by Chris Bauer
The lookalike SUV shakedown was wrapping up, with D.C. cops controlling the small crowd Larinda joined across from the gated entrance to a townhouse community. On the sign attached to the community’s glossy black iron fence: “A new private enclave. Twenty-eight distinctive residences in prestigious Georgetown. One elegant home left…”
There it was, the black diesel pickup truck, parked at the last of six townhouses on the right, the three-story end house visible. Behind Larinda and a few onlookers, the stoop she sat on led up to an older brownstone. She climbed to the top step, which gave her the view she needed.
The driver stood side-by-side with his charge on the townhouse’s front porch, remained vigilant while he checked out the crowd, his glances lingering at the apprehended vehicle outside the community gate, its former occupants still being questioned. The big man dwarfed the truck’s female passenger, yet to Larinda the relative height, body shape and hair color of the woman all fit. This was the Indian judge. The justice unlocked her townhouse door and the two entered the unit, its first floor lights switching on.
After five minutes the driver exited the residence. Once back inside the truck he fired it up and let it idle a moment, its thrumming interrupting an otherwise quiet, empty community street. The truck left the curb, reversed direction and returned to the front gate. It lingered there facing the police activity, then exited right.
“Show’s over, folks,” a cop called to the small crowd. “You need to disperse. Go back into your homes or keep moving…”
Larinda now knew the house. A good thing, sure, but at the expense of a bad one: the Feds might still have a bias against burgundy Tahoes. As she walked, she spoke into her phone. “Hello? Enterprise Rent-A-Car?”
She circled the perimeter of the small community on foot, confirmed it was fully enclosed, the iron fencing interspersed with sections of brick wall, all of it too tall to climb. Each townhome style featured a large rear deck off a French-door kitchen with a patio beneath it. The judge’s end unit had four entrances, front, side, and two rear. The community’s construction appeared finished except for final street paving, the paving equipment already on site. She finished her walk where she’d started, outside the community’s front gate, and took a seat on a sidewalk bench amid the nighttime foot and car traffic that continued past her in both directions.
Time for a close-up of the keypads for the entrance gate. Across the street from the entrance, Larinda played with her phone, adjusting the zoom.
One keypad was affixed to the perimeter’s iron enclosure, eyelevel for pedestrians, and the other sat atop a pole next to the cobblestone driveway entrance, for residents and guests in vehicles.
Zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, hold, press, save. Now to wait.
Patience. A phone app generated multiple Bible scripture verses on “patience as a virtue,” and she used them to pray while she waited, another oxy helping to mellow her. But her phone also gave her something else.
Info on today’s Supreme Court session. Broadcast news for the general population that the Babineau v Turbin ultrasound case had been argued, that it was now in the hands of the justices, that the decision could come as early as this week, or it could come at the end of the judicial year, or anytime in between. Such was the independence of the Supreme Court.
Also trending on the Court: new Associate Justice Naomi Coolsummer, the destroyed abortion clinics, and a blog entry by a court beat writer traveling with a bounty-hunting Marine and his military trained dogs. The entry already had a few hundred views since its posting late today. According to the blogger, the Marine was tracking the person(s) responsible for the abortion clinic deaths.
The descriptions, the dogs, the circumstances: it was the same guy who dragged the faggot boy and his dead mother away from the trailer park fire. The blog said the Marine and the blogger were now in D.C.
There was space at the bottom of the blog entry for comments.
Footfalls stopped her keying. A woman jogger legged it up the street on the other side, slowed and stopped at the gate, still running in place. Larinda raised her phone, pressed zoom then began recording. The jogger punched numbers into the keypad and entered the community.
TWENTY-SEVEN
They fit well together, Judge and Geenie. Porters of extraordinary baggage, and sharers of deep, dark secrets. Seekers of agnostic absolution. They forgave each other their faults, transcended their differences. They were superheroes, to themselves and, at times, to others. They were mistress and master of the woebegone, because they were humble enough to count themselves among them, and wise enough to realize that together, along with the other emotional downtrodden, they could be stronger than the perils out there. And when Judge and Geenie made love last night and this morning, it was caring, it was savage, it was tender, and it was glorious, and it was something Judge had believed he’d never find again, until he had.
Five a.m. Geenie’s head and arm rested on Judge’s bare chest in their room on the second floor of a lavish B&B, a double brownstone in the middle of a chic residential block in Georgetown. Her breathing was soft, warm, and sensual. She was the epitome of contentment and comfort, her cooing so calming that Judge balked at slipping out from under her, but he needed to, to find out if Owen had heard back from the dead pastor’s son yet.
There was also a familiar toxic bouquet that originated at floor level, a gift from the room’s other occupant. His Shepherd deputy paced next to the bed, his security-blanket leash attached to his collar. The air about the room said he needed a walk.
Maeby had roomed with Owen. It was against Judge’s better judgment after Owen’s dumbass, unconscionable blog entry, but he let it happen based on Geenie’s prodding. Owen’s lucky day.
“Grrr.” A reminder from his deputy that a bio break was necessary.
“Can it, big mouth, I’m on it. One quick stop first.”
He knocked on the door to Owen’s room. No rustling inside, no dog bark, no answer. He could well be drunk. As soon as J.D. did his business and they got back upstairs, Owen would get a wake-up phone call.
Man and dog padded through the well-lit B&B parlor, steering clear of a baby grand and the hurricane lamps and other beautiful heirlooms on antique end tables, musty oriental rugs the only knock on the place. They stepped down onto the back porch, and in the predawn shadows Judge eyed a “Pets go here” sign on the other side of a garden, an arrow pointing to a gated alcove in the rear brick wall. In the middle of the garden was a cobblestone patio. Here he found Owen, sacked out and snoring on a cushioned lounge chair, his laptop open, Maeby asleep at his feet, a blanket across them both. He was in different clothes so he hadn’t slept out here, and he didn’t reek of alcohol. Maeby’s head popped up as J.D. passed. She laid it back down.
Behind the gate was less inviting, a section of alley afflicted by a blue waste container with a stench as overpowering as the Philly fish markets, even at five-thirty in the morning. Judge’s partner found a weed-covered grass patch and began his process.
“Hustle it up, big boy.”
Something rustled in the blue container behind them, cat noises accompanying it, plus squealing, then thrashing. A brown rat catapulted out of the trash and dropped onto Judge’s shoulder, slipped off then landed in the alley and bolted into the B&B backyard. J.D. was in mid-squat. No matter; where the rat was headed, it had no chance. Judge leaned back through the gate to follow it while his dog finished his business.
Maeby, on the patio brick next to Owen’s chair, had the rat in her mouth and shook it with a terrier vengeance. When its neck broke it stopped squealing, went limp, and was gone. Maeby, her mouth full of brown and bloodied rat, looked to give someone her trophy. She hesitated, eyeing Judge then Owen.
A scuffle behind them in the alley raised J.D. to the balls of his feet. Up, and now galloping, he spun his master around while drawing his leash taut so he could reenter the yard. A blur had already passed them, a second rat bigger than the first, making a beeline for Maeby
on the patio. Maeby faced Owen, oblivious to what was coming at her from behind. J.D. barked. Maeby turned, her mouth still occupied. The rat pounced.
Owen dropped the thinner end of his closed laptop with a two-handed vengeance behind the rat’s head. Squash-splort-crunch. He got to his feet to put his weight into it against the brick patio, grinding the laptop until there was full separation, rat head from rat body.
“Fuck you, rat.”
“Owen. Dude.”
“Yeah, bro?”
“You okay?”
He breathed heavily, stared at his disgusting handiwork. “Yeah.”
Owen now had his own rat trophy, so Maeby pranced proudly over to Judge to show what she’d caught. The German Shepherd reached the headless rat body, nudged it, did an about face and returned to his master without it, awaiting further instructions.
“No return call from the funeral parlor yet,” Owen volunteered, studying the decapitated rat. “You bring any poop bags with you?”
“Yes.”
“Help me clean this up then, will ya, pardner?”
Judge decided that for the time being Owen had earned an upgrade, from dismissed to on probation.
Geenie and Judge met Owen a little after seven a.m. in the parlor, ready for their trip to the Supreme Court and a close-up look at the target of their target. Maeby and J.D. would chill in their B&B room for the morning. Owen, on his phone, paced the parlor while winding down a call.
“Flowers, too? No, no, I got it, all off the record. Flowers and a card, but I can’t report it. I promise. So sorry for your loss, Mister Beckner. Bye.”
Owen flashed a smile that took up two thirds of his face. “Learned some really tight shit, guys dope, Frannie didn’t tell me.” He sauntered toward the B&B exit, his index finger pointing forward. “To the Bat-van! I’ll tell you on the way.”
“Look, Owen, you’re still on a short leash.” “Sure thing, boss. Let’s go.”
Owen sat in the van’s fold-down jump seat behind Geenie. “Let’s hear it, Owen.”
“Darlington Beckner’s son is a fan of my Thurgood Cochran blog. When the Secret Service interviewed him he shared some info, with them and with Frannie. They told him not to share it with anyone else.”
“So he tells you, a stranger? An Internet blogger with an alias? And he expects that info to go nowhere else? And why the hell is the Secret Service involved?”
“No idea about the Secret Service, but, you know, I wouldn’t tell anyone anything.
Judge grunted, stifling a laugh. “Whatever he told you is BS, Owen. A hoax. Bad as the birthers and the tinfoilers out there. Someone is funnin’ you.”
“Really? How about this then? He knew about the killer’s Montblanc pen trophy. The one that was his father’s.”
A detail not released to the public. “Fine. Go on.”
“So Junior says his father had a reservation for a flight to D.C. scheduled for the day after he was murdered. And…” He lengthened the word, paused for effect, and waited for Judge to give him a drum roll.
“Cut the drama, Owen.”
“And they received flowers and a sympathy card from the White House! No clue why, he says, considering they hate the Feds. Especially, and I quote, they hate ‘that mongrel president.’ Now that’s some shit.”
By themselves, the airline ticket info and sympathy card weren’t much more than well-intentioned surprises for his family, but the Secret Service saying not to tell anyone about them was, well, odd.
“Any other leads, Owen?” Geenie said, trying to be supportive. Judge’s eyes narrowed at her, his don’t-encourage-him-else-you’ll-regret-it look. Her stern face said to back off, hot shot.
“Two hundred seventy-two reader comments on the blog entry. I read ’em all. Some crazy shit, but nothing else worth following up.” Owen’s meaty brown fingers paged down his phone screen.
Beep. “And here’s two-seventy-three,” he said.
They entered a line of cars waiting to enter a parking garage. The Court website warned that no weapons were allowed on the grounds, and that inside the Court building there were lockers for hats, overcoats, cameras, radios, phones, books, briefcases, etc., but visitors needed to leave their Second Amendment rights elsewhere. Judge removed his holstered handgun from behind his back after they advanced another car length, opened the glove box and shoved it in. He left the glove box door open for Geenie. Presumptuous on his part.
Geenie’s emotional baggage was of Sherpa-guide proportions, and only a little less violent than Judge’s. She’d lost her father when she was a kid, in a bank hold up. He took a bullet for her, and she saw him die. It was something Judge had accepted as providing much of her worldview, both deeply ingrained and irreversible, and she trusted few people outside of her hometown Pocono Mountains friends. She stared at the open glove box before retrieving her small Glock and its holster from behind her back. She put the gun on top of his, was casual about it, but discreet enough to pull it off without Owen noticing her doing it. In Judge’s mind, maybe she subconsciously hoped she didn’t notice herself doing it either.
“Whoa,” Owen said. “This last comment. Some hard-core church shit here.”
“Let me hear it,” Judge said.
Owen read. “‘If a man hurts a woman with child, so that her child departs from her, and yet no harm follows to the child, he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm to the child, then thou shalt give eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, life for life.’ Exodus.”
“Your blog entry is a pro-life crazies magnet. I told you this would happen. Delete it like Frannie said. Or the Feds will come after you, us, for not paying attention.”
Another phone beep. “What is this shit?” He struggled with the new message.
“You gonna share it with us or what?”
“It says, ‘A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. Proverbs.’ Both entries are signed Anonymous. ’Sup with that crap?”
Beeeep. One more entry. Owen silently read it; Judge waited. Owen pushed himself out of the jump seat and leaned forward. “It says, ‘I’ll kill your dogs if I have to.’”
Judge eyed the locked glove box for a pregnant moment. It stayed locked, had to stay locked, because they had no choice if they wanted to gain access to the Court for the reconnaissance they needed. But his affliction cued up a response filled with alliterative pearls about stuffing crocodiles and kumquats and Croatians into his bounty’s lady parts, comments best left for the confines of the van. The parking lot ticket machine spit out a ticket. Judge ripped it out, and at unsafe speeds they found a space two levels up.
Seething, Judge warned them both. “Get out.”
Geenie opened her door mid-TS tirade, said, “Let’s give him a moment, Owen.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Larinda sipped burned black coffee while she keyed search info into a desktop computer in a motel lobby in Arlington, Virginia. She paged through an online Bible, stopping on occasion to read a few passages. She’d give herself five minutes more before she left for the Georgetown Waterfront Park in D.C., where she’d lose her most recent prepaid phone in the Potomac. After that, she planned to do some escape route planning. Her online response to a certain Internet blogger had garnered feedback.
“To Anonymous: Let’s meet. You can tell us what is troubling you. Maybe we can help.”
She chuckled. A funny man, this Thurgood Cochran.
Larinda typed another response in the comments area. “You should hope that meeting never happens.”
‘You can tell us what is troubling you.’
Larinda crossed the Francis Scott Key Bridge into Georgetown with her new SUV, a Toyota. Rush hour traffic, both sides heavy. Alternative routes per the navigation system were no help. Toughing this out was her only choice. On the river below the bridge were a few kayaks, paddleboats and an outboard. It was considerably less crowded. A better place to be than where she was. She made a mental note to that effect.
She punched the radio scan button in search of a good D.C. evangelist for the few minutes she had before Reverend Higby Hunt’s morning Power Hour. After a spin through the dial, she found no preacher worthy of her time. Radio off.
‘…tell us what is troubling you.’
What troubled her was what would happen after she killed the justice, because her elimination was not a permanent solution. A new appointment, another confirmation hearing, and a new justice would take a seat. Still, she could only deal with what she could control. And what she could control was killing the judge. It would keep this Court, now suddenly a festering scab of liberal majority, from rendering decisions detrimental to Christians. Decisions that had killed millions. Eliminating the judge counted for something. She was doing something.
Which included getting herself all worked up. She needed some scripture, needed to tune in to some soothing, reaffirming scripture. She popped an oxy.
Her phone on, she found KLTY, her go-to online radio station. It was the top of the hour.
“Now, back to the Christian Charismatic Ministry of Wisdom and Light Cathedral based in Dallas, Texas, streaming live to you today as a simulcast from W-M-W-L Christian Radio studios at FM one-oh-five-point-one in…”
A godsend, always, to hear the clarity of a good, God-fearing person deliver God’s word.
“…the nation’s capital…”
Here? In D.C.? Why hadn’t she known this? Car radio on, phone off.
“Reverend Higby Hunt. Let’s give a big virtual clap of the hands for evangelist Higby Hunt!”
“…virtual clap of the hands for evangelist Higby Hunt!”
“Thank you, dearest friends in Christ, for your hospitality.” The reverend turned full preacher, now punctuating every phrase. “I do not have a prepared sermon. I am here, in this great District, for the next few days, as an observer. To provide unqualified support, to a very important, yet difficult, judicial process. To bear witness, to the birth, of change.”
Also in the studio, Senator Mildred Folsom. She faced the reverend, headphones around her neck, there for when it was her turn to speak. She felt the electricity in the room: Christian evangelism royalty was on the air, on their airwaves in particular, in their studio. The reverend would introduce her shortly as a guest on this, his daily show, which had temporarily taken to the road. Right now it was all him. And it was all about today’s very special message.