Dexter in the Dark | Page 5

want to play kick the can,” Astor said. She was the spokesperson for the
pair; Cody never put more than four words together in a single day. He was not
stupid, very far from it. He simply preferred not to speak most of the time. Now
he just looked at me and nodded.
“Oh,” said Rita, pausing in her reflections on the land of Rousseau, Candide,
and Jerry Lewis, “well then, why don’t you—”
“We want to play kick the can with Dexter,” Astor added, and Cody nodded very
loudly.
Rita frowned. “I guess we should have ta lked about this before, but don’t you
think Cody and Astor—I mean, shouldn’t th ey start to call you something more, I
don’t know—but just Dexter? It seems kind of—”
“How about mon papere?” I asked. “Or Monsieur le Comte?”
“How about, I don’t think so?” muttered Astor.
“I just think—” said Rita.
“Dexter is fine,” I said. “They’re used to it.”
“It doesn’t seem respectful,” she said.
I looked down at Astor. “Show your mother you can say ‘Dexter’ \
respectfully,” I
told her.
She rolled her eyes. “Puh-leeeeeze,” she said.
I smiled at Rita. “See? She’s ten years old. She can’t say anyt\
hing
respectfully.”
“Well, yes, but—” Rita said.
“It’s okay. They’re okay,” I said. “But Paris—”
“Let’s go outside,” said Cody, and I looked at him with surprise. Four entire

syllables—for him it was practically an oration.
“All right,” said Rita. “If you really think—”
“I almost never think,” I said. “It gets in the way of the mental process.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Astor said.
“It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s true,” I said.
Cody shook his head. “Kick the can,” he said. And rather than break in on his
talking jag, I simply followed him out into the yard.
>

TWO

OF COURSE, EVEN WITH RITA’S GLORIOUS PLANS UNFOLDING, life was not all
jubilation and strawberries. There was real work to do, too. And because\
Dexter
is nothing if not conscientious, I had been doing it. I had spent the past two
weeks dabbing on the last few brushstrokes of a brand-new canvas. The young
gentleman who served as my inspiration ha d inherited a great deal of money, and
he had apparently been using it for the kind of dreadful homicidal escapades
that made me wish I was rich, too. Alex ander Macauley was his name, though he
called himself “Zander,” which seemed somewh at preppy to me, but perhaps that
was the point. He was a dyed-in-the-wool trust-fund hippie, after all, s\
omeone
who had never done any real work, devoting himself entirely to lighthear\
ted
amusement of the kind that would have made my hollow heart go pitter-pat, if
only Zander had shown slightly better taste in choosing his victims.
The Macauley family’s money came from va st hordes of cattle, endless citrus
groves, and dumping phosphates into Lake Okeechobee. Zander came frequently to
the poor areas of town to pour out his largesse across the city’s homeless. And
the favored few he really wished to encou rage he reportedly brought back to the
family ranch and gave employment, as I learned from a teary-eyed and admiring
newspaper article.
Of course Dexter always applauds the char itable spirit. But in general, I am so
very much in favor of it because it is nearly always a warning sign that
something nefarious, wicked, and playful is going on behind the Mother Teresa
mask. Not that I would ever doubt that somewhere in the depths of the human
heart there really and truly does live a spirit of kind and caring charity,
mingled with the love of fellow man. Of co urse it does. I mean, I’m sure it must
be in there somewhere. I’ve just never seen it. And since I lack both humanity
and real heart, I am forced to rely on experience, which tells me that charity
begins at home, and almost always ends there, too.
So when I see a young, wealthy, handsome , and otherwise normal-appearing young
man lavishing his resources on the vile downtrodden of the earth, I find it
difficult to accept the altruism at face value, no matter how beautifull\
y
presented. After all, I am fairly good at presenting a charming and innocent
picture of myself, and we know how accurate that is, don’t we?
Happily for my consistent worldview, Zander was no different—just a l\
ot richer.
And his inherited money had made him a little bit sloppy. Because in the
meticulous