Bad Games- The Complete Series

by Jeff Menapace

A small nostalgic smile had formed on the corner of Arty’s mouth as he recalled the past. Now it was gone, sadness and anger for his departed brother the primary culprit. But what about his sister? Her sudden emergence into his life was a godsend, yet he still didn’t know her precise intentions. Discretion was obviously the order of the day, and while she was certainly taking care of things on the outside—his fake mother, Amy’s father—he wondered if she had plans to try and free him.

  And oh if she did …

  The Lamberts. The things he would do. He would kill the children this time, no question. Ordinarily he and Jim would leave children be. They often used children as instruments to heighten torment for their subjects, but they never planned to kill them. They had left many traumatized orphans in their wake, and he supposed that was often a fate worse than death (to which he felt nothing), but intentional killing of children was against their rules. Not for reasons of empathy, but for reasons of caution. Murdered adults? Horrible. A shame. Murdered children? The world stopped. You would be found, and you would be punished without mercy. Even the most hardened and brutal of inmates adhered to this code.

  So they never killed children. But the Lambert kids?

  Arty clenched his fist until his knuckles went white and his fingernails cut into his palm. Jim was gone now, and if his sister was planning to free him (and in his heart, he knew she was), he was going to make some new rules.

  He would kill the Lambert children. He would kill them first. Slowly. And he would make Amy and Patrick watch—even if he had to glue their eyelids open.

  37

  It had been a week since the incident Patrick and Amy seldom referred to as “that night.” Things did not go back to rainbows and kittens right after—Bob Corcoran was still dead after all, and Amy was still grieving—but they were okay, and the Lamberts were very familiar with okay. After what they’d been through this past year, okay was the silver medal of status updates. Good was the prestigious gold. Great? They’d experienced sporadic moments of good since Crescent Lake, but the enigmatic great was becoming a memory. A memory that, lately, carried more melancholy than hope.

  Patrick was pouring coffee into his travel mug when Amy came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He looked back over his shoulder and said, “Morning, love.”

  She laid her cheek in the center of his back and mumbled a good morning.

  He turned into her. He was cleaned and dressed for work, she was in a big tee-shirt and sweats with rumpled hair and puffy eyes. He went in for a kiss.

  She turned away and covered her mouth. “Haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

  “Oh shut up.” He gripped her chin with his thumb and index finger and pulled her lips to his. She obliged, but it was only a quick peck.

  “Did you make me some?” she asked, peering around him towards the coffee maker.

  “Yeah, but it’s not that hippie shit you drink. It’s a dark roast.”

  Amy let go of Patrick’s waist and opened the cabinet. She took out the bag of dark roast. “When did you get this?”

  “Couple of days ago. I need every conceivable advantage if I’m going to get this Megablast account polished by next month.”

  “Why not just drink Megablast?”

  “Very funny.”

  She smirked. She knew how vile the stuff was. Amy began looking deeper into the cabinet. “Where’d you put my hippie shit?”

  He palmed the top of her head and guided it away from the cabinet and towards the countertop where a bag of organic coffee stood.

  “How silly of me,” she said. “Looking for coffee in the coffee cabinet.”

  “I took it out for you so you wouldn’t have to look in the cabinet.”

  “If you were hoping to be such a saint, you could have poured the rest of your swamp water out and made me a fresh pot of my stuff.”

  Patrick kissed her on the back of the head and then pinched her butt. Amy jumped, turned, and took a swipe at him. He dodged, laughed, and hurried towards the mudroom with his coffee and briefcase.

  • • •

  It was 5 P.M. Patrick was intending on staying until at least seven. His neck ached, his eyes burned, and he was hungry. A brief diversion from his PC right now would be nice.

  Steve Lucas did a quick rap on Patrick’s office window and immediately poked his head in before being invited. Patrick’s mind flashed to the TV show “Laverne and Shirley.” Whenever Laverne or Shirley had just finished stating something creepy, slimy, revolting, or just flat-out annoying, their apartment door would always fly open on cue, revealing the two loveable doofuses that were Lenny and Squiggy, who would then simultaneously belt out their nasally trademark: “Hello!”

  Except Steve Lucas was not a loveable doofus. He was just a doofus.

  “How they hanging, big man?” Lucas asked.

  Patrick took a deep breath, let it out slow through his nose, forced a smile. “It’s going fine, thanks.” He did a quarter turn back towards his PC, hoping Lucas would take the hint.

  He did not. He pointed at Patrick. “You …” He pointed at himself. “Me …” He grinned. “Happy hour. Right now. What do you say?”

  The mere mention of happy hour reminded Patrick of the incident with Amy, and his annoyance meter shot up a notch. “I’m good, man, thanks,” he said.

  Lucas stood in front of Patrick’s desk. “Aw, come on, man. Look, I’m buying, okay? Besides you gotta meet this girl I’ve been seeing. Smokin’ hot.” He lowered his voice and raised his eyebrows like a car salesman about to whisper an unbeatable offer. “Fucking crazy in bed too, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  Patrick took another deep breath. “That’s great, Steve, I’m happy for you.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder towards his PC. “I’ve just got way too much stuff to get done.”

  “Come ooooon … it’s Friday. Give Amy a call, she can join us.”

  Patrick’s annoyance meter jumped another notch. “I don’t think so.”

  Steve cocked his head. “Everything okay?”

  Patrick nodded once. “Fine.”

  Steve put his hands on Patrick’s desk, leaned in and said, “You know, if you and Amy are having problems, I can see if my new girl has a friend …”

  Patrick was not consciously aware of the look he gave Steve Lucas just then, but when Lucas held up both hands and stepped back as though a gun had just been pulled on him, Patrick was certain that the fire that had instantaneously erupted in his gut had climbed and ignited his face, smoking nostrils, red eyes, the works.

  “Whoa, relax, man,” Lucas said, his hands still up. “Forget I said anything.” He slipped out of Patrick’s office without another word.

  Whatever rage Patrick had just felt towards Steve Lucas delightfully faded when he watched the man shit himself and scurry out of his office. Patrick allowed himself a brief smile then went back to work.

  38

  Samantha Hurst, also known as Monica Kemp, sat on a barstool in Bravo’s Tavern, drinking a vodka martini and waiting for Steve Lucas to arrive. She was wearing her blonde wig, her green contacts lenses, a thick layer of eyeliner, and an outfit that screamed sex from the rooftops—the exact persona she had donned when she had met Steve a week ago.

  Monica had been waiting for Patrick in the parking garage of his office building—basic surveillance, using the time to contemplate some type of innocuous in to Patrick and the big advertising account Amy had mentioned. She found it with Steve Lucas. Monica could read body language as well as she could English, and what she’d read as Patrick hurried to his car with Steve Lucas grinning and chatting away endlessly at his heels was written in a bold 72 font: Steve Lucas was an annoying prick, and Patrick couldn’t stand him. And oh yeah, they worked together.

  Courting Steve hadn’t been difficult. The man was the type to take the bait from anyone with a heartbeat, let alone a knockout like Monica. It was the sex that tested her resolve. Much to his delight, she had slept with him the first night they met and it proved more
difficult than she had predicted. The bastard had decent staying power. She had nearly dried up several times on that first night, and the only thing that had kept her wet were the graphic visions of what lay in store for the Lamberts once her brother was free.

  The seven days and nights that followed had been much of the same. It had been an effort, but Monica managed to dispense enough convincing sex into the eager hands of Steve Lucas to keep him blissfully ignorant to her ulterior motives. A quick lunch-time pop-in at the office on the fourth day had been followed by another on the sixth. Both times Patrick had been out of the office (she had checked in advance), and by the end of that sixth day Monica had the complete layout of the building’s interior and could find Patrick’s office walking backwards.

  All she wanted now was a key, or more appropriately, a magnetic key card—a magnetic key card that registered the name Steve Lucas every time it was swiped. She didn’t need it, of course; she could get into the office another way if she wanted, but talk about two for the price of one. She smirked and sipped her martini.

  Steve arrived a moment later. She ordered him a double bourbon then put her lips to his ear. “I feel like getting crazy tonight,” she whispered, her hand tracing the inside of his thigh beneath the bar.

  Steve grinned and looked as though he might squeal. He grabbed his bourbon and downed it in three gulps. Monica immediately ordered him another. He grinned again, and she grinned back—no faking this time.

  • • •

  Steve Lucas sat slurring and leering like a drunken fool on his sofa. He kept mumbling something about fooling around, yet Monica’s only reply was a playful bat of the eyes coupled with promises of a reward for patience. That and another large bourbon, his eighth of the night. And if one were to look close enough at bourbon number eight, one might see a few undissolved particles of the benzodiazepine Klonopin floating around in the amber liquid. Not that Steve was capable of noticing. She could have dropped the pills in whole and he likely wouldn’t have noticed. As far as tasting something odd about bourbon number eight? Well, drunkenness was her friend, as was Klonopin itself. Monica had chosen Klonopin over Xanax because Xanax had an exceptionally bitter taste. Klonopin was no puff of air, but it was mild enough for someone who was well and truly shit-faced not to give a crap.

  • • •

  It was less than thirty minutes before Steve Lucas was snoring on his couch. Monica slapped his face and he never so much as twitched. She slapped him once more for fun and then began rifling through the wallet he had placed on his coffee table. She found the key card in seconds, picked up her cell and dialed. A male voice picked up on the first ring.

  “Code in.”

  “Neco. 8122765.”

  “Waiting for voice authentication … clear. What’s up?”

  “I need 7146.”

  “Hold.”

  A click, a pause, and then a different male voice. “What is it and how soon?”

  “Security card. Standard magnetic stripe. Nothing crazy. I need it tonight. Multiple copies.”

  The male voice gave a confirmation number and an address in Philadelphia. Monica hung up and called her father.

  “I need you to come get the card and then take it to get copied. It’s in the city so I need you to leave now.” She gave him the suburban address to Steve’s place, the address to the place in the city, and then the confirmation number. “Leave now.”

  John grunted and hung up. Fifteen minutes later he pulled up to Steve Lucas’ home in the battered Dodge Dakota. Monica was outside smoking a cigarette, waiting for him. He rolled the passenger side window down as she approached.

  “Here.” Monica handed her father the card, then a piece of paper with the address and confirmation number.

  “You already gave me all that over the phone,” he said.

  “You never heard of being thorough?”

  He rolled his eyes and took it anyway.

  “Hurry back.”

  John rolled up the window and drove off.

  • • •

  John Brooks did not like cities. He felt more at home in open spaces, in the wilderness. He tended to choose jobs based on this preference, his last being a family on a ranch in Montana. The husband of that family had sold some of his accomplices out in exchange for no jail time. This landed the husband and his brood presumably safe in the hands of a witness relocation program out in the middle of God’s country—the last place a wise guy would go looking for another wise guy. Except the wise guys weren’t doing any of the looking—John was.

  He’d found them in less than a week. After disposing of security, John had cut the husband’s head off, shot the wife dead, left the kids unharmed (as instructed), and then packed the husband’s head in dry ice and hand-delivered it back to his employer. It went about as perfectly as any job could go.

  Now, in a more than unsavory section of Philadelphia, John felt cramped and vulnerable. He’d parked the Dakota along the street a few blocks back, and took the remainder on foot. He always felt better on foot.

  Beaten row homes lined both sides of the street. Some dark and barren, some dimly lit. Flophouses, he thought. Why would Monica have an affiliate do business here? Discretion, sure, but come on, he wasn’t buying fucking nuclear weapons or anything.

  John had made it two blocks when he was approached—a young black man, late teens to early twenties, heavy coat, both hands in his pockets.

  “What’s up, big dawg? You need some help?”

  John was told he would not be met by anyone. He was to approach the address given and ring the bell. So he looked the kid dead in the eye and said, “No.”

  The kid gave a casual glance around, inched closer. “You lost, dawg?”

  “No.”

  The kid’s right hand shifted in his coat pocket. John hit him immediately. One shot—an overhand right to the jaw with all the force of a train. The kid was unconscious before he hit the ground, the back of his head cracking concrete after descent stiffening him out like a mannequin as he seized. John calmly bent over the kid’s body to search his right coat pocket. He withdrew a .22 caliber pistol.

  “A twenty-two?” he said, waving the small gun over the kid’s unconscious face. “You were gonna mug me with a fucking twenty-two?” John brought his boot up and stomped on the kid’s head once, twice, and then a final third. He then tossed the gun into a square of fenced-in yard across the street. “Give that fucking toy to some kid to play with,” he said before spitting on the young man in disgust and continuing towards the designated address.

  • • •

  On his way back to the Dakota with the original key card and now several perfect copies, John found the young man where he had left him. He bent and checked his pulse. Dead. Probably the stomps that finished him, he thought. He shrugged and carried on towards his truck.

  39

  Monica was inside keeping an eye on Steve Lucas. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch—upright, head back, mouth open with a thunderous snore flapping out of his throat. She found it difficult to look at him for any period of time. She knew she was good, but how she managed to screw him as many times a she did without gutting him, she’d never know.

  Her cell phone vibrated twice. A text message. She flipped it open.

  From: Dad

  HERE.

  She snapped the phone shut and headed outside. John was parked along the street in the same spot he’d been when he arrived earlier. The passenger window was down. Monica leaned in.

  “Here.” John leaned over and handed the key cards to Monica.

  She took them and gave them a quick inspection.

  “Do I get one?” John asked.

  “No—why would you?”

  “Well you’ve got three of them,” he said.

  “Precaution, Daddy-O,” she said.

  He grunted and leaned back into his seat.

  “Wait,” she said. “I need you to come inside.”

  “What for?”

 
; “Can you just do it, please?”

  John grunted again and switched off the ignition.

  • • •

  Monica and John stood staring at the near-comatose Steve Lucas on the sofa.

  “Jesus,” John said, “How much did he have to drink?”

  “A lot. But I slipped him a few mickeys, too.”

  “Better hope he doesn’t fucking die.”

  “He’ll be fine. The-mother-of-all hangovers, but fine.” She turned to her father. “I need you to carry him into his bedroom.”

  “What?”

  “I need it to look like we started to fool around.”

  “Fine—just don’t ask me to undress the fucker.”

  John scooped Steve’s limp body up with ease and followed Monica into the bedroom. He dumped Steve onto the bed. “Okay?” he said.

  “Don’t leave yet,” she said. “Wait for me in the living room.”

  John nodded and left the room. Monica quickly stripped Steve Lucas naked and tossed his clothes everywhere. She reached beneath him, snatched the blankets and pulled them to the floor in a tangled heap. She knocked some pictures over on his dresser and stamped on the frames. She kicked over a lamp, elbowed the mirror on his wall until it cracked, then went to the kitchen and returned with an open bottle of bourbon. She dropped the bottle onto the rug and let the amber liquid soak into the shag until only a swallow or two remained in the bottle.

  Satisfied, she eventually returned to the living room. John was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. Steve Lucas’ wallet still sat on the coffee table. Monica took it, stuffed the original key card back inside, then placed it back on the table.

  “What the hell were you doing in there?” John asked, still thumbing through the magazine. “Sounded like you were trashing the place.”

  “I was,” she said. “Gotta sell it.”

  “Sell what?”

  “I want you to hit me,” she said.

  John glanced up from the magazine. “You what?”