Christa Faust: Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

“It’s a theory,” Allan continued, ignoring the digression. “A kind of paradox. It posits that if you were to put a cat in a box containing an automated mechanism that had a fifty-fifty chance of releasing a poison and killing it, the cat would be simultaneously alive and dead inside the box until you open it and observe the outcome. At that point, your perception would lock it down into one state or the other, but until that solidifying moment of observation, the cat would exist in two universes at once.”

“Jeez, that’s terrible,” the cabbie said. “Who would do something like that to a poor little cat?”

“Don’t you see?” Allan said, looking out the window at the passing houses. Nice, upscale houses, lights on to chase away the night. “I’m like that paradoxical cat. A creature of two worlds, alive and dead at the same time.”

“Whatever you say, mister.”

Allan could see that the cabbie was becoming uncomfortable with their conversation. His shoulders hunched down, eyes locked on the road. Allan was about to try another, more mundane conversational gambit when he realized that they were arriving at their destination.

“Just a little farther down,” he told the driver. “There, at the corner of Cherry.”

“You got it.”

The cabbie pulled over.

“Do me a favor, would you?” Allan said, gripping the gun a little too tightly. “Put the car in park.”

“Sure.” The cabbie shrugged and did what was asked. “But what for?”

Pressing the barrel close, Allan shot the cabbie in the back of the head.

He pocketed the gun and got out of the back of the vehicle, casting a quick glance around him. The quiet, classy street was deserted. Only just before 10 p.m. and all the little human animals were already tucked into their upscale beds. Allan felt fine. Calm and warm inside, as if he’d just taken a slug of good whiskey.

He swiftly pulled the front passenger side door open and got in. He dragged the lifeless cabbie across the seat by his bloody shirtfront until the corpse slumped across his lap. He took the man’s wallet and keys and then, using a small folding utility knife, he cut a large square of fabric out of the back of the cabbie’s striped shirt.

Then, as he was holding that blood-stained trophy in his gloved hand, it started to happen.

The hot, unbearable itch in his hands, burning between his fingers. Like insects crawling under his skin.

Maddened by the sensation, he dropped the swatch, stripped the smoking gloves off his hands and threw them away, into the back seat, sure they were about to burst into flame. Once his hands were bare, he saw to his horror that the sparks were back. Just like that terrible night back in New York.

Just like every time since then. No matter how he tried to deny it. But this time it was more intense than ever.

He made himself breathe deeply, struggling to remain calm. Nothing was on fire. Nothing was hot or burnt. He would be able to control it this time. With each breath, the terrible sparks faded, their strange energy dissipating until they were gone.

He reached down and plucked his trophy off the floor of the cab, tucking the bloody fabric into his jacket pocket. He was about to push the dead cabbie back over to the driver’s side and exit the cab, and he actually had his right hand on the door when he suddenly realized the implication of having taken off his gloves.

Fingerprints. He’d left fingerprints.

It was too late just to get the gloves out of the back seat and put them back on. It’d be like closing the barn door after the horses were out, anyway. No, the only option was to wipe down the surfaces of the cab as best he could.

He took out his handkerchief and wiped down the dashboard, the seat, and the interior of the door. Then he got out and wiped first the outside of the passenger door and then the driver’s door. He was fairly certain he hadn’t touched the driver’s door, but he couldn’t be too careful.

He heard sirens in the distance. Growing closer.

Time to go.

He walked away, heading north on Cherry Street. When he made a right on Jackson, he spotted a police prowler driving slowly toward him.

His heart stopped, then revved like a race car. His throat constricted, suddenly dry and parched. The sparks flared in his hands, and he shoved them deep into the pockets of his slouchy blue jacket, terrified that the pigs would see the glow.

One of them turned toward him, looking right at him. Allan wrapped his fingers around his pistol. There was no way he was going to surrender without a fight.

The cop turned away, and the prowler continued down Jackson without slowing.

He felt a surge of elation so powerful it was almost sexual. He’d beaten them again. He imagined the young pig being forced to explain that he’d seen the legendary Zodiac Killer in the flesh, but hadn’t bothered to stop him. A small, private smile played over his lips as he turned on Maple and headed north, into the Presidio.

PART TWO

1

SEPTEMBER 20, 1974

Walter stood alone beside a small, cheaply produced poster for the paper he and Bell had just presented— Use of Fluorescent Probes to Investigate Hepatic Microsomal ‘Drug’-Binding Sites.

The paper had been very well received, although he couldn’t help but notice that more than half the audience was female. Striking odds when contrasted against the fact that the attendance for the annual conference of the American Biochemical Society tended to be more than 75 percent male.

But Walter was an enthusiastic supporter of women’s lib and was pleased to see so many vigorous and inquisitive female minds seeking to embrace and decode the intricacies of the natural world. He stood by, ready, willing and able to discuss the finer details of sigmoidal reaction velocity with any one of these eager young scholars.

Yet for some reason, they all ignored him and clustered around Bell.

Maybe Bell was right about Walter’s jacket. He had only one jacket, which he had worn every day for ten years. It had originally belonged to his father, a tweed Norfolk that had a few moth holes and was a little frayed around the cuffs, but was still perfectly serviceable. It had deep pockets that could hold up to a dozen rolls of Necco wafers, as well as his notebook and several spare pens. He seemed to lose pens like a shark loses teeth.

Yet Bell had repeatedly threatened to throw that jacket away or set it on fire while Walter was sleeping. He had even gone so far as to buy his friend a new jacket, a snazzy plaid double-knit sport coat like the ones that Bell favored, but the pockets on the outside were fake, sewn shut and just for show, and the one inner pocket could barely hold two rolls of Necco wafers and a single pen. So that jacket stayed in his closet back at MIT, and Walter had worn the Norfolk jacket again to U. C. Berkeley, just like last year.

And none of the women wanted to talk to him, just like last year.

Bell, on the other hand, was holding court in the center of a crowd of enraptured females. Bell, with his sharp sport coat and rust-colored turtleneck and charming smile. The scientist in Walter liked to believe that he could replicate the results by duplicating the methods, but in his heart he knew there was something about Bell that couldn’t be duplicated.

Off to the left, he noticed an older, slightly mannish woman and her chubby friend deep in conversation. They were the only two females who seemed unaffected by Bell’s charisma, and Walter found himself eavesdropping on them.

“Can you believe he’s back?” the older one was saying, pointing to an article in a folded newspaper. “I swear I was just starting to feel safe at night.”