Bad Games- The Complete Series

by Jeff Menapace

“I’m here.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I think you already know. Do you really want to hear it?”

  Softly, she admitted: “No.”

  “I’m not gonna lie though, Amy—” He rarely called her Amy. Found it too melodramatic when others used it in serious debate. Today it was out of his mouth without consideration. “—I am a little worried about you.”

  Patrick readied himself for some resistance. He got nothing.

  It’s the hangover, he thought. A colossal hangover coupled with major guilt is a punch in the gut that just won’t go away.

  Amy said, “I know.” And then once more: “I’m so sorry.”

  A promise to never do such foolishness again (even though he’d admitted to himself only moments ago the futility of such words) would have been nice to hear, but in a way he supposed she was saying it without saying it. Patrick was then surprised to find he was suddenly glad she hadn’t resorted to such promises. Had she done so, the words would have been empty, like an addict promising he would never use again, reeking of bullshit to clear the air long enough until the next fix was secured. Patrick knew his wife too well. He knew she would not taint an apology like this with predictable and hollow promises, even if it happened to be the most truthful promise she might ever speak.

  Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose, squinted hard, and then blinked several times in an attempt to stem the headache that had been with him since morning. “It’s okay, baby,” he said, realizing just then that he had called her Amy earlier. “Why don’t you go take some ibuprofen with a big glass of water, then go lie down for a bit.”

  “I can’t—I have to go get Caleb soon,” she said. “Guess that’s my penance, huh?”

  “No. If you tell him that Mommy doesn’t feel well he’ll be as quiet as a mouse when you get back. Now, when Carrie gets home …”

  He heard her groan into the phone. He chuckled. A good ten second pause followed.

  “So are we good?” she eventually asked.

  “We’re good.”

  “I truly am sorry, baby.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too. I’ll see you when I get home.”

  Patrick hung up and sat for a moment, replaying the conversation over in his head. Content it went about as well as a conversation like that could, he spun back to his PC and started to do some actual work on the Megablast account for the first time that day.

  35

  John Brooks lay on his motel bed watching a nature program about crocodiles stalking and killing their prey. He watched the deadly reptiles and drew comparisons between them and himself and his daughter:

  The crocodile would glide beneath the murky water, undetected by its prey taking a drink by the riverbank. The crocodile would glide closer, undetected still. It would then wait. Lie and wait from below for as long as it took. The perfect moment. The perfect strike. The perfect kill.

  This was Monica.

  And when those powerful reptilian jaws snapped shut on its prey, and the desperate, futile struggle would ensue—the blood, the carnage, the up-close-and-personal joy of destroying your victim …

  That was him. That was John.

  Of course he and his daughter were not completely night and day. They did share the most significant trait of all: the trait of truly loving who they were and what they did. No bullshit psychology or FBI profiling about what caused their behavior required. They were born. The end. This was even more evident now with the discovery of Arthur and James. It was in their blood. John’s family was put on this earth for the purpose of bringing death and misery to others—and enjoying the hell out of it.

  A knock on the motel door shook John from his thoughts. He had been staring at the television but hadn’t taken in a thing since his mind began churning. The nature program was now over and some guy in a light blue suit was asking for donations.

  John reached under the pillow next to him and gripped the handle of his custom M1911 pistol. “Who is it?”

  A female voice, deep and stern. “Police. Open up.”

  “Okay, gimme a second.” Gun in hand, John eased off the bed and crept towards the door. He turned the lock slowly, slid the chain out of its track without a sound, then pressed himself flat against the wall behind the door. He turned his head towards the bathroom and cupped one hand against the side of his mouth to throw his voice. “Come in.”

  John watched the door handle slowly turn. Watched the door ease open. He gripped his M1911 tight, ready, waiting.

  The door was completely open now, John behind it. He did not risk peeking through the crack by the hinges. That would be expected. He stayed put, flat to the wall, straining to hear anything significant. He heard distant traffic, the wind, someone slamming a car door in the parking lot.

  The subtle click of a gun.

  John whirled from his spot and thrust his own gun into the open doorway.

  Nothing.

  And then the sound of an empty chamber clicking repeatedly from below. He looked down and said, “Ah shit.”

  Monica lie flat on her back, head at his feet, her own gun pointed up at her father’s groin, an impossibly wide grin on her face.

  “I believe this now makes it two-nothing, me,” she said, still on her back, still pointing the gun, still grinning like a kid.

  John thought of the crocodile lurking below the surface, invisible, waiting to strike. He couldn’t help but smile back.

  • • •

  “Old, Pops … you’re gettin’ old,” Monica said as she flopped onto the motel bed and propped her head up with both pillows.

  “What’s this two-nothing crap?” John said. “When was the first?”

  “At your cabin—when I beat you to the draw with the bum. I could have popped you too.”

  “I told you, I knew you were there.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right.”

  He sat at the foot of the bed. “What happened last night?”

  Monica put both hands behind her head, a smirk starting. “An opportunity presented itself.”

  “Such as?”

  “I was following her. She strayed from her usual routine and wound up at a bar with her yuppie chums. I stayed close by, and after a few drinks her body language told me the conversation had down-shifted, and that she was now venting to her friends. I turned up my earpiece and got it all. She was whining about Patrick overreacting to her drinking so much the night before. Apparently she’d been mourning her father.”

  “Shame,” John said.

  “A tragedy,” Monica said. “So anyway, she’d apparently ended up drinking a bunch of martinis by herself that night and got pretty drunk. She was justifying it all to her friends at the bar, claiming she was sad, wanted a drink and some alone time to grieve, it wasn’t that big a deal, but Patrick was making it a big deal, overanalyzing things like always …

  “Eventually her friends said they wanted to leave, but I could tell she didn’t; it was obvious she had a decent buzz going. So I slid down the bar and started chatting her up, bought her a few rounds, and then convinced her stupid friends that I’d make sure she got home okay.

  “So her friends left, I kept getting her wasted, and then I eventually went to the ladies room and did a quick change. When I came back to the bar I sat directly across from her. She stared right at me a few times—no recognition whatsoever.”

  “Probably because she was so drunk,” he said, dangling the bait.

  She took it, intent on dangling her own right back. “Jealousy is for the weak. Still, I can’t blame one’s jealousy when his only capable transition is from big oaf with hat to big oaf without.”

  John rolled his eyes and mimed jerking himself off. Monica gave a disgusted look. He smirked then asked, “So then what?”

  “Waited a bit, watched her grow impatient, and then …”

  John’s eyes lit up. “She drove home?”

  Monica beamed.

 
John started clapping, threw his head back and barked a solitary laugh. “Fucking brilliant. Goddamn, you amaze me sometimes, girl.”

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  “What was the final outcome?”

  “Well I imagine Mr. Patrick Lambert was none too pleased when his wife got home.”

  “You didn’t follow?”

  “No.”

  “Well what if she never made it home? What if she got into an accident or pulled over or something?”

  “Really? You’re really asking me that?”

  “What?”

  “You telling me you’d be disappointed if any of that happened?”

  He paused for a second, then said, “Yeah, okay. Still, we don’t know if she got home.”

  “She did. I swung by there this morning when Patrick left for work. Her car was in the garage.”

  John stood, strolled to the room’s only window and looked out into the parking lot. “So what now? Arrange another incident like last night?”

  Monica shook her head. “No. The damage has already been done—let it fester. She won’t be able to have even the most casual of drinks from now on without Patrick having an anxiety attack.” She placed her hands back behind her head. “Shame we can’t run some kind of practice intended on pulling families apart as opposed to keeping them together. We’d have a line out the fucking door.”

  John said, “We’d be the next Freuds.”

  “Freud was a sexist pig. I’ve never envied a penis in my life, thank you very much.”

  John snorted. “You fucking women should just know your role.”

  Monica pulled one of the pillows out from behind her head and threw it at him. He caught it and laughed.

  “So—what do you think the next move should be?” he asked.

  “Amy slurred something last night about Patrick and some big advertising account he’s working on. I want to look into that.”

  “Trial’s getting closer,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “You don’t think we should focus on that?”

  “You can’t multi-task? Besides, this family is resilient—we can keep bending them awhile.”

  “As long as Arthur does the final break.”

  “Have we met?” She lit a cigarette. “You forget who found Arthur in the first place.” She exhaled a long stream. “First losing your touch, and now senility?” She shook her head and gave him a pity smile. “Sucks to get old.”

  Rattlesnake-quick, John snatched his daughter by the ankle and yanked her off the bed as though she were a doll. In seconds Monica was pinned to the floor, his knee in her back, one hand clamped under the chin, the other to the hair on the back of her head.

  “Should this senile old man who’s losing his touch go snappy-snap?” He gave her head a slight turn with both hands. “You see, you might be the croc beneath the water, but we’re out of the water now, and you’re stuck in this croc’s jaws.”

  His hand still pressing against her chin, Monica spoke through clenched teeth. “What the fuck are you talking about? Get off me!”

  John slowly turned her head until it would no longer give. One quick twist and she’d be gone.

  “What’s the score now?” he asked.

  Monica grunted and snorted, her breathing labored from the knee in her back.

  “What’s the score now?” he asked again.

  She managed: “You win, you win!”

  John smiled and hopped off. “I’m not giving you credit for the cabin,” he said. “That was bullshit. So right now we’re tied, one-one.”

  “Fine.” Monica gradually stood, dusted herself off and rubbed her neck. She spotted her lit cigarette on the bed, picked it up and held it out in front of her father. “See? This is how you start fires.”

  “Well if you didn’t smoke in the first place then it wouldn’t—”

  She flicked the cigarette into his face. John flinched away and she immediately slammed a kick into his groin, dropping him to all fours. Monica bolted from the room, her laughter echoing throughout the parking lot as she gunned her engine and peeled away.

  One hand on his aching balls, John slowly got to his feet and shut the motel door. He turned back towards the bed and with a proud smirk, muttered, “Sneaky bitch.”

  36

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  Arty lay on his cot, reading a piece of fan mail. He did not read the letters to boost his ego, he read them for amusement. These faceless drones were trying to connect with him, to relate to him, as if they were actually peers. It was laughable.

  Arty heard an officer approaching. He put the letter on his chest and looked up at the clock. Lunch time.

  The officer appeared in front of Arty’s cell carrying a tray that held a sandwich, a bag of chips, and a small carton of juice.

  “Lunch, Fannelli.”

  Arty clenched his teeth when he heard the name. He felt shame that it still got to him. But it did—and the officers knew it. “You know,” Arty began, not angry, polite even, “it’s no secret I don’t like being called by that name. And I imagine wit is hard to come by for people in your if-you-can-sign-your-name-you’ve-got-the-job profession. But maybe, just maybe, if during your next chewing tobacco and desperately transparent homosexual-hating break you guys put your empty heads together, you might be able to come up with something new.”

  The officer said nothing, his face as placid as the moment it appeared in front of Arty’s cell. What he did do, however, was balance the tray in one hand, peel back his lower lip with the other to show Arty the wad of tobacco he was dipping, flip open the top of Arty’s ham and cheese, and then drop a healthy brown glob of chew-spit into the center of the sandwich. The officer then placed the piece of bread back onto the ham and cheese and pressed it hard and flat.

  “Enjoy,” the officer said, leaving the tray on the floor, not bothering to unlock and slide it through the food carrier. “I’d eat it quick before the rats get to it.”

  Arty felt good after his degrading speech, and he was not naïve enough to think that the officer would not retaliate in some way. But he was hungry, and before he could bring it back he grumbled: “Cocksucker.”

  The fading click-clack of uniformed heels on concrete came to an abrupt halt. They then started up again, only this time not fading, but growing louder and more purposeful until the officer was back in front of the cell. “Say that again, Fannelli?” he said.

  Arty was a blend of anger and shame. Angry at the officer for obvious reasons, shameful that he had let the officer bring him down to his level with primitive insults like cocksucker. It showed a lack of control, a lack of restraint—two of his unique attributes he treasured as much as oxygen and water. And yet he was suddenly and strangely fueled by it. Because it had gotten to the officer. One word had stopped the man instantaneously. Was it beneath him? Yes. Primitive? Yes. But Arty supposed it came down to the simple fact that a primitive assault begets a primitive response. So he went with it again.

  “Called you a cocksucker,” he said pleasantly.

  When the officer began to unlock the cell, Arty quickly realized his basic revelation held an unfortunate cyclical truth: A primitive assault may lead to a primitive response, but a primitive response had no problem circling back towards a primitive assault. In other words, Arty was about to get the shit kicked out of him.

  • • •

  As the officer stepped out of Arty’s cell, he stopped, bent and picked up the carton of juice on the lunch tray, opened it, re-entered Arty’s cell, and then poured it all over the floor.

  “See what happens when you spill your juice, Fannelli?” he said. “You slip and fall and then you hurt yourself.” He threw the empty carton at the battered fetal ball on the floor that was Arty. The officer then locked the cell and strutted off down the corridor, whistling a pleasant tune that was assuredly more for Arty’s ears than his own—a smug reminder about the lack of empathy he had when it came to giving a beating.

  Art
y remained in his fetal ball for a moment until he was sure the officer was truly gone. His position was not one of cowardice or weakness, just protection. The first two blows with the officer’s night stick had dazed him good. Arty was always concerned about head injuries. Many serial killers had suffered head injuries early on in their developmental years and it contributed to their lack of impulse control. Arty and his late

  brother Jim were better than that. They had supreme control. Serial killers were pathetic and weak. It was why they were inevitably caught. No impulse control.

  So once the first two hits to the skull had Arty seeing stars, he immediately dropped to the floor, covered his head, and opted for a beating to the body, to which the officer happily obliged. It wasn’t anything excessive. The officer wasn’t stupid enough to think that a simple slip and fall could account for an inmate who looked in need of at least a week’s stay in the infirmary. Just a few good whacks and it was done.

  Arty slowly uncoiled from his ball then stretched out on his cot. His head throbbed, his ribs ached, and he knew it would be even worse tomorrow. But it was just physical pain that would eventually fade. The feeling of helplessness hurt the worst—the lack of power. If Arty were free, he and Jim would have taken the officer from his home in the middle of the night and removed and cauterized his limbs by now.

  Arty slipped into a daze as he recalled a similar incident from years ago. An unfortunate was a functioning torso when the brothers had finished with him. His head constantly cried for mercy that was not forthcoming as he flopped on the floor like a fish.

  Then they’d brought in the doped-up hooker.

  Somehow she’d managed to get him hard.

  And then all three had stepped back and laughed at the weeping torso with the hard-on.

  Jim had eventually ended the whole scene with two bullets: one for the torso, and one for the hooker—for being a tease.

  “She was being a fucking tease,” Jim had said with a smirk to a delighted Arty. “Poor guy’s got a hard-on with no arms and legs, and she’s laughing instead of finishing him off.”