Fuzzy Navel

by J. A. Konrath

  “I was following the plan.”

  “The plan was to take out the target, not half the cops in Chicago.”

  “They were witnesses,” Munchel says.

  Swanson bunches up his napkin, squeezes it hard. He’s bigger than Munchel, by five inches and sixty pounds. But the smaller man is flat-out crazy, and this scares Swanson.

  Swanson looks at Pessolano, hoping for some assistance. Paul Pessolano is wearing those stupid as hell yellow shooting glasses, which make him look like a bee. His face is granite, impassive. He’s had military experience, but he must have had his communication skills shot off during Desert Storm. Either that or he’s seen The Terminator too many times.

  As predicted, Pessolano offers nothing. Swanson turns back to Munchel, who is flagging down their server. He waits while Munchel orders a beer and one of those fried onion appetizers. When the waitress leaves, Swanson has to count to five in his head so he doesn’t start yelling.

  “I’m the leader of The Urban Hunting Club,” he says, his voice as calm and patronizing as a grade school teacher’s. “I’m the one who brought us together. I’m the one who picked the targets. I’m the one who came up with the plan.”

  Munchel rolls his eyes at Swanson, then nudges Pessolano.

  “Hey, Paul, how many confirmed kills you got?”

  “Eighteen.” Pessolano’s voice is rough, like he doesn’t use it much.

  “I’m almost caught up to you. I just got twelve.”

  “You got eleven,” Pessolano says. “One of the cops lived.”

  Munchel shrugs. “Fine, eleven. Still pretty good my first time out.”

  Swanson realizes that he probably shouldn’t have trusted guys who answered an ad in the back of Soldier of Fortune. But he didn’t have a choice. Where else was he supposed to find mercenaries? Swanson works in a home improvement store, in the plumbing department. He isn’t a killer.

  Well, technically, he is a killer now. But he wasn’t a few hours ago. And he wasn’t a few months ago when he placed that ad.

  When Swanson’s wife got… attacked… five years ago, he’d been devastated. Jen was, is, his everything. Then the bastard who did it got out five years early — for good behavior, what a fucking joke. Swanson couldn’t allow that. He had to kill the guy. For Jen. For himself. For society. It was more than just revenge. More than justice. The punk needed to be killed, and Swanson felt the need to perform that particular public ser vice.

  But he knew that if he offed the guy, suspicion would immediately fall on him. The authorities would look at his victims, following the revenge angle.

  Unless it looked random.

  Thus, The Urban Hunting Club was born. All Swanson needed were a couple of like-minded guys who hated perverts, and then Rob Siders’s death would be blamed on vigilantes, not on an angry husband.

  But Munchel has ruined the plan. TUHC has gone from being a group that might have been respected, even admired, straight to Public Enemy Number One. Cops never forget when you murder their own. They’ll be hunted for the rest of their lives. All because Munchel got himself a kill hard-on.

  “We need to break up,” Swanson says. “Go our separate ways, never see each other again.”

  “Why would we do that?” Munchel asks. The waitress brings his beer, and the idiot continues to talk in front of her. “We make a great team. We got rid of some real scum today.”

  The server leaves, and Swanson leans over, jutting his chin at Munchel.

  “And now we’re wanted for killing ten cops,” he says through his teeth.

  Munchel smiles, takes a sip of beer. “Collateral damage. Couldn’t be helped.”

  Swanson looks at Pessolano, who is stoically picking his teeth with his fork. He realizes he has to distance himself from these two loonies. Hell, he should probably run straight home, grab Jen, and move to California. That might look like an admission of guilt, but Munchel is going to get caught, and when he gets caught he’ll talk. Swanson doesn’t want to be implicated in any cop killing case, especially in a state that has the death penalty.

  “I’m ditching the gun, and getting the fuck out of town.”

  Swanson stands. Pessolano clasps his hands together, puts them behind his head.

  “You ain’t ditching shit. Those are my rifles, and they’re worth more than you make in a year.”

  “Fine. Let’s go out to the parking lot, you can have your guns back right now.”

  Munchel finishes his beer, lets out a weak belch. He meets Swanson’s stare.

  “Before you go running home to Mama, crying like a little girl, we have to take care of one more problem.”

  Dread creeps up Swanson’s shoulders and perches there, like a gargoyle. “What problem?”

  “That chick cop. The one who fired back at me.”

  “What about her?”

  Munchel wipes his mouth off with his sleeve. “She saw my face.”

  Swanson sits back down. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

  “Had some sort of scope,” Munchel goes on. “Some infrared night-vision bullshit.”

  “Could she ID you?” Pessolano asks.

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  Swanson tries to think, tries to remember if his passport is up-to-date.

  “We can go to Mexico,” he says. “We can leave to night.”

  Munchel snorts. “Hell no. I love America. I’m not leaving. Not because of some split-tail. Besides — there’s another option.”

  Swanson’s heart is beating faster than when he took the shot and killed the pervert. He should be feeling good right now. Satisfied. Complete. Maybe even a little excited. Killing Rob Siders had been easier than he thought, and every detail had been executed perfectly. But instead of celebrating, he feels terrified and ready to throw up.

  “What option?” Pessolano asks.

  “I put that GPS tracker you lent me on her car.” Munchel grins wide, his teeth the color of corn. “I know where she lives.”

  8:22 P.M.

  JACK

  “LET’S PLAY A GAME,” Alex says.

  I sit on the sofa. My hands rest in my lap, the handcuffs digging painfully into my wrists. My ankles are wrapped in silver duct tape. Latham has tape on his legs, wrists, and mouth. Alex dragged my mother, still bound to the kitchen chair, into the living room with us. Mom’s eyelids are drooping. She doesn’t look well.

  Alex holds a nickel-plated revolver. It has a two-inch barrel and a rubber grip. A small gun. It probably only holds five bullets. My guess is confirmed when Alex swings the cylinder out and pushes the ejector rod, dumping five .32-caliber rounds into her palm. She thumbs one back into an empty chamber, spins the cylinder, and slaps it closed.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions, Jack. If you get one wrong, I’m going to point the gun at either your mother or your fiancé, and pull the trigger. Like this.”

  Alex aims at my mother and fires before the cry can leave my throat.

  The hammer falls on an empty chamber with a metallic click.

  “A one out of five chance,” Alex says. “Those are pretty good odds. Do you understand the game?”

  I push the panic down, deep down, forcing myself to think rather than react to fear.

  “What if I get the answer right?” I ask.

  “Then I’ll ask another one.” Alex spins the cylinder. “Let’s begin.”

  She walks over to me and stares down. Her eyes are empty. I wonder if she’s enjoying this. She doesn’t seem to be.

  Alex doesn’t have the classic male psychopathic response, because her particular mental disorder isn’t linked to sex and testosterone. That means she stays calm, works within her peculiar kind of rationalization, without letting emotion take over. Her cruelty isn’t hot and breathy. It’s cold and calculating.

  In my opinion, that makes it worse.

  “How did I escape from Heathrow?” Alex asks me.

  What is she looking for? Praise? Begging? Cowering? Or does she just wa
nt a wrong answer so she can shoot someone I love while I watch?

  “You lured someone into your room, burned them, and took their ID. A guard, maybe.”

  “It wasn’t a guard. Try again.”

  “Another inmate.”

  Alex snorts. “If I took another inmate’s place, I’d be sitting in her cell right now. One more guess, then we play some Russian roulette.”

  I rack my brain, trying to remember what I know about Alex, about her past. She grew up with a family of psychos. She liked to kill animals. She was infatuated with her brother. She could act normal, function within society, until her peculiar tastes took over. She used to be a marine. She was an expert marksperson, and an expert martial artist. She murdered many people, torturing most of them first. She was of above-average intelligence. She had been analyzed by many specialists.

  Many specialists.

  “Your shrink,” I decide.

  Alex has killed several of her psychiatrists. She seems to get a particular thrill out of it, and I could easily picture her carrying on that legacy at Heathrow.

  I know I’m right, because the unscarred half of her face smiles.

  “Dr. Panko. Shorter than me, but the same hair color. She was a Freudian. Kept wanting me to talk about my parents. Saw me as a victim, a weak little girl who had been abused by the world. I had to fake a lot of tears in front of that bitch. It paid off.”

  “You got her to trust you,” I say. As long as Alex is talking, she isn’t shooting.

  “So much that she allowed me to get a job in the laundry room. On our next session I snapped her neck and put her body in the laundry cart. Not easy to do in handcuffs and ankle restraints. When I did laundry rounds that night, I dropped her off in my room, switched clothes with her, and set her on fire after spraying her with three cans of Lysol. Then I walked out of prison while everyone stood around watching the blaze. How did I do that, Jack?”

  “You took her keys. Her ID.”

  “Good. What else?”

  I stare at Alex’s cheek. “You also took her makeup.”

  “I needed a whole tube of concealer to cover up the scarring, and it wouldn’t have stood up to close inspection. But no one even bothered to look at me. They were all too jacked up about the tragic suicide. I found Panko’s car by pressing the alarm button on her key chain. She had this cute little gun in her glove compartment. A Freudian with a gun. I wonder if she ever thought about how ironic that was.”

  I steal a glance at Mom. She seems out of it. In contrast, Latham appears alert and determined. I try to tell him how much I love him using only my eyes.

  “So how did I convince the authorities that Dr. Panko was me?” Alex asks.

  I think about my earlier calls to Heathrow, how they insisted the dead body was Alex.

  “You somehow switched dental records.”

  “Wrong.” Alex holds up the revolver. “Who do you want me to shoot, your mother or your fiancé?”

  My stomach falls to my ankles. “Give me another chance. You’re smarter than I am.”

  “No. Choose.”

  I’m tempted to say please, but begging Alex won’t help the situation. She feeds off of weakness. I promise myself I won’t beg, no matter how bad it gets.

  I look at Mom. She doesn’t meet my eyes. I wonder if she’s being strong, or if she’s gone someplace in her head. Then I look at Latham. He nods at me. My sweetheart is giving me permission to shoot him.

  “I refuse to decide,” I say.

  “Fine. Then I’ll do both.”

  “Wait—!”

  Alex points the gun at Latham and fires, then turns it on Mom and fires.

  Two empty chambers, but something inside me breaks. The panic worms its way to the surface, and a soft whimper tears loose. I don’t want to cry, don’t want to let Alex see it, but some tears make it out anyway.

  “Hmm,” Alex says. “What were the odds there? A forty percent chance one of them would die? Looks like you got lucky, Jack. Now try again. How did I convince the authorities that Dr. Panko was me?”

  I have no idea. My brain is mush, scrambled eggs. I’m being forced to watch the people I love get killed. Alex will keep going until they both are dead, then she’ll start on me. How am I supposed to be able to think?

  “The clock is ticking, Jack. You have five seconds.”

  I make myself focus, make myself reason it out. If Alex didn’t switch records, there’s only one other possible way to get a positive dental ID.

  “You… you pulled some of your own teeth, put them in her mouth.”

  Alex claps her hands together.

  “Bravo, Jack! But you make it sound so simple. It isn’t easy, yanking out your own teeth. Especially without any anesthetic. Those suckers are in there tight! I used a toothbrush. Rubbed the handle against the cement walls until it got sharp. Then I jammed it into my jaw and pried the roots out. Does this look infected to you? Be honest.”

  Alex sticks her pinky into her mouth, pulls her cheek back. I see red, inflamed gums where teeth used to be, and her breath smells like meat gone bad. I turn away.

  “Why did I do that, Jack? Why did I yank out my teeth? Why didn’t I just get the hell out of there and not care if they realized I was gone?”

  “For me,” I say, my voice small. I stare at my lap.

  “Exactly. I did it for you, Jack. Because if they knew I escaped, they would have warned you, and you would have gotten away.”

  Alex grabs me by my hair, twists my head until I look at her.

  “How often did I think of you, when I was locked up? Take a guess, Jack. Guess how often.”

  I don’t have to guess. I know the answer.

  “Every day,” I say.

  “Every hour of every day I was in that hellhole I thought about you, Jack. About this moment right now. It made things bearable. Knowing one day I’d have you, and the people you care about, at my mercy — that was the only thing that kept me going. That was how I could look at my ugly, scarred face and not slit my own throat.”

  She releases my hair, and I force myself to hold her gaze.

  “Tell me, Jack. Did you think of me?”

  I don’t know what she wants me to say. Rather than try to guess, I tell her the truth.

  “Only in my nightmares.”

  “And what did you have nightmares about, Jack? Of me escaping?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”

  “Because I’m not a killer.”

  “But I am. You should have taken that into consideration.”

  I don’t want her to ask another question, so I blurt out one of my own.

  “Do you think this is going to make everything right, Alex?”

  She narrows her good eye. The other one just twitches. “What exactly do you mean, Lieutenant?”

  “You can’t get the time you did back. You can’t get your family back. You can’t get…” I force it out, “… your face back. Killing us isn’t going to change anything.”

  Alex caresses my cheek, lets her fingers linger.

  “I know that, Jack. I’m not doing this to make things right. The past is the past, and can’t be undone.” She winks her good eye. “I’m doing this because it’s a lot of fun.”

  I don’t want to provoke her, but I can’t help whispering, “You’re a monster.”

  Alex sighs. She looks at Mom, and Latham, and then at the ceiling, perhaps gathering her thoughts. When she speaks again, her voice is hard and even.

  “Life is all about cruelty. You know that. You’re a cop. You see it all the time. Nothing on this planet lives without something else dying. You call me a monster because I choose to accept my nature. I embrace it, rather than deny it. Here’s a bonus question, since your moral compass is so true, since you’re so sure you know right and wrong. Where has your morality gotten you, Jack?”

  “Hurting others is wrong, Alex,” I say.

  Alex laughs, a harsh, cruel laugh. “Look a
t history. It’s filled with atrocities. War. Murder. Torture. Rape. We call that kind of behavior inhuman. But maybe the terminology is backward. Maybe being human means hurting others. That seems to be what humans do best.”

  I shake my head. “Our species is successful because we nurture, not because we harm.”

  Alex spins the cylinder again, then twirls the gun around her finger like a cowboy.

  “Let me clue you in on something, Lieutenant. Nothing is black and white. There are no universal standards that determine what’s good and what’s evil. It’s subjective. You can’t kill for money, or recreation, but you can kill during a war. Why is there a difference? Dead is dead. I set someone on fire, I’m bad. The state fries me in the electric chair, and people sell T-shirts and toast champagne. Right and wrong is a matter of perspective.”

  “Your perspective is warped. Killing is wrong.”

  “Yet you’d probably give up everything just to have a shot at killing me right now, wouldn’t you? Let me enlighten you about something, Jack. Human beings are just animals, and all animals are selfish. Every single thing an animal does is selfish.”

  “People can be unselfish,” I maintain.

  “How so? Feeding the starving? Adopting unwanted babies? Sending aid when there’s a natural disaster? Giving blood? Donating to charity? People do these things to feel good about themselves. They’re all selfish acts, and pretty goddamn stupid as well. If you’re going to be selfish, it should benefit your life, not take away from it. Now I’m asking you again — where has your morality gotten you?”

  I know the answer, and hate the answer.

  “Answer the question, Jack.”

  “Here,” I whisper.

  “Exactly. Your high regard for life, and justice, and the path of righteousness, has gotten you here. You’re dead, and the people you love are dead, all because you’re so sure that there’s a right and a wrong. Be honest. Don’t you wish that you had killed me after you tore off my face?”

  I nod slowly and speak the truth. “Yes.”

  Alex half smiles. “Good. I’d hate for you to die without any regrets. And let me tell you something, Jack. For all I’ve done in my life, I never put anyone that I cared about in jeopardy. Your loved ones are going to suffer, and it’s your fault.”