That's How I Roll: A Novel Read online

  I wrote him a letter—he didn’t come across as a man who had a secretary to open his mail for him, especially a handwritten letter with a jail for a return address.

  nd I was right. Mr. Trey came all the way from California to talk to me. He tried to tell me about journalism ethics, protecting sources, stuff like that. I told him none of that meant anything to me—I’d asked him to come and visit with me because I had to find a reporter with a national audience who was also a reporter I could trust.

  “What could I possibly give you but my word?” he asked me.

  “A man’s no better than his word,” I told him. “I have to make a big bet. The biggest bet a man can make. I asked you to come here so I could make that decision.”

  He looked at me for a long time. Then he said, “You’ve done this before.”

  “Done what before?”

  “Read people. Looked for dishonesty tells. Took the measure of another person by more than just his words.”

  I just nodded. He was the man I wanted, all right. I told him my plan.

  gave Mr. Trey the whole story. And it was a story—the exact same one I was going to tell on TV, in court, and anyplace else where I got asked.

  Our agreement was that he’d run the story in what he called the “bulldog edition” of his newspaper. The show would air from nine to eleven at night—the bulldog would go out at midnight, in print and on the Web.

  I guaranteed Mr. Trey he’d be the only print reporter I’d ever talk to. And he guaranteed me that no editor was going to touch what he wrote. So, if the TV people played it loose with their editing, they’d look like fools. And liars.

  Mr. Trey and I shook on that. There isn’t any more that could have been done, although he offered to put everything in writing.

  “What would I do with a contract between men like us?” I told him. “For me, my word is a contract. Otherwise, I couldn’t have done a lot of things I’m going to tell you about. I’m taking your word the same as mine was taken.”

  he next day, I told the TV people I’d let them bring their cameras in. They could ask me any questions they wanted, except for what I told them in advance was off-limits. I’d made sure they put that in the contract we all signed. Taking their word would put them in a class where they didn’t belong.

  I already knew I wouldn’t have to answer the questions that frightened me to even think about—it would never occur to people like them to ask such questions. And the contract said they couldn’t “go beyond the scope” of my crimes. No backstory, no digging into my life. I was a little concerned they’d balk at that part, but it didn’t seem to bother them one bit.

  “It’s actually a better story this way,” one of the TV big shots said to some of the others. He was talking about me like I wasn’t in the room, but I wasn’t insulted. The more invisible I could be, the more they’d say in front of me.

  “Our audience is going to hear the story of a hired killer,” the big shot said. “A detailed account of every murder. It’s going to chill people’s blood. You want to know why? Because we’re not showing them some filthy, slobbering psycho; Esau looks like a college professor. That’s the best part. Esau killed a lot of people because he got paid to do it. There’s nothing more to the story. How scary is that?

  “Serial killers, by now they’re … they’re almost boring. But what we’ve got is something truly unique—a pure predator. Not someone who kills because he’s sick; someone who kills to feed his family. Every crime he talks about, the facts are right there for anyone to check. And the bodies are always going to be right where he says they are.

  “See the beauty of it? If the competition wants to speculate on how Esau came to be what he is, that’s fine with us. In fact, it’s better than fine. Every time they interview some expert, every time they ‘investigate’ Esau’s real motivation, they’re promoting our product. I’ll bet we sell more DVDs of this show than of all the rest we ever did, combined. It’s going to be in criminology classes. Libraries. Cited in textbooks.

  “You can’t buy that kind of credibility. It’s not only going to enhance our network image, win us all kinds of awards—it could turn out to have the longest legs ever.”

  You could see it on their faces. Even smell it coming off them like a thick, rolling fog of musk. To the other people in that room, what that big shot was saying was more important than oxygen.

  With that in hand, I went on to Step Ten.

  f everybody keeps up their end of the deal, I’ll die alone. Alone and silent, the way I’m supposed to.

  To the newspapers, I’ll be the worst murderer in the whole history of this state.

  I guess they should say that. I will have saved Tory-boy by telling the truth. A kind of truth, anyway. The kind of truth the Law feeds on. Once I learned how deep the Feds had their people planted in so many places, I had only one choice if I wanted to keep Tory-boy safe past my time.

  The way I explained it was: I’d give all the politicians the truth-plus, if they’d agree to let it also be the truth-minus.

  At first, there were some little disputes about who was going to have to kill me. I balanced it out for them: I told the Feds I could get the State to agree to push the buttons to send the poison through the IVs into what was left of my body.

  I just came right on out with it: I’d clean up any unsolved murders on the State’s books. If they’d allow me to come home to die, I’d use the mouth of one devil to make a lot of heroes.

  And if the Feds had any other undercovers close by who’d met with death, I’d take those on myself, too.

  What politician would turn down an offer like that?

  And what lawman ever got to tell a politician what to do?

  kept my bargain. I confessed to every unsolved killing on the State books. Every killing I could have done, that is. Nobody was going to believe I raped a woman or kidnapped a child, or beat a man to death with a tire iron. The real truth is, I didn’t want my name associated with such things, so I was deeply grateful when the Law agreed—they didn’t want any taint on the big piece of paper they were going to roll out for the whole world to see.

  When you took those kind of crimes out of the mix, you left a bunch of contract kills. The Law actually knew who did some of those—or ordered them, anyway—but they couldn’t hope to prove it. And it turned out that the Feds had people planted all over the place. So, when I confessed to those crimes, I made everybody happy.

  I had to walk that last bit of the line with great care. Confessing to a crime you didn’t commit is tricky, because you don’t know the little details—things only the killer would know.

  Like that little red ribbon tied to a branch of the white-oak tree where a hunter had waited for hours before he put a 30.06 round through the head of a man named Luther Semple.

  The Law had to know who shot him. Luther Semple had raped a little girl, but she couldn’t identify him. She wasn’t even the first little girl he had taken that way: throwing a feedbag over her head from behind before he went to work.

  The cops were in a bad position. Everyone in that little town probably thought they knew who had fired the shot, and the little girl’s father never denied it—just told the cops he wanted a lawyer and wouldn’t speak to them at all.

  The local prosecutor wouldn’t touch the case. If he had, people would have looked at him as if he was the defense attorney for the rapist.

  Still, nobody likes an unsolved murder. I don’t mean “nobody” the way you’d talk about actual people; I mean “nobody” the same as the statistics the government keeps on everything. So, when I admitted that I’d killed that man, everybody was pleased. Me knowing about that piece of red ribbon, that was the clincher—even skeptical folks would have to admit that only the actual killer could have known that; it had never been made public.

  But it wasn’t all as easy as I’m making it sound. The way it worked was that the Feds would take all my confessions, then they’d call in the Law from whatever area the diffe
rent crimes had happened in.

  When those cops showed up, they’d be smart enough to get certain details out of me, so I could tell a straight story … but that’s as far as they went. I damn near ended up telling them they were being stupid. Knowing a few facts just wouldn’t be enough. The story had to ring true. How was a man in a wheelchair supposed to get into the deep woods? And why would I give a damn about somebody’s little girl getting raped when I didn’t even know them?

  It reminded me of when I gave the Beast a story to tell the cops. I didn’t just give him a version that sounded good, or that he wanted to be true. No, I planted it so deep in his mind that it even felt real.

  So what I told those cops was this: I’ve got a rifle I built myself. The wheelchair is a natural brace to hold me steady, especially with its entire back made out of three-quarter-inch steel, and I could assemble the tripod by myself by just touching a push button. Any little flicker of doubt they might have had, I erased by telling them where they could find the whole apparatus. I hadn’t even told the Feds that part. I could see in the eyes of the state cops how much they appreciated that.

  I also told them that I was a dead shot—I could take a man at a hundred yards as easy as if he was sitting across from me. They didn’t doubt that part.

  I already knew that Luther Semple had been killed at a bit more than that distance. He was just sitting on his front porch, having a smoke, like he was pondering some big problem. He was tilted back, relaxing in his big chair, when his head exploded.

  I knew more about that particular killing than anyone could imagine. I almost laughed out loud, confessing the truth to cops who were sure I was lying.

  I wasn’t lying. In fact, I had details they didn’t have … but not the kind I’d ever speak of. The rifle I’d built was double-barreled with the scope mounted between them, chambered for .220 Swift. I hand-load all my ammunition, and that includes casting the slugs. If one of my home-built slugs hits you anywhere, you’re not going to live long enough to get to a hospital.

  There’s almost no recoil, but that wasn’t why I picked that cartridge—my legs are worthless, but my shoulders are like a pro linebacker’s. The reason Luther Semple’s head had exploded was the micro-warhead I had cast into the heart of the first slug.

  My second shot was a hardball I always used as a make-sure. But the exit wound from the first was so big that the second slug went right on through, all the way into the woods behind his house. It was never found.

  And it never would be. I don’t know what it cost, but the man who’d hired me not only had that slug cut out of a tree, the same tree had been gas-fired right afterwards. I know who got that done, because the intact slug was turned over to me. That was how the man who’d hired me proved he was never going to betray me—he dropped the proof right into my hand.

  He never did explain why he wanted that man dead, and I never asked.

  The police report said Luther Semple had been ambushed by someone using a 30.06. That was an estimate, of course—the coroner’s jury was told the slug was never recovered.

  When the prosecutor from that little town drove down, he wanted to interview me, too. All he really wanted to know was why I’d killed that man. I told him it was over a gambling debt. Three thousand dollars.

  It’s common knowledge that there are poker parlors around here, and the man who hired me had a dozen people ready to swear they’d been present when I won all Luther Semple’s money. They particularly remembered that time because I’d been such a gentleman, taking his marker when he wanted to keep on playing. That’s the kind of thing you just don’t see much anymore.

  So the man owed me money, and he wouldn’t pay. Even laughed in my face: what was I going to do about it, chase him down in my wheelchair? Plenty of witnesses heard him say that, too.

  Since I’d already confessed to quite a number of other killings, that story worked for everyone.

  Everybody knew: Esau Till, he was one seriously vengeful man. If he’d take your life just for looking at him wrong, think of what he’d do if you did him wrong.

  y court confessions were part of a deal—a patchwork quilt, big and warm enough to cover everyone who needed to climb under it. But I made sure to weave a pull-thread into that quilt. I put that part in about shooting Luther Semple because I did plead guilty to it, and anyone reading this needs to be able to separate which crimes I actually did from those I confessed to. So, if you’re reading this, and you wonder why a contract killer would do such a thing, you’ll know that confession was a real one.

  There’s nothing noble about any of this—what I’m writing now, I mean. I didn’t write a word until I was sure that nothing I might put down could hurt the only people I ever cared about. You’ll know who those people are soon enough.

  But I do want vengeance. And I don’t want anyone to think otherwise. Whether you speak a promise or a threat, it’s still giving your word. And I never broke mine.

  tep Eleven was nearly the last. When I finally got enough to make a real big pot, I anted it up, every dime. When I slapped it down on the felt, it wasn’t to show off—it was to tell them to cut it right down the middle. All of it. I wasn’t there when that was done, but the boss of each outfit was.

  It was a ton of money, but it came with one condition attached: if either of them spent so much as a dime on anything but what we’d agreed on, then the other side would get my records.

  Those records weren’t going to send anyone to prison, but they would give the outfit that got them a big edge over the other one. Maybe even big enough to take over their territory.

  That would be fine with me. If only one outfit failed me, I wanted the other one to be stronger, the better to keep Tory-boy safe. It didn’t matter to me which outfit did whatever had to be done.

  And if they both failed, if they both cheated me, I couldn’t do anything about it. Except get even with them, and they knew I would do that.

  Some people are born under misfortune, some travel a good distance to get there.

  I was giving each boss a chance to choose his own fate. Not many get that opportunity.

  They knew if the Law ever saw my records the State would have to build a whole new Death House—the one I’m in now is just about full up.

  But which Law am I talking about? When I first came up with this idea to keep protection on Tory-boy, I wasn’t sure which agency should get my records if word wasn’t kept. But when I saw how just saying “RICO” got the FBI people so excited, that’s when I knew.

  There’s a fairness to picking the FBI as well. If it hadn’t been for them, I never would have been caught.

  If they do get this, how they use it, that’s up to them. I know they can’t just show it to a judge to get a bunch of warrants. They do that and later on some slick defense lawyer is going to get to look at all of it.

  And if that were to happen, dozens of closed cases would suddenly get unclosed. Cold cases the FBI claimed it had solved would turn into even colder ones. Promotions would get rescinded. Reputations would get unmade. And every agent who reached a higher post from all that stuff I confessed to would turn into a leper overnight.

  That’s why there’s a copy. Of everything. And other hands are already holding it. I don’t give a damn for anyone on the government’s side of the line. No matter what they call themselves, they’re still the government. And it was the government—every lousy part of it—that looked away from things that shouldn’t have happened at all. Not to me, not to anyone.

  So, even if the FBI does end up with my records, I know what they’ll do with it. Same thing the government did with me. And my brother. And our sister, Rory-Anne—our mother. They’ll razor out the parts they don’t want known, and pay somebody to take care of the rest.

  If that happens, the world will learn I was ready for it.

  I don’t know who’ll be passing final judgment on any of the people in my story—I guess that depends on whether anyone ever gets to read this. “Final judg
ment” in a court, I mean. I don’t know if there’s a Heaven or a Hell or any of that.

  I guess I’ll find out, soon enough.

  Or maybe I already have.

  ou’ll see Step Twelve by the time you get to the end of this. Then you’ll know that my “last word” wasn’t the kind you put in a will. It was a threat. And you’ll see I made good on it.

  The back door I built years ago would always stay in place. If either boss failed to watch out for Tory-boy like each had sworn he would, I’d expect the other one to take over the job himself, even if that meant doing work in the other man’s territory.

  That’s because it wouldn’t be the other man’s territory, not anymore. With the package the other one would be getting, he’d be taking over the whole town. Inside, he’d find all the other boss’s contacts, from cops to politicians to the judges they put on the bench. All the murders, bought and paid for. All the inside businesses, from taverns to gambling joints to whorehouses. All the street businesses, from drugs to numbers. Where they got their guns, and where they kept their arsenals.

  With that knowledge, nobody would be able to stop the man who held it. Not anyone from around here, and not anyone who tried to move in.

  Two separate packages, one for each boss. That way, only the boss who broke his word would be at risk. And the other one wouldn’t need to know anything about me or my life to do the job I left to him.

  I believed that that boss, whoever he might turn out to be, would do exactly what was promised. He’d have to know there was another package, one I could still have delivered.

  ut you’d have to be from around here to understand that there was something far more potent than any poison cloud of information hovering over the people I had worked for.

  Folks around here know death isn’t always the end of the story. Some people come back. Good people, bad people—that piece of it doesn’t seem to matter.