Acquiescence

three: March 3, 2011

T H R E E

March 3, 2011

Napa was exactly as Jude had feared: clean, dull, and gloriously boring. In less than a day, he’d absorbed all that the wine country town had to offer: he’d seen faintly overweight soccer moms carting around their spoiled, irritating children. He’d seen teenagers, lazy and restless as they envisioned the day when they’d break free; probably, they’d all end up here, bound to imitate the uneventful lives of their parents. Jude had seen quaint little shops so cutesy they were nauseating; he’d seen dirty playgrounds with sticky toddlers, grassy parks with grossly picturesque scenes of dogs playing fetch, and enough posters of “beautiful” real estate to last a life time.

Jude wanted to leave. He wanted to be somewhere exciting, where crime was as easy to find as were nighttime escapades at a city strip club. Here, he’d be able to find no other source of amusement but his own personal supply of alcohol: it would be a week before he drank himself to death from the boredom of it all.

“I hate this town,” he said finally, crossing his arms.

Alistair, who stood behind him, sighed. “We’ve been here for an hour.”

“I still hate it.”

“Quit whining, Jude.”

Jude surveyed his partner with tired impatience: every since the night in the hotel, his friend had been increasingly unforgiving and intolerant. He wasn’t particularly sure why: Jude had made no vow to be decent or humane, and at the very least, he had ultimately granted the girl with a quick death—after the torture, of course. Moreover, both men were aware that any disdain on Alistair’s part would be hypocritical.

Laura, his wife, argued on behalf of her husband’s virtue that he never enjoyed the deaths he caused. Jude, though agreeing with the truth of the statement, found it irrelevant: was there a difference if your father was shot by someone who was smiling or frowning? No. The killer was still the killer—Jude or Alistair or someone else. No one gave a damn about enjoyment in murder.

Cruelty, to Jude, was exhilarating. He liked the thrill, the constant, nail-biting anticipation of a blade in his fingers or a victim in his range. He liked the screams—the screams of police sirens and of gunshots, of tortured souls and of those who he’d betrayed. To Jude, there was no emotion more satisfying then fear, no victory more elevating and eternal as one of murder over escape, and no substance as warm and as insulating as blood licking its trail down a falling body. If with every kill a person lost a part of his or her soul, then Jude was blacker than the devil himself. Still, he found the superficial triumph of good over evil to be hopelessly boring: someone won or they lost. The cause they were fighting for was merely a technicality.

Alistair, meanwhile, was aware of Jude’s disconcerting passions; on most days, he could brush them aside with a casual distraction. Within a week, he was sure, he would get the faded memories of the late girl’s parents out of his head, and he would be able to lock his friend in the eyes once again. Jude, however, had never been introduced to the concept of patience.

True to that statement, Jude moaned loudly, “But what am I supposed to do, Ally? No one does anything here but drink old wine and talk about vacations in Florence.”

“You spent a month in Florence last year,” Alistair countered, smirking.

“I was in Tuscany, thank you. But instead of spending time with middle-aged nobodies, I had was with supermodels, and in the place of wine, I had alcohol and drugs so powerful they should be and are illegal. Even Hayes agrees with me on how awful it is here, and he likes pretty places.”