CHAPTER 11

IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST VISIT TO THE REDEEMER’S LAW PROJECT, YOU ARE COMING INTO THE STORY ALREADY IN PROGRESS. YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE WILL BE FAR LESS CONFUSING IF YOU USE THE CHAPTER INDEX ON THE RIGHT TO GO BACK TO THE INTRODUCTION. OR AT LEAST TO THE PROLOGUE.

-- DAN

CHAPTER 11

The bell sounded, signaling the end of another day in hell.

Nathan stood, gathered his books under one arm, and walked out of his classroom. He made his way calmly down the hall, ambled past a cluster of football players standing by the main entrance, and headed for his car in the parking lot. More than once he heard people snickering after he’d passed. He slammed his car door shut a lot harder than necessary and laid rubber on his way out of the lot.

Trying to find a good song on the radio, he came across yet another news report of the vigilante working in the city. They’d started calling him “the Redeemer” now. Nathan decided he liked the sound of that. This time, according to the announcer, the masked man was responsible for the near-maiming of two suspected crack dealers. Both men were taken to Gavring, one with both arms broken at the elbows. The Redeemer had not as yet made any attempts to communicate with the police or the media. He simply showed up, beat the living shit out of one or more people, and vanished. Nathan smiled as he thought about it.

Now there’s someone I can get behind. Someone who doesn’t take anything off anybody. Someone who sees something that needs to be done and does it.

Nathan had been following the exploits of the Redeemer for the last several days, since the story first showed up in the Chronicle. He remembered seeing the homeless man on the street, flapping around a torn-out article about the vigilante, right before he’d just about knocked that guy in the suit off his feet.

According to the media, the Redeemer was now believed to have committed at least five brutal assaults on criminals, all within the city limits.

Even though Nathan enjoyed the idea of a real-life masked man fighting crime on the streets, it shot a pang of homesickness through him, because that was exactly the kind of thing he would have talked about with his friends. He and Peter and Whit would have sat around and shot the bull for hours, speculating on what the Redeemer would be like in real life. Trying to profile him, like bargain-basement versions of John Douglas. They’d try to get in his head, figure out what motivated him, speculate on what must have happened to him in the past to make him put a mask on and wreak such killer havoc on unsuspecting dirtbags.

“I know what makes him tick,” Nathan said aloud, over the song that came on after the announcer finished. “I know exactly why he does what he does. ‘Cause he’s pissed off, that’s why.”

He fell silent again, but something was there now, in his mind, that hadn’t been before. He switched off the radio and squinted his eyes as he drove, the mental gears whirring and clicking.

Both his parents were gone, of course, when he got home. This was the time Nathan liked best, when he had the house to himself. When the two ghouls who’d caused him to be born weren’t around to ignore him. He let himself in with his copy of the house key, went upstairs to his bedroom, and started rummaging around in the back of his closet. After twenty minutes of digging, tossing wrinkled comic books and old, battered action figures over his shoulder, he found what he was looking for: a souvenir from a past Halloween. He dusted it off and held it up to the light.

It was a black domino mask attached to a black nylon hood. He set it on the floor, took out his two eyebrow rings and, after a moment’s hesitation, his nose ring. Then he slipped the mask over his head and adjusted it so the eye holes felt comfortable. He glanced in the mirror and smiled.

Nathan pulled the mask back off, stretched out on his bed and grinned like a fool. He began making plans.

# # #

Shortly after Diedra fled from his apartment, Matt finished his shower, clicked off the radio that hung from the shower head, toweled dry while he stood in the tub, then walked out into his bedroom and began going through his underwear drawer. The air filter bothered him. He didn’t know exactly why; maintenance had never been great in any of his other apartments, he didn’t see why it should be any different here. Nonetheless, something about it niggled at him, worked under his skin.

He pulled out a pair of boxer shorts covered with multiple images of Beetle Bailey and pulled them on. Lightning flashed outside, rendered the room in chiaroscuro for a split second, and caused Matt to glance over toward the window.

He froze, and by reflex clicked off the overhead light.

As thunder pealed, Matt glanced around him, then pulled a Heckler & Koch P7PT8 pistol from the shadows behind his bedroom door. He hoped not to have to fire any shots at all, but the H&K he’d selected used low-power 9mm plastic rounds, and while they could kill at close range, they wouldn’t penetrate the walls of his apartment.

With both hands on the gun he crept from the bedroom into the living room. The small apartment afforded very few potential hiding places, but Matt checked them all quickly and efficiently. Satisfied, he returned to his bedroom and leaned on the doorframe.

Someone had moved his painting.

Not much; probably only a few millimeters. But he’d deliberately aligned the tallest of the trees with the center of the easel’s upper tension knob that morning, before he’d finished up the painting and left to go to the basement. Now the tree rested to the left of the tension knob, and he hadn’t touched the painting or the easel since he’d been back.

Maybe the thunder? The vibrations, jarring it? He went to the painting, braced the easel with one hand, and pushed on the side of the canvas with the other. It moved, but only with more effort than thunder would provide. Matt narrowed his eyes, stepped away...and then scrutinized the floor around the easel and the work table.

The carpet in Matt’s apartment was a standard institutional beige, but with a thicker shag than that in most economy apartments. This had its pros and cons: while very kind to the feet, especially bare feet, it clearly showed the tracks left by a vacuum cleaner, and sometimes even preserved footprints.

Matt found a diminutive footprint in the carpet behind his easel, along with five small, evenly spaced scuffs. Just about right for fingertips, if they belonged to a tiny, delicate hand. Thunder crashed outside, very close, and the floor vibrated.

Diedra?

Matt straightened up, set the H&K on the work table and tried to think.

Yes, she had access to the apartment. No, it wasn’t unreasonable to think she might perform low-level service, such as replacing air filters. Why would she hide...?

The painting. She came in, saw he wasn’t there, hoped to find a work in progress, maybe, and took a peek into his bedroom. Matt eyed the canvas speculatively. Well—he had to chuckle, just a little—she certainly got an eyeful. It gave him the creeps. Then his heart jolted as he realized something else.

She saw the suit.

She’d hidden right there while he came in and got ready to shower, must have, that was the only time it could have happened, and he’d had the suit right there, right in plain sight. He tried to remember how he’d carried it. The boots, the boots were back in the basement, that was no problem, she wouldn’t have seen those, but could she have recognized the suit for what it was? Maybe...think, come on...

No. He’d had it folded up when he took it into the bathroom to wash it by hand. Routine, as always. All she would have seen was a black wad of material. Could have been anything. No reason to get upset.

He slumped down on his bed, scooted across it to put his back against the wall, and hugged his knees to his chest.

No reason to get upset, my ass. This is a perfect reason to get upset.

All right. Best to concentrate on one thing at a time, pick a job, do it. First, right away, he had to determine whether or not the only woman who’d gotten inside his head in years had spent her afternoon creeping around his apartment and watching him get undressed.

Shouldn’t I be upset about this? Shouldn’t I at least be more upset about this?

He let out a long, slow breath. Two years. Surely two years was enough, enough time to mourn, to heal. To adjust. To move on.

Of course that was absurd. He hadn’t healed. Healing involved dealing with grief in a healthy way, learning to accept loss, getting on with life as a productive, mentally balanced member of society. It did not involve jumping around in bad parts of the city every night, or stealing prototype suits of military body armor.

What if—what if Diedra had gotten spooked by the painting, and then only hid because she heard him come in? That would explain things, and wouldn’t require any shady motives on her part. God, he hoped that was what had happened.

Matt groaned, said, “What the hell am I doing?” and thumped his head on his knee a few times. Then he rolled over on the bed and picked up the phone on his nightstand.

# # #

A few minutes after he hung up the phone with Diedra—who had sounded exactly like someone caught where she wasn’t supposed to be—Matt dressed in dark brown slacks and a rust-red Oxford shirt, slipped on a pair of worn but comfortable brown Hush Puppies, and stood in front of a mirror.

Satisfied, he walked out of the bathroom, glanced at the painting resting on the easel, and went and sat down on his couch. He had the TV remote in his hand and his thumb on the power button when Diedra knocked on his door.

She was shorter than he remembered, and twice as lovely. She wore blue jeans, a vivid green sleeveless blouse, and an expression that combined elements of frustration, apology, and...maybe a little fear.

He opened the door wider and stood aside. “C’mon in.”

“Thanks.” She nervously gave him just the barest glimpse of straight white teeth.

As she entered and headed for the air filters, which leaned against the wall where she’d left them, he said, “I really appreciate the prompt response. Some of the places I’ve lived, you were lucky to get any kind of maintenance work done the same month you reported the problem.”

Diedra didn’t make eye contact. “It’s not really that big a building.” She opened the utilities closet and began removing the old filter. He crossed his arms and watched her. Twice, as she worked, she cut her eyes toward the door to his bedroom.

As she finished, he said, “Hey, listen, I was wondering if I could get your opinion on something.”

She shifted the old filter from one hand to the other and, hesitant. “What?”

He uncrossed his arms and started walking toward the bedroom. Her eyes got slightly wider.

“Well, I just finished this new piece today, and I was wondering if you could tell me what you think of it.” He reached out and put one hand against the door as if to push it open. Diedra’s reaction confirmed every suspicion.

She’d hidden in his bedroom, all right, and she had no desire to see that painting again.

“No, I mean, I’d like to, really, but I have a ton of paperwork to do back in the office, and I should really get back to it, and —”

Matt pushed the bedroom door open, and Diedra couldn’t help but look inside. Her lips parted and slowly formed a small, perfectly round O. She stayed completely silent long enough for him to prod her for a comment.

“What do you think?”

Diedra still didn’t answer, but moved to stand in the doorway, her eyes locked to the painting on the easel. Matt looked over her shoulder.

Predominantly golden brown, with splashes of blue and ice-white, “Pure Thought” was one of Matt’s favorites. The painting depicted a vast wheat field, out of the middle of which sprang an enormous tree composed of blue-white crystal. Cotton clouds decorated the azure sky, and both the clouds and the gold of the wheat reflected perfectly, thousands, maybe millions of times, from every crystalline branch, stem, and leaf.

He knew its effect, a total reversal from the unnamed piece Diedra had seen earlier, and on a number of occasions he’d come close to selling it. He hadn’t, partly because he loved it too much, and partly because he’d felt, since its completion, that the painting was meant to be a gift. He hadn’t ever been sure for whom, just that it was to be a gift.

He could smell Diedra’s perfume again. He thought maybe now he knew.

Her shallow breath became a sigh. “Oh, Mr. Sinclair, this is beautiful.” She took a step inside the room.

He said, “Call me Matt.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. He started to confront her about hiding from him, but changed his mind; instead he left her there, with the painting, and walked slowly into the living room.

The apartment was small, yes, but a large picture window near the couch let in light from the storm. Matt pulled aside the curtains, leaned against the frame and watched the clouds. Lightning flashed from one to another, electric veins of the sky. He let his eyes half close and took in the display.

You shouldn’t be doing this. You’re making a big mistake.

A few minutes later something touched his arm, and he found Diedra standing beside him. “What’re you doing?”

Matt looked back out at the sky and the clouds and the rain. “Just watching the storm.”

He heard her draw in a quick breath. An enormous bolt touched down halfway to the horizon, and moments later brittle thunder crashed. Matt glanced down at Diedra again. She still held the spent air filter, but her dreamlike eyes fixed on the storm, and she moved, just a tiny bit, closer to him. They shared a moment no one could have engineered, a gift from nature, like the lightning, and he suddenly ached to put his arms around her.

Just then another blast of thunder exploded against the building and all the lights went out. Diedra jumped. “Damn! Now I’ve really got to get back to the office. Everybody’ll be screaming about the power.”

She turned to go, but suddenly seemed to realize how close she’d gotten to him. She tilted her head back and slowly raised her eyes to his—eyes huge and deep, on the line between darkest brown and black. They left him without a coherent thought in his head. He opened his mouth to try to say something, and Diedra paused to hear him, just for a second, but he couldn’t speak.

She backed away, turned, and moved swiftly to the door.

Matt followed and caught her as her hand turned the knob.

“Diedra. If you’re interested...that is, if you’d still like to go somewhere –” His throat threatened to close up on him, and he swallowed hard. “— and chat, for a while, I’d like that.”

She didn’t respond immediately, and he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He finally shoved them in his pockets. Diedra blinked a few times, cocked one eyebrow up, and handed him the used air filter. As he took it he thought he saw her smile. Maybe, a little. She said, “Call me tomorrow.”

And she was out the door and gone.



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