I, Death

Brecht: 2

Fitz and Brecht were sitting in the alley having a smoke outside of the downtown club where Dillon did most of his operations from. In that offhand way Fitz had, he started talking about the internet and how he was fascinated by the possibilities held there — he mentioned things like Facebook and blogs as ways of connecting with kids, infiltrating their world. The discussion didn’t really go anywhere beyond a few initial thoughts from Fitz because Dillon had beckoned them inside to head out on a collection run. And they never talked about it again. But the ideas had really sunk home and Brecht thought about them all night while they did their work.

Early the next morning, when their work was done and they’d headed off to their respective homes for sleep, Brecht went online and did a Google search using Robinson’s name, the words ‘teacher’ and ‘high school.’ And that’s when he discovered O’Mallick’s online web log, and the constant, almost obsessive mention of his teacher.

Brecht stayed up all night reading about the kid, and he knew immediately that he wasn’t going to share any of the details with either Fitz or Dillon. He wasn’t sure why at the time, but he wanted to keep the detailed knowledge of the kid in his back pocket. It was enough that Fitz and he were equally second-in-command and always covertly looking for that additional edge over each other with respect to their usefulness to Dillon. And there was something nagging him — yes, even back then, though he didn’t actually believe the kid’s claim that he held some sort of death curse — so that Brecht felt this should be his jewel alone.

A few days later, when O’Mallick posted about the book event and that he would be attending with Robinson, Brecht mentioned it to Dillon, making it seem like he’d gotten the information from one of their usual street sources. Again, he kept the kid’s blog a complete secret.

The night of the bookstore event had been the first time Brecht had encountered the kid in person. In retrospect, until the events that lead to Dillon’s death, the stalking and capture of the teacher and kid had worked out beautifully.

Dillon, Fitz and Brecht had arrived at the store in the mid-afternoon. The event was slated to run from 2 until 4pm and they got there just about mid-way through it. The author table was set up in an open space near the front of the store just off the main aisle that went up the middle of the store. They spotted Robinson immediately, and guessed correctly that the scrawny, dark-haired kid beside him was O’Mallick. The two of them were standing amid a crowd of people, listening to that Sudbury doctor and author recite some sort of engaging story that held not only the crowd, but several of the bookstore staff members in rapt suspense.

They split-up and wandered the store for a while. Fitz hung around in the magazine section near the front of the store, Dillon sat in the Starbucks past that at a table beside the only other public exit to the building, and Brecht wandered through the elevated Fiction section on the far side of the store. Though they did shuffle and move themselves around a fair bit in the several hours they were there, occasionally trading areas for a few minutes, they kept mostly within a certain radius of those stations and at least one of them had an eye on Robinson or the kid at all times.

And the great thing about the big box stores was that they could wander around the store for hours and, just like their prey, not seem conspicuous. It was the culture of such places that people would enter through the front doors and spend as much as half of a day wandering the stacks of books, magazines, cds and other book-related items.

Twice during the late-afternoon and evening, either Robinson or the kid headed to the washroom located at the very back of the store. That was closest to Brecht’s area, and he’d made eye contact with Dillon across the store both times, inquiring to see if it was the right time to make their move, but each time Dillon had just shook his head. Brecht always respected the man’s absolute patience. He never made a move until the timing was absolutely perfect and execution of a plan allowed for very little surprises.