Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

That thought only served to reinforce why his work was so important — why he needed to keep leaving messages around the country, until someone was smart and capable enough to understand their importance.

Sad that he’d had to go the way he had, but he needed help, and the normal routes for gaining assistance had paid him no heed. The messages he was delivering seemed the only reasonable way to recruit the help he so desperately required.

On the tube-television screen, Carlos Moreno was doing a satellite interview with J.C. Harrow, host of Crime Seen!

“Has anything like this ever been attempted, J.C.?”

Outdoors in what seemed to be Southern countryside, Harrow — in a corny Robert Stack-style trenchcoat — said, “No, Carlos, this is a first. We’ve assembled some of the best forensics talent in the nation, and tonight we’ll share some of the exciting work we’ve been doing, while Crime Seen! has been away.”

The Messenger farted with his lips over the rest of the interview, and laughed out loud at how uneasy stately anchor Jackson Blair seemed, when he was forced to close the broadcast with a blatant plug: “Be sure to stay with UBC tonight for the season premiere of Crime Seen! with J.C. Harrow and his crack criminalists, as they close in on the murderer of the host’s family, nearly seven years ago.”

If Harrow and his team of “crack criminalists” were “closing in on the killer,” it was news to the Messenger, who had seen no sign of them.

No one had come to his hometown, no one had approached him on his travels to deliver his messages, and no one was anywhere near him now, unless they were being good and goddamn secretive about it. As if to prove the point, he got off the bed, walked to the window, and peeked between the thin curtains.

He sure as hell didn’t see Harrow out there, or any “crack criminalists,” or even criminalists on crack, much less any of those dopey-looking buses and trucks that had been featured all summer in those ridiculous commercials promoting the show like it was the second goddamn coming.

What he did see was fading sun, a sky turning purple, and headlights starting to snap on in passing cars as darkness descended on Socorro like a soothing blanket. Any sense of comfort in this community, however, was a false one; this was a night that would wake this town up forever.

Though thus far no one seemed to be getting his messages — well, they received them, but they didn’t get them — he still held out hope. He would continue his quest until someone acknowledged his messages and did something to right the wrong.

He’d thought Harrow might be that man. But as the summer passed with nothing but ludicrous publicity for the show’s Killer TV segment, it seemed more and more likely that Harrow couldn’t make out the messages either. The former sheriff might be sincere in trying to find the Messenger, but was clearly being used by the television network in a cheap, sleazy, distasteful stunt for money and ratings.

Still, Harrow had come the closest of anyone, so far at least, and the Messenger realized that a personalized refresher might be just what was needed to jump-start the ex-sheriff, and nudge him in the right direction. He wondered if Harrow might have other family, to help make that point — brothers, sisters, father, mother...?

There had to be some appropriate target on the map that would send a more pointed message to the UBC superstar. Research, investigation, would be needed, though that would have to wait...

First, he had already devised a message for delivery here in New Mexico.

He returned to the bed and picked up the copy of TV Guide — with Harrow and his team’s picture on it — that had been tented over the .357 Magnum. The six-shot Smith and Wesson pistol had been utilized twice before, sending previous messages.

Each message delivered had become an indelible memory, not memories he cherished at all, rather burdens to bear. One such memory bubbled up as he watched another in the seemingly endless parade of Crime Seen! spots that rolled across the small faded screen.

August, six years ago. A house, bigger than his own, sat on a hill in Iowa, off Highway 30, back in the sticks between Ames and Nevada, the owner a retired Story County sheriff, living there with his wife and son. The home had belonged to J.C. Harrow, the man he had made a star — devil his due, Harrow had saved the President’s life in a crazy coincidence that had, weirdly, served both the Messenger and his future nemesis.

Harrow’s fame had been an unseen outcome of that particular message. You couldn’t always know the ways in which your actions might impact the world. Making presidential hero Harrow a major celebrity, by having his family murdered the same day, had been one such instance.

As he checked the load in his revolver, and his backup in his speed-loader, he frowned, mildly surprised that — despite how many messages he’d delivered — each one remained distinct in his mind.

He took no pleasure in reliving these events, but he owed it to those who conveyed his messages for him not to forget their sacrifice. Without them, he would be nothing; without them, no point could be made.

The key, he knew, was that each delivery was cataloged in his mind by the gun he’d used. That was why, at the beginning, he had not needed to take souvenirs to help him remember and keep straight the calls he made. He was not, after all, some FedEx man with a computer to keep track.

But with each specific gun, he could look at it and remember each message just as he had delivered it, despite a certain sameness that had quickly crept in. That house in Iowa wasn’t so much different from the one he would visit tonight in New Mexico.

Both were two-story family homes, away from town, the Iowa one on a hill, this one down in a valley. The houses, except for their age (Iowa being older), were very similar, as were the families inside. Though retired Sheriff Harrow had only the one child, this family had two. And like Harrow, this man — George Reid — was a civil servant, the lead accountant for Socorro County.

And the Messenger knew all too well how much trouble accountants could cause.

Even now, the .357 pressing against his side as he drove to deliver the Socorro message, he could feel the similarities between the two messages weaving within him, a reflection on a past delivery and a briefing for the upcoming one.

In Iowa, he parked one road north of his target, and left the nondescript Chevy sitting by the side of the road as he took off cross-country, making his way through the neighbor’s cornfield that stood between him and the back of Harrow’s house.

In New Mexico, he killed the headlights and turned into the Reids’ long driveway, coasted out of view from the road, killed the engine, climbed out of the car.

The Iowa breeze was warm, the sun bright, as the Messenger made his way through corn taller than him, careful to guard his face and hands from the slash of stalks, the air smelling like a summer Sunday from back when life was good.

Tonight the breeze in the Rio Grande Valley was cool, blowing gently from the Cibola National Forest to the west, hinting of a late-season forest fire. Darkness had settled in, but a bright moon and a million stars made it easy to navigate the gravel drive.

When he got to the edge of the cornfield, he’d peeked out at the back of the house — shut up tight, air conditioner humming. No other sounds, movement. He expected a barking dog, a passing car, something, anything; but nothing — nothing but the steady beat of his own heart.

The drive here was lined with Mexican pinyon trees, providing plenty of cover as he made his way. The night was a calming cloak, the lights of the house visible through the trees.