by A. C. Fuller
She took a seat on a rusty metal chair next to an empty swimming pool in the courtyard. She took out her list of impound lots in Arlington, Virginia, and began calling. Six times she repeated her story—where they’d left the car, when they’d left it, and the make and model. Six times she was told that no vehicle like Blue Lightning had been found. On the sixth call, she asked whether there were any unlisted lots, or what else might have happened to a vehicle abandoned in a snowstorm. She was told to try the government impound lot, but they wouldn’t be open on Sunday. When she asked how a car would end up in the government lot, there was a long pause on the line. Finally, the man said, “If a car is suspected to have been used in a crime, they claim it and, after two weeks, auction it off.” Cole took the number of the government lot and thanked him.
The sun was out, but the day was cool. She walked a lap around the courtyard in an effort to warm up. In D.C., two men had been following them. When they’d abandoned Blue Lightning, one chased them through the snow and eventually into Arlington National Cemetery. The other had stayed behind. Perhaps the one who stayed behind had searched the car, then called it in to the police. Whatever had happened, she’d need to call about the car on Monday. If it got auctioned off to the highest bidder, Warren might never get over it, and she’d never forgive herself.
The photo was still the biggest story on Twitter. Two anonymous sources from the storage facility had confirmed its authenticity, and three different NYPD sources had been quoted admitting the photo was real, while at the same time defending the decision not to release it. Despite the buzz, no one had linked her to the photo.
She still hadn’t heard from Warren, so she sat and checked her email. Messages had come in quickly over the last few days. Friends and colleagues wanted to know what happened at the Sun. Matt’s mom asked how she was doing. Her therapist wanted to reschedule an appointment, which was fine because she’d forgotten about it anyway.
She also had job offers. In the journalism world, word spreads quickly. Some heard she’d quit—others that she’d been fired. A small newspaper in California offered her a full-time job as its lead crime reporter. The pay was terrible and she wasn’t about to move to California, so she deleted it. A prestigious magazine offered her fifty cents a word to write a story about Michael Wragg and how she’d ended up in his apartment. She could write 10,000 words on that in a couple days, but she wasn’t that desperate for money yet.
She stopped scanning when an email caught her eye. It came from an online magazine called The Barker, based in Seattle. She’d written a couple freelance pieces for them once during a transition period between jobs. The pay was bad, but they had good reach and gave her a lot of leeway as to style. The email wasn’t from Bird, the managing editor, with whom she’d corresponded in the past. It was from Alex Vane, their semi-retired founder.
Dear Jane,
We know you’re on this story. IN this story. We’ll pay you $1/word for anything you send us. No questions asked. We’ll clean it up and publish it within an hour. Our social media team will have it trending worldwide an hour after that.
Newspapers are dead, but journalism isn’t.
We can help you get this story out; our speed and reach might be able to help us change how it ends.
Sincerely,
Alex Vane
A dollar per word was a lot more than they’d paid her last time. And he was right about their ability to promote. The Barker published a lot of crap, but it had a reputation for being able to shape national coverage faster than any newspaper or cable news show.
It was the only job offer she didn’t delete.
12
The scent of rotting trash hit Warren as he knocked on the door. A white garbage bag leaned against the wall in the middle of the hallway, leaking liquid from a hole with a syringe sticking out of it. Someone had made it halfway to the garbage chute, then abandoned the effort. He knew quite a few fellow Marines who’d fallen on hard times after retiring, but he’d always thought Frankie Undercroft would be a success.
Last Warren had heard, Frankie worked as a security guard at a bank. But Frankie’s Facebook bio said he was a content moderator for an online video company called STREAM3R. Whatever ‘content moderation’ was, it didn’t seem to pay well, judging by Frankie’s accommodations.
There was shuffling on the other side of the door, then a dull thud and what might have been the sound of two frying pans being dropped into a metal sink. Shortly after the burst of noise, Frankie emerged. He was as short as Warren remembered, but everything else about him had changed. His hair was long and greasy and he wore University of Nevada sweatpants, gray with a red logo. His blue t-shirt had a large brown stain in the middle; Warren hoped it was coffee. His friend’s face, which Warren remembered as round, healthy, and always emitting cheerful lies, looked ashen, pale, and dull.
Warren knew an addict when he saw one.
“War Dog.” Frankie’s faint smile harkened back to better days, as though he’d been lifted for an instant from the squalor of his situation. “Good to see you. Come in.”
Warren followed him in.
“Sorry about the mess,” Frankie said. He spoke slowly and without the spark Warren remembered. “Surprised you messaged me. Been a while.”
Frankie shoved an iPad and a few dirty napkins off a chair. “Have a seat.”
Warren sat as Frankie flopped onto a couch across from him. The words wouldn’t come easily, but his own time in recovery had taught him one thing—sugar-coating and BS weren’t helpful. It was their shared experience in Afghanistan that gave Warren permission to skip the small talk. “Frankie, it’s good to see you, but what’s going on? I saw on Facebook you’re doing content moderation—whatever that is—but, seriously, how are you.”
Frankie stared at the floor. “You know, don’t you?”
“Something’s not right. Opioids?” Warren’s drug of choice had been cocaine, and he was thankful every day he’d put those dark days behind him. There were so many Marines hooked on painkillers. Injured overseas, they’d come home to VA docs happy to overprescribe opioids, encouraged by millions of dollars in kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies. For some, the switch to heroin didn’t take too long.
Frankie lifted a coffee mug from the floor, looked inside as though it contained the answer to some silent question, then set it back down. “H.”
Warren’s head dropped to his chest. He lifted it quickly and met Frankie’s eyes, trying to be strong.
“Doc won’t refill my Oxy, can’t afford rehab, so…” He looked down at his lap. “Was actually doing alright when I was in security.”
“I thought that’s what you were doing.”
“Company shut down. Bank merger or some shit.”
“So what’s content moderation?”
Frankie shook his head in disgust. “Company called Streamer, except they spell it with a three. It’s...Youtube crossed with Twitter, that’s how they pitch it.”
Warren shrugged. Didn’t ring any bells, but that didn’t mean much. He was no expert in video apps.
Frankie grabbed his phone off the arm of the couch and passed it from hand to hand. “You know how you can report posts on social media sites? Like if something is offensive, or illegal, or indicates suicidal thoughts or hate speech or whatever?”
“I guess. I have accounts but I don’t go on them much. Unless I’m trying to find an old buddy.” He tried to sound light, but Frankie’s eyes were far away, like he was locked in his head, in his own world. “Used to post on Instagram sometimes, but that was mostly because I wanted to show Sarah how well I was doing when I got in recovery.”
“You used?”
“Coke, booze...”
Frankie nodded. “Streamer pays me $32,000 a year, no benefits, to sit in a windowless room and judge whether something is appropriate for the site. Lucky me, I got the animal violence job. Anytime someone posts a video that gets reported as showing violence against animals, it comes to me a
nd I check the post. If it violates Streamer’s rules, I delete it.”
Warren shook his head. “Damn, I never thought about that. Can’t believe that’s a job.”
“How else they going to deal with it? Remember the Christchurch shooter? He broadcast his murders live on Facebook. People watched it until a moderator like me, sitting in a windowless room somewhere for sixteen bucks an hour with no benefits, took it down.”
Warren pressed his feet into the floor. “Eight hours a day screening videos of violence against animals?” He felt sick, full of rage. More than a decade in the Marines, and this was the life Frankie had come back to.
“Photos, too. Sickest stuff you can imagine. And probably some things you...shouldn’t.” He smiled down at his lap and let out a weak laugh. “I’m just glad they didn’t give me the child porn cases. Guy I know killed himself after six months on that beat.”
“People really post that shit online?” Warren knew how ignorant he sounded as it left his lips. He didn’t spend a lot of time online, but it was the Internet. Of course people posted terrible things. It was simple statistics. To him, the Internet—especially social media—was one giant mistake. Just gave people a forum to broadcast the worst of themselves for all to see. “They offer therapy?”
“Therapy? That’s a surprise, coming from ol’ War Dog.”
Warren sighed, then frowned. “Helped me sober up.”
“We get nine minutes of ‘Wellness Time’ per shift. Watch disgusting people do disgusting things to their animals for eight hours, and process it for nine minutes.”
“That’s…” Warren didn’t know what to say. “How can they do that?”
“When it’s raining money, sometimes your vision gets blurry.”
Warren shook his head, searching for something to say. Finally, he stood. “I’m going to get you help. I wanted to see you today to pick your brain about a case I’m working on. But...there’s a VA assistance agency in Vegas and I’m gonna get you help.”
There was a knock at the door. Frankie shot up, clearly worried.
“Don’t get many visitors?” Warren asked. “Don’t worry, I think I know who it is.”
He’d forgotten to text Cole.
13
The man who opened the door didn’t look like a Marine, at least not like the ones she’d met. His shoulders were bent forward, hunched almost. Cole noticed a speck of blood on his left ear—maybe an earring malfunction. The apartment smelled stale, like no window had been cracked in years.
She was about to ask if she could come in when she met his eyes. They were wide, like he’d seen a ghost. His mouth was half open. He was searching for words. “I know you,” he said finally.
She didn’t recognize him. She glanced over his shoulder at Warren, who stood and gave her a side-out thumb indicating they should get out of there. The look on his face made it plain he hadn’t gotten anything useful out of Frankie.
“Great to see you, Frankie.” Warren scooched by him and joined her in the doorway. “I won’t let you give in to this thing. I’ll be in touch about the VA.”
Frankie ignored him. He eyes roamed, his mouth still seemed to be searching for words. He snapped his fingers. “Matthew Cole. Matt Cole.”
Cole stepped back. “What?”
“I was looking for the name. You were married to Matt Cole.”
Her heart twisted. She scanned her memory, looking right into Frankie’s face. Had she met him?
“You don’t know me,” Frankie said. “But I know all about you.”
She put a hand on his forearm. It was cold and sweaty. He began rocking back and forth on his heels like a little kid who had to go to the bathroom.
“Frankie, you okay?” Warren asked.
Then, like he’d been struck by an invisible bullet, Frankie collapsed in the doorway.
An hour later, Cole leaned on the railing of the rooftop garden and looked down on the empty pool and courtyard below. It wasn’t much of a garden. Just a few potted plants and some plastic lawn furniture.
Warren had revived Frankie when he fainted. It turned out he hadn’t eaten solid food for two days. Warren forced him to shower and shave while Cole ordered McDonald’s and had it delivered to the apartment. Now, Frankie bit into a Big Mac and took long swigs from a soda. He seemed revived. Cole joined him at the table, which was surrounded by small potted trees, half of them dead.
“Feeling any better?” she asked.
“Little.”
While Frankie was in the shower, Warren had told her about Frankie’s new job. “You probably already know this,” Cole said, “but you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress. That was a panic attack you had. And it makes sense.”
He waved her off. “That’s sissy bullshit. I don’t have PTSD. My grandfather was General Patton. He fainted once, too. It was just the heat messing with me.”
It was around seventy degrees and a dry breeze played with the needles on the little trees. It wasn’t the heat, but she let it go, contenting herself to nibble on fries while Frankie finished his food.
Warren stood a few yards away, arms crossed like he was guarding an important meeting. “At least you’re lying again. That’s a good sign. General Patton would be proud.”
“How do you know who I am?” Cole asked the moment Frankie popped the last bite of the burger in his mouth. “And how did you know Matt?”
“Third tour, woulda been four...no maybe three years ago. Rob, were you still in then?”
Rob peered down. “No, I was back home.”
“That’s right. You escaped early. I went back. Unit got partnered with a group near the Ghazni Province and—”
“What month was this?” Cole asked sharply. Frankie might have been a serial liar, but she sensed he was telling the truth. She didn’t trust herself, though. She wanted someone to know about Matt’s final days, and she’d already proved herself susceptible to wishful thinking. After all, Michael Wragg’s promise of information had led her to make one of the worst decisions of her life. She’d be sure to test him on details she was sure of.
Frankie dipped a fry in BBQ sauce and left it there. “Woulda been January. I shipped out on New Year’s Day and made it there a week later.”
The detail checked out and Cole relaxed. He wasn’t lying.
It took another hour to get the story, Cole prodding and Warren interjecting to keep him on track. He was jumpy and eager, but prone to lapse into moments of low energy and distraction. In the end, his story rocked Cole to her core.
Frankie knew something odd was going on in Matt’s unit right away. As the biggest bullshitter in the world, he’d developed a good lie detector. From the moment he arrived at the base in Ghazni Province, two of the men in Matt’s unit had been standoffish, secretive. At first, he’d assumed they were simply unfriendly. After all, Frankie’s unit had joined their party. They had seniority.
A week after he arrived, Frankie was out on a six-man patrol when he’d come upon the two men—Lopez and Morgan—behind a little restaurant in Zana Khan. As far as he knew, it wasn’t their day to be on patrol, but he didn’t know everything that went on, so he waved at them, hoping to win them over. They turned their backs. “Strangest thing,” Frankie said, “was that they were talking to a tall, gangly dude who looked Asian. I’m no expert—coulda been Japanese, Chinese, Korean. Definitely not an Afghan.”
It was the first East Asian guy Frankie had seen in rural Afghanistan, not counting U.S. service-members. A week had gone by, and he hadn’t thought much about it.
Then he’d met Matt. “It was dinner on a Tuesday night. Dudes I usually ate with were getting disciplined, so I sat next to Matt. I’d seen him around but we’d never talked. Quiet guy. Introspective. So I sit down and tell him, ‘You look like a damn movie star. Way too pretty to be sitting out in a desert.’ Told him I was the bastard son of Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, that I was gonna go to Hollywood when this was over to get a new life. ‘You should come,’ I told him. ‘You be t
he leading man, I’ll be the hilarious sidekick.’ Matt laughed, shook his head, and pulled a picture out of his pocket. A picture of you.”
Cole sniffed and wiped her eyes. She knew the photo.
Frankie pulled the cold fry from the BBQ sauce and munched it, clearly uncomfortable with her tears.
She sniffed again and nodded. “Go on.”
In the photo, he explained, she looked younger. Her cheeks more tanned, her hair a little shinier. She and Matt stood together, she in a New York Giants jersey, he in a Seahawks jersey, posing in front of a football field.
“We went to one game,” Cole interrupted. “I don’t watch sports, but he was a crazy Seahawks fan and wanted to start an inter-family rivalry. I played along that day. Still don’t understand the rules. The Giants won, I think.”
Frankie smiled. “When Matt showed me the picture, he said, ‘Can’t go to Hollywood, look what I get to go home to.’ Something to that effect.”
Cole’s stomach turned. Her read on Frankie was that he might be embellishing some of the details, but she had no doubt the conversation with Matt had happened.
Frankie and Matt had hit it off and taken to eating meals together. “He had a way about him. Affable, I guess. Every line I fed him, he pretended to believe. He’d ask me all sorts of questions, just playing along. Like when I told him I sang background for Beyonce—only white dude good enough to make her squad—he was all enthusiastic. He was like, ‘Dude, amazing. Let’s hear some vocals.’ And when I told him my vocal coach actually asked me to re-enlist to get some time off from singing, to rest my voice, he just smiled. He liked my BS.”
Warren finally took a seat next to him, his long legs bumping the table as he squeezed in. “Wait, have you known all along you were BS’ing everyone, about everything? We had bets going. Half the guys thought you knew you were lying, half thought you believed every word.”
