The Tsar of Echo Park

I am a father first, a serial killer second.

You might imagine that one is incompatible with the other; that it is impossible for creation to exist so neatly beside annihilation. A reasonable enough supposition for the neurotypical mind, since most normal people have no need to consider the paradoxes that keep them afloat. But as someone with insider knowledge, I would argue that having a family has given me a certain edge in my work. They make me invisible in a way I might never have been as a single man.

Take yesterday for example. A grim, dreary afternoon in glittering Los Angeles. The fog burned off around 9am, and almost immediately after the haze set in.

Of my two children, only the girl is old enough to be in school.

Sofia is six, in first grade. She just lost her first tooth, a monumental affair that we celebrated over dinner at an expensive bbq resaurant in Korea Town. She is developing into a horse girl, for no discernable reason. It is only a matter of time before she asks for dressage lessons, or a pony of her own, and I will have to explain to her that we live in a two bedroom apartment in the middle of the largest city in California. No room for horses.

My son is three and a half. My wife named him Alfonse after her father in Portugal who he has never met, and I let her. It is better to pick your battles in marriage, I've learned.

My wife fixes scrambled eggs for the two of them before dashing Sofia to school. From there, she would commute to Studio City for her high-powered corporate job. Somehow, I wrangled the role of stay-at-home dad.

My brother likes to make comments, about how it must be emmasculating, embarassing. To not be the breadwinner. To be reduced like this. But he is a blundering idiot, a drunk, a failure. History repeating itself. Our own mother dispises him.

"Go outside?" Alphonse asked, wiping egg from the corner of his mouth, his warm brown eyes trained on my face.

I offered him an easy smile.

"Of course. Let's get some excercise. You want to go to the lake?"

He nodded excitedly, his miniature fingers slipping idly into his mouth, which always happens when he is happy.

The lake is code for the pond in Echo Park.

Alphonse likes to run along the pathways and through the green grass. And then there are the little boats that you can take out upon the pond and paddle around. The boats with swan heads that make you feel as though you are tucked inside the wings of a gliding white swan. Other people there coo over him, as they are want to do. He is a remarkably pretty child, and well-mannered. He makes a good impression.

I took Alphonse to the edge of the lake, let him look into the murky water with his child's eyes, straining at nothing. A thrill ran through me at the sight of him, hunched over the surface. He has his mother's eyes, her sharp, pointed nose. I'm not sure where the mop of unruly blonde curls came from. Perhaps he's not even mine after all.

Fish churned about and slipped out of focus again, obscured by algae.

"Come back," my son cried, frowning, after one koi disappeared. He moved closer to the edge, and almost tumbled in. He could easily go under, I know, if I simply looked away for two minutes. He has no idea how to swim. He would be dead in a matter of moments. It would be tragic.

More than that, it would be inconvenient.

I rested a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Not too close. You'll fall in and get all wet and cold," I hummed in his ear and he giggled. I closed my eyes, hand still clenched around his shoulder. Feeling the warmth of infant muscles under his sweater. Life is so vibrant, so precarious. I pulled him back towards the path.

"How about a snack. Elote maybe? Are you hungry?" and he jumped to his feet in anticipation.

As he dug into the cup of corn and spices and mayo, I let my gaze drift back to the water. Boats cut across it, making their rounds. Birds huddled near the bank, ruffling their feathers and seeking out crumbs.

And under the surface, other things. Hidden things. Treasures no one knew about but me.

Things no one would know to miss. I'm very careful about my work, after all.

***

That evening, my wife came home late, circles under her eyes. I was helping Sofia with her times tables after dinner, while Alfonse watched cartoons in the living room.

"Long day?" I asked, flashing her a sympathetic smile.

She nodded, slipping a glass from the cubbard, and rooting around the pantry for a bottle of wine. I've told her before that she works too hard, but she never listens. That's alright though. When she's busy, I have more time to myself.

After the children fall asleep, I give her a massage, and listen to her as she debriefs me on her day.

I attempt to be an obliging husband in all regards, so that she has nothing to complain about. Unlike my own father, with his white-blonde hair and thick Russian accent and wide, pale hands that fell upon anyone in my childhood home liberally. My brother and I used to call him the Tsar behind our hands, when we were small, a testament to his power.

He died when I was thirteen. Car wreck. He'd been drinking.

I remember the sounds of my mother crying in the little kitchen late into the evening. My elder brother placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. How distraught they looked, despite the fact that father had always ever been a monster.

That was the first time I realized there was something the matter with me. Because where there should have been sorrow, or at least faint sadness, was only annoyance at having to play the part of a mourner. I can recall calculating on my fingers, how long I would have to pretend to cry for, to pass myself off as a good and loyal son.

***

I started picking up transients in high school. At first, I only messed with them.

Over time, it escalated.

Eventually, it occured to me that it might be easier if no one could give me away besides myself, and that's how the murders started.

***

Invasive thoughts, intrusive urges. That's what my therapist said once, during the year and a half that I was seeing her in college.

But there was nothing particularly intrusive about my ruminations. Not really. More like a mirage than a trap. A secret place that I could drift off to in my own mind where no one else could follow.

"You never know what's going on in someone else's head," I tell Sofia when she gets too friendly with strangers. She's a confident, welcoming child, too open with everyone. I tell her she shouldn't be, but she only laughs and shakes her head. She doesn't understand because she's still a child.

Sometimes, I have nightmares. Where masked men enter my house in the middle of the night and slaughter my whole family in front of me. I suppose it's because I know what the world is capable of.

That's why last month I reinforced all the locks on the doors, to my wife's chagrin.

"You're so paranoid," she whispered, running a hand through my hair, her eyes foggy with fatigue, "Who would want to hurt us?"

I do not tell her what I am thinking. There's no point. She is incapable of understanding any of it, which is why I love her. If not love, than appreciate.

***

In the middle of spring, towards midday, while Alphonse doodles on the family iPad, the phone rings.

Sofia's school. My whole body tightens.

"Hello?" I intone smoothly into the reciever. Alfonse does not bother to look up from the screen.

A bored-sounding woman informs me that Sofia never showed up to school today. Is she sick? I take a moment to steady myself, licking my lips.

"My wife dropped her off at the usual time," I offer easily, with an edge, "Are you saying you haven't seen her all day?"

"Yes, she was marked absent," the woman intones stupidly, and I grind my teeth together.

"Where is she then?" I exhale.

"I'm not sure, sir. I haven't been able to reach your wife." She sounds barely apologetic, as though she does not seem to care a child is missing. The anger starts up low and hot in my stomach. It is almost too easy, to fall down the rabbit-hole of thinking about what I could do to her, if I wanted to.

I hang up quickly, muscles tense. I am not afraid-- not exactly. I don't often feel fear, or haven't since I was a very small child. This is something else.

Inconvenience. Annoyance. I can't be sure.

***

The police are called, because of course they are.

An hour passes by-- the golden hour, I tell myself. We need to find her quickly, if we are going to find her alive.

I am thinking the usual stupid thoughts.

My wife arrives home, her eyes bloodshot, her face desperate. I fold her in my arms, grateful that I don't have to carry what she does.

When I was younger, I used to think people were faking it. Their sadness, their grief, their desperation.

It's so much easier to simply switch those feelings off. It saves so much time, so much energy. But no one wants to hear that, I imagine.

***

In the end, she is found asleep and untouched behind a shrub on the playground, with her stuffed tiger.

"I didn't feel like learning my letters today, so I decided to have an adventure," she explains sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

My wife is livid and relieved. Her whole body shakes as she embraces our child.

I play the part as well.

How easily it might have been different, it occurs to me. After all, I've been on the other end more times than I can count.

It ought to bother me but it doesn't.

That night, we talk to Sofia about not running off, about penalties, about how there are cruel and dangerous people out there who would very willingly hurt or kill her if they had the chance.

She takes our warnings all in with wide eyes, disbelieving.

When she finally falls asleep, curled up beside my wife and Alfonse, I close the bedroom door softly behind me and retrieve my bag from under the floorboards in the foyer. It's a black duffel, filled with everything I might need on a typical nighttime excursion. Rope, zipties, chloraform, crowbar, the works.

I slip on some latex gloves and pulling a sweatshirt over my head.

I am careful to lock the door as I go out. We wouldn't want some psychopath breaking in.