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  A few times over the course of the afternoon the phone in the kitchen rang, but Leon did not answer it. A couple of messages were left on the answering machine. They were both from a dour sounding woman named Nancy. She did not sound too friendly, but neither did Cheryl, normally. Leon learned that it was a sort of ruse, a disguise she’d masterfully maintained. The real Cheryl was a wholly different person altogether, underneath it all. It went to show how one really couldn’t know people, not in any deep, interconnected kind of way. There were too many layers, too many masks. And then everyone had their own masks to worry about, which only added more and more layers to separate everyone. Seven billion people stinking up the planet and every damn one of them as alone as if they were the last living person on earth. Leon curled his lip into a snarl at the thought.

  He could not read people’s minds or truly get inside of them, but what he could do certainly opened them up in new and unexpected ways. Cheryl must have buried herself ages ago, Leon figured, a living sepulcher made of career and family and notions of what a woman in her position ought to be like. As far as Leon knew, no one around the office much liked her. They thought her cold and detached, as likely to shit-can someone as say good morning to them. He realized now that none of them had the slightest clue as to who she was. It was all he had—the slightest clue—but it was enough that he was beginning to think he’d done her a spectacular favor. Yes, she was dead now, but she’d been dead all along. Saint Leon had given her one final shot at living again.

  Leon went into the kitchen to search for something to eat, settling eventually on the sliced salami he found in the well-stocked refrigerator. Taking the entire package with him, he stuffed a thin circle of peppered meat into his mouth as he made his way around the house on an investigative mission. He took in the museum-like dining room, the laundry room and a hidden enclosure at the back of the house that contained a whirlpool spa surrounded by potted greenery. On the second floor he looked through the master bedroom, a guest room across the hall from Andy’s messy quarters, and a surprise at the far end of the hall: a girl’s bedroom. Everything was pink and purple, spotless, strangely un-lived-in. Away at college? Leon wondered.

  He jammed another slice of salami in his mouth and pulled open one of the drawers in the dresser. It was empty and smelled of mothballs. From downstairs he heard a door slam shut. He almost choked on the salami.

  “Hello?” Andy called out.

  Then, a piercing scream.

  Leon said, “Oh, no.”

  He raced across the hall and down the steps to the living room to find Andy on his knees beside the cool, naked remains of his dead mother. Tears streamed down the boy’s red face. His hands trembled, levitating over the body. Andy worked his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Andy,” Leon said, slowly approaching.

  “She’s dead,” Andy whispered, as though he was afraid someone might hear him. “My mom’s dead.”

  “Andy, look at me.”

  “Oh, God,” Andy muttered. “Oh, my God.”

  “I need you to look at me, Andy.”

  Andy whipped around and rose up to face Leon, quivering rage in his shiny, wet eyes.

  “What did you do?” he shrieked, his bloodless fists curled tightly at his sides. “What did you do to my mom?”

  “She fell. She just fell, that’s all.”

  “You killed her!” Andy shouted.

  “Andy—”

  “You…you goddamn bastard, you killed her!”

  “Andy, shut up.”

  Andy froze, silenced. He squashed his brow into a tight knit and let his mouth hang open. He looked like he’d been hit with a stun gun.

  Leon exhaled a sigh of relief.

  “Good,” he said. “Now let’s get down to business.”

  * * *

  While the nozzle pumped fuel into his tank, Ron ducked into the filthy men’s room at the service station to wash his hands and face. He smelled strongly of cheap perfume, even through the reek of cigarette smoke, and wanted to get as much of it off as he could. Ron knew there would be no questions one way or the other, but he did not want to invite any off chance histrionics on Cheryl’s part. He was in no mood for a fight.

  Thereafter he paid for the gas and bought a bag of hot peanuts to munch on his way home. It was not far, now. He was only a few miles away.

  Ron parked his Volvo next to his wife’s LeBaron, got out of the car and took a moment to breathe the warm, damp air outside. He could hear a lawnmower growling in the far distance and children screeching somewhere down the street. He could also hear an unusual ruckus emanating from his own backyard—crunching and huffing, punctuated by the occasional cough. Curious, Ron walked around the side of the house to investigate.

  Over the chest-high fence that bordered the backyard, Ron saw his son leaning on the handle of a shovel in the corner beside the tool shed. He was shirtless and wiping the sweat from his face on the back of his arm. Ron opened the gate and began crossing the yard as Andy took up the shovel and stabbed the ground with it. He was about to hail the boy when he saw the mound of earth beside the pit Andy was working toward excavating. There was no telling how long he’d been at it, but the hole was already a good two feet deep and four feet wide—a sizable chunk of ruined landscaping.

  “For Christ’s sake, Andy,” Ron complained. “Look what you’ve done to the yard.”

  In lieu of responding to his father’s charge, Andy kept on digging as though Ron was not even there.

  “Andy, I’m talking to you,” Ron said, sterner now.

  Still, Andy dug.

  Ron stomped over the lush grass to the pit and seized the boy by the shoulders. He was stunned when he saw Andy’s glassy eyes and distant gaze.

  “Andy?”

  “I’ve gotta dig,” Andy mumbled.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve gotta dig.”

  Ron’s arms dropped away from Andy, who immediately resumed digging. He cut off a large clod of soil and roots and lobbed it onto the growing pile.

  Ron stared. Drugs, he thought. No other explanation. He’s high as a kite.

  So where the hell was Cheryl?

  Dad’s off with some twenty-year-old whore and Mom’s god-knows-where, and Ron wondered why Andy wasn’t doing drugs earlier yet. The stage was set and he’d helped to build it. Good job, asshole, he inwardly chastised himself. Way to be an exemplary role model.

  He wondered if this was the sort of family life that sent Susie astray. Daughters were harder. But he didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

  Ron pressed his lips into a tight grimace and headed toward the house. He gave a startled yip when the sliding glass door slid open to reveal a complete stranger coming out of his house. Ron staggered back a few steps and looked the stranger over. He was short and gaunt, his hair a white-blonde shock and his skin deathly pale, stretched tight over his face. He was wearing Andy’s clothes.

  He grinned.

  “What the hell is this?” Ron boomed angrily.

  “Oh, hi Ron,” the stranger said musically. “I’m glad you’re home.”

  * * *

  With Ron’s help, the hole was dug in no time at all. Leon had them wait until dusk before carrying the body out and burying it, which they did with quiet precision. Ron even sprinkled the upturned earth with grass seed from the shed. Andy cleaned up the destroyed fragments of the coffee table and disposed of them in the garage. It all went quite smoothly, and Leon was pleased.

  In the evening he asked the surviving Minchillos if either of them could cook well, and Ron answered that he could. Leon charged him with that duty and ordered breakfast for supper; eggs, bacon and fresh fruit. It seemed delightfully whimsical to him, the sort of topsy-turvy spontaneity he’d never indulged before. He recognized now that he was a man who could do virtually whatever he wanted. Breakfast for supper was a good step in that direction.

  As they ate, Leon broached the subject of the room at the end of the hall.

 
; “Where’s the girl?” he asked.

  “The girl?” Ron asked, his mouth full of scrambled eggs. He looked like a confused dog.

  “You have a daughter, I guess. Where is she?”

  “Jackie,” Andy said.

  “Yes,” Ron agreed. “Jackie.”

  “Jackie’s dead,” Andy said without emotion.

  “Jackie killed herself,” Ron elaborated.

  Leon said, “Oh.”

  That settled that. The whole family was here, then. There was no one else to worry about—apart from the two under his control, everyone else was in the ground. Leon was relieved.

  He was also interested about the story behind Jackie’s apparent suicide, but Ron and Andy were far too muddled to handle such complexities. Andy had stopped eating halfway through the meal and then only sat and gently rocked from side to side. Ron cleaned his plate, but continued to stab at it with his fork as though there was still some invisible morsel left to consume. Under Leon’s mysterious influence, everyone tended to end up a bit stupid. He watched his hosts and wondered why.

  If he had been slow to acknowledge the possibly deleterious effect he had on his charges’ mental capacity, it was only because the preponderance of them thus far weren’t so bright from the start. Dane Honeycutt, Trey and his own father were far from the finest intellects Leon ever encountered. If they seemed dim while in his thrall, the difference was negligible. As for the woman he took to the burned out school, Leon hadn’t known her from Eve. He could not judge her mind under normal circumstances in contrast with the state he put her in. At the end of the day, Cheryl was the first reasonably intelligent person he’d controlled, but hadn’t she merely reverted to a truer version of herself?

  Of Ron and Andy, he could not say.

  All Leon knew is that when he exercised control over others, the pain went away. And that was reason enough to keep doing it.

  “Whuh—where—where’s my mommy?”

  Leon frowned and looked back to Andy, who now sat with his legs splayed out like a toddler. His face was baggy, his eyes sunken and moving around in their sockets. Leon tried to ignore the boy, but he continued:

  “What are you doing to us?” he asked with a hint of sadness.

  “Nothing,” Leon barked. “Go to sleep.”

  Andy lay down on the floor, closed his eyes and that was it. Amazing, Leon thought. All my life and never once did I use this. I could’ve had everything.

  “Everything,” he said aloud.

  Ron perked up a little and said, “Jackie’s dead?”

  “Yeah, Ron,” Leon said, annoyed by the interruption. “That’s what you told me.”

  Ron began to cry. Leon rolled his eyes and tramped up the steps to the master bedroom. He shut the door, climbed onto the bed and waited until he fell asleep.

  16

  “Hello?”

  “Ami—it’s Leon.”

  “Leon? What time is it?”

  “I dunno. Listen, are you busy today?”

  “Is it still dark outside?”

  “Because I really want to show you something.”

  “Show me some—Leon, it’s six in the morning.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. But I really want to show you this.”

  “Show me what? Where have you been? I’ve been sort of worried, you know…”

  “Can you be ready in an hour? I’ll swing by and pick you up.”

  “I—well, I suppose I can…”

  “Great. That’s great, Ami. I’ll see you then.”

  The line clicked and went dead. Ami fumbled to return the phone to the cradle in the dark, missing twice before making it. She was so foggy with sleep that it never occurred to her how Leon knew either her number or where she lived.

  * * *

  “Point someone out,” Leon said giddily.

  Ami regarded him incredulously. She failed to understand where this was going.

  “What?”

  “Anyone,” Leon said. “Anyone at all. Just pick at random.”

  He had driven her from her apartment complex to the city center in a Chrysler LeBaron she’d never seen before, though she assumed it belonged to his father. He found a spot on the street to park, fed the meter, and practically dragged her up Sullivan Street to the most populous area he could find. The restaurants were serving breakfast and every sidewalk table was crowded with people eating, talking, laughing. Elsewhere people walked their dogs or pushed strollers or just held hands. Few of the shops were open yet, but it was a gorgeous morning and it looked as though half the town had turned out to enjoy it.

  “I don’t get it, Leon. I need to know the rules of the game before I play it.”

  “Haven’t you ever seen a magic show? It’s like, you know, pick a card. Something like that.”

  “Except you want me to pick a person.”

  “Right.”

  “And then what?”

  Leon flashed a toothy smile.

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  Ami glanced off, into the crowd, and exhaled noisily.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

  “That’s because you won’t tell me.”

  “Do you always read the last page of a book, too?”

  Ami shook her head and smirked. She watched a shopkeeper open the blinds on a bookstore across the street and flip the sign on the door from closed to open.

  “They’re opening early,” she commented.

  “Come on, Ami…”

  “Let’s go in that bookstore.”

  “So you’re picking that guy? The bookstore guy?”

  “Sure, Leon,” Ami said. “The bookstore guy.”

  She started across the street, pausing for a VW Bus and then jogging to the other side. Leon followed in her wake and met up with her in front of the store. The shingle flouncing gently in the breeze over the door announced the place as in the reads. A handwritten sign in the window said, grand re-opening.

  “Okay, so what do you want him to do?”

  “Who?”

  “That guy in there. The bookstore guy. If you could make him do anything, what would it be?”

  “Leon…”

  “No, seriously. Tell me.”

  “I can’t help but feel like you’re making fun of me. I don’t get it, but I think I’m the butt of some stupid joke right now.”

  “I promise you that’s not true.”

  “Then what, Leon? What’s the point?”

  Leon’s smile began to melt. He looked through the glass door to the man in the store. He was an older guy, around fifty, with short-cropped gray hair and a beard to match.

  “All right,” Leon said, still considering the shopkeeper. “I’ll do it.”

  He pulled open the door, triggering the little brass bell overhead.

  Ami said, “Jesus—do what?”

  She followed him into the store and let the door swing shut behind her. The bearded man smiled at them as he adjusted his eyeglasses.

  “First customers of the day,” he said happily. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Ami said.

  Leon walked away without a word, toward a rack of books on an endcap, and he grabbed the first book on the top row—a mass market paperback with a half naked couple painted on the cover. This he carried back to where the shopkeeper stood, sorting through a box full of hardbacks. Ami was a few feet away, tucking into the bargain bin.

  “Excuse me,” Leon said to the older man.

  “Yes, sir…”

  Leon thrust the paperback at him and said, “Eat it.”

  Ami gasped. “Leon!”

  The shopkeeper, conversely, did not hesitate. He took the book from Leon, tore a clump of pages out of the front and shoved them into his mouth. As he chewed, his eyes clouded to a dull blue and he glared blindly ahead. Leon leaned back and let loose a heavy chuckle.

  “Look, Ami—look! Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I?”

  “Shit,
Leon,” Ami muttered as she scampered to the shopkeeper. “Sir, sir, what are you doing?”

  “He’s eating the book! I told him to eat it, so that’s what he’s doing.”

  The bearded man shifted his jaw from side to side, working up a mouthful of saliva to help soften the inky pages in his mouth. Ami reached for the book and attempted to snatch it out of his hands, but he jerked away and uttered a low growl. Ami winced. He was like a feral dog, paranoid that everything wanted to take his food away.

  And Leon was still laughing.

  “Make him stop,” Ami said, trembling as she watched the man rip more pages from the binding. “Leon, make him stop.”

  “I told you to come up with something. You could have made him sing Yankee Doodle Dandy for all I care. This is what I came up with.”

  “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point—now make him stop.”

  Leon lowered his eyelids and grunted.

  “You don’t get it,” he announced with disappointment.

  The shopkeeper swallowed, a herculean task to get it all down. He then tucked into another chapter.

  “I get it. I totally get it. But you’ve got to stop this.”

  Ami was growing frantic, afraid. Leon shook his head and smiled.

  “Come on,” he said, grasping her by the wrist.

  “What are you—”

  Her voice was cut short as Leon yanked her arm and dragged her through the door to the outside. The little bell over the door jangled. The shopkeeper remained where he stood, devouring the book page by page.

  Leon released Ami’s wrist and said, “Watch this.”

  Approaching them on the sidewalk was a young woman with a black lab on a leash. Leon signaled her and she looked at his face with a questioning smile. He pointed to a man with his hands stuffed in his pockets, staring at the ground as he drew near.