Dexter in the Dark | Page 8

on the edge of Liberty City. On February 14, the board
was delighted to announce that Wynton Al len would be moving out of the den of
iniquity that is Miami and onto Zander’s ranch to be rehabilitated by honest
labor. And on February 15, Zander had taken a boat trip that used thirty-five
gallons of fuel.
On March 11, Tyrone Meeks had been gran ted similar happiness. And on March 12,
Zander took a boat ride.
And so it went; each time some lucky homeless person was chosen for a life of
bucolic joy, Zander placed a service order on his boat within twenty-four hours.
This was not seeing the bodies—but the Harry Code had been set up to operate in
the cracks of the system, in the shadow areas of perfect justice rather than
perfect law. I was sure, the Passenger was sure, and this was enough pro\
of to
satisfy all of us.
Zander would go on a different kind of moonlight cruise, and not all of his
money would keep him afloat.
>

THREE

SO ON A NIGHT LIKE MANY OTHERS, WH EN THE MOON flung down chords of
manic melody onto its happily bloodthirsty children, I was humming along and preparing
to go out for a sharp frolic. All the work was done and it was playtime now for
Dexter. It should have been a matter of mere moments to gather my simple toys
and head out the door for my appointment with the trust-fund troublemaker. But
of course, with marriage looming, nothing at all was simple anymore. I began to
wonder, in fact, if anything would ever be simple again.
Of course, I was building a perfect and nearly impenetrable facade of gleaming
antiseptic steel and glass to cement onto the front of the Gothic horror of
Castle Dexter. So I was very willing to cooperate in retiring the Old Dexter,

and therefore I had been in the process of “consolidating our lives,” as Rita
put it. In this case that meant moving ou t of my comfy little nook on the edge
of Coconut Grove and into Rita’s three-be droom house farther south, as this was
the “sensible” thing to do. Of course, aside from being sensible it was also a
Monster Inconvenience. Under the new regime there was no way I could keep
anything even slightly private if I should want to. Which of course I did. Every
dedicated, responsible ogre has his secrets, and there were things that I did
not wish to see the light of day in anyone’s hands but my own.
There was, for example, a certain amount of research on potential playmates; and
there was also the small wooden box, very dear to me, that contained forty-one
glass slides, each with a single drop of dried blood preserved in the center,
each drop representing a single less-th an-human life that had ended at my
hands—the entire scrapbook of my inner life. Because I do not leave great heaps
of decaying flesh lying about. I am not a slovenly, slipshod, madly slashing
fiend. I am an extremely tidy, madly slas hing fiend. I am always very careful
indeed to get rid of my leftovers, and even some cruel implacable foe bent on
proving me the vile ogre that I am would be hard-pressed to say what my little
slides really were.
Still, explaining them might raise questions that could eventually prove
awkward, even to a doting wife—and even more so to some fearsome nemesis
passionately devoted to my destruction. There had been one such recently\
, a
Miami cop named Sergeant Doakes. And alth ough he was technically still alive, I
had begun to think of him in the past tense, since his recent misadventures had
cost him both his feet and hands, as well as his tongue. He was certainl\
y in no
shape to bring me to well-deserved justice. But I knew enough to know that if
there had been one like him, there would sooner or later be another.
And so privacy seemed important—not that I had ever been a show-off where my
personal affairs were concerned. As far as I knew, no one had ever seen \
into my
little slide box. But I had never had a fiancée cleaning up for me, nor two very
inquisitive kids sniffing around my things so they could learn to be much more
like Dark Daddy Dexter.
Rita seemed to appreciate my need for a