Hollow Man Read Online Free Page B

dead space in them that held visions of a knife slicing through the wrinkled skin in his neck, covering his crisp, white shirt with blood, and severing his exposed windpipe. I wanted to release that inner demon that I kept locked up and hidden away, to look the other way and feel nothing as he sought revenge for trashing the one part of my life I'd made something of, my job.
    I wanted to be, just for once, the psychopath that I am.

Just to be clear, and despite the occasional white-hot flash of temper, I'm not one of those psychopaths. I don't have any desire to hurt or kill people. I see no gain or benefit there, so my inclinations are not of your TV slasher, world-domination, sexual-sadist types. The urge to hurt people bubbles up sometimes, and I'd feel essentially nothing if I acted on it, but I only feel the desire to hurt when someone has ignited my anger. Even then, I don't act out. My lack of impulse-control has gotten me in trouble before, and I know that psychopaths have a habit of repeating the same mistakes, so I've made a powerful effort to blend in and live as normally as possible. I don't hide in the bushes looking to do harm. I camouflage myself alongside the CEOs, politicians, and lawyers who pretend every day, like me, to be empaths (that's the term I use), faking it in social situations while taking advantage every which way in business.
    I also prefer the term “sociopath” because it has fewer connotations of evil and violence.
    If it helps, picture a huge parade in your hometown, a procession of bands and floats and fun, all colors and music. It'll be made up of happy people, sad people, funny people, and fools. They're experiencing the joy of community, a shared celebration made more meaningful by being together.
    I'm not in the parade. I'm one of a handful of people looking out of a window as you go by, watching, learning. Trying to understand. Some of the people in the overlooking windows are ready todo you harm, but I'm not. I could if I wanted, but I want to fit in, not go to prison. I'm a leopard, yes, and while I'll happily sit in my tree and watch people with cold, dispassionate eyes, I don't kill. I just don't.

    I followed Cherry's orders and drove down to my new digs midafternoon, heading south over the Congress Avenue Bridge to the part of town that was the center of my after-hours world. The tourists would be along in a little while, leaning over the balustrade like gargoyles to wait for the nightly display: a million bats in search of food, an epic swirling, switching cloud of black that funneled low along the river into the dusk for forty minutes or more.
    After the bat show, the tourists would either head north into downtown or walk south onto South Congress Avenue proper. Known as SoCo, it was Austin's hippest street. Its cafés and boutique stores, its food trailers and western-wear shops, all kept the sidewalks hopping during the day. The bars, restaurants, and clubs brought crowds in by night. I'd played several gigs at the Continental Club, an Austin institution that sat near the bridge and right where everyone wanted to be. I was just the opener for other acts but loved the club's mix of customers, especially the girls—the pretty students from the University of Texas who mingled with the tattooed Austin originals, the lean chicks who were there for the music first and the hookups second. They were the ones who didn't mind buying their own beer or sharing their weed, not that I dared partake of the latter. Self-control issues and drugs don't mix well, and no one approves of a dope-smoking prosecutor. The perky UT girls were quicker to go home with the musicians but quicker to move on, too, once they'd figured out where you were on the talent pecking order. There was always someone else above you, prompting apologetic texts and awkward moments at some crowded club a week later. Awkward forthem and not me, of course, their discomfort being my own form of post-coital