent tallies for each victim. Why he keeps track this way no one knows for sure since no one seems to be able to get close to him. He has added many of his tallies while incarcerated both at Blackgate and in Arkham. He shows none of the typical behaviors of serial killers, no cruelty, rage, sadism, or sexual attacks. He just kills them, typically as quickly and efficiently as possible. No one is sure why he does it.

Trista waited outside Dr. Adams' office until she heard a call for her to enter. She spotted Hilleman and winked at him before shutting the door behind her. She decided to forgo the small talk and get straight to the point.

"I'd like to interview Victor Zasaz."

Dr. Adams seemed unsure what she'd heard and simply stood staring at Trista for a moment. She shook her head and gave Trista a disapproving look.

"That's out of the question, Ms. Martin. Victor Zasaz just killed a man, in cold blood, while restrained and under sedation. Even trained staff members have to be under strict security measures in the best of circumstances. There is no way a civilian is going to be allowed within twenty feet of Victor Zasaz."

Trista expected this and confidently held Adams' gaze. "I'll sign any waver you want and you can chain him to the wall if you have to." Adams rolled her eyes, exasperated.

"You're not getting near Zasaz, no one will be until we can confidently restrain him in a way which will ensure he cannot harm another person."

"If you give me access, I can get him to tell me how he managed to kill a man while restrained."

Adams stopped at this. She stared at Trista, thinking it over furiously. After a tense moment she sighed and looked away toward her desk, filling out a form with the date and time Trista could speak with Zasaz. She went back to her work without another word and Trista took the paper and left.

Jim Gordon glared at Trista disapprovingly over his cluttered desk. She had hoped to avoid this little talk with him but the officer she'd gone to had squealed when she told him who she was researching and now she'd have to answer to Gordon.

"I can't believe Ruth is allowing this." He said with a skeptical shake of the head. Trista sat politely and only rolled her eyes in her mind.

"Dr. Adams trusts her security and my professionalism. Not only that but I have agreed to find out how Zasaz was able to get around their security measures recently."

"That's just my point." Gordon said with a grunt. "Zasaz was able to kill a man despite their security. What makes you so sure he won't do the same to you?"

"We all have to take risks in our lives to get what we want. I want to understand him. I have to talk to him to do that. You didn't seem this upset when I was going to talk with Killer Croc not long ago." Trista arched a brow at Gordon in challenge and Gordon returned it.

"Croc is just an animal. Zasaz is a monster. Did you know he killed two court appointed defense lawyers when he was on trial? They had to find one who could work with him long distance and even he was too terrified to be in the same court room as him. The judge threw him into Arkham just to keep him from hurting anyone else before he could be properly sentenced. He has continued to kill during his incarceration, even with the security becoming more and more strict after each death. He is one of the most dangerous men I've ever met. Men like him don't need to be studied, they need to be forgotten."

"That's a very primitive outlook." Trista said coolly. Gordon shrugged helplessly.

"I'm not saying we shouldn't try to understand killers and psychopaths, if only to help us catch them. I'm saying this man is not like most killers and psychopaths. He's an anomaly; a dangerous anomaly."

"All the more reason to study him." Gordon looked at her closely, seeing that she wasn't anywhere near backing down. At last he sighed and shook his head in a fatherly gesture.

"I can't stop you. Maybe after you meet him you'll understand. I just hope it won't be too late by then." He turned in his chair and looked out at the city. "Good luck, Ms. Martin."

The police files showed no surviving relatives but a woman named Doris Hatch was listed as the Godmother to Victor and had lived next door to the family since they'd purchased the house. Trista stepped out of the cab in front of an old country home with a wraparound porch and a long wooden ramp leading to a bright red door with a round top. She looked across the yard to the childhood home of Victor Zasaz which sat empty and silent like a corpse. It wasn't dilapidated, clearly someone was maintaining it in the absence of the Zasaz family, yet knowing the monster it produced gave it a vaguely threatening hollowness, like an empty bear cave. The doorbell on Mrs. Hatch's house was an antique pull handle which turned a small hammer inside, ringing an old bell not unlike a fire alarm. A shape moved in the dark of the house and a wrinkled but soft, old face came into view behind the door, smiling gently with a mix of curiosity and caution.

They sat in a pleasant little sitting room with the sound of an old clock ticking silently on the mantle and the woody smell of antiques and dust. Trista half-expected her to offer tea and biscuits.

"Victor was a lovely young boy. He would come over to play in my yard or to listen to my radio with me. He was always polite and calm." She spoke slowly but her voice was clear and young.

"What about his parents?"

"Babs and Joe? Oh, they were lovely people, God rest their souls. Joe worked for an insurance company if I remember correctly and Babs was into real estate. They both worked and little Victor would come over after school so I could watch him until they got home."

"What happened to them?"

She looked troubled as she looked up at the ceiling to remember.

"Terrible thing, what happened. Car accident. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into their lane. At least they didn't suffer. Poor Victor really loved them. He took it pretty hard."

"Was Victor ever in any trouble?"

"No, he was a sweet kid. He never had problems at school or home. If anything I thought it strange that he didn't get into any trouble. Every kid gets detention once in a while or pulls a prank, but not Victor. Not so much as a bad grade. He was the perfect kid." She turns to look out the window at the house next door with a kind of sad smile.

"I sometimes wondered if he were really happy."

Officer Purcell was head of security at the county jail just outside of Gotham where prisoners are held during their trial. He has a long scar running from his ear to the tip of his chin and it was wrinkled and pale with age. He pulled a filing box out from under his desk and set it down roughly, producing a metallic jingle from within. He began taking strange looking implements from out of the box and setting them down in a line on the desk between them. They looked like crude tools crafted from various materials. Trista noted what looked like dried blood on several of them.

"These are weapons created by Mr. Zasaz while he was incarcerated here awaiting trial." He picked up a plastic tooth brush which appeared to have been sanded down to a point at one end.

"This one ended up in the femoral artery of one of his defense councilors." He motioned to what looked like a snarl of wire twisted and shaped into a dagger.

"He pulled the springs out of his mattress to make it so we took his bed away. This one," He motioned to a thick braided rope that appeared to be made from fabric torn into strips.

"He used to strangle a guard sent to check on him after he complained of stomach cramps. After that, no less than three guards were present any time anyone entered his cell. We took his blankets and sheets, his mattress, anything we could imagine him making a weapon out of but every time we'd find something new. He sliced open the trachea of another defense attorney by letting his fingernails grow out and sharpening them to points against the concrete. This…" He held up what looked like a strange spike made of plaster.

"The son of a bitch made this out of toilet paper and spit, packed it together like papier-mâché until he stuck it through the eye socket of another prisoner who'd passed too close to his cell."

Purcell sat back at looked at the array of improvised weapons before him in disbelief. "Of course he never needed any of these to kill anyone. He hit one guy right in his pneumogastric nerve located near the jugular. He dropped like a stone. Another took an elbow to the temple, that's on the side of the forehead. One of the shrinks tried to talk to him and he head-butt the poor bastard right on the philtrum, which is the space between the nose and the upper lip, hard enough to jam bone shards into the guy's brain. One guard took a kick to the base of the cerebellum, he's still in a coma. During a struggle to get him out of his cell he smacked a cop on the ears using cupped hands to burst his eardrums. He doesn't fight to hurt, he just fights to kill." Purcell looked pained, as though he were facing a problem with no apparent solution and shook his head.

"I've dealt with all kinds of scum here. Hot heads who start fights at the drop of a hat, freaks who fling bodily fluids at people for sick thrills, hitmen and serial killers who find ways to hurt people in new and creative ways every day. Zasaz was a whole new level of fucked up. He didn't kill for fun or for reputation like these other animals do. He never got angry. You get to see a lot of different types of hate in this job. Guys in here give and take hate all day and night and it burns hot, striking sparks anywhere. Zasaz had cold hate, quiet hate. He was on a mission, from who I don't want to know. He never laughed or raised his voice to anyone. Never so much as smiled. That scared the hell out of me."

The security went through her belongings for what seemed like the tenth time, all while Dr. Adams went over the security check list.

"These are the security restrictions you are to follow at all times. You will not approach the cell door. You will stay behind the yellow line at all times. You will not hand anything to him nor will you take anything from him. If he requires assistance for any reason, a qualified member of staff will be there to handle it. If for any reason he should become aggressive, the session will end. If for any reason any part of his body should come loose from his bindings, you will be escorted out of harm's way by security. Do you understand these security measures?"

Trista nodded automatically and Dr. Adams gave her one last uncertain glare before motioning for the guards to take her to see Zasaz.

The room was no larger than a broom closet with a clear plexiglass door which had a row of circles cut out of it no larger than a fist about waist high. Zasaz was bound with straps and belts into a strangely medieval looking cage. His eyes were slate grey and watched Trista approach and sit in the provided chair behind the yellow line. Though the straps held his head and neck in place he had no trouble speaking. Trista could see several of his tallies scared into his forehead and cheeks.

"I don't believe we've met." He said in a flat monotone that had the metallic quality of someone who hasn't spoken in a long time.

"I don't often get the chance to meet new people without killing them."

Trista simply smiled and set up her recorder.

"My name is Trista Martin and I'm a journalist. I wanted to talk with you about the people you've killed."

"What about them? You want to know what I think of them? What I call them? Why I chose them or why I killed them?" Zasaz made no expression at all. He was blank. Trista felt like she was alone in the room and she was speaking with a bored voice on an intercom.

"Why don't I answer those questions for you? You just tell me if I miss the mark." He looked back down at her with no interest and Trista grinned.

"You choose your victims at random. To you they aren't special for who they are or what they mean to you. You choose them out of convenience but not because you are an opportunist looking for an easy kill. You kill without motive or preference, seemingly for no other reason than to kill." Zasaz never took his eyes off her as she spoke, not even to blink. He took a breath and said,

"You imagine the lock before the key. You think there is some purpose to my actions because you think there is a purpose for everything. You've never even considered that purpose is a myth created by desperate animals to hide from the truth." Trista considered him a moment. He continued to look through her as though she weren't there in a way that Trista found unnerving.

"If you could accept that there is no reason for anything to die, you could accept that there is also no reason for anything to live. If you understood this, as I have come to understand it, you would release me right now and allow me to end your pointless existance." The silence between them felt thick and Trista found herself wondering if this was how he lured his victims.

"You believe I would kill myself out of nihilism? If that's true, why haven't you killed yourself?"

"Because there would be no point to that either. Suicide is just another pathetic attempt to control something which has no control. Besides, tis better to give than to receive yes?"

Trista studied him closely. His face was drawn and pale from captivity, his hair was cropped to his scalp and his expression was as blank as a stone; yet his eyes were not empty, nor were they excited with any kind of anticipation or desire. He would kill her the instant he was able, but not out of anger or excitement or fear. He would do it out of mercy. He would kill her because it would be best for her.

"Tell me how you choose kill, who made you who you are, what changed you, when you first killed. I know you were a normal person once, what changed you?"

Zasaz took a deep breath as though preparing to say something he didn't care to say but was getting dragged out of him anyway.

"I can tell you what you want to hear but not what you don't want to know."