Nobody’s having any fun here. Which is perfect for me. This is my stage, and I am ready to perform.
I get in line and I wait, shifting from side to side every once in a while to take the pressure off my hips. Moving forward two inches at a time until I get near the front of the line, where an angry-looking lady who’s wider than she is tall stands guard, directing traffic. Choosing who goes where. I pull out my I.D., a passable fake that Joe gave me identifying me as “Martha Washington”. I have no idea where any of my real identification is, and I prefer it that way. Makes things easier. No trail to sweep up behind me.
In line two, there’s a problem. Some idiot appears to have brought a tiny knife through security, which, he loudly protests, is purely decorative.
“What am I gonna do with this?,” he says. “I couldn’t cut butter with this thing. Government regulations, my ass! You should be pulling out the guys with beards and motherfuckin’ headwraps. Look at the gangbangers like that guy over there. They’re the trouble. You know it, I know it, everybody here knows it! It’s not like I’m trying to shoot somebody. It’s not like I brought a bomb.”
At the last word, the amount of activity at checkpoint two triples. A policeman moves over to calm the man down, which only succeeds in agitating him. The wand lady steps over.
This guy is stealing my show. This is supposed to be my big moment. I glance at my watch. It’s early still. Too many of these kinds of distractions and my show will be ruined. Maybe I’ll still get to shine.
An older, chubby guy in a blue sweater, some kind of supervisor, he’s floating around the whole scene, trying to direct traffic. “Next! Let’s go!”
My line is officially stalled, and two spaces over, several of our county’s best employees are fully engaged with an angry white man who’s lost his sense of entitlement. Which means I’m being shunted over to gate three, toward a beefy guy with a white-walled buzzcut who looks like he took some time off from ramming his steel-toed boots up new recruits’ asses to be here. This should do nicely.
I keep my eyes locked on Buzzcut, who after a quick glance at my features, has his eyes locked on the X-ray screening machine. Without looking, he gestures to the little stack of plastic trays.
“Keys,” he says. Then adds, “Change.”
I empty my pockets and wait for the tray to start going through the machine. Then I hobble forward. My mind is chanting a mantra at the machine, daring it to ignore me. And as I take my first step through the big square arch, I start to relax.
And then it’s New Year’s Eve right above my head. Bells and whistles and lights. I don’t know whether I should feel like a terrorist or the millionth customer.
I look to gate two, where everyone involved in the ruckus has simultaneously stopped, their heads craning in my direction. The wand lady straightens, takes a half step towards me, but then stops as the angry white man starts to walk away, thinking he’s free.
I agree with the news reports. Are our government buildings secure? Yes.
But…are they understaffed?
Severely. And this may become my saving grace.
Buzzcut is on his feet now, waving the wand lady back to her frisking duties with Middle America. He jabs an angry finger, motioning me through the gate again. I step through and hit the jackpot, bells and sirens, and now Buzzcut makes a brisk motion for me to step through and to the side.
The guardian of the only other open gate sighs, shaking her head. The weight of the world is now officially on her shoulders. It’s her versus the entire slovenly population of the city that was too stupid to duck out of their civic duty, at least until me and the knife guy are removed.
Buzzcut reaches behind his back and produces a baton, holding it out stiffly at waist level, and all of the teachings of Dr. Freud run through my mind. He’s coming for me, waving it around, coming to search my body and shut me down.
Wand me, you fucker, let’s see what you’ve got.
He starts at my head, has me stick my arms straight out, which of course makes me shift a little and lose my balance. I teeter, then straighten up.
“Been drinking?” he asks, pushing my shoulder with the wand.
I teeter again. Keep it up, you fucker, you just wait until you see what I’ve got for you. It’s going to destroy you.
I shake my head, offer him my best confused look.
Drinking? Moi? How dare you?
He wands me again, over my shoulders, around my waist and back, getting little positive hits at my belt buckle.
“Lift the front of your shirt please,” he says, and not nicely, and not even in a sleazy pervy way.
I, of course, act appalled again.
My shirt? Why? What are you getting at?
“Belt,” I mumble, in a way that probably makes him think I’m sauced.
He starts to wand my legs and the sound moves from the little beep-beep to a positive death scream as he makes it to my mid thigh. He draws back and eyes me.
“Are you concealing any metal objects on your person, ma’am?”
Here’s my confused look again, you fucker, just you wait. You see where your life is going after today.
He starts to pat down my legs and runs his hands over the irregular bumps around my thighs. He draws back quickly and wands me again, getting the same scream. His hand starts to go to his walkie-talkie, getting ready to hail security.
I muster some tears and reach down, squeezing just above the knee joint of my left leg. I slide the pantleg up and let him get a good look at my crusty old sock, bunched up there, before I raise the curtain higher and the show really begins.
Aircraft-grade black pipe. Hasn’t seen that before, has he?
I sniffle. I can see the hesitation starting to build in him. I push my hand deep into my pocket, finding the buckle and opening it, releasing my left leg. Hopping a little, I shake it loose and get my balance, sliding it out of my pants and handing it to him.
He doesn’t take it.
The whole place is quiet now. Even the angry white man has gone from crimson to pale, and all jaws are slowly returning from gaping to their full upright positions.
I drop the leg.
Adding a theatrical sob, I tug up my right pantleg and show him another pipe, scream, “Is this what you need? Do you feel safe now?!” which nobody understands but everybody feels. I look for a place to sit down and throw the other leg off.
Hoping the whole time that I’ve done what I set out to do. Hoping that he feels wretched enough now to stop me. He doesn’t. He’s waiting for it, I think.
But the wand lady struts over quickly, realizing that I’m causing a massive traffic backup and a potential security hazard just by being a distraction.
“Jesus Christ, Bill,” she mutters under her breath.
Bill is shaken from his stupor. He blinks twice and then wands my left leg, lying on the floor before him.
“I’ll be damned,” he mutters.
“Sorry,” he says, trying to smile and looking more like he bit into some rotten fruit.
I sniffle again and lean back on the wall with one hand, motioning towards the wand lady, my hero, my savior, could she please bring me back my leg.
She picks it up, handling it at first like a dead snake, but then, seeing my face, she grips tighter to show me she’s not afraid.
“Do you need some help, hon?” she asks. “A wheelchair to get to your floor? Where you headed today?”
“Yah,” I say, shaking my voice and letting some drool fly. “Goory googy.”
“Where?” she asks.
I lean on the wall, bunching my pants up and getting my thigh reconnected, hoping that all of this movement isn’t going to shake the guns and ammo loose from my right leg.
I gesture at the rest of the line.
“Jury duty?” she asks. “I’ll get a chair for you. You’ll be sitting all day anyway.” And she laughs, gives me a warm smile, and I try to return it, I do.
Bill leans in a little, whispering to m
y savior, and I see her eyes roll, and I know he’s just asked her the million-dollar question. She shifts a little, then gets it out:
“I’m sorry about all of the confusion and inconvenience. We’ll get you on your way as soon as we can. I just need to check your summons. Heightened security because of all of the activity lately.”
And I let my face go slack for a half-second, then lightning quick, I slap at my pockets. I hand her the Martha Washington fakie, keep slapping, then I look like I’m going to cry. I mime driving to the lady, and tell her I forgot my papers in the car. All of the sympathy drains from her face. Now I’m just an ugly retard who can’t do anything right.
As politely as possible, she tells me I can’t enter the building without proper government-issued photo ID and the jury notice.
“Okay,” I say, one of my easy words. “Okay, gut I gorra go.”
I motion to the ladies’ room, my final destination. I babble on and on of how Buzzcut scared me, I really need to go to the restroom, and maybe they’ll be able to issue me a new pass upstairs, please help me I don’t want to be humiliated. She starts to tell me there are restrooms at the coffee hut on the corner, and I go toddler on her. It’s too far! Too far! I’m going to pee my pants!
And I break her. I win. She escorts me to the lobby bathroom, doesn’t even ask if I need help in there. Tells me to make it fast but that I still need to get my papers from my car. So I make it fast. There’s nobody else in the bathroom, so I lift the liner out of the trashcan and deposit my ammunition. I replace the bag and start to head out. It would be nice now to have a little fun. Splash water all over the front of my pants, soaking them, go out screaming and trying to make them feel really bad. But I don’t need attention anymore. My work is done. I do spritz a little water on my cheeks for a realistic after-tears look, and the show goes on.
The wand lady escorts me back through security to the lobby doors and I’m on my way. She apologizes again, gives me seven variations on “I’m sorry to inconvenience you but rules are rules.” When I’m convinced that I’m alone in front of the building, I stop at a bank of fossilized payphones and drop a quick call downtown. I hear Joe’s voice, and our conversation is short and simple.
“Mm-hmm?” he asks.
“Mm-hmmm,” I answer.
There’s a brief pause.
“Thank you,” he says.
I notice the angry American making his way out of the lobby. He’s on his cell phone, as animated as ever. On the phone, I hear one of Joe’s other lines ringing in the background. He tells me, “later.”
Good enough. I’ve earned my daily bread.
Now I’ve got a soccer game to catch.
Chapter Nine
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
Game Day!
I have a CD I listen to sometimes before a mission. A bad recording taken off of a TV broadcast, but it works just the same. It’s one of those dramatic trumpet and drum numbers that comes before the football game starts. When they show athletes warming up and retired jocks overanalyze things until a simple game has escalated to a blood feud.
It’s a matter of honor. It’s about respect. It’s for the love of the game. Cliché, sure. But man, it gets me going. Until I roll over and see the field.
I spent the night in my shooter’s stand in a tree two hundred yards from the field. Way out of sight, out of mind. I drifted off to the sound of the breeze rustling the branches, the clouds scudding everywhere and offering no hint of sunshine, ever. I lay back between a couple of branches, nice and cozy.
I stared at the empty field until well after dark, picturing her, watching her move the way I’d seen her on TV. Thinking about where she’d walk, where she’d sit. She hates the public eye. She has to be somewhere safe. Somewhere her daughter can look at her for encouragement, but not somewhere that feels like she’s sitting in a fishbowl. I spotted every place possible, walked them over and over. It’s why I picked this tree. I’ve got a clear view of a spot removed from the stands with a good view of the field and quick access to the parking lot. As the night faded into dawn, I pictured a beautiful, quick, clean kill shot.
This morning, things are ugly. Kids everywhere. It’s Lord of the Flies by Disney. All of these tiny tribes in their brightly colored uniforms. They’re so proud of their cheap t-shirts, their horrible cutesy sponsored team names emblazoned on their backs.
Ace Lumber Lumberjacks.
North Street Coffee Buzzers.
A & L Siding Weatherbeaters.
These kids with their ratty uniforms are in awe of the professionals, the kids whose parents are paying for soccer more to get them out of the house for a few hours than anything else. The pros don’t have sponsor names. They don’t need sponsors. Just mascots. And they get the cool uniforms.
Wasps.
Polar Bears.
This should be a day when these working-class kids, these castoffs, get a moment they will remember. Handing some rich punks their asses.
I’m going to be sick.
What if Grace Brooks splatters? What if I hit her and it’s not lethal and she runs? Runs across the field, grasps at children, screams at them as she dies? What if?
But there is no other time to do this. No other time that would be this easy. I’m not a Hollywood action star. I can’t swagger into her private mansion, I can’t disguise myself and get into her soirees.
It has to be now. It has to be now. It has to be…
I grab the first bag from the neat stack I made by my rifle case. Nothing in the world seems smaller than the paper bag you’re spilling your guts into. I feel it bulge in my hand, wet and steaming. The optimist in me sees the bag as half empty with more on the way. Dry heaves hit me and for a moment I’m afraid I’ll tumble from my stand. I don’t, but my rifle does. I catch the strap with my forearm, wincing as I hear it bang against the side of the tree. I haul it back up and examine it. I look at the scope. No scuffs. No harm, no foul. I might have knocked it out of alignment, which would be just my luck. I don’t have time to resight, and I don’t have time for Murphy’s Law. Let him shit on me all he wants. I can take it. I’ll adjust with the barrel sight.
I gently set the rifle down, wrapping the strap tight against my body. The heaves come again. I fill the bag up and fold it as best I can and leave it next to me, warm and foul-smelling. My hands do not shake. My eyes are still sharp. I can see through the kids. I can aim around anything.
I will teach Grace Brooks a lesson.
She hasn’t arrived yet. I’m pretty sure this will be a case of her showing up one minute before the game starts and leaving one minute after her daughter rotates out for the last time.
The papers are going to have a field day with this one. Was it an obsessed fan? What kind of monster would commit murder in front of children? Was Grace Brooks really this madman’s target? (I know they will say madman.) And always the why, why, why? And the are, are, are?
Are we under siege?
Are terrorists involved?
Are your children safe?
The heaves come again and I start to fill up bag number two when I go dry. My stomach is in knots. I should go. I’m right at the edge of the platform. I can climb this tree while wearing my standard legs, no problem. So I will be able to walk out of the park. I could walk right now.
Maybe Grace Brooks can wait. Maybe there is a way to do this in private. Vasili was easy. Nobody liked him. And he was the catalyst. He turned me to ashes and I rose again.
Why are you trying to do this without me?
I’m fine.
But you could miss. The kids…
I’m focused. No bottle. I just have to run the checklist, same as every time. Hip bone connected to the leg bone, and so on. I remember the night at the bar. Something to do with the man who ran off and got burned. They wanted me. Why didn’t they get me? Vasili was at the bar. He was supposed to help me, but…
But there are families here…
But what about my family? What about the p
eople I lost?
You’re jealous, jealous, jealous of all the happy families. Come on, just a little taste. Calm you right down.
It’s too late. I want to take this one sober. I want to understand why I’m doing this.
What did Grace Brooks’ daughter do that she deserves to see this?
My subconscious is hitting below the belt today. Grace Brooks’ daughter will not see the shot. I will make sure of that. But Grace Brooks cannot be allowed to draw breath from this day on.
Any of the children could be my daughter. Running, happy, getting red cheeks and running back to me with sweat-damp heads, hair that I could tousle, hands to squeeze…any of them could have been my daughter, and that’s why I have to do this.
Take her daughter too. She shouldn’t have to live with the pain you’re going to cause. She shouldn’t see her mother suffer.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!
There’s a muffled honk, warbling and drunk, from the horizon. The ref just blew the starter horn and the game is underway.
And there she is.
I put a pillow over the voice in my head and hope that this time it suffocates. This would be so easy if I had lost my conscience with my legs.
Grace Brooks is wearing a dark scarf around her hair. She’s looking relaxed in a sweater and khaki pants, sitting on a small chair slightly removed from the rest of the parents, right where I hoped she’d be. She’s got a couple of people next to her, assistants maybe.
If luck is on my side, her daughter will score a goal early. Grace smoothes her hands over her pants and leans forward, her face dancing through each quadrant of my scope.
Just one goal, Susie or whatever your name is, and you can high five Mom and then run back to the field, not facing her, and this day will be over.
Miss Massacre's Guide to Murder and Vengeance Page 7
