The Axeman's Jazz

kind. I deliberately chose someone unimportant. Anyway, it was meant to work like that. She asked me to go for coffee at the right time—just after the first one died. You had your car, so I could take her. The only thing I didn’t have was gloves; I had to drop by the hospital and get some, but she didn’t mind. She thought she had a new boyfriend.
    “No harm was done that time. Nobody knew her, she didn’t know anybody. And it was a life for a life. You know it had to be that way. It’s the only way to stop the killing.”
    “Sonny. Sonny, we have to get you some help.”
    “But it wasn’t to be, it didn’t work. I mean, it didn’t work permanently. Before, it worked for twenty-two years. I don’t know what went wrong, but I knew when it happened again, it had to be done again. But this time it wasn’t happenstance. I planned it. I called Tom from the phone list—just called and asked him to meet me for coffee. I knew nobody knew him and he didn’t know anybody. But he was more important than she was. He didn’t have friends, but at least he had a daughter. I thought he was the one.”
    “Sonny, stop!”
    “And then I had a really good idea. I thought I could make the sacrifice first, and then my patients would be safe. I thought if I killed a lot of chickens, it would be the same as one person. But you can’t do it that way. The sacrifice has to be second. You can’t atone if you haven’t done a crime yet. I should have known that.” He was talking very fast, getting something off his chest that had been sitting there squeezing his lungs.
    “And then I realized it couldn’t be someone unimportant; it had to be someone very important. Someone who’d really be missed. Someone young, someone very, very innocent who’d never done anything wrong in her life, someone a lot of people loved. So when Abe said he had a baby-sitter, I knew she was the one. See, there wasn’t anybody in the group who was young enough, who matched up right; it had to be somebody outside the group. Yet the group was the sacrifice pool. I already knew that. Because it was anonymous. It was there. All past events had shown that was correct.
    “And so the baby-sitter was the one. I thought for a minute it might be one of his children, but that couldn’t be. Because you’d have to kill the baby-sitter to get to the kid. Do you see that? Only one sacrifice was required. You understand that, don’t you?”
    Missy was making wheezing noises, as if she had asthma.
    “It’s not numbers you need. You need the right sacrifice. But it happened again today, so I know it can’t just be a young person, it has to be someone even more precious than that. It has to be someone you love.”
    “Sonny, this is just too silly for words. You’re so overtired, you’re so freaked out by that crazy father of yours—”
    “Don’t say anything against my father!”
    “Sonny, all doctors lose patients.”
    “Oh, no. They save people. And I will too after this, Missy. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this, but it’s got to be done.”
    “You can’t mean…”
    “Oh, Missy, I’m so sorry.”
    “…what I think…”
    “I love you, Missy.”
    “…you mean.”
    Skip was paralyzed. Should she try to get help? Yes, by all the rules. But she didn’t dare leave, even for a second. She was Missy’s only lifeline and she knew it.
    Was the door locked? Bound to be. If she tried to kick it in and it didn’t give right away, Sonny would be warned. He’d have a little time before she got in. Too much time.
    “Sonny, no! No!”
    He must have attacked her. Skip kicked, the door gave.
    Sonny was standing close to Missy, but not holding her, apparently having let her go.
    “Freeze or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off!”
    He stared at Skip, but only for a second. He ran into the bedroom and his leg was just going over the sill, out the already-open window, by the time she’d followed. He had a lead of only a second or two but it was enough. She watched him land on a bush, jump off, and start running. “Stop, goddammit! Freeze or I’ll shoot!”
    But she was bluffing. He was unarmed. Which meant there was only one thing to do—follow him out the window.
    “Missy!” she yelled. “Call for back-up. Ask for Sylvia Cappello!”
    She was still debating what to yell next—Geronimo or bombs away—when she realized she’d already landed; she was sliding off the shrubbery, and nothing seemed to be broken. She was in a narrow