The Castle: A Ripped-From-The-Headlines Thriller

by Jason Pinter

  Two security guards pushed their way through the mess and came up to Grace.

  “We’re going to get you out of here,” one said. “Put your arms around our shoulders.”

  Grace nodded, her knee on fire. She wrapped her arms around each of them and they lifted her up and hustled her away.

  Just before they left the arena, Grace turned back. She saw Rawson Griggs’s face looming on one of the massive jumbotrons above the parquet floor. His image was fifteen feet tall. Rawson was beaming. As though this was exactly what he wanted to happen.

  And what terrified Grace was that she knew it was.

  When Remy woke up, it took a moment for him to remember he was in a cheap hotel room. And when he got out of bed, he remembered that when you stay in a cheap hotel, with a cheap mattress, your spine pays the price.

  He downed two cups of hotel room coffee—drinkable, barely—and turned on the news. He sipped his coffee with its gross, powdered creamer, scanned his emails, only partly paying attention to the well-coiffed anchors and their too-chipper-for-this-early-in-the-day smiles.

  Then the anchors’ faces grew serious.

  “We have an update from the melee that erupted at the Rawson Griggs rally in Cincinnati last night,” the male anchor with Ken doll hair said. “Fifteen people were arrested and four were hospitalized, including New York Gazette reporter Grace Rivas, who was singled out by Rawson Griggs during his remarks.”

  Remy nearly dropped his coffee. What the fuck?

  He turned the volume up.

  The perky blonde anchor said, “The following is video taken on a cell phone by one of the attendees at yesterday’s event at the U.S. Bank Arena.”

  The feed then switched to grainy, shaky, camera footage. Remy heard Rawson Griggs, speaking from a podium:

  “Do you want Little Gracey to leave?”

  “No!”

  “Then what are we going to do about it?”

  At that point, whoever was holding the cell phone swiveled to film the press pen. Dozens of people were shaking the metal gates surrounding it. Then, to Remy’s horror, the gates came crashing down, and people began to stampede into the pen. In the middle of it all, Remy saw Grace Rivas, her eyes wide, shaken, scared.

  Jesus Christ, he thought. He wanted them to hurt her.

  The male anchor continued, “Dozens of media outlets are calling for an apology from Rawson Griggs for what they claim is his instigation of violence towards the reporters covering the rally. The hashtag #WereWithGrace trended on Twitter through the night and into this morning, with some people comparing Rawson Griggs to the leader of a mob. Reporters are calling on Griggs to disavow the violence that many people are saying he provoked”.

  The other anchor said, “Last night, after the rally, the Griggs campaign issued a short statement in response to the incident.

  “The Griggs campaign does not condone any violence that may have taken place at yesterday’s rally, which was filled with patriotic Americans. It has become evident throughout this revolutionary campaign that the people are fed up with the status quo, and yesterday they decided to voice their displeasure. While we hope any injuries were not serious, we also believe Rawson Griggs’s supporters are patriots who want a better future for themselves and their children. And if people stand in opposition to this movement, Rawson Griggs and his patriotic supporters will have no choice but to fight back.”

  He had warned Grace. Rawson wasn’t going to let her article slide. Why did she have to go to the rally?

  Remy grabbed his phone and texted Grace.

  Grace: I just heard about yesterday. I hope you’re ok. Please write back when you get a chance and let me know how you are. I’m so sorry. –Remy

  This was no longer a campaign. It was something far, far darker.

  Remy changed channels. Another morning news show had the rally melee from another angle. This one caught a grinning Rawson Griggs up on stage as chaos swirled around him. Remy felt like throwing up.

  “In other news,” the anchor said, “police are still looking for three suspects who attacked two men in Manhattan’s Flatiron on 21st Street between 6th and 7th, in what appears to be a hate crime. An NYPD spokesman says three men approached the victims, now identified as Trevor Mayhew and Christopher Lorenzo, called them homophobic slurs, pepper sprayed them, and attacked them with some sort of metal bar. Both men are in stable condition at Beth Israel. If anyone has any information that could lead to an arrest, the NYPD asks that you call their tip line immediately.”

  Had Remy eaten anything, he would have retched it up.

  He dropped his cell phone on the floor. His hand trembled as he picked it up and dialed Trevor. The call went right to voicemail.

  He cursed and punched the bed. He threw on yesterday’s clothes. He didn’t bother to shower. Then he went downstairs, hailed a cab, and headed to Beth Israel.

  “Trevor Mayhew,” Remy said to the guard manning the lobby security station. “He was admitted last night, along with his husband, Christopher Lorenzo.”

  The guard picked up his phone, spoke a few unintelligible words, then said, “East Wing, room 427.”

  Remy thanked him and followed signs to the East Wing, walking as fast as he could without drawing attention. The elevator took forever to arrive.

  He approached the nursing station on the fourth floor, sweating and winded. A weary, sixty-ish black woman looked up from her computer.

  “Help you?” she said.

  “Trevor Mayhew,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Room 427.”

  The woman checked her notes. Then she eyed Remy suspiciously. “You’re not press, are you? We’ve had people from all the networks and papers calling to speak with Mr. Mayhew and Mr. Lorenzo.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m a friend. We used to be roommates. I give you my word. He has a birthmark in the shape of a donut on his right shoulder blade. You can go check.”

  Her suspicion turned into a light smile. “Well, alright then. I’ll trust you. But if I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll make sure you end up in the bed next to him.”

  “Fair enough,” Remy replied.

  “Down at the end of the hall, on the right. Can’t promise he’s awake.”

  Remy thanked her and jogged towards the end of the hall. When he found room 427, he entered cautiously. It was a private room. A curtain was drawn around the bed. He saw a pair of hospital slipper peeking out from underneath the curtain.

  “Hello?” he whispered. “It’s Remy. Is…is Trevor in there?”

  The curtain drew back. Chris Lorenzo was sitting on a plastic chair. His eyes were bloodshot and veiny, but he appeared otherwise unharmed.

  “Oh, Jesus, Remy,” Chris said. He stood up and they hugged. When Chris let go, Remy saw Trevor lying in the hospital bed. His eyes were closed, his breathing even. His right leg was suspended from the ceiling at a thirty-degree angle. A cast ran from his toes to just below his knee.

  “They shattered his ankle to pieces,” Chris said. “Fucking monsters. He got out of surgery about three hours ago. Doctors say he’ll walk again, but he’s got a long recovery ahead of him.”

  Chris sat down. Remy took a chair from the hallway and brought it into Trevor’s room. He looked at his friend, unconscious, and laid his hand on Trevor’s arm.

  “I’m so sorry, Chris,” Remy said. “If there’s anything I can do.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Trev’s parents are on their way in from Maine to help out. Hey, the silver lining is that we’ll finally get to use our pull out couch. They say he’ll have to stay here about a week to make sure he doesn’t develop any blood clots.”

  “He’s gonna be alright,” Remy said. “What the hell happened last night?”

  Chris’s lip began to tremble, and he wiped tears from his eyes.

  “Sorry, if you don’t want to…”

  “No, it’s okay. Just…it’s like a nightmare. I mean, we’ve been called names before, but for the most part those idiots bark worse
than they bite. But this was different. I’ve never been so sure I was going to die.”

  “Why?” Remy said. “What happened?”

  “We went out to dinner,” Chris said. “Momoya. Our favorite sushi place. A lovely night. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. Then on the way home, these guys start following us. Calling us names.”

  “Names?”

  “Faggot, you know, the usual troglodyte slurs. You learn to ignore it. But it always stings a little.”

  “Then what?”

  “They kept going. Kept shouting at us. It was like they wanted us to confront them. Trevor was pissed. I thought he was going to kick the shit out of somebody. Then all of a sudden we’re both getting pepper sprayed.”

  “Just like that? No warning? There was no fight first? No warning?”

  “None. We turn around and bam. Right in our faces.”

  “Goddamn monsters.”

  “I’ve been harassed before. Been called every name in the book. But last night was different. I almost got the feeling that they wanted to hurt us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They had weapons on them. Crowbars or pipes or something. And pepper spray. They planned to hurt someone. When we get harassed, it doesn’t feel that…pre-planned. Sometimes you get into scrapes, but it’s usually just drunk assholes at a bar who can’t see straight. You don’t get followed home in Chelsea by a trio of goons with weapons and pepper spray.”

  Something started to churn in Remy’s stomach.

  “So you think they targeted you?” he said.

  “Oh, no doubt. But I don’t know why they would have targeted us, specifically. I mean, we were coming from dinner. And what that guy said to Trevor just before he broke his ankle…it was just weird.”

  “What did he say to Trevor? How was it weird?”

  Chris paused. Remy knew he was pushing too hard on someone who’d just been through a traumatic event. But he needed to know.

  “Right before that asshole smashed Trevor’s ankle, he said something like, ‘you should have stayed at the bar.’”

  Remy felt an icy grip close around his heart. His head swam.

  “What’s weird is,” Chris said, “we weren’t even at a bar. I wanted to go for a drink, but Trevor wanted to go home. Then we hear ‘Hey faggot’ behind us. And they didn’t stop. Kept calling us names, even when we were on the ground.”

  “He said ‘you should have stayed at the bar’? Those were his exact words?”

  “That’s right. Exact. I’ll never forget them.”

  “And they kept calling you names?”

  “Even after they left,” Chris said. “It was almost like they wanted us to know it was…”

  “They wanted you to know it was a hate crime.”

  “Yeah.”

  Nausea swept through Remy. Just like Rawson wanted people to think Paul’s death was an accident. He knows about the meeting at the Liberty Inn. Just like he knew about Doug Rimbaud. He knows I turned against him. He knows everything.

  Grace. Trevor and Chris. It was all Rawson. He’s sending a message. That nobody is safe. And if you cross him, he’ll hurt you, and everyone you care about.

  Remy’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number and declined the call.

  “Sorry,” he said to Chris. Chris waved it off.

  “Hey, do you mind if I go get a cup of coffee from downstairs?” Chris said. “It’s been a hell of a night and I want to be awake when Trev wakes up.”

  “Go ahead,” Remy said. “I’ll stay with him.”

  Chris stood up. “Thanks for coming, Remy,” he said. “Trev will need you as he recovers. I don’t know what this means for his career. He’s worked so hard. And for something like this to happen? Just isn’t fair.”

  “He’ll be back. I know it. Trevor’s a badass. He’s gonna fight like hell and come back better than ever,” Remy replied. “And when he teaches his first class back at CyclePro, I’ll be in the front row.”

  Chris smiled, and Remy heard him start to choke up. “Sucks it took this to get you into a class. That’s one I won’t miss for anything. Thanks, Remy. I’ll be right back.”

  Chris left the room just as Remy’s phone rang again. Another private number, so again Remy declined it. Then a text message came in.

  Jeremy, it’s Tracy Lindquist at the New York Times. Wanted to get your comment on the Get Up America! interview airing tomorrow.

  Remy figured this was regarding some story about the Griggs campaign. Get Up America! was a popular morning news and variety program. Remy figured a Griggs surrogate was scheduled to be on the show.

  He responded:

  Sorry, Tracy, busy right now, can you ask Jerry Kapinski for comment?

  A minute later, he received a reply:

  Don’t you think you should be the one going on record since it’s your father?

  Remy stood up. He felt dizzy.

  He wrote back:

  What are you talking about? My father?

  Tracy Lindquist sent over a link. Remy opened it. A video appeared on his cell phone screen. On the video was a man Jeremy Stanton had not seen in over a decade. A face he had tried to forget.

  An ominous voiceover ran over a video of a man sitting in a wooden chair, draped in shadow.

  “Ever since he saved the lives of Alena Griggs and Paul Bracewell, Jeremy Stanton has become an international hero. He gave up a promising career to join Rawson Griggs’s presidential campaign. But there’s a side of Jeremy Stanton you haven’t seen. A darker side that will shock you to your core. Only one man knows the truth about Jeremy Stanton. And that man is Jeremy’s estranged father, Dennis Stanton, who has not seen his son in years. Tomorrow, you will discover the dark side of an American hero.”

  Remy put his hand to his head. He felt like he was going to pass out.

  The program cut to a pre-taped video clip. In it, Dennis Stanton sat on a couch. Dennis looked far older than the last time Remy saw him. Somebody had cleaned him up. He’d never been much for hygiene. His long hair, now fully gray, was combed. His mustache trimmed. He wore a clean button-down shirt, a sport jacket, and black-rimmed glasses. Remy had never seen him wear glasses. He looked gaunt. No amount of makeup could hide his sunken cheeks, dark eye circles. Remy recognized the look in his father’s eyes. Shame, and unwarranted anger.

  “My wife was dying,” Dennis said, with a voice that sounded marinated in whiskey and cigarettes. It was the voice of a liar. “And my son refused to let me see her. I wasn’t the best man, but he took my wife away from me. He broke my leg once, and I think he would have killed me. I hear people calling him a hero. I’m ashamed to say it, but my son ain’t no hero.”

  The screen cut away to a somber anchor who said, “Tune in tomorrow morning for my full interview with Dennis Stanton. You won’t want to miss it.”

  When Chris returned from getting his coffee, Remy was crying.

  Remy stayed by Trevor’s side the rest of the day. His phone rang every thirty seconds. Remy showed Chris the video.

  “I don’t even know what to say. Who…how…”

  “Rawson Griggs,” Remy said. He felt drained, hollowed out.

  “Rawson? Why? You’re like the only sane thing left in his campaign. He’s turning into a crazy person.”

  Remy shook his head. “I can’t talk about it now. But I will.”

  He looked at Trevor. Thought about Grace. Knew all of this was his fault. He remembered the words Rawson had said to him that night at the Hollywood Bowl, after confronting him about the meeting with Doug Rimbaud.

  Not only will you be off my campaign, I will destroy you in every way you can imagine. I will make you wish you’d stayed in that bar.

  Now Remy knew exactly what he was talking about.

  Rawson knew about his meeting with Grace and Eric Celsun. He knew about the Rimbaud meeting. He knew everything. And Remy had been too stupid to realize it. And now Rawson was systematically tearing down Remy and everyone close to him. />
  How did you get out of the way of an oncoming train when you’ve tied yourself to the tracks?

  There was no question that Rawson was behind his father’s reappearance. He had no idea what rock Dennis Stanton had been living under all this time. But Rawson had found him. And it made Remy sick to think about what putrid lies he was going to spill on national television. The notion that Remy forbade his father from seeing his mother was absurd and untrue, especially given the horrific abuse she’d suffered at his hands.

  He needed to get the Get Up America! interview cancelled somehow. The problem was, Get Up America!’s ratings were up twenty-five percent year to date, and it could all be attributed to their near non-stop coverage of Rawson Griggs. He was printing money for them. Remy needed to take a page from the Rawson Griggs playbook. He had to find a way to hit them where it mattered: their wallet.

  “Listen,” Remy said, “I have something I need to take care of. I’m staying at the Comfort Inn in Times Square in room 411 if you or Trev need anything. I’ll be back.”

  “Why aren’t you staying at your place?” Chris asked.

  “Bedbugs,” Remy said. “Nasty ones.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Chris said. “I’ll let you know when he wakes up.”

  They hugged, and Remy left.

  When he got outside, Remy called Eric Celsun at the Gazette.

  “Celsun.”

  “Eric. This is Jeremy Stanton.”

  “Remy. Wow. Well, I guess tomorrow can’t be any worse for you, can it? Unless, you know, you get that weird tree bark disease or something.”

  “Trust me, I’d rather have that. Diseases are curable. Lineage, not so much. How’s Grace?”

  “She’s doing alright. Spoke to her a little while ago. Sprained MCL, bruised kneecap, needed a few stitches, but she’s tough. She’s mad as hell.”

  “It’s retribution,” Remy said. “For the PoliSpill article, and our meeting the other night. My best friend had his ankle broken the same night Rawson sicced twenty thousand people on Grace. Now do you believe me that Rawson is dangerous?”