Jack & Jill

sensed that something was wrong with him now.
    He didn’t feel good, and he was getting sad—kind of depressed as hell, actually. The machine was breaking down. The doctors couldn’t figure whether he was a bipolar disorder or conduct disorder. If they couldn’t, how the hell was he supposed to? So what if he was a little impulsive, had huge mood swings, was a social misfit? The fuse was lit. He was ready to blow. Like, who cared?
    He had stopped his dosages of Depakote. Just say no, right? He was humming the “Mmm mm mm” song over and over. Crash Test Dummies. Sad, angry music that just wouldn’t stop playing in his head like MTV Muzak.
    His “mad button” seemed to be stuck—
permanently.
    He was mad at Jack and Jill. Real mad at Alex Cross. Mad at the principal of the Truth School. Mad at just about everybody on the planet. He was even mad at himself now. He was such a goddamn screwup. Always had been, always would be.
    I’m a loser, baby.
    So why don’t you kill me?
    He snapped back to semireality when a black fucker wearing a blue pinstriped shirt, suit trousers, and mellow-yellow suspenders answered the door. Hey, welcome to the Cyburbs!
    At first, Danny Boudreaux didn’t understand who the hell the round-faced black dude was. He’d been expecting the big-deal school principal Mrs. Johnson, or maybe even Alex Cross, if Cross hadn’t gone to New York. He had seen Cross and the principal together on three different occasions. He guessed they were getting it on.
    He didn’t know why that made him mad, but it did. Cross was just like his goddamn father, his real father. Another fuck-up cop who had deserted him, who didn’t think he was worth dogshit. And now Cross was humping this teacher on the side.
    Wait, wait, hold on,
Danny Boudreaux suddenly got something clear. A flash.
This self-righteous Kunta Kinte dude has to be her husband, right? Of course he was.
    “Yes? Can I help you with something?” George Johnson asked the strange-looking and disheveled young man on the porch. He didn’t know the paper-delivery boy in the neighborhood, but maybe this was he. For some strange reason, the white boy reminded him of a disturbing movie called
Kids
that he’d watched with Christine. The boy looked as if he had some trouble in his life right now.
    In Danny Boudreaux’s humble opinion, the black guy seemed real unfriendly and uppity as hell. Especially for the nobody husband of some nobody schoolteacher. That pissed him off even more. Made him see about twelve different shades of red. Put him over the edge.
    He felt one of the worst rages coming on.
Hurricane Daniel was about to strike in Mitchellville.
    “Noooooo!” he nearly yelled at the man. “You can’t even help
yourself.
You sure as shit can’t help me!”
    Danny Boudreaux suddenly yanked out his semiautomatic. George Johnson looked at the gun in disbelief. He stepped back quickly from the door. He threw up both his arms in self-defense.
    Without any hesitation, Boudreaux fired twice. ‘Take that, you silly black rabbit!” he yelled, letting the voices come as they may. The two bullets bit George Johnson in the chest.
    He flew back through the open door as if he’d been struck with a sledgehammer. He bounced once off the cream marble floor.
    The cat was DOA for sure. Blood was surging from the two holes in his chest.
    The Sojourner Truth School killer then walked right into the teacher’s house. He stepped over the fallen body as if it were worm nothing. He was feeling
nothing.
    “I’ll just go ahead in, thanks,” he said to the dead man on the floor. “You’ve been most helpful.”
    Christine Johnson had risen from the couch in the living room when she heard the shots. He had forgotten how goddamn tall she was. Danny Boudreaux could see her from the front hallway. She could see him and her husband’s body as well.
    She didn’t look so almighty-in-charge anymore. He had knocked her ass down a peg real quick. She deserved it, too. She’d hurt his feelings the first time they met. She probably didn’t even remember the incident.
    “Remember me?” he called to her. “Remember hassling me, bitch? At the Truth School? You remember me, don’t you?”
    “Oh, my God. Oh, George. Oh, God, George,” she moaned the words. A dry sob was shaking her body. She looked as if she might collapse. He saw that fucking Jack and Jill was on the tube. Goddammit. They were always trying to one-up him. Even here, even now!
    Danny Boudreaux