Disclaimer: I don't own Saw or any of the music or movies I may reference.
On your knees to compromise and spare your life
How much did it take?
Your blood on my blade
The results are in
And I'm your villain
-Deadlands
PRESENT DAY
Days passed while Lawrence anticipated the news. Some days he half-expected the police to show up at his home or at the hospital with a warrant for his arrest. Not that he couldn't lawyer up and fight the charges, but it would still destroy his reputation in public and the medical community.
But then he would remind himself that he had been careful, and that everything he had done, every twisted surgical act he had performed, he had done under John's orders while the man had still been alive.
He could always claim that John had been holding something over him, that he had threatened his family or something, and it wasn't like John was there to deny it. And in truth, Lawrence hadn't actually killed anyone. That was the whole point.
FLASHBACK, January 2005
Lawrence limped through the hospital with his newly-acquired cane, attracting looks of sympathy from some people and recoils of horror from others.
Word had gotten around what he had been through—enough people had heard of the Jigsaw Killer, and now they had to face the very real fact that one of his survivors walked, however unstably, among them.
Everyone around Lawrence was too shy, polite or scared to ask him anything about his experience, which was fine with him. The fewer people spoke to him, the fewer he would have to keep track of telling his lies to.
With Alison and Diana gone from his life, the only person he could talk to, the only person he could confide in, was John.
Opening the door to his patient's room, Lawrence sighed as he watched the withering mastermind receive his futile treatment.
"Hello, Dr. Gordon," he said gruffly.
"How are you feeling today, John?" Lawrence answered softly.
The old man didn't answer, nor did he look at Lawrence. The doctor didn't prod. He had spent his career asking terminally ill patients how they were feeling and it had never resulted in a positive response. Why should this be any different?
John Kramer had a way of detaching himself from the present, Lawrence had observed, and often deflected when people tried to get too close to him.
"Did you know, when jigsaw puzzles were first invented, the pieces were known as dissections?"
Lawrence shook his head, smiling insincerely.
"Is that why you remove a puzzle-piece shape of flesh from all your…players?"
John kept monologuing as if he hadn't even heard the question.
"The human body is rather like a puzzle, isn't it? Each part connects, works and supports the others. If you introduce an abnormality, it all falls out of place."
"I'm sorry for your situation, John," said Lawrence.
"Are you sorry for yours?" asked the old man.
Lawrence looked down at his artificial foot.
"Not for this," he said.
"For your family?"
"Yes. I'm sorry for that."
"An impossible, unbearable pain, to lose one's family," said John. "What is it like to hear your own child's laughter, Dr. Gordon?"
Lawrence tensed. He knew exactly what this sick man was doing, but it would be unprofessional to argue with him in this place of work.
"It's like having an angel touch your heart," Lawrence sighed. "I feeling I hope I never forget."
"So, you do cherish it?" said John.
Lawrence nodded. "I'm sorry your child was taken from you, John."
"I have found a daughter yet," said the man.
Lawrence lowered his eyebrows in confusion.
"There's a young lady in my life now. She takes care of me, in these, the final months of my life," he stated.
"Ah," said Lawrence.
"I have learned to accept the love I have around me, even if it is not my own flesh and blood. I've taught her a thing or two. She's very devoted and loyal."
Lawrence was able to read between the lines as John spoke. He knew what "taught her a thing or two" entailed.
He came to realize quickly that this "daughter" of John's, this caretaker, was an accomplice. It made sense—there was no way a feeble, sick man like John Kramer could kidnap multiple people and drag them away by himself.
"Why haven't you turned me in, Dr. Gordon?" he rasped. "You'd be a hero. Your wife might even come running back to you. 'Doctor Lawrence Gordon—Survivor of Jigsaw Killer Helps Bring Psychopath to Justice,'" John recited the fantastical hypothetical headline.
"I fail to see what good it would do," said Lawrence. "It wouldn't bring the victims back."
"It would bring a sense of satisfaction and closure to the families of those who have been lost," said John.
"Would it?"
John turned and looked Lawrence dead in the eye. The oncologist sat down on a chair beside John's bed and looked into his dry, wrinkled face.
"I've reached the conclusion that the families of your victims need the Jigsaw Killer to remain on a somewhat… mythical level, if you will," said Lawrence. "If they can't have their loved ones back, then they can at least have a boogeyman to project all their hate and anguish onto. They need the Jigsaw Killer to remain an entity of evil. If they were to come to know that the elusive serial killer who tested their loved ones and left them to die, was in fact, the most sympathetic creature he could be—a man dying of cancer—what would they feel?"
John listened intently.
"They would be torn between vengeful, righteous hatred, and pity. No one wants to pity their enemy. No one wants to feel guilty for hating someone. The most merciful thing I could think of doing for those families, is allow them to hold onto their image of you—a sick, twisted, evil, remorseless villain."
John smiled.
"You would let a criminal go free simply to patronize the fragile minds of a few grieving families?"
Lawrence glanced downward from where he sat.
"You would give them something to appreciate. You would not take from them that which they need to survive."
"I just don't see the point," Lawrence shrugged.
"You are helping those people, Dr. Gordon," John whispered. "You see, there are ways of helping people in this world that are…indirect."
Lawrence smiled.
"Tell me more," he said softly.
END OF CHAPTER 04
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