Affirmation of the day: I did enough today. My sle ep
will be serene and restful.
SOUTHAMPTON, 5:00 P. M.
So tired today.
Ali believed my lies last night about Papa insisting that we break up. It
made him feel a lot better about being dumped — and after that it was easy
to seduce him. Men are so basic: Stroke their egos, and they’ll do anything.
Ali and I fucked like rabbits, and then we talked till dawn. He seemed
more and more freaked out as I spoke, but I ended up feeling much better.
As though I had emptied myself of a cauldron of black bile. After we
finished talking, I wanted to fuck again — it helps me sle ep — but poor Ali
was too upset. Said he had to “process’” everything that I’d said. (Probably
a word he’s learned from Maryam.) He sat in the living room alone, eyes
wide, drinking coffee. I went to bed and dozed off for a couple of hours.
This morning, we drove down to Southampton — I couldn’t risk
remaining in the city and being recognized.
During the long drive — oh, the dreariness of America, the endless tract
housing and strip malls, none of the neat simplicity of Japan — Ali was
oddly silent. I put it down to the late night, the lack of sle ep, all the
shocking information he’d heard from me the night before. Poor Ali: all his
illusions about the Khan family shattered in one fell swoop.
Oh well, Ali will get over it. He’s driven back to Manhattan — apparently
there is an important meeting at Tiger Corp today — but he promised to
return tonight. He desperately wants to please me. No doubt we’ll be
hopping into bed soon enough. I need him to ke ep me warm in this freezing
house — what else am I going to do for the next three days?
Three days.
Hard to believe it will soon be over: We will trap JHK, Epps and I, and
finish him off once and for all.
I hate this ghastly old house. After the sleek modernity of Tokyo, I might
as well be living in a cave. The windows — single - pane glass from the last
century — let the chill right in. The whole place creaks and moans. Added to
which, the house has been closed up for the season: dust sheets are draped
over all the furniture, the rugs are rolled up, the kitchen cabinets empty.
Only the de ep freeze remains plugged in, filled with pizzas, gourmet ice
cream, and Belgian chocolate profiteroles. At least I won’t starve.
I’ve been padding around the rooms wearing two cardigans and thick
woolen socks. Ali says that the house will heat up overnight, but I don’t
believe him. I think I’m just going to freeze my ass off.
I’m back in New York because of the postcards I received in Tokyo. The
new white ones, I
NY, grew in volume, all threatening general violence,
but the last one was pretty specific: “COME BACK TO ME OR MORE
GIRLS WILL DIE.”
The nightmare swirled thick around me. It didn’t matter if I es caped to
my akiya amid the rice fields outside Tokyo — if I didn’t obey JHK’s
dictates, he’d start killing girls again — in America. I couldn’t think,
couldn’t sle ep.
Then JHK sent me a new postcard: A crisp image of an ornate limestone
building facade with a three - story - high curved archway. Within it, a
doorman in a dark blue suit. It was the Apthorp, no doubt about it. And on
the back, the message, written as usual in spiky capitals: “COME BACK
TO ME OR YOUR SISTER WILL DIE.”
I texted Epps from Tokyo, my hands trembling, and he advised me to get
Maryam out of town — immediately. It took some persuading, but I
convinced Maryam to travel to Florida for the week. And then came the
final postcard: “MEET ME AT GRAND CENTRAL STATION. BY THE
CLOCK. WEAR RED LIPSTICK AND COME ALONE. MARCH 2 ND, 5
P. M.”
That date is three days away now.
I said to Epps that this was odd behavior for a serial killer, wasn’t it? So
far, JHK had always killed at night, luring his victims to their deaths. Why
did he now want to meet me in a public place — at rush hour?
Epps explained it all in one of our late - night phone calls. The main thing
was not to confuse JHK’s motivation with his methods. While the killer’s
methods had changed over time — he’d started out just killing his victims
and then progressed to cutting out their hearts — his motivation was the
same: control. According to the psychological profile that Epps had
developed, JHK must have been rejected by his mother, who dominated and
controlled him. This childhood experience had turned JHK into a tormented
loner, unable to bear the burden of his desires, and now he sought out the
objects of his desire — in this case, pretty, young Indian women — and killed
in order to preempt being rejected and mocked by them. In this way, he
endlessly sought to es cape his childhood experiences, to control his fate.
Like most serial killers, the act of killing was not the point — it was over
too fast — so JHK began to collect grisly trophies — his victim’s hearts. Why
the heart? Why an organ that is de ep inside the torso, protected by a cage of
bone? The press had a field day speculating: ‘A symbol of the soul.’ ‘A
metaphor for romantic love’, etc. The truth is that the actual human heart is
nothing like the simplified cartoon we think of: It’s a lopsided hunk of
muscle with a bunch of tubes coming out of the top. About as attractive as a
steak. And what the heck did JHK do with his grisly trophies? One theory is
that he ate them so that he could literally consume his victims. But who
really knows? Because we have no idea what actually happens inside the
mind of a sociopath ...
Anyway, Epps said the most important thing was that JHK had clearly
outgrown his trophy - collecting phase — and now wanted to directly control
his victims.
According to Epps, I had initially been viewed by JHK as damaged and
impure, because of the jagged scar on my chest — thus not worth killing.
Now, years later, all the media attention has put me back on a pedestal, and
he wants me. For JHK, the meeting at Grand Central is an exploratory
attempt to see if I’ll comply with his directions. He’ll get his kicks from
watching me from afar — but then he’ll continue to demand more meetings,
in more private places, until he finally gives in to the urge to kill me.
Epps plans to hide, scan the crowds at Grand Central, and photograph all
men exhibiting suspicious body language. He’ll then send these images to a
contact at Homeland Security — who will run a sophisticated facialrecognition program
and identify all possible suspects. Then Epps will work
through the list — and find the man who fits the killer’s profile.
What exactly will we do after we identify JHK? Epps is being cagey. He
cannot be planning some big public announcement, a headline in the New
York Post: “REAL JHK CAUGHT AFTER DECADES: NYPD
DETECTIVE VINDICATED.” No, I insist that we ke ep everything very,
very quiet and that Epps gets rid of JHK. I don’t want to know how — but it
shouldn’t be that hard. The killer is a loner, right? And technically, he’s dead
already.
That’s the plan. That’s why I came back. Epps is driving down to
Southampton tonight to go through it all in detail. He’s really excited
because he said that he’s found out something huge. “Dynamite,” he said.
“It changes everything. All will be revealed when we meet in person.”
Maybe he is enjoying this too much. After all, he’s said for years that the
NYPD was wrong, and they destroyed his career. Now he’s being proved
right.
What is this “dynamite” information that Epps has found? I wish he
would tell me. I can feel JHK out there, in the dark and cold, and I don’t
like being all by myself here in Southampton. I’ve forgotten how lonely
America is. In Tokyo, they plan for loneliness: Go to a cat café and cuddle a
tabby. Rent a dog and take it for a walk. Hell, it’s even okay to rent a date
for a wedding. The Japanese have built - in societal safety valves for weird
impulses: all those love hotels, themed kink bars, dress - up lounges. It’s all
totally acc eptable — but here, in the good old USA? If you don’t fit in,
you’re a freak. Here, weird desires go underground, fester, get perverted
and dark. Oh well, Epps will arrive in a few hours. He said around seven.
And Ali will show up later tonight.
Ali is so nice and sweet. If only he were a little smarter, I’d really fall for
him. Like ... for example, handsome Kyle Nowak. Now, he’s de ep, that
one. Stays in Papa’s good books yet doesn’t fawn. He’s ambitious, he’s
playing some kind of long game.
Yes, I must ke ep an eye on Kyle. He may be an ally in the future.