by John Niven
‘Listen, buddy,’ the blond guy – McAllister according to his badge – said, stepping around his partner, ‘break out some ID right now or this is gonna be the worst day of your fucken life.’
Stunned, Frank looked at Daniels as if to say ‘what the fuck?’ Daniels just spat on the ground.
‘Are you threatening me?’ Frank asked. ‘Because I’m a US taxpayer and I –’
It happened so fast. Trooper McAllister clamped one hand on Frank’s left shoulder and with the other grabbed his right arm, twisting it up behind his back as he slammed Frank’s face hard down onto the trunk of his own car. The hot metal burned against his cheek. ‘What are you doing?’ Frank screamed.
‘Shut the fuck up, you little pissant,’ McAllister hissed.
‘Where’s the ID, sir?’ Daniels asked pleasantly,
‘In … in my coat. On the passenger seat. You, ow! You’re hurting my wrist!’ McAllister just ground his face harder into the hot metal. Frank felt something going on behind him and a second later cooler metal against his skin – handcuffs going around his wrists.
McAllister stood him up as Daniels came back out of the car with Frank’s wallet, hissing, ‘You stand right there. Move off this fucken spot and I’ll break your fucken nose.’
‘Mr Frank Brill,’ Daniels said, reading off Frank’s licence. ‘From Schilling, Indiana.’
‘Yes,’ Frank said. He felt sick. Weak. His limbs all liquefied.
‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Brill. What brings you to Texas?’
‘I’m on vacation,’ Frank said, struggling to breathe. ‘Look, I have a medical condition. I have cancer.’
‘Get his phone, Greg.’
McAllister patted Frank’s pockets – Frank handcuffed, powerless – and took out Frank’s phone, the one he’d bought in Fairfax, his original phone currently the property of the Washington police department. McAllister tossed it to his partner. ‘I’m going to need the passwords for your social media accounts, Mr Brill.’
This again. ‘I don’t have any!’
‘Listen, you fuck –’ McAllister stepped towards him.
‘Easy, Greg,’ Daniels said, stopping the bigger man. Daniels sighed, took his sunglasses off and looked at Frank. Being able to see his eyes revealed no humanity. ‘Sir, we have reason to suspect that you may have been taking photographs of this facility with a view to posting them on social media in order to create a derogatory narrative.’
It took Frank a moment to take all this in. ‘And so what if I was?’
‘That’s illegal, sir. Under the terms of the –’
‘Let me guess,’ Frank interrupted. ‘Extreme Patriot Act?’
Daniels smiled. ‘So you have heard of the law. Now, unless you want to spend the next seventy-two hours in a jail cell, I suggest you start cooperating.’
It was hot, the Texan sun strobing above them, the heat haze rippling up off the road. Frank’s legs were getting weak, getting heavier as the fight fuel burned out of them. ‘I promise you – I don’t have any social media accounts.’
Frank stood there as he went through it. Daniels checked all the apps, not that Frank had many, to make sure he wasn’t lying, and then said, ‘I’m not going to confiscate your phone. Even though we have the right to do so. I’m just going to delete the photos you took here.’
‘You can do that?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Daniels said, finishing, tucking the device back into Frank’s pocket. ‘Now, I suggest you get back in your car and get on the road to wherever you’re going. There’s nothing that concerns you here.’ He gestured to the building behind them.
Frank thought about saying, ‘As a US taxpayer I’ve funded that building. Why can’t I photograph it?’ He thought about saying, ‘I’ve got both of your names and I’ll be reporting you for police brutality.’ He thought about saying, ‘Fuck you.’ He thought about saying a lot of stuff. But then he looked around him, at the vast expanse of Texas, at the empty highway, at the total absence of CCTV cameras. There would be no footage of him getting beaten up. No clip or GIF to go viral. He thought about all this and he didn’t say anything. Just took his licence back and started getting into his car. ‘You have a good day now,’ McAllister said as he closed the door behind him.
Frank sat there, watching the cruiser accelerate into the distance, watching it vanish into the rippling heat. He felt shaken, certainly. Violated. But he found he wasn’t amazed, staggered by the experience, as he certainly would have been twenty – even ten – years ago if a police officer in his own country had, for the second time in a week, insisted on having access to his private messages. It did, as they say, happen inch by inch, day by day, until you woke up one morning and found yourself in a place where the unthinkable had become very thinkable, had then become doable and had finally become routine. Shit, now I do it just to watch their expressions change.
He was a couple of miles down the road before the one piece of good fortune dawned on him – they hadn’t bothered to run his plates.
He got to San Antonio later that day, checked into a motel, found his way to the exclusive suburb of Champions Ridge, and began the usual surveillance.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘Think of all the lives we’ve saved.’
‘Jesus Christ, this fucking guy.’ ‘Debbie’ fixed her stocking tops, checking her make-up in the mirror. ‘Every Tuesday …’
‘It’s not too bad – hell, he can’t even get it up no more.’ This was ‘Kelly’, making adjustments to her outfit, both girls cramped in the milky plastic light of the bathroom. This was another thing, all the money this guy had, you’d think he could spring for a decent hotel. But no, it was always the same, every Tuesday afternoon, this cheap Motel 6 off the interstate. Debbie – twenty now, but going out as nineteen on the website – had been here many times. Kelly was seventeen, but going out as eighteen of course. This was her third visit. Both of the girls were standard for the agency: blonde hair, big fake tits, and hard, tanned, perfect bodies. They both came from small Texan towns, were both saving up to move to LA, and were both wearing the standard accoutrements of the business – thongs, stockings, belly chains. Additionally, Kelly was wearing a large, black strap-on dildo.
‘Hurry it up in there now. Papa Bear’s waiting!’ His voice came through from the bedroom, gruff and wattled, the voice of a man used to shouting at waiters.
‘Shit, darling,’ Debbie whispered to Kelly, ‘that’s easy for you to say. Least you get to be the guy.’ She eyed the black rubber phallus buckled to her colleague’s waist.
‘You wanna swap?’ Kelly asked, but with little conviction.
‘Hell, it’s OK.’ They’d only worked together a few times, but a protective, older-sister dynamic had already developed. ‘Just make sure you get plenty of this shit on it.’ She handed her the KY.
‘DAMN IT – COME ON NOW!’
They came out of the bathroom, Debbie first, sashaying forward onto the bed. Kelly came out behind her, placed her hands on her hips and cocked a leg to the side to best display the enormous black monster, wanging lazily in front of her, the leather of the straps already cutting into her flesh.
The man clapped delightedly. He was sitting in a tub chair in his tighty-whities, drinking bourbon from a plastic cup. ‘Now that’s what ah’m talking about. God damn.’
‘What do you want today, lover boy?’ This was Debbie on the bed, already, automatically, playing with herself.
‘Looks like a black cock, don’t it?’ the guy said. ‘Like a big old hunk of dark meat.’ The girls giggled. ‘You like that black cock, darling?’ He asked this directly to Kelly, knowing she was younger, more insecure. Kelly was unsure of the right answer here. A ‘no’ might turn him off, but a ‘yes’ might enrage him.
‘Not as much as I like yours, Papa Bear,’ she cooed, all the while running a hand up and down the dildo she was wearing. He looked at it, his hand inside his shorts, playing with himself. Debbie watched his cruel, calculating face, his Adam’s apple bobbing
up and down once, quickly, as he stared at Kelly and swallowed back his lust. Debbie thought back to her Bible classes in Denton. Adam, the first man, the one who’d spawned all these fucks they had to deal with every day. Debbie also noticed he wasn’t staring at Kelly so much as he was staring at the fucking dildo. Figured. Half queer lots of these fellas anyway. Probably been dreaming of a black guy’s cock inside him all his life. ‘What do I want you to do?’ The old guy – old enough to be their grandpa, their great-grandpa – repeated it with a half-incredulous tone. He took a long draught of bourbon and smacked his lips. ‘I want you –’ he pointed to Kelly – ‘to stick that big nigger dick up her ass –’ his finger moving to point at Debbie. ‘You pound it hard now.’ Both the girls were too young to remember this man’s time on the centre stage of American politics. If they had they would have been stunned at the gulf between the public and the private image.
‘Oh goody,’ Debbie said with as much enthusiasm as she could manage, getting up onto her knees on the bed, pushing her ass towards Kelly. A long strand of jelly dripped from the monstrous toy, glistening in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the thin, closed curtains.
Kelly moved into position, pressing the tip against Debbie’s bottom. Debbie gasped at the cold of it. ‘Slowly now,’ the man said, sitting up in the chair, moving his bulk forward to get a better look.
Debbie braced herself.
There were three staccato knocks at the door.
‘Police. Open up.’
All three participants froze. Kelly and Debbie looked at the man. The man looked at the door. A beat and then three more knocks. Harder.
‘San Antonio PD. Open the door, sir.’
What the fuck? The man got unsteadily to his feet, the minute semblance of an erection he had managed to attain fast disappearing. With his left hand he held an angry finger to his lips and with his right he pointed to the bathroom door. The girls quickly scrambled towards it and closed the door behind them. ‘Just a damn minute,’ the man said gruffly, pulling his pants on, sweating, breathing hard with the effort, thinking – whoever the fuck this is I’ll have their fucken badge. He opened the door. A man was standing there. Maybe in his sixties. Grey hair spilling out from under a black woollen cap or beanie.
‘Mr Rockman?’ the guy said.
Before Rockman could answer he was reeling backwards, clutching his nose as blood spurted out of it, crashing onto the bed.
Frank stepped into the room, locking the door behind him and pointing the .38 snub nose he’d just used to break Rockman’s nose straight at the cowering octogenarian.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Rockman yelled from the floor.
‘I’ll be Frank,’ Frank said. He had to admit it, he was kind of into it now.
He’d been watching him for over a week now, following the ancient retiree around San Antonio. From his mansion in the affluent suburb, to his golf course, to the deli he favoured, to this motel, the target was a creature of habit. He had visited here last Tuesday afternoon, at exactly the same time, parking far away from the room and strolling over, then opening the door about a half-hour later to two young women dressed in jogging clothes, but both carrying holdalls. It seemed that the many rumours about Rockman – with his eight children from four different wives – were true. He had his appetites, although indulging those appetites did not seem to have put any kind of dampener on his enthusiasm for inflicting a much more heavy-handed, biblical view of morality upon the people of America. Frank had felt strongly that the following Tuesday Rockman would be repeating his motel routine and, if he did, Frank would be ready with the .38 he’d acquired in a pawn store on the outskirts of town.
‘What … what …’ Rockman was in shock, flailing backwards, tumbling onto the floor, suddenly looking very old and feeble.
Frank stepped around him and pulled down his beanie, actually a woollen ski mask, obscuring his face except for the eye and mouth holes. He tapped on the bathroom door with the butt of the gun. He looked like a central casting rapist.
‘Girls? Open the door. Come on now. You’re not in any trouble and no one’s going to hurt you.’
A moment and then Debbie opened the door, Kelly behind her on the edge of the tub. ‘Oh my God,’ Debbie said. Kelly started crying when she saw the mask, his eyes, the gun.
‘Shhh,’ Frank said. ‘Now listen. I’m just going to talk to him for a minute. Two or three minutes tops. Just lock the door and stay –’ Behind him he heard a lamp falling over: Rockman, trying to get to his feet, clutching a bedside table. Frank stepped over and kicked him in the ribs, but not too hard, putting him down, whimpering. He turned back to the bathroom. ‘Stay in there. OK? This is between me and him. Nothing to do with you.’
Debbie nodded, blinking back tears.
‘After I’m gone you girls give me five minutes and then do whatever you have to do.’ He looked over at the table where Rockman had been sitting: bourbon, ice bucket, car keys and stuff. Frank went over and picked up Rockman’s wallet. It was stuffed thick with cash. ‘Here,’ Frank said, handing the girl all of it. ‘You should have this.’ Debbie took the money in shaking hands. ‘You don’t have any cell phones or anything in there, do you?’ Debbie shook her head. ‘OK. Shut the door and don’t come out. You hear me?’
‘How … how will we know when you’re gone?’ Debbie asked.
‘You’ll know. Now stay in there.’
As he went to close the door, Kelly said, ‘M-mister?’ Frank looked at her over Debbie’s shoulder. She was shaking, her face slick with tears, wearing a rubber cock. ‘What did he do to you?’
Frank thought for a second. ‘He killed my daughter.’
He shut the door, heard it lock from inside.
Frank took the ski mask off and stepped back over towards where Dennis Rockman, former Supreme Court Justice of the United States, was pushing himself feebly back towards the bed, using his bare heels in the carpet, his vest covered with blood from his busted nose. Frank saw he’d lost a front tooth when he’d popped him in the face with the butt of the gun. (This was another thing the movies lied to you about, Frank was discovering. In the movies people got pistol-whipped all the time and they just kind of took it. Maybe there would be a little cut. In real life? You smack someone in the face with a two-pound piece of metal? It really fucks them up.) The broken nose and the missing tooth meant that Rockman’s voice was coming out strange, nasal and sibilant, flat with the odd whistle in there. ‘Wayy, wayy, wayy jusss a secon,’ he was saying, holding up a hand, blood bubbling out the nose, dribbling out the mouth.
Frank sat down in the chair opposite the foot of the bed, Rockman on the carpet, back against the bed. He rested the gun on his thigh, the barrel vaguely pointed at Rockman’s chest.
‘You gaw th’ ron guy. I nebber kill anyone.’
‘Five years ago,’ Frank began. He was conscious of the fact that he was so much calmer than he’d been with Hauser, than with the dentist. That first one is the bitch of the bunch. ‘You were appointed to the Supreme Court, where you provided the decisive vote in overturning Roe v Wade. That led to a nationwide abortion ban. A couple of years later, my daughter died from complications arising from a badly performed illegal abortion.’ Frank let this sink in. Rockman’s face showed confusion, then panic.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry for your loss but … but … it’s not my fault.’
‘Whose fault is it?’
Rockman looked at him, at the slightly trembling gun clamped in his fist, the experienced prosecutor inside him feeling around for the magic word or phrase the judge wanted to hear, the one that would get him out of this. ‘Well, I was just one voice on the court. Yes, yes I did vote to overturn that particular statute. I voted with my conscience.’
Frank cocked the gun.
‘No! No! Wait! You want money? I have lots of money.’
‘That’s not going to help you here.’
Rockman saw that it wasn’t. Tried a different tack. ‘Son, I’m a re
tired Supreme Court Justice. Think. Come on – use your damn head! You kill me, your life’s over. They’re going to get you and you’ll go to the chair.’
‘My life’s already over. I have cancer.’
Oh shit. Rockman scratching around now, desperate, looking for an angle. ‘Look, we … we believe in different things. You say I caused your daughter’s death. But, look at it from my point of view. Think … think of all the babies. Think of all the lives we’ve saved.’
‘What about my daughter? My little girl, bleeding to death in her sleep in some room like this. All on her own. I think about it all the time, you know? Did she wake up at some point? Did she know what was happening to her? Was she scared? All alone. Maybe crying out for her mommy. Or …’ Here Frank’s voice broke. He sucked it back in through his teeth. ‘… for her daddy.’
Silence for a moment, just the rasp of breathing in through the blood bubbles in his nose, Frank tapping the cocked revolver against his thigh. And then in a new tone, the placatory, reasonable tone he had used in many courtrooms, way back when he was a prosecutor trying to get a tough judge onside, Rockman began, ‘You know, Frank, in the Bible it says –’
‘The Bible?’ Frank said. ‘The Bible? Oh, that’s good. That’s great. Tell me, Justice Rockman, what does it say in the Bible about jerking off to teenage hookers wearing dildos? Was that in the Old or the New Testament? I must have missed that passage.’
Rockman met Frank’s gaze and found some strength within himself, dredging it up through his pain and his fear. ‘I’m not perfect, sir. I am a sinner. I will have to meet the Lord on even terms. I will confess and, God willing, have my sins absolved. Praise Jesus. And I am sorry for your loss. Truly. But what I did in my life will count against what happened here today. I helped to stop a holocaust of a generation of unborn innocents. Think of that now. If you believe all lives to be equal I have done more good than harm.’
He managed to get all of this out with a kind of dignity, a proud defiance, even as he sat there in blood-soaked vest and underpants, with his face and teeth all busted up and two hookers cowering in his bathroom. Yes, no doubt about it, you could feel the smarm and charm oozing, could see why this tough old son of a bitch would have made a difficult, dangerous opponent back in the day.
