Doppelgangster - Laura Resnick [86]
“You mean,” I said slowly, “why not make his death dramatic enough to match the mystical power behind it? Sort of an Edgar Allan Poe death?”
“A what kind of death?”
“The writer, Edgar All—”
“Yeah, I know who he is, I just don’t know what you mean.”
“He killed off his characters in bizarre, chilling ways,” I said, remembering the times I’d left the light on all night after reading Poe. “So, for example, what if we had found Danny’s corpse standing upright and staring in horror at the door, with no apparent cause of death? Or what if Charlie had suffocated after being buried alive, instead of getting shot over a plate of pasta?”
“Yeah, that would be scary,” Lucky agreed. “That would be like nothing I ever seen before.”
“Hmm. So in one sense,” Max mused, “these murders are ordinary, mundane. Which is in direct contrast to the rare phenomenon of doppelgängerism—and to the unique way it’s being employed here. In my reading so far, I have found nothing similar to our problem.”
“Nothing at all?” I asked in despair.
He shook his head. “Even where doppelgängers invariably portend death, the demise which follows is relatively normal. There does not seem to be a known form of doppelgängerism whereby murder through seemingly impossible means is the cause of death.” He stroked his beard again and nodded. “So while the murders are uncreative and unoriginal, the magic being employed here is highly creative and quite original. The contrast is striking, now that Lucky has brought it to my attention.”
“Which brings us back to the question,” I said, “of how someone actually committed Charlie’s and Danny’s murders. A bullet that went around a corner and hit Charlie right in the heart. There were lots of people present, but no one saw the killer. And then Danny . . .” I shook my head. “How?”
“I have a theory,” Max said.
“Thank God,” I said. “I’m wide open to anything at this point. What’s your theory, Max?”
“Let’s look at the problem from this perspective for a moment: Why was Danny killed today?” Max said. “Why not yesterday?”
Lucky shrugged. “ ’Cuz the killer chose today.”
“No, I mean to say, what was different about today? Last night, after all, Danny found the idea of a doppelgangster absurdly comical.”
“Today,” I said, “he saw the thing. And he was terrified.”
“He was only terrified, I think,” said Max, “because he knew what it meant. He knew because we had told him. Johnny saw his own doppelgangster, but he felt no fear, because he did not know what it meant.”
“So, whether or not he knows what it means, the victim dies after seeing the doppelgangster. We’d already figured that out,” Lucky said.
“But because of the way both Charlie and Danny died,” Max said, “I now think there’s more to it than that. When we said that upon seeing the doppelgangster, the victim is cursed with death, I think we failed to realize just how thorough the curse is.”
“Oh.” Lucky’s eyes widened. “I think I see where you’re goin’ with this. These were guys who walked around with the threat of death all the time. An ordinary curse wouldn’t really be a change of pace for them.”
“Indeed,” said Max. “As I understand it, a peaceful retirement is not the norm in your business. It’s more common for a member of your profession to die violently and perhaps in his prime.”
“Yeah.” Lucky grinned. “But me, I been lucky.”
“So these were men accustomed to taking precautions to safeguard their lives,” Max said. “It was habitual for them. I’ll wager that even Johnny Be Good, though he was careless in many ways, carried a firearm for self-protection.”
“You bet he did,” said Lucky.
“And Danny and Charlie had each reached an age and a rank that suggests they were good at staying alive.”
“They were.” Lucky nodded.
“This is why I believe the curse placed upon them was a powerful one,” said Max. “Extraordinarily powerful. It didn’t just sentence them to death. It ensured that nothing could prevent their deaths from that point onward. Not witnesses, not being hidden from view at a restaurant, not being in a locked cellar and well-armed. Once the