The Killing Moon: A Novel

Maddox mulled over the name, looking surprised. He turned to Hess. "Okay," he said. "But there's something you need to know about Kitner first."

27

KITNER

THE KNOCKING WAS going to wake up Ma. In sleep shorts, Steve Kitner pulled the door open, first a little, then wider, seeing headlights in the dirt lot.

One of the local cops was standing on his top step. Behind him were real state police cruisers.

"Aw, shit," said Kitner, a wave of depression overcoming him like rigor mortis. "Look, I'm clean, man. Whatever. I'm innocent. This is bullshit."

The cop said, "It's nothing like that, Kitner."

He knew this day was coming—knew it. Knock on his door and take him away. That shoved-up-against-the-wall feeling again. "I'm registered like I'm supposed to be. I'm a citizen now."

The cop showed him an open palm. "Listen to me."

Kitner didn't hear single words, only the general idea: the staties wanted a favor from him.

It seemed almost like a trap, though they had nothing to trap him for. He hadn't done anything wrong. They were only making him feel like he had.

A favor seemed like a good idea. "Shit, yeah, I'll help you out, why not."

He pushed through the aluminum door, reminded he was barefoot by the rocky driveway. He wore only saggy boxers and a string tank, but who cared.

Unless there were female troopers here.

He hoped Ma wouldn't wake up, see the cars, have a conniption. Wouldn't be bad later to tell her how he helped out cops. How he was being so good.

He walked inside the garage-turned-shop at the outside of the road curve, under the unlit sign reading KITNER TOOL & DIE. He hit the red stopper and the power started up, the shop blinking to life. He found a pair of the old man's safety boots and lifted his leather apron off its peg.

Two tall troopers lugged in an old safe dusty with fingerprint powder. Kitner pointed to the larger drill press and they thunked it down there and stretched their backs.

A plainclothesman with cobra arms came in, said nothing. The hard-ass act. Then the local cop and that guy Ripsbaugh, the town roadworker.

No women.

The safe, she was a beauty. Short and stout, maybe two and a half cubic feet of volume, a black dial with ivory numbers over a small silver handle.

"Pretty box," said Kitner, stroking his tonguelike goatee. "Turn her upside down. Bottom's usually the softest." Just like a woman, he almost added, but thought better, thanks to his conditioning. He smiled as the troopers did his bidding.

Nineteen eighty-eight was the last time he had shared a room with this much law. From the way the plainclothes guy eyeballed him, Kitner figured they all knew about his Merrimack County prior. How he had gotten loaded on blackberry brandy and amphetamines one night during a freak snowstorm and how, driving around looking to score more dope, he had happened upon a female motorist stuck in a snow-bank and how, after offering to help dig her out, he had strangled her unconscious instead and raped her in the backseat. They found him sleeping there later, on the nod, so the guilty plea was his best bet. He pled and did his time. Prison wasn't bad because he had been in the army, if briefly. Afterward, he tried to make it elsewhere, but the Level 3 label meant "most likely to reoffend," so he couldn't hold a job or an apartment anywhere without people smashing in his windows and calling him up in the middle of the night and threatening to slice off and feed him his own dick. So when his dad died he resettled up here and took over the old man's shop. Not like he had a long list of options.

It was better here, like a self-imposed exile. Not being able to afford a car removed a lot of temptation. Sometimes, maybe once a month, he felt the change in his metabolism, that old sweet tooth starting to tingle. Sometimes, when he looked around at the old man's shop with its dingy floors and power machinery, he saw a dungeon in waiting. Sometimes he thought about what it would be like to work on people here instead of metal. Building a person, a woman, to his own specifications, so he wouldn't have to worry about breaking laws ever again. If he had all the money in the world he would build himself a harem of women and be real good to them.