American Lies

by Joshua Corin

  Seconds ticked by. Maybe fifteen. Maybe fifteen hundred. Malik wasn’t sure. He had been in high-stress situations many times before. It never got easier. It never was supposed to get easier. The day it got easier was the day you became complacent, and that would be the day you fucked up.

  But in all those previous scenarios, chasing long-legged bangers across abandoned lots or even this morning, barging into hell, Malik had at least been accompanied by his Glock and he’d the means to radio for backup.

  But not anymore. Now he was a vulnerable cripple, all alone, and he could’ve sworn he just heard those sneakers creak one step toward the bathroom door.

  “Well?” called Clint from the nurse station.

  “It’s probably a rat,” Hank replied.

  He was on the other side of the bathroom door.

  “Do you plan on shooting it, Hank?”

  Which answered the question of whether they were armed.

  Malik swallowed again. And waited.

  “Then get back here. We’ve got a schedule. It’s time to get dressed.”

  More seconds passed. Maybe fifteen. Maybe fifteen hundred.

  And then the magnificent sound of those footfalls receding into the corridor and fading farther and farther as Hank returned to the nurse station to get dressed, whatever that meant.

  Malik exhaled. Every muscle in his already infirm body kindled with fire from tension, but he was alive. He was alive.

  Oh, merciful Allah, yet another predator playing with His food.

  So what now? Malik tried again to reboot his phone. No luck. If he remained still, it was unlikely that Clint and Hank would come exploring. This bathroom would become a sanctuary and in here, Malik would be safe.

  But he also would be a coward.

  Clint and Hank were somehow tied to today’s tragedy, and they weren’t done and he needed to stop them.

  But this brought him back to the same quandary he’d been in a few minutes earlier: he was entirely unarmed. And they weren’t. How was he supposed to get the upper hand?

  Again he scanned the bathroom. Bathtub, faucet, shower nozzle. Maybe he could unscrew the shower nozzle and…and what? Pitch it at them? There was the sink. A rounded mirror above the sink. A rounded mirror made of glass. Hmm.

  Possible.

  But what else? Floor tiles. Ceiling tiles. And the toilet. And its cover.

  Two options: fashion a shiv out of broken glass or weaponize a ten-pound block of porcelain. Neither option was good. In fact, he was reminded of his training and a teacher at the academy going on about the different ways a cop could get injured by an assailant. “More often than not, it’ll be a puncture wound, like from a gun or a knife, or it’ll be blunt-force trauma from a club or a fist.” He never even mentioned burning buildings.

  Malik was tempted to prefer puncture over blunt-force trauma. He would have more manual dexterity with a shard of glass than with a slab of porcelain. This was provided that he would even be able to get within stabbing or hitting distance.

  He would need them to come to him.

  Malik rolled his phone around in his hands. He would use it to break the glass. The sound would alert Clint and Hank and one of them—hopefully only one of them—would come down once again to investigate. And then, if Malik was infinitely lucky, he’d be able to take that one guy down, grab his gun, and take care of his buddy.

  And so decided, Malik brought back his fist, phone clenched, and tried to ignore the pain from the scorched skin of his palms, and then…

  He hesitated.

  There was something about the mirror’s rounded edges that bothered him.

  Or perhaps he was chickening out and this was the excuse his imagination had conjured up.

  Either way, he ran his free hand along the mirror’s smooth, curved corner. It felt very familiar.

  Of course it did. It was a mirror. It’s not like this was the first time he had ever touched a mirror.

  Except there was something else. He knew the touch of this mirror, and those rounded edges.

  The side mirrors of his patrol vehicle. Yes. Absolutely. Same rounded edges.

  So?

  So nothing. Shatter the mirror.

  The side mirrors of his patrol vehicle were shatterproof.

  What if this mirror was shatterproof as well? By trying to break it, all he would do is draw attention to himself, and Clint or Hank would investigate and Malik might not have time to drag the toilet cover off its tank before that bathroom door swung open and an assailant would puncture-wound him with hot lead.

  And so Malik left his phone in the sink and reached for the toilet cover.

  Because he was sitting, he couldn’t get optimal leverage and had to heft it up using the muscles in his forearms, which were not at all prepared. The endeavor took an embarrassingly long time, but finally Malik had the ten-pound porcelain cover on his lap.

  Next came the distraction to flush out the enemy.

  Malik rolled back, leaned forward, and opened the bathroom door. He couldn’t very well ambush them in here—there simply wasn’t enough space—so he slowly, quietly, wheeled himself into the bedless room. As he wondered what he could use in here to draw attention, he overheard the following:

  “—do I look?”

  “You look ready to save some lives, Clint.”

  “Hah. You sure you don’t mind carrying the vial?”

  “One of us has got to do it. And besides, these suits will protect us.”

  “They better.”

  Vial? Suits?

  Malik peeked into the corridor.

  The suits were yellow hazmat suits. The exact same suits the CDC were wearing in the ER. As to the vial…Hank was removing it now from a medical cooler. It was thin but long. The fluid it contained was yellow. The yellow fluid sloshed inside its thin, long, glass container.

  It was time, Malik decided, for a new plan.

  Chapter 33

  There were already protesters outside the capitol, but when weren’t there? Poncho, who had never met an angry mob he hadn’t stopped and engaged in conversation, brisked past this mob and continued at this lung-crushing pace until he turned the corner. Only then did he stop—and a good thing, too, because he felt like he was about to shit out his heart. Not that he took this as a sign that he should lose weight. No. He took this as a sign that he needed to sit down, and look at that, across the street—a Waffle House with plenty of open seating.

  He ordered a bowl of chili, a tall glass of iced tea, and while waiting for his order to arrive, he made the phone call he needed to make. By the time his contact showed, Poncho had finished off the chili and was working on his third refill of the iced tea.

  “What took you so long?” Poncho asked.

  It was a valid question. His contact’s place of employment was not far at all. He worked at the other locus of activity in this part of Atlanta—the campus of Georgia State. In fact, he was a professor of law there. His friends called him Jonesy.

  “I’ve had a day,” Jonesy replied.

  Poncho speared an ice cube with his straw and slid it down into his mouth. “Haven’t we all.”

  Then Poncho took a second look at his friend, and it was obvious from the ashen drain in his face that today Jonesy had been through some kind of ordeal. It wasn’t too late for them to share a cup of coffee and go their separate ways. Poncho wasn’t obligated to drag the old man into his plot. But Judy had warned him that they only turn to people they trusted, and there was no one Poncho trusted more than Jonesy, and that was all Jonesy’s fault for being so trustworthy, so…

  “I need your help,” Poncho said.

  “You didn’t want or need my help when I was your sponsor. I doubt much has changed since.” The waitress arrived with Jonesy’s mug of hot water. He slipped his own tea bag out of his
pocket and let it steep. “I don’t suppose you’ve even been to a meeting in years.”

  Poncho shrugged. “We’re not here to talk about me.”

  “It’s funny you should call me today. I just ran pretty much the exact same marathon with someone else that I ran with you back in 2004. Why ask someone to sponsor them and then refuse to take any of their wisdom to heart? It confuses me.”

  “It’s as if addicts are self-destructive people.”

  Jonesy smirked. “Point taken. But you would like her. My latest former sponsee. I think she may be even more pigheaded than you, and you know that’s saying something. And speaking of saying something, you might as well get on with it. You didn’t bring me here for the ambience.”

  Poncho had chosen a booth in the corner, far away from the other customers. Still, as he launched into what he and Judy had discovered about the governor, he kept his voice low—so low, in fact, that Jonesy sometimes needed to ask him to repeat the end of a sentence. And of course they both clammed up whenever the waitress sashayed past.

  Poncho finished his recap. Jonesy finished his tea.

  Then:

  “If you’re asking me if you have enough evidence to have him questioned by the FBI—and what you are suggesting here, Poncho, is clearly a federal matter—the answer is yes. But no FBI agent without a career death wish will bring the governor of Georgia in for questioning without a much, much stronger case.”

  “But the document is dated yesterday. The metadata—”

  “I believe you. It doesn’t matter. If I were his attorney, I’d hire an IT expert to find out whether metadata can be incorrect. And if my IT expert told me no, I’d hire another one and another one until I found an IT expert who told me yes. You need more.”

  “Like what? A confession?”

  “That wouldn’t hurt.” Jonesy frowned. “Look, if what you’re saying happened actually happened, then it’s horrific. Personally, I think the plan to round up this state’s Muslims and put them into concentration camps is even more horrific, but that’s a debate for another day.”

  “Oh, Lord, Jonesy, nobody is being rounded up. All that is being proposed is that we establish sanctuary land to protect an endangered population. It’s not like we’re going to be forcing families onto trains in the dead of night.”

  “You think the Jews were forced onto trains in the dead of night? No, no. The guilty conduct their dark deeds during the dead of night. The Nazis shipped the Jews like cattle during the daytime. There was no remorse in what they did. They were protecting their endangered German countrymen.”

  Poncho sighed. “Look. I already had this discussion with Judy. It’s obvious we’re coming at things from opposite angles. But that’s okay. It’s part of what makes this country so great. We can have differing opinions and still stand under the red, white, and blue.”

  “Differing opinions? My friend, we are not debating whether pie or cake is the better dessert. You’re telling me there are multiple points of view to every argument and we should respect each point of view, and I’m telling you that’s a logical fallacy. It’s a trick. I’ve used it myself to hoodwink a jury, but it’s a trick. There is a reason the governor didn’t consult his communications office before writing his speech. There is a reason it was written in the dead of night. Even he knows it’s morally compromised.”

  “We’re getting off-topic.”

  “You know, there is a misconception that the Japanese internment camps were finally closed due to a Supreme Court case. As a point of fact, lawyers brought the issue of Japanese internment before the Supreme Court three separate times and on three separate times, the Supreme Court ruled that the abduction and incarceration of American citizens of Japanese ancestry was constitutional. The camps were finally closed after the war, and yet the three Supreme Court rulings that defended their existence remained accepted practice for almost forty more years. And that’s why none of this, Poncho, is off-topic. You expose the governor for what he’s done? You need to realize the potential of what he is capable of doing.”

  “You’re wrong, Jonesy. You’re just plain wrong. I’ll give you an example.”

  “If it’s from the Bible, I’m walking.”

  Poncho chuckled. Then laughed.

  Jonesy couldn’t help but laugh a bit, too.

  “You really should meet my ex-wife,” Poncho said.

  “And you really should meet my ex-sponsee,” Jonesy said. “What’s your example?”

  “It’s something I read in the paper. A little while back. This guy used to be harassed in high school. Bullied real bad. Well, years pass, and one day, he finds out where this bully of his lives. And now he’s got to make a choice. Does he let bygones be bygones or does he knock on the guy’s door and demand an apology?”

  “Didn’t he end up taking a baseball bat and breaking his bully’s legs?”

  “He did. Now part of me is thinking, good for him. He got his revenge. But was I shocked the police arrested him? No, sir. Because I recognize that right isn’t the same thing as lawful. That’s called the real world. So I’m coming to you, Jonesy, hat in hand. Maybe I agree with what the governor is proposing. Maybe I don’t. But he belongs in prison. That much I know.”

  Jonesy nodded.

  The waitress sashayed over. Asked if they needed any refills. Planted the check in front of Poncho. Sashayed away.

  Poncho picked up the bill, looked it over.

  “That’s your answer,” said Jonesy. “Right there in your hand. You want to put together some real evidence against the governor? It’s the same story every single time: follow the money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I mean is that this proposal of his is going to cost a lot of money to implement. Our governor is no fool. He must already have some idea who’s going to pay for it all. And I may not have your political instincts, but I’m guessing he doesn’t intend to woo the citizenry to his side with a tax increase.”

  “And it’s not just us. It’s Michigan, too.” Poncho chewed on his thoughts for a moment. “But how would something like this generate revenue?”

  “The Germans justified the cost of relocating the Jews by turning them into slave labor.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not the case here.”

  “Then what is?” asked Jonesy.

  Chapter 34

  For the umpteenth time, Judy tried to convince the governor to visit the injured at Piedmont Hospital. This time, the argument she made was strictly geographical: the hospital was an easy detour on his ride home.

  “They’re fewer than four miles from each other,” she said. “I googled it.”

  He was on his way to his limo. His driver already had his door open. He could feel the burden of the day clawing at his deltoids. But still he stopped and faced this woman and lit her up with a realistic grin.

  “You know why I don’t slap a mosquito when they bite me?” he replied.

  “Sir?”

  “The mosquito is only doing its job. It’s rude to punish an animal for behaving the way nature intended. But please know this, Judy, if we weren’t in public and if I weren’t such a properly educated Southern gentleman, I would slap you right now so hard that your cunt would just fall right out. See you tomorrow.”

  He disappeared into his limo and soon the limo disappeared, too, leaving Judy, all parts intact, staring at the empty air. Her mind was full to bursting, though most of it devoted to thoughts of rage and directed against this odious man, this flesh-ballooned amalgamation of everything in this world that could ever be loathsome, because it wasn’t enough that he was indirectly responsible for two terrorist attacks on domestic soil, no—he also had to be racist and sexist. Not that she would have forgiven him for today’s attacks if in all other ways he actually was a Southern gentleman, if that species of man had even existed. Rhett Butler, she remi
nded herself, had been the fictional construct of a society columnist barely out of her twenties.

  And yet, Judy’s attempts over the past hour at convincing the governor to visit the injured at Piedmont Hospital had been genuine. From a PR standpoint at the very least, it seemed the most effective way of applying triage to the litany of lashes the governor had been receiving online ever since his little speech, and as tempted as Judy was to let the vile villain suffer, she knew that for her and Poncho’s plot to succeed, she needed to appear loyal. She needed to keep her access, especially now, especially with the near-impossible request Poncho had made of her just a few minutes ago over the phone.

  “How am I supposed investigate his financials?” she replied, hoping he was flinching from the ire in her tone. “It’s not like he keeps a copy of his bank book in his office drawer!”

  But she knew what he was getting at. Judy already had established a colloquy with that segment producer from MSNBC. It was time to find out just how much the producer knew and did any of it have to do with money…

  So once she finally regained the ability to shake off the sheer disgust that had paralyzed her there in the driveway, Judy hustled back to her fiefdom on the second floor. The rest of her team was still there, as per her orders. There were a lot of fires that needed putting out.

  Judy shut herself in her office, searched her contacts, and dialed Elise.

  “Judy, Judy, Judy,” greeted Elise, and then she giggle-snorted, and Judy wanted to reach through the phone and throttle the wench but no, no—just as with the governor, she had to pretend to be cordial. And so instead:

  “Hello, Elise! I don’t believe we ever finished our conversation from earlier.”

  “And I have actually been trying to call you for the past hour, as is, I’m sure, the rest of the world, Judy. Your governor gave quite a speech. Care to comment on the record about the less-than-enthusiastic response it’s received?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, Elise. I’ve heard several very positive reactions, most notably from Dr. Azhar Shariq, president of the Muslim-American Coalition. I would be happy to provide you with his phone number.”