Joe Victim: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  “Joe? Hey, Joe, are you okay?” Kent asks and, for the first time in a long time, somebody sounds concerned about me. It’s touching. So touching I start gagging and then something burns my throat on its way out, ruining my second shirt of the day.

  “Joe?”

  I look up at her. I nod. I’m fine. Super fucking perfect. I wipe my face in my hands and my palms come away wet and there’s vomit on them. I wipe them on the shirt since it’s ruined anyway. There are dark spots in some corners of the van and lights spots in others. Jack seems to be driving in extremely tight circles and quickly too, but when I look through the wire mesh I can see he’s not, that we’re still heading in a straight line. There is a steady stream of people flowing in the direction of the courthouse. There’s something really wrong with me, because I see Jesus and the Easter Bunny and the Lone Ranger. I see men dressed as schoolgirls, girls dressed as fairy-tale characters, fairy-tale characters drinking beer.

  I see the Grim Reaper walking alongside another Grim Reaper.

  I wonder if they are here for me. If it will take two of them.

  I see a man wearing a Tampon of Lamb T-shirt with The Queen and Cuntry Tour stenciled across it, along with a set of dates that all passed by years ago. I close my eyes and I can see Santa Kenny looking up at me with his dying eyes, the sadness in his features. I can see him trying to cling on to a life that was spilling between his fingers.

  The view darkens and changes. I think I’m going to pass out. I hold my breath and do my best to hold on as we get closer to the courthouse.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Raphael opens the gun case on the floor. He takes out the box with the two bullets in it and places each of them into the magazine. He takes out the armor-piercing bullet and kisses it. For luck, he supposes, though he never thought about it and can’t rightly say, it was something that just happened. It’s cold. He slots it on top of the others. He assembles the gun. He’s getting better at this. Next time he shoots a serial killer he could probably assemble the gun in the dark. He clicks the magazine into place. He stays in his own clothes for now.

  He sits by the window with a corner of the cloth tucked aside and stares out at the courthouse. He thinks about the three bullets. One for Joe. One for Melissa. And one spare. Hopefully he won’t need the spare. Traffic starts to build as eight o’clock arrives and builds even more the closer it gets to nine. Then a police car shows up and puts out road cones to block off the street. Good thing he got here early. Good thing he parked around the corner. Groups of people are walking from the direction of the bus station—he can see them from his viewpoint starting to fill the streets as they come his way. They’re carrying placards and signs down by their sides. Soon they start coming from every direction. If he went to the office across the hall and looked north he’d see the same amount of people carrying the same kinds of signs coming in his direction. The protestors are wrapped in thick jackets and have scarves to keep their vocal chords warmed up for the yelling to come. Some he recognizes from group. They’ve brought friends and family. Media vans start to show up. They drive around looking for parking spaces, but can’t find any, the drivers double-parking and reporters and camera operators jumping out. He sees brothers and sisters of people Joe has killed. He sees people carrying signs that say Execution is murder and Only God decides who lives and dies. He sees trouble brewing. He sees both signs as being wrong. He supposes that would make them bad signs. He sees Jonas Jones, the psychic who was on the news all day yesterday, arrive at the back gate and not go any further. Other people see that too, and a small squadron of them gather there, but mostly people are making their way to the front of the courthouse, where they are out of his view.

  Around quarter past nine comes the chanting. “Two, four, six, eight, let us eradicate.” Over and over it comes from the front of the courthouse, the words traveling easily on the cold, still air. The numbers start to grow. Soon people are arriving at the end of the block and can’t go any further, the street right outside the courthouse is packed. They spill out onto the other roads. The intersection becomes jammed. Then Elvis appears. He’s walking with Dracula and they’re carrying a six-pack of beer. They are followed by four beer-drinking Teletubbies and a couple of thin girls dressed up as maids. There is a moment, a comical moment, where he wonders if he’s having some kind of stroke, but no, what he is seeing is real. He doesn’t understand why it’s real, but it is. They disappear into the crowd.

  At nine twenty a car waits for the gate to roll open, then enters the parking lot behind the court. Detective Carl Schroder—or just Carl these days—climbs out. The gates roll closed behind him.

  Walking past the gates is Magnum PI and two nuns, Magnum saying something to make the two nuns laugh. With them is Smurfette. Raphael observes as Schroder watches the group walk past, then Schroder is slowly shaking his head before he disappears inside. Raphael pulls more of the drop cloth aside and reaches around the back and opens up the window. The air is chilling. The murmurs of street life kick up a few notches, he can hear people shouting and laughing and people arguing. He secures the curtain back into place.

  He changes into the police uniform. He stuffs his clothes back into the bag along with the thermos, then he reaches up into the ceiling and throws it as far as he can. He knows he’ll probably be in jail by the end of the day, but no reason to make it easy for the police.

  At nine thirty Raphael lies down on the platform they made. He has the urge to unload the magazine and reload it, just to make sure everything is how it should be. The same urge makes him want to take apart the gun and put it back together. But ultimately there’s no point. It wouldn’t go any different to how he already has it—and he’s satisfied it couldn’t be any better. He looks at his hands for any sign of the shakes and doesn’t see one. He positions the gun and he waits for Joe and Melissa to arrive.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “Which one of you has children?” Melissa asks.

  “What?” the woman asks.

  “She does,” the guy says, “but I don’t.”

  “Then that makes this easy,” she says, and she hands him a syringe.

  “What is it?” he asks, without taking it.

  “It’s your chance to live,” Melissa says. “You take that shot, and you get to fall asleep for the next hour. You don’t take the shot and I shoot you in the face right now,” she says, wiggling the gun a little. “Take your pick.”

  “Is it safe?” he asks.

  “Safer than this,” she says, wiggling the gun again.

  “No,” he says.

  “If I wanted you dead, I’d shoot you,” Melissa says. “The fact is I need you very much alive, but right now I need you very much out of the way. Now I know you’re confused and scared, so I’m going to give you five more seconds to think about how you’d rather be unconscious than dead.”

  “And what are you going to do with her?” he asks.

  “She’ll get the same option when I’m done with her,” Melissa says.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s your name?” she asks.

  “James,” he says, “but you can call me Jimmy.”

  “This is a silencer, Jimmy,” Melissa says, tapping the end of the gun. “I can shoot you both in the head and nobody would hear a thing. I can drive the ambulance myself.”

  Her words have an effect. You Can Call Me Jimmy takes the syringe. He rolls up his sleeve and uses his teeth to pull the cap off it, then holds the needle upright and taps the tube to get rid of any air bubbles. He looks like he wants to stab it into Melissa. Instead he puts the tip into his arm and keeps pushing until the needle disappears, then he pushes his finger down on the plunger.

  “I don’t feel so good,” he says.

  “Climb over into the back,” Melissa says.

  “I . . . I don’t think I can.”

  “Yes you can. Come on.”

  He starts to climb over. He gets halfway then looks up at her. “I don’t
feel so good,” he says again, and then proves just how un-good he’s feeling by collapsing.

  “What did you do to him?” the woman asks.

  “He’s only sleeping,” Melissa says, then drags him all the way into the back.

  “What are you going to do to us?”

  “Give me your driver’s license,” Melissa says.

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked nicely,” she says.

  The driver lowers the sun visor. Her license is tucked into a pouch up there. She hands it over. Melissa looks at the photograph. It’s five years old. She looks at the name and at the address. Trish Walker. Lives in Redwood.

  “This address still current?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, Trish,” she says. “Rather than me explain everything to you, just listen in as we drive and you’ll figure it out.”

  “Drive where?”

  “You have a schedule, remember? Just stick to it.”

  Melissa gets out her cell phone. Trish starts driving. Melissa dials a number that doesn’t exist and then talks to a person who isn’t there. Trish sits at a red light, which ten seconds later becomes a green.

  “It’s me,” Melissa says. “Here’s the address,” she says, and she reads out the address from the driver’s license into the phone. “You got that? Now repeat it back to me,” she says, and she listens to nothing as the address isn’t repeated back. “No, I said sixteen, not fourteen. Repeat it back,” she says, knowing the small detail makes it believable. “That’s it,” she says.

  She hangs up.

  Trish has gone pale. Very pale.

  “Okay, Trish, by now you’ve figured out that you’re in a very deep hole, and your children are in there with you. Think of it like this. Think of that hole slowly caving in, there’s dirt all around you, and you have one chance to claw your way out of it along with your children. Are we on the same page here?”

  “What are you going to do to them?”

  “If you help me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You don’t do what I say . . . well, then it gets interesting.”

  Trish nods. Melissa glances behind her at Jimmy. Not too many places to hide an unconscious body, but she can make do. First she just has to strip him out of his uniform. She’s going to need it.

  “I want you to tell me we’re on the same page,” Melissa says.

  “We’re on the same page,” Trish says.

  “Good,” Melissa says, “because we’ve got a few things we need to discuss on our way. And you can start by giving me your cell phone—best you don’t have it, because something like that in the wrong hands is only apt to see that hole of yours get a whole lot deeper.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The police escorting the empty van are nowhere to be seen. It’s like a ghost being escorted into town. Except it’s not. It’s some kind of decoy van. There must be a crowd of people outside the courthouse. The police must be expecting trouble and are sneaking me through a different entrance. We reach the edge of town. Then we’re closer to the center. We can hear people. Lots of people. We’re on the one-way system heading toward the courts.

  “Oh my God,” Kent says.

  I look up out the window. I’ve managed to not pass out, which I really think deserves a medal. Protestors are lining the street close to the courthouse. They’re yelling and screaming at the police escort, which I can now see is further up ahead. The escort is swamped by a sea of people. Many of them are carrying placards, but I can’t read what they say. In a way it’s a relief to know all these people have come out here to support me. Nobody wants to see me punished. I’m too likeable. I wasn’t in control of my actions. I’m an innocent man, driven by needs that I’m not even aware of, driven to do things that I can’t even remember. I’m Joe Victim. The justice system is going to save me. A six-foot monkey is waving at everybody going past, a can of beer in his hand with a drinking straw, a big monkey grin on his face. So maybe I have passed out or crossed over because I don’t understand what the fuck is going on. But what I don’t understand the giant panda does, because that’s who I see next, and I guess it’s friends with the monkey because it runs up behind him, throws his arms around him, and starts humping him before the monkey turns around and they touch beers and then both of them are drinking.

  “This is going to be worse than I thought,” Kent says.

  “You think it’ll end today?” Jack asks.

  Kent shakes her head. Are we all seeing the same thing? “Either today or this week,” she says. “University students like this can’t commit to much more than drinking and smoking weed and fucking. I just think committing to dressing up as wildlife and movie characters for more than a week is too much for them.”

  I finally realize what’s happening—they’re university students in costumes, all of them have come along to support me. Young people get me, I suppose.

  The van turns right. Beads of vomit run across the floor. We get to the end of the block and turn left. Beads of vomit run the other way. Now we’re running parallel to the street we were just on. There are people, but not as many. They are carrying placards. It seems like the entire city has come out to let the world know of my innocence, to let the world know that the real crime is our justice system.

  “Just keep driving,” Kent says, even though Jack wasn’t showing any sign of not driving. Just one of those dumb things people say. People are ignoring the van. I practice my big-boy, friendly-neighborhood-retard smile. I need it warmed up and ready for when we get to the courthouse.

  Kent turns back and stares at me. “What the hell are you grinning at?” she asks.

  “Nothing,” I tell her.

  “You’re such a smug bastard, aren’t you,” she says. “You think it’s all going your way. You think the money you earned by showing us where Calhoun was is going to help you, but it’s not. Somehow it’s going to bite you in the ass and people will find out.”

  “Detective Calhoun was a killer,” I tell her.

  “What are you talking about?” she asks.

  “He’s the one who killed Daniela Walker. He went to talk to her and he ended up killing her. Her husband used to beat her up, and instead of helping her, Calhoun took a shot at her too. Then he staged the scene so you would think it was me.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Jack says.

  “It’s true,” I tell them. “Half the people at the station thought it was somebody else. Well, it was him.”

  “Shut up,” Jack says.

  “Hey, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I got my money, so what do I care? But you people are worshipping the guy because he was killed in the line of duty, but you’re worshipping a rapist and a killer. You know the difference between him and me?” I ask, and I’m ready for their answers, for the You got caught and he didn’t, the You’re a sick fuck and he wasn’t, but none of them answer, and I realize they’re all hanging on to every word I’m saying, they’re praying for me to say something they can use against me, something one of them can get up on the stand and tell a courtroom full of people.

  “The difference is he was a cop. I’ve only ever been the person I am,” I tell them. “I’ve never pretended to be anything else. Calhoun pretended to be on the good side of good versus evil, he was supposed to be somebody above the law, he’s the one everybody should be hating, not me.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Jack says.

  “And you’ve said that already,” I tell him, then I look at Kent. “I know you don’t believe me, but give it time. By the end of the day you’ll be thinking more and more about it, and by this time tomorrow you’ll be working on proving it one way or the other. Let me know how it works out for you.”

  Jack has to swerve around somebody who walks out in front of him, the vomit on the floor starts moving in a new set of directions, and so does my stomach. Then we take a left, coming in behind the courthouse. I once stole a car from this street. I once kicked a homeless man in the nuts and threatened to set him on fir
e on this street—though of course I was only kidding. I’m not sure if he got the joke—that’s the thing about people, they don’t get irony.

  “Are you enjoying this?” Kent asks.

  “I’m just trying to do the best I can.”

  There are a few people behind the court—a few dozen at the most. Jack pulls up outside a gate and waits for a few seconds for it to roll open. There are office buildings opposite us and lots of parked cars and people walking to and from work. There are road cones in the intersection. I can see some of the signs now. They don’t make sense. An eye for an eye. Slow Joe must go. Kill the fucker.

  What the hell is going on? Kent sees my confusion and my smile disappears and now she’s wearing one. “Did you think these people were here to support you? Oh, Joe,” she says, “you truly are dumber than we all thought.”

  The gate opens and we drive through. The gate rolls closed behind us. My stomach suddenly constricts and I lurch forward a little. Jack brings the van to a stop. I’m still confused by the signs. An eye for an eye for who? Kill who? Slow Joe must go—well, that one makes sense, it means Slow Joe must be allowed out of jail. There are other cars, an ambulance, a security guard. I can tell I’m not the only one feeling sick now, the stench of vomit churning everybody else’s stomach. Jack and Kent get out of the van and walk around to the back and open the doors. I stare at the ambulance, just wanting to climb into the back, just wanting somebody to take care of me. There’s a sharp pain going across both sides of my stomach, but more so on the side where Cole punched me. I start retching, but all that comes out are a few flecks of vomit.

  It takes me a minute, but eventually I get out of the van and onto my feet.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Melissa tenses up when she sees Joe. Her heart quickens. Last time she saw him for real was the Sunday morning he walked out of her apartment. They’d spent Friday night and all of Saturday and Saturday night in bed together. They had ordered pizza and watched romantic comedies on TV, and she hated romantic comedies, but with Joe they were funny. He liked them. He laughed. She laughed. Joe was a romantic guy. He was supposed to come back that afternoon. He was only going home to feed his cat. He even left his briefcase with her. It had some knives in it. He left and didn’t come back and she was angry at him. She felt used. Angry. Angry enough to go looking for him and maybe take a knife to him. But she didn’t. If Joe didn’t want her, then fuck him. It was his loss. Only that’s not what happened. She saw Joe again on TV that night. He’d been arrested.