Jeff Lindsay - Dexter's Final Cut

The rum seemed to take the dark edge off things for Jackie. She visibly relaxed as the level in her glass went down. To my surprise, I did, too. I suppose it was only natural; as I said, I am not a drinker, and I’d already had a mojito and several glasses of wine this evening. I probably should have been worried that all the alcohol would make me too dopey to be really effective as a bodyguard. But I didn’t feel drunk, and it would have been a shame to spoil the experience of sitting on a couch and drinking rare dark rum with a celebrity. So I didn’t: I sat; I enjoyed; I drank the rum slowly, savoring each sip.

Jackie finished hers first and reached for the bottle. “More?” she said, holding it toward me.

“I probably shouldn’t,” I said. She shrugged and poured a splash into her glass. “But it’s very good,” I said. “I’ll have to get a bottle.”

She laughed. “Good luck,” she said. “You won’t find it at the corner store.”

“Oh,” I said. “Where do you get it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “This was a gift.” She lifted her glass in a half toast and sipped. She rolled it around in her mouth for a moment and then put the glass back down. “Those letters,” she blurted. “They scare the shit out of me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I mean, why?” she said, hunched over and staring down into the glass. “What did I do to make him hate me?”

“He doesn’t hate you,” I said.

Jackie looked up. “He’s trying to kill me,” she said.

“That’s not hate,” I said. “In his own way, he actually loves you.”

“Jesus fuck,” she said. She looked back down at the glass. “I think I’d rather have hate next time.” She picked up the glass and sipped, and then swung her eyes to me. “How come you understand this rotten psycho bastard so good?” she said.

I suppose it was a fair question, but it was an awkward one, too. If I told her the truth-I understood him because I was a rotten psycho bastard, too-it would seriously undermine our relationship, which would have been a shame. So I shrugged and said, “Oh, you know.” I took a small sip from my glass. “It’s like you were saying before. It’s kind of like acting.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. She didn’t sound convinced, and she didn’t look away from me. “Thing is, in acting, you find a piece of the character inside your own self. You expand it, you shape it a little, but it has to be in there or you don’t get the job done.” She took a small sip, still looking at me over the rim of the tumbler. “So what you’re really saying is, there’s something inside you ”-she tipped the glass at me-“that is like this crazy asshole.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “So? Is there?” She sipped. “You got a killer in there, Dexter?”

I looked at her with astonishment, and deep in Dexter’s Dungeon I could feel the Passenger squirming with discomfort. I have lived my life among cops, people who spend every waking hour hunting down predators like me. I have worked among them for years, for my entire professional life, and not a single one of them had ever had the faintest misgiving about Dexter’s snow-white character. Only one of them, in fact-Dear Sergeant Doakes-had ever suspected that I am what I am. And yet, here was Jackie-a TV actress , of all things! — asking me point-blank if there was a Wicked Other inside me, behind Dexter’s carefully crafted smile.

I was too amazed to speak, and no amount of sipping could cover the growing, horribly awkward silence as I groped for something to say. Short of admitting she was right, or denying everything and calling for a lawyer, nothing occurred to me.

“Cat got your tongue?” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Just … just … more like rum got my tongue.” I lifted the glass. “I’m not used to this stuff,” I said, sounding rather lame even to myself.

“Uh-huh,” Jackie said. “But you’re not answering my question, either.”

She was very insistent for someone who should have been a mental lightweight, and I began to wonder whether I had been too quick to decide I liked her. She was clearly not going to accept any cautiously phrased evasions, and that left Dexter somewhat on the ropes. But I am renowned for my conversational quick feet, and seldom at a loss. In this case, I decided that the best defense really was an all-out cavalry charge, so I put down my glass and turned fully toward her.

“Close your eyes,” I ordered.

Jackie blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Acting exercise. Close your eyes.”

“Uh-okay …” She put her glass down, settled back into the couch, and closed her eyes. “All right.”

“Now,” I said. “It’s night. You’re all alone, in a dark alley.”

She took a deep, controlled breath. “Okay …”

“There’s someone behind you,” I said. “He’s getting closer, closer.…”

“Oh,” she said softly, and several emotions flicked rapidly across her face.

“You turn around,” I said. “And it’s him .”

Jackie breathed out sharply.

“He’s holding a knife and smiling at you. It’s a terrible smile. And he speaks.” I leaned close and whispered, “ ‘Hello, bitch.’ ”

Jackie flinched.

“But you have a gun,” I said.

Her hand went up and she pulled an imaginary trigger. “Pow,” she said, and her eyes fluttered open.

“Just like that?” I said.

“Damn straight.”

“Did you kill him?” I said.

“Shit, yeah. I hope so.”

“How do you feel?”

She took another deep breath and then let it out. “Relieved,” she said.

I nodded. “QED,” I said. She blinked at me. “I think it’s Latin,” I explained. “It means, ‘I have proved it.’ ”

“Proved what?”

“There’s a killer in everybody,” I said.

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she picked up her glass and took a sip. “Maybe,” she said. “But you seem pretty comfy with the one in you.”

And I was, of course. But I was not at all comfy with having her guess it, so I was relieved that the subject seemed to be closed for now when Jackie put her empty glass on the table and stood up.

“Bedtime,” she said. She stretched and yawned, looking like some kind of golden cat. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Where do guard dogs sleep?” she said. “At the foot of the bed?”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I said. “That way I can watch the door and the balcony.”

She blinked. “The balcony?”

“Anyone can get in from the roof,” I said. “All you need is twenty feet of nylon rope and a screwdriver.”

Jackie looked a little bit stunned. “You mean he might- What’s the screwdriver for?”

“I don’t know if he might,” I said. “I know he could. Anybody could: just drop down from the roof, with the rope. The screwdriver is to jimmy open the sliding glass door. A ten-year-old could do it.”

“Jesus,” she said. She stared at me, but she wasn’t actually seeing me. “I really fucking hate this,” she said. And then she shook herself slightly, focused on me for a moment, and said again, “ Hate it …” She stood very still, looking at me, breathing in, then out, watching me for some sign that I didn’t know how to give her, and then she shook her head, turned away, and went slowly off to bed.

I fell asleep quickly and completely, and when I opened my eyes it seemed like no time had passed, but the first orange gleam of light was hammering its way in through the balcony door, so either it was morning or a UFO was landing on the chaise longue.

I blinked and decided it was probably morning. UFOs wouldn’t dare land in Miami-somebody would chop them up and haul them off to sell for scrap metal. I started to stretch and sit up, but froze midway as I realized there was a strange whirring sound coming from Jackie’s bedroom. It did not seem particularly sinister, but I had no idea what it was. As the bodyguard, it seemed incumbent upon me to investigate, so I stood up quietly, took the Glock from the coffee table beside me, and tiptoed to Jackie’s door. I turned the handle silently, pushed the door open, and peeked in.