Choke on Your Lies

by Anthony Neil Smith

  I opened up to say, well, yeah, of course not, because it was all on Carl, but…he defended me?

  “Okay, sure. Really?”

  “Willing to bet his life on it.”

  Okay, so maybe I was barking up the wrong metaphor, but, at least we had that out of the way. After all the humiliation we’d put each other through, he was still willing to let bygones be bygones.

  Then Labat piped in, “He said you’re too much of a pussy. Would rather suffer for your awful poetry—that’s a direct quote—than kill anyone. And even if you did make the attempt, he said either one of those women would kick your ass before you lifted the knife.”

  Carl leaned back in his chair. “I stand by that, too. Mick is an effete, bleeding heart, self-centered asshole, but he didn’t kill anyone.”

  How could something be going terribly and wonderfully all at the same time?

  I said, “You’re telling me you had absolutely nothing to do with this? You’re not trying to frame me?”

  “Shit, why did Alice even let you in here? Thooft, it’s over. Fran left you, then she left me, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t come in here half-cocked calling me a killer.”

  “Besides,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s no way your Provost here could’ve have done it. He actually has an alibi, unlike you.”

  “I did. I do. I mean, what was it?”

  Carl answered, “I had to attend a really boring fundraiser, but I did it, and everyone saw me get up and introduce a very eager-beaver city councilman who wants to be a state representative. So, you know, it wasn’t me.”

  Think, think, think.

  “Yeah, but you could’ve hired someone.”

  His jaw tightened. He was keeping his cool better than I expected. Maybe I was onto something.

  The cops laughed. Labat was enjoying it more than he should‘ve. “Really? Everybody knows that most hit men are undercover cops. Except people who try to use them, that is.”

  I sputtered and said something like that wasn’t always true, but it came out so mangled and sideways that in the end I just shouted, “Fuck you, Carl!”

  Fitzgerald rose from his chair, walked over to me and grabbed my arm. He pulled me towards the door and said, “Excuse me a moment. Mick and I need to talk outside.”

  He dragged me out of the office into the waiting area, where Alice still hadn’t returned, and looked at me the way a jaded high school teacher might look at a student with retirement still too many years away. “What. The. Hell?”

  “I don’t care what he’s telling you! He’s the guy!”

  He looked around, pained. “Lower your voice. For fuck’s sake, man. Are you drunk?”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Brought it down to a whisper. “My ass is on the line here.”

  Fitzgerald sighed, stretched his back. “Listen, you know…I’m sorry. We probably moved too fast. It all made sense, looked like a slam dunk.”

  “Wait. Am I not a suspect anymore?”

  “Of course you’re a suspect, you idiot. But now you’ve got some people on your side making it look less and less likely. If it hadn’t looked so bad at first…if you did it, we’ll figure it out. If not, we’ll figure that out, too. So, I’m doing you a favor here. I’m not supposed to say anything, and if you say I did, I’ll deny it til the day they strap you on the gurney for your nighty-night shot. You got me?”

  A sudden sense of relief. I even felt a laugh bubbling up inside me. “I didn’t do it?”

  He shook his head as if I was the dumbest piece of shit he’d ever seen, including methheads, gangbangers, and in his own toilet.

  “Stop investigating. Let us handle it. Go home and relax, okay?”

  I nodded. Like a child given permission to have a cookie before dinner. I thanked him and started out. Then he called after me.

  “You really think Mr. Provost here had anything to do with it?”

  Could I really throw him under the bus? He hadn’t given me the kindest support, but it was better than expected. Still, he had fucked my wife. And he let other people fuck my wife. And that led to Ashton fucking my wife, impregnating my wife, and so on.

  I shrugged. “Not every hit man is an undercover cop. It just seems that way.”

  I didn’t wait for a response. I jiggled my keys and headed for the stairs, too bouncy to wait for the elevator. I had forgotten for the moment that Stephanie was still dead, and that Frances was probably dead. I instead felt the sort of relief that comes at the end of a semester, or when you find out you got the grant, or that Mid-America Review is going to publish three of your poems, or that, well, you’re not being accused of as much murder as you had been ten minutes ago.

  That bouncy, sing-songy feeling lasted all the way to the car. I clicked it unlocked, paying no attention to the cars around me. So nothing phased me until I saw the reflection in the window of a man running towards me. I turned around just in time to be slammed against the car and thrown to the ground. Finally got a look at him as he was about to kick me in the groin.

  Goddamned, did that hurt.

  I couldn’t blame him, though. After all, I had been sleeping with the man’s wife

  EIGHT

  It took another couple of kicks to finally make me scoot my ass across the parking lot and protect my jewels. I held my other hand above me to fend off blows. Ashton kept coming.

  I said, “Jesus, calm down! There are cops in Carl’s office.”

  “I don’t fucking care. Let them stop me.”

  “Let’s talk, man. We need to talk!”

  Another kick, this time connecting with my thigh. “I didn’t come to talk to you, Mick.” Kick. “I came to bury you, you son of a bitch!”

  I’d finally backed up enough to roll over and scramble to my feet, keeping a good three or four feet between us. “Like you’re some sort of angel? You got my wife pregnant, like, months before I even touched yours.”

  “I didn’t kill yours! I loved her! What did you do with her?”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer. Just lunged. I turned to run, but he wrapped his arms around me, forced me into the nearest tree. Banged up the side of my face. He grabbed my hair and bounced my noggin off the trunk again.

  I finally got my hands in front of me, pushed back from the tree right before he tried again. I started kicking his shin with my heel, and he yelled and let go.

  Ashton limped around, face contorted. He looked as if he’d stepped right out of a boardroom and off the plane, wearing a suit and tie.

  I said, “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t kill Stephanie. I mean, fuck, man, I was falling for her.”

  He stabbed an index finger at me. “Don’t!”

  “No, listen for a minute. You give me a bum’s rush with your righteous anger because I’m some kind of monster, when all I did was cuckold you the way you cuckolded me. We’re fucking even, as far as that goes.”

  Except for the fetus, I thought, but didn’t dare say. I remembered how I felt when I believed it was mine. Had to draw a line somewhere.

  He stopped pacing and shoved me. Not enough to knock me down. I wiped my hand over my face. A tiny bit of blood. Mostly I felt a couple of growing lumps on my cheek and crown.

  He came at me again and this time I got in a good elbow to his head.

  I said, “Goddamn it, if you want to be pissed at me, fine. But look in the fucking mirror, you prick. She was going to leave you. You’re lucky you were out of town, or I’d be pissed at you.”

  “That’s what she told you? She was leaving me? That’s not what she told me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Said she was fucking you to make me mad. Make me jealous. Asked me if I wanted to keep her, I’d have to prove it.”

  “She didn’t mean it.”

  “I know my wife, and she fucking well did mean it, asshole. You didn’t hear the talks we had after you left, or when you fell asleep.”

  I blinked.

  “You didn’t know that, did you? She called me after you star
ted snoring, gave me a play by play. And you know what she did when I told her just how bad I was going to fuck you up? Wanna know?”

  Could my soul sink any lower? “What?”

  “She rubbed her clit. I talked about breaking your nose, she breathed harder. I talked about beating you like a side of beef, it made her moan. And when I said I’d fuck her right in front of you while you were too bloody and broken to stop me, she fucking came hard, man. I’m talking a gusher.”

  Maybe I’d been standing like a wrestler, arms poised and ready for the next move, but I’d gone slack listening to him. Wasn’t even seeing him there. Just imagining Stephanie doing that. And I could. She’d been wounded, and I knew our sex was…not quite love, let’s say. What Ashton didn’t know was that she’d woken me up several times, hornier than ever, and we’d ridden each other until we were raw. So now I knew that it was all because of Ashton’s calls. She had been playing us off each other.

  Ashton noticed I’d gotten lost in my head, and it led him to calm down, take a few breaths. He said, “What? Why’d you stop?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Come on. You’re not telling me something.”

  “No, no, it’s…never mind.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. I owe you a beating. Fight like a man, you sick fuck.”

  I looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry about Steph. And I’m sorry about Frances, too. I know you know I didn’t kill them. I’m so sorry. I wish I could take all this back.”

  I thought he was going to go all kabuki-faced again, the wrinkles coming on severely, the blood rushing back, but then he croaked out, “That’s not fair.”

  I stood there, waiting.

  Ashton dropped to his knees. “No, no, don’t. It’s not fair.”

  He started crying. A hard jag, mostly silent, like he couldn’t get breath. And then he sucked in loud like a dinosaur. Head buried in his hands.

  I said, “I’m sorry” again, but he didn’t hear. I started for my car, my hands shaking as I fumbled the keys. I glanced at the Administration building one more time, and there was Labat out front, mullet and all, smoking a cigarette. I could tell he’d watched the whole fight. He took a puff on the cig, then lifted it over his head and gave me a fake bow. I looked away, climbed in my car, and got the hell out of there.

  *

  Once back in Octavia’s driveway, bruised, suffering, but still feeling the relief of being downgraded from suspect to “person of interest”, I bawled my eyes out for so long, Jennings finally came outside to retrieve me.

  “There, there,” he said. “Sometimes we need to cry.”

  I laughed through tears, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and we both stood on the front steps of the mansion, weeping.

  And then a swarm of Feds showed up in big trucks.

  NINE

  Once again, we stood outside the house while law enforcement types wandered in and out, flashing pictures, documenting everything. They were even taking some things away—computers, paperwork, some of the art and antiques—for “further study”.

  Apparently between the day before and right then, there had been so many formal complaints filed against Octavia by investment companies, insurance companies, company insiders, merchants, banks, and plenty of others who had past business with her that the IRS and Federal Trade Commission decided to move in and seize the house, plus any property that might have something to do with the insider trading and insurance fraud of which she was being accused.

  Needless to say, Octavia was pissed. But on top of that, she was powerless. Speak up and risk another arrest? Not likely. She knew that the only way to defend herself was to stay free. But as several of her prized paintings were taken out, not properly boxed, I could see the anger breaking down into remorse. She blinked away the excess moisture in her eyes and kept sniffling, leaning on the cane she had grabbed in case we’d have to stand for a long time. She’d been right. And she was still wearing her leather jacket, shapeless jersey dress, and Crocs. Strands of hair had escaped the bun and spread all over like weeds.

  Jennings and I both had our arms crossed, eyes shifting between the ground and the parade of excess force passing like ants between the large trucks and the front door.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  I must’ve been more bruised from my run-in with Ashton than I thought. “Got my ass kicked by a grieving widower.”

  “Ah, I see.” A long spot of silence. “How did your meeting with the Provost go?”

  She was unusually calm, as if we were in the study discussing it over coffee instead of watching her collection be picked apart.

  “They told me I’m in the clear, mostly. I just can’t tell anyone. It’s weird. But I guess that helps me to feel a little better.”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “The only reason he’s telling you that is so you will relax. You’ll call off the dogs, believing they’re not after you anymore. But in actuality, you’re still in the crosshairs. It’s a scam. They fucked up once. And now they’re using the fuck up to buy more time.”

  “So…I’m not okay?”

  “Jesus, Mick, you’re less okay than you’ve ever been in your life.”

  “He said—”

  “He’s a cop! What do you expect? By tomorrow, they’ll come around with more questions, then more and more, and you’ll feel relaxed, all the while as they slip the noose around your neck.” She craned a bit, pretending to examine my neck. “I can see the marks already.”

  I reached up for my throat. She loved that.

  “Oh, wait, that’s where Ashton strangled you.”

  I waved my arms at the circus around us. “You’re one to laugh. I’m sure you didn’t deserve any of this. Bye-bye, everything you own. Me, I’m innocent at least. You, I’m sure you don’t have anything to feel guilty over, do you, Miss Lawsuit? No butterflies in the breadbasket?”

  I reached across to pat her stomach. She slapped my hand away.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Right back at you.”

  “Not even a noose, you know. A needle.”

  My skin crawled. She knew I hated needles. “No.”

  “A nasty needle, and you’ll be strapped down, have to watch it right before they kill you—”

  I clamped my hands over my ears. Ground my teeth together.

  “Hey,” Jennings said.

  I was too busy saying, “Maybe they’ll put you on a diet, too. I’m sure it’ll turn into a hunger strike, since their gruel won’t be good enough for you.”

  “How dare you! I take you into my home as a guest and you verbally abuse me like this?”

  “Hey—”

  I said, “Well, it’s not looking much like your home anymore, so what do I care? Now I’ve got nowhere to go.”

  “Hey!”

  We both looked at Jennings. He took a step back, then said, “Do we need to be here for this?”

  I shrugged. Octavia squinched her eyebrows.

  “I mean, have they impounded the Escalade?”

  Octavia said, “If it’s in the garage, it’s theirs. I’m pretty sure it’s on the list.”

  “How about Mick’s car?”

  Of course. Why not? But I saw in my mind the front wheels off the ground, the back bumper scraping the road. And both of them knew exactly what I was thinking.

  Octavia curled her lip. “I wish this on you one day. I hope a gland goes haywire and does this to you.”

  Jennings stepped between us before the sparks lit us up again. “Look, if we can get out of here and go someplace to think, won’t we all feel better?”

  “What about all these people?”

  “They’ve got her cell number and her lawyer’s number.”

  Octavia looked around. “And where the hell is she, anyway? Goddamn, as we as I pay her…”

  “But what if—” I wanted to say the back axle snaps or the chassis collapses or the wheels get bent, but ended up with,
“—you know. I’d need…repairs.”

  It was a done deal. I’d already pulled the keys from my pocket without realizing it. Jennings plucked them from my hand and said, “Thanks. Let’s go.”

  And nobody really paid us much attention as we headed to the car, helped Octavia squeeze inside the back, then got in front. Then and only then did a man with a clipboard and a green windbreaker flag us down.

  Jennings lowered the window. “Can I help you?”

  The guy looked confused. “Are you…is there any particular…why are you leaving?”

  “We’re bored.”

  “Okay. Still, I’m going to have to ask—”

  “Really bored. No one’s talking to us. You can call Ms. VanderPlatts’s attorney if you need us. Bye, now.”

  Up with the window, and we were on our way, leaving a bewildered government worker in the middle of the drive.

  *

  We couldn’t go to the cabin in Duluth.

  “They’re either already following us or will pick up the trail before we get out of the metro.”

  We couldn’t go to my old place.

  “I’m sure it’s sealed with police tape and a constant vigil.”

  And Jennings no longer had an apartment. Gave it up six months into his employment.

  “How about that student you fucked, Mick? What was her name, Bollywood Jane or something?”

  I gritted my teeth, but didn’t let her see. “Nuha.”

  “There you go. Is she still around?”

  After a few calming breaths, I said, “Let’s be reasonable. I don’t think that’s appropriate. Things didn’t end…well…between us.”

  “Fine, fine, shut up about it before you start thinking I’m a shrink. Since we don’t have family close by, nor do we want to drag what few friends we have into this, and because you don’t want to bother your little piece of stuff, that leaves one place.”

  *

  Harriet opened the door and we immediately smelled something with a lot of cumin in it. She looked more like the rough-and-tumble girl I’d guessed her to be under the chef’s jacket—black tank and low cut jeans. Some sort of noisy new fangled college music assaulting my ears. Jennings had called ahead, and from what we heard it didn’t seem like an angry conversation. But Harriet flung the door open on the first ring of the doorbell, and I thought fire might shoot from her eyes.