Chapter Seventeen – In Praise Of The Vulnerable Man (from the song by Alanis Morisette)
"We managed to lift a set of prints off that file," Ray said as he came back to his desk. Laurie looked up from the seat he had occupied across from it, expectant. "That didn't match you, me or Bill, at any rate. Bill was pretty sure nobody else touched them, not any of the officers, nobody. So we're doing the rounds. It could take a while." He ran both hands through his hair. Laurie had to suppress a grin – it was his father's habit. Had been, anyway.
"Bill is with the sketch artist," Laurie told him, shaking himself from the threat of an emotional relapse. "Rippner is our only human link but he's a weak one. We'll have more luck tracking the flight from LAX."
"We're working on the warrants," Ray said wearily. "You'd think with 9-11 we'd have easier access to that crap but whoever owned that jet must have the kind of diplomatic pull that comes with presidents and oil tycoons."
"Even more reason to put pressure there," Laurie said, flipping a page idly.
"Why do you keep reading that?" Ray asked, grumpy.
"Trying to figure out why Vincent would want to protect Callie," Laurie said simply.
"And what good is that going to do us? Is it going to help us find her?"
"Dr. Gregg has his reasons," Lupe said just over his shoulder, setting down a four-square container holding four steaming cups of caffeinated liquid.
"Usually, yes," Laurie agreed. "This is simply a matter of knowing your opponent."
Ray reached for the container marked "triple espresso" and tried not to roll his eyes. He wasn't up for a squabble with a couple of shrinks, even if one of them was extremely hot – and knew how many creams and sugars he took in his coffee.
"I was talking to Bill," Lupe said, sitting down in a chair she pulled up from a nearby desk. "We have to consider the possibility that he's right. That sending Callie with…well, it might not have been the worst idea."
Ray looked at her like she was insane. Laurie arched an eyebrow. "A bit of a jump, don't you think, Dr. Martinez?" he asked.
"Well," Lupe said, spreading her hands, "from what I know of the whole situation, and am not at liberty to discuss due to doctor patient confidentiality, Vincent is very efficient. He sets a goal and achieves it, regardless of the obstacles. His goal was not to kill her; that much is obvious."
"I am so sick of people suggesting that this sick fuck has feelings for my sister," Ray said, the outrage roiling behind his voice as much as he struggled to keep it subdued.
Laurie sighed. "Ray, you of all people should understand, as a cop, that people are not black and white. Vincent didn't just step out of a factory, ready made. He's not a machine, he's a human being, and therefore as complex as any human being. How do you think meat-eater assassins become like they do? You don't disregard human lives unless first your own life has been disregarded."
"Not in all cases," Lupe said. "Tell that to Ted Bundy."
"Right, but he was a serial killer," Laurie pointed out. "Serial killers don't become assassins. They don't stick to other people's schedules. They kill for their own needs and pleasures. Vincent kills for money. That's a different breed. Those kinds of men come from backgrounds that are breeding grounds of abuse and perversity. Ray," Laurie said, leaning forward and lifting up a particularly old document, yellowed with age, containing a police report, "imagine, for just a second, if you had spent every day of your life until the age of twelve getting knocked around by your dad. Just consider it, for a second. What kind of man would you have turned out to be?"
Ray didn't answer.
"His mother died in childbirth. Those kinds of things happened. So he had no maternal connection. There was a grandmother who helped take care of him in infancy but she broke a hip and died of pneumonia when he was three. Her health wasn't great even before that, and there were complaints from the neighbors of listening to the baby cry for five hours on end, one report of negligence that almost resulted in him being removed to foster care when he was found with his diaper leaking all over the floor. So think of it – an infant, completely and utterly dependent and helpless, left in the care of someone who despised him. No nurturing, no love shown, not even the basic needs met. The grandmother dies, he's just old enough to start feeding himself, but he's malnourished, he's prone to violent outbursts, he's dressed strange when he goes to school, he can't relate to any of the children in the class, the teachers think he's just a trouble maker…he had every single card stacked against him. And then let's make it worse – let's add beatings that get him periodically removed from his home and put into foster care. Sometimes group homes, sometimes a couple in need of the extra cash. As soon as he can become independent, after eighteen years of being mal-adjusted to society, he joins the military. There, his violent tendencies are a plus, not a minus. He gets himself under control, bends to military discipline because it suits him. For the first time, he becomes accepted. Now, this was in the days of the cold war, so he could have applied for all kinds of fields – and which one appeals to him the most? The kind that harms other human beings. It's the only therapy he has. Then the cold war ends, and he's cut loose, back into society. He has absolutely no people skills, no personal ties. So he uses what connections he has and starts playing for the other side of the board. The pay is better."
"This kind of man would have massive problems with authority," Lupe said thoughtfully.
Laurie shook his head. "He would have problems with parental authority," he corrected. "In the military, he would learn to bend to authority and then take his aggression out in his work. He would get used to taking orders. He would prefer it. He's incapable of knowing how a normal human being functions. He has no connection to society at all. We're raised to get jobs, have families, have a life. What kind of life does he know how to have? In the military, everything is routine. He doesn't have to think, just obey, and he's rewarded. Simple, like a pet. It's probably the happiest he ever was in his life." Laurie rubbed his hand over his eyes. "God, it makes sense. It makes so much sense."
"What makes sense?" Ray asked, frustrated.
"He went to your father's house that night," Laurie said. "He saw her, Callie, with your dad. He saw how the normal deal was supposed to work. He'd probably glimpsed it half a dozen times but maybe he'd just never been inside it before. Mid-life crisis, whatever you want to call it, has hold of him, making him ask himself what his life could have been like, and then he sees this. He missteps. He starts questioning himself. This guy never questioned himself before, it throws him off. He starts to have emotions he can't place or even understand, and they're surrounding Callie. Everything connects to her. So he doesn't kill her. He is incapable of harming her. She is the last shred of humanity left in him."
"Think you're being a little dramatic?" Lupe asked, a touch worried.
"Then why did Vincent murder—" Ray started, but Laurie cut him off.
"He didn't, pure and simple. You go look at those pictures Bill brought us again and you'll see it was Rochester, not him. Vincent wouldn't have harmed your father, wouldn't have touched a hair on his head. He was the kind of father Vincent wished he had. Attaching himself to Callie attaches him to the kind of life he wants, or wished he could have had, as well. By extension, it makes her family his."
Ray looked pale. "So if this is all true, what you say…what makes you think he's going to let Callie go? What if he just decides to…keep her?"
All three of them fell silent for a long minute.
"We can't get Callie back until the threat of this Rochester guy is eliminated," Laurie finally said. "So we have to find out where Vincent took her."
"And then what?" Ray asked. "Wait until they have their big movie-climax-showdown and then swoop in and take her back?"
"Something a little less dramatic, and a lot less pleasant," Laurie suggested. "Ray, by extension, you're a part of his new family, too. You're Callie's brother. I doubt he would hurt you."
"Sorry I can't say the same."
"No, wait, Ray," Lupe said. "I think I see where this is going. You might be able to get Callie back if you play along."
"Play along?" Ray was fuming. "Play with this sick game?"
"Well, you'll certainly do smashingly well with that attitude," Laurie returned sarcastically.
"And besides, all of this might turn out to be complete hogwash," Ray said, standing up. "You have no way of knowing—"
"Ray, why do you think I run an institute for the criminally insane?" Laurie remarked. "Because I have a good beside manner? No, because I can read people. I know their stories and I look at them as human beings, not as monsters and not as madmen. There's a pattern in everyone's life. Break the pattern and you break the person. Either for good or ill. It can free them or damn them. And I'm telling you that you have to put aside your personal feelings for this man if you ever want to get your sister back."
Ray stared at him for a long moment, made a noise of disgust, grabbed up his triple espresso and walked away.
"That went well," Lupe commented.
Laurie didn't respond.
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Sometime as the sun was slowly turning the far horizon into a blur of blue, Callie slipped out of Vincent's arms and half walked, half limped to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and sat down in the stall, letting the hot and cold water mix around her, easing some of the ache away.
Vincent was asleep. More soundly asleep than she would have thought. She had pegged him as a light sleeper, but after the night's exertions, she really wasn't surprised.
Against the cool glass of the shower stall, her bandage rested, undisturbed. With everything they had done, she expected it to be hanging off her, but Vincent had been careful around it. She reached up, yanking at some of the white tape. She was curious, for some odd reason. But she couldn't see it very well, so as soon as she had pulled one strip off she gave up.
It was an excuse. An excuse not to think. She reached out and cupped some water in her hand and splashed it onto her thighs, rubbing away the residue that resided between them. She hadn't known that sex was such a messy thing. The movies never showed you that part.
She sighed, pulling her knees up and resting her elbows against them, face in her hands. It was comforting, sitting here among the running water. It was like a shield around her. When she was younger, she had always taken too long in the shower, her mother and later on her father pounding on the door for her to get out, people needed to use the bathroom. They didn't understand that it was her safe place. Here, among the cool tiles and the silver faucets, and the particular way sound echoed, she felt safe.
She was in the awkward stage of knowing she had done something very, very wrong, but was unable yet to regret it. Still, her rationalizing mind told her that when this was over, and she never saw Vincent again, this time would be the source of good memories, as opposed to the awful ones of that night.
She was reaching, and she knew it. Logic told her that she would regret it – oh, how she would regret this night! It would bring her nothing but pain and heartache, because there was no future with Vincent. And sex was just an excuse, letting the body have at when the mind couldn't process. Vincent couldn't tell her how he felt, couldn't communicate intimately with her, so instead he made love to her. It was a cop-out. And in the end, it would lead to a dead-end road where they would part ways. For good.
Still…everyone had told her that sex was great, but it wasn't what the movies and the pornos wanted you think it was. It felt great, but it was temporary. It was never as satisfying as it promised to be, when it was just used as a physical exercise. Her father had once told her, though, that when a man and a woman shared their first time, it was like they were going on a journey together, and it made it so much more than just animal pleasure.
But Vincent…images flashed through her, sending peculiar tremors through her. He had been everything her darkest imagination had wanted. There were probably a hundred more things he would do if she asked him. She shook the thoughts away. It would do no good. These things would haunt her until she died, she didn't have to start now.
There was a knock on the bathroom door, jarring her from her thoughts. She had locked the door behind her, wanting privacy – otherwise, she had no doubt Vincent would have just entered. There were no boundaries anymore, she could sense it. She considered ignoring it. She didn't want to see him right now, she wanted to be left alone, she wanted to think and figure out what she was going to do, she wanted to get her head straight ---
The knocking got louder. "Callie? I have to take a piss."
She sighed, pulled herself up and turned off the water. She grabbed one of the towels and wrapped it around herself, and pulled the bathroom door open. Vincent stood there, naked as she had been, looking confused.
"You all right?" he asked.
She was standing to the side, so as not to be in his way, almost behind the door. "Yeah. Come on. You gotta go."
He looked at her as he passed, perplexed. Approaching the toilet, he lifted up the lid, and Callie slipped out. Hastily, she dried herself off, and pulled out the sleep shorts and shirt she had bought earlier, slipping them on. Then she sat down in the chair with the long seat for her legs, and waited.
She couldn't bear to get back in that bed. And he was going to see that she was dressed, but she could also no longer bear to be naked. It was going to provoke a conversation – hell, probably a fight. He wouldn't understand. Men generally didn't.
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Vincent emerged from the bathroom to find Callie clothed and sitting in that recliner chair that had too long of a seat. He paused, and then sighed.
This was why he didn't have relationships. The talking, always the talking. The sharing of the feelings, the sorting out of the cues. He didn't have the head or heart for those things. But Callie…Callie made him. She made him want to. She made him stop and think and be bemused. She made him nuts and a perverse part of him liked it.
He sat down on the corner of the bed closest to her. What kind of insanity was it that made a person want to be unhappy? Because the thought of just ignoring her and going back to bed, which had its appeal, seemed like a betrayal. He was compelled to stop, compelled to ask her:
"What is it?"
She didn't answer. That was worse than anything. Peter had once told him the only thing more dangerous than a scorned woman was a silent woman.
He did the only thing he could think to do. He asked what no man should ever ask. "Did I do something wrong?"
She looked at him, in the dark. There were no lamps; he could only see the outside light reflecting in her eyes.
He said, "Because I can't imagine what I could have done between coitus and getting up to pee."
Sarcasm now. He saw her smirk. He wasn't sure that was a good sign.
"You didn't do anything, Vincent," she said, and the tone of her voice was worse, oh so much worse than he had anticipated. It was…detached. Like he used to be. "You're fine."
He hesitated. "So…are you coming back to bed?"
"No."
So simple, so final. It made him jerk his head back. "All right, look, you're going to have to be a bit more thorough in explaining this to me. Like I said, if I did something wrong, just tell me, all right? Don't leave me hanging, Callie, I can't take that sort of thing."
When did he get so honest? Why were the thoughts in his head finding their way to his mouth so easily when he was in her presence? Having sex with her had changed something, had caused his wiring to go funny. He was being…intimate. The thought almost made him shudder.
"You didn't do anything wrong," she said. "No more than I did anyway. And it isn't your fault, you can't help it."
He stood up. "What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, coming closer to her. To his surprise, she blushed and covered her eyes, shielding her sight from him.
"God, Vincent, please put on some shorts."
"Why?" he demanded. He put his hands on his hips, enjoying her discomfort. It felt a lot better than not knowing what the hell was going on. "You didn't mind before."
"That was before," she said, turning away. "Adults usually have these kind of conversations clothed. Okay? Please, just humor me."
Grumbling, he turned away and found his shorts. He sat down on the bed to pull them on, muttering under his breath.
"Why are you mad at me?" he blurted, arms extended, elbows on his knees. "What did I do?"
"I told you that you didn't—"
"Don't say that again, Callie," he said, getting angry. "It's not true and you know it. Whether I meant to do anything or not, I did something and you're unhappy."
She stared at him. "When did you get like this?" she said.
"Like what?"
"Like Mr.-You-better-share-your-feelings-or-else. Vincent, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at myself."
He slapped his thighs. "That's great," he said scornfully. "That's so much better. So what did you do, then, that you're mad at yourself?"
She sighed again, lolling her head back against the headrest of the chair. "God, Vincent, I can't explain it to you!"
"Why not?"
"Because…because it isn't the kind of thing that you can explain to a person!"
"You're regretting having sex with me," he said. "There, explained. What was so difficult about that?"
She stood up, feeling a surge of real anger toward him. "God, you are the most difficult man on this planet! Not everything is black and white!" She stomped away from him, toward the other end of the room, where the television sat in the large entertainment center and the dresser extended almost half the length of the room. He arched an eyebrow. Funny, he had wanted to say something very similar to her.
"Exactly how am I being difficult? I actually thought I was being rather simple. You…" he trailed off, waving his hand. He didn't know how to say it. She regretted him. Fine, he understood. Why shouldn't she? He was poison to everyone. He had killed his mother coming out of her. He had ruined his father's life and then taken it away after his father returned the favor. He had kept everything and everyone at arm's length for his entire life, not for their sake but for his. Because getting too close, they would see – they would see the thing that he was, which even he was getting used to seeing when he looked in the mirror. He was worse than a monster. He was less than human.
He was Vincent.
His silence had thrown her off. He realized she hadn't responded to his comment, and when he blinked in surprise, he felt that his eyes were moist. More moist than they usually were.
Oh hell.
"You're right," he said, his voice dead. "You're right, it was a mistake. This whole thing was a mistake."
She drew a heavy, shaking breath. Was she crying too? Suddenly she was in front of him, kneeling at his feet. Her hands grasped his knees, a bit too high for him to be comfortable.
"Not for the reasons you think," she said, shaking her head. "This…this isn't me. You know I was a virgin. I don't believe in doing these things but I let myself get carried away. And you didn't…you're not the reason. We are the reason, you and I. You have a life completely…there just isn't any common ground between us, Vincent, except for these feelings you and I have, which don't make any sense. This whole situation is doomed."
"Because I'm a contract killer," he said. "That's why, because of a job?"
"It's a job to you," she said, with a slow shake of her head. "That's the problem, Vincent. How can human life be just a job? You've…you've killed so many people and you don't feel anything about it. But I do, that's a difference between us that we can't work out. It's not like we're arguing on whose career comes first or where we'll live or how many kids we'll have. The basic fundamental difference between us is that I respect human life because its life, and you don't."
He was staring at her, listening. He was trying to make sense of her words.
"I could…I could change."
She felt like she was holding her breath. It was the closest he'd probably every come to making a declaration of his feelings for her, but she knew it was coming from a heart that had too many scars, a soul too battered and lost to find its way out of the dark. She felt a terrible sorrow, and put her arms around his neck, feeling a powerful urge to cry.
Couldn't everyone be saved? She had always believed that. It was one of the reasons she had gone into the field she'd chosen. To help others find their way out of the dark. But what did she know? She was as lost as any of them.
"I can't be your reason," she said, her voice quivering. "I'm not enough, Vincent." I'm not God.
Slowly, hesitantly, he raised one arm and looped it around her back. This was…wrong. To be vulnerable like this felt so wrong. He closed his eyes, feeling exhausted. He couldn't take…being around her anymore. It confused and befuddled him too much. And the only way away from her was to bring this mess to a head.
Abruptly, he pulled her away from him, turning from her. It was wrong, it was all wrong. This had gotten too far out of hand. "Fine," he said, his voice rough. "Fine…we're making too much of this anyway, Callie. Don't feel obligated to me, you shouldn't. I mean, it's one night. It's not a big deal." He stood up, walked away.
Callie wanted to shout at him that that wasn't true – it wasn't one night. If she had really believed that all Vincent had wanted from her was a night of sex, she wouldn't feel this way. If she believed that it was just a one night stand, no strings, no complications, no obligations, she would have just blamed herself for being weak and moved on. But the things he'd said to her…while they were together, entwined as closely as two human being could be. The things he'd whispered to her, the things she saw in his eyes, felt in his body…no, he was defending himself now, shutting her out. It had all gone wrong, she had messed up, taken a mistake and made it worse. Put salt in a gaping wound.
But she said nothing. The conversation was over. She couldn't fix it, not right now. Maybe another time. She prayed for another time, even though she didn't think she had any right praying at this moment.
"Take the bed," he said, going to the closet and pulling on some clothes.
"Vincent, I don't want—"
"Take the damn bed, Callie," he said, cutting off her protest in a voice that forbid her from objecting again. "It's okay."
"What are you going to do?" she ventured after a long, stretching moment.
He sat down in the seat she had occupied. "I'm going to think," he said simply. "Figure out a way through this. Go on, get a bit more sleep. You need it." His tone was so dry.
Callie sighed, feeling more empty than before. She crawled up toward where the comforter had been twisted and kicked down, and finished knocking it from the bed. She managed to pull back a sheet and get under it. To her enormous surprise, she was asleep only a few minutes after she put her head to her pillow.