Bad Games

by Jeff Menapace

  Henry fingered his notes again. He kept his head down as he read. “Her attending physician here was able to gain access to her medical history from a previous doctor in Philadelphia. According to those records…”

  * * *

  When Detective Henry had finished talking, Patrick and Amy asked him for a favor. At first he rejected their request, stating that it was unorthodox and unnecessary. The couple pleaded their case, running through the events of that final night in grizzly detail. Henry had looked away halfway through their plea. The Lamberts continued to talk, to outline the just cause of their favor; how it would bring closure to a nightmare that may never have closure.

  When Henry turned back around and faced the couple, his face was red. Whether it was red with anger at the ordeal this poor family had endured, or red from frustration at the Lamberts’ inability to take no for an answer, the couple hardly cared. The only thing they did care about was when detective Henry broke down and said, “Okay.”

  72

  Amy and Patrick followed Detective Henry down the hospital’s corridor towards the east wing. They held hands along the way, moving slowly, grimacing from time to time from the pain their wounds were causing them for moving around sooner than they should be. This was worth it though.

  Henry glanced over his shoulder at the couple as they hobbled along, still in their hospital gowns, looking as if sleep had completely eluded them these past few days. “You sure you’re up for this?” Henry asked, slowing his pace for them.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Patrick replied.

  “Same here,” Amy said.

  Henry shrugged. “Okay—shouldn’t be much further now.”

  The couple followed Henry around a corner as they approached the east wing. Ahead of them, a police officer sat outside one of the rooms, reading a magazine.

  Henry nodded to the officer in the chair. The officer looked at Henry, then at the Lamberts, then back at Henry.

  “It’s okay,” Henry said. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

  The officer looked at the Lamberts one last time, smiled an obligatory smile, then lifted his magazine and resumed reading.

  Henry placed his hand on the door’s handle and looked over his shoulder. He made solid eye contact with both Amy and Patrick. “I’m trusting you on this. If you’ve got something else in mind…”

  They both shook their heads at exactly the same time. “We gave you our word,” Amy said.

  Detective Henry gave one hard nod then turned back around and opened the door.

  73

  Arty Fannelli turned to the male officer sitting to the left of his hospital bed. “Are you ever going to be replaced by a female officer?” he asked.

  The officer didn’t look up from his Sports Illustrated when he replied, “Sorry, dickhead, you’re stuck with me.”

  “Dickhead? Are you allowed to talk to me like that?”

  The officer turned the page and continued reading. “Yup.”

  Arty pulled at his handcuff strapped to the bed’s frame. “Are these really necessary? I’ve been here a few days now; I think you can trust me.”

  The officer frowned at something in the magazine, muttered, “Overpaid prima donnas…”

  “Hello? Are you listening? I was stabbed eight hundred times for Christ’s sake. Where the hell am I going to go?”

  There was a knock at the door. The officer stood and threw the magazine onto his seat. Detective Henry walked into the room.

  “Hey, you know he called me a dickhead?” Arty said to Henry.

  “You are a dickhead,” Henry said.

  Arty laughed. “So what’s up, Mikey? You stopping by to ask a few more questions?”

  “Not exactly,” Henry said. He walked over towards the officer on duty and stood by his side.

  Arty said, “Well what is it then? You finally pulling Chuckles here off-duty? If so, can I put a request in for something with a bit more curves? No offense, Chuckles.”

  “Why would I do that?” Henry asked. “It’s probably in your best interest to start getting used to men.”

  Arty smiled. “You really think I’m gonna serve any time, Mikey?”

  Henry raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

  “Of course not. An anomaly like myself?”

  Henry smirked. “Anomaly?”

  “Oh I’m sorry, Mikey, am I talking over your head? I’ll try and put it in layman’s terms.” Arty cleared his throat, loving it. “You see there are thousands of headshrinkers out there who will want to know why my brother and I did the things we did. They’ll want to know why all their stupid little theories about evil and human behavior were ultimately fed to them in one giant shit-burger.

  “They’ll keep me in cushy hospitals and kiss my ass in order to find out what makes me tick, and, more importantly…” He flashed a pornographic leer. “What excites me.

  “Hell, there’ll probably even be a fucking waiting list to come see me. Every budding shrink with a hard-on for stardom will be desperately trying to solve the riddle of the infamous Fannelli brothers so they can write the next bestseller.

  “Was it nature? Was it nurture? What? It was neither? Holy shit! This truly is great! We can’t send him to prison! We need to study him! Take CAT scans of his brain, find out how he’s wired, ask him endless questions written by so-called experts who circle jerk to Freud. We need to find out what makes this guy so unique.

  “I mean come on, fellas. I’m the kind of guy movies are written about, for Christ’s sake. The kind of real-life boogeyman screenwriters salivate over. How often do you come across someone composed of pure, unfiltered malevolence?”

  Arty paused, a smile on the corner of his mouth. He remained fixed on the two officers, gauging the impact of his words. He never noticed the two visitors who had entered quietly to his right.

  “And this will go on for as long as I want it to,” Arty continued. “I’ll give them a taste…” He held up his thumb and index finger as though pinching a bug. “A teensy- weensy taste. And then when the time is right, I’ll give them a little more. And then a little more after that. I’ve got the tools and the smarts to keep the game going for a very long time. You see, Mikey and Chuckles, even when I’m confined I can orchestrate a game to amuse myself.

  “So please, don’t even—for one second—try some of your spooky cop talk in an attempt to scare me about the horrors of prison…because I’m not going there. Somebody of my stature belongs under a microscope; not behind bars. And we live in a sick enough society with a fucked-up-enough legal system to make it happen. And we both know that, don’t we?”

  Someone cleared their throat to Arty’s right. He turned his head. Amy and Patrick were standing side by side, a big smile on both their faces.

  “What the hell are you two smiling at?”

  74

  “Officer, would you mind giving us a minute here?” Henry said. “Go grab a soda or a coffee or something.”

  The officer shrugged, and then nodded to both Amy and Patrick on his way out.

  Arty shifted in his bed and pulled at his cuffs again, metal on metal clinking. “What the fuck do you want?”

  Patrick said, “Just wanted to touch base.”

  “Touch base?” He looked at Henry. “What the hell is this?”

  Detective Henry said nothing. Arty turned back to the Lamberts. “I’ve got nothing to say to you two.”

  “No?” Amy said.

  “No. You murdered my brother.”

  Patrick laughed. “Right…and it wasn’t justified or anything.”

  “No, it wasn’t. You two should have just known your role and accepted your fate. You’re fucking peasants that were put here for our enjoyment. Period. Taking your life is akin to thinning a menial herd. You taking my brother’s life is tantamount to blasphemy.”

  “That’s the way you see it?” Amy asked.

  “That’s the way I know it, Amy,” he said. “I’m surprised you even need to hear this again.
I’m quite sure I made myself clear the first time around. What were you hoping for, a moment of regret now that my brother and mother are gone?”

  Amy shook her head. “No, I knew better than to hope for something like that.”

  “Well good for you. Maybe you’re not the stupid little cunt I thought you were.”

  Patrick took a step closer to the bed and Henry twitched. Patrick held up a hand and nodded an apology.

  Arty laughed. “See? Even in here you’re powerless, Patrick. I just tug those little strings of yours and you dance like the big predictable puppet you are.”

  “You call me powerless, yet here you are,” Patrick said. “And your brother is likely room temperature right about now.”

  Arty snorted. “You keep thinking whatever you want to think, hotshot.”

  “I will, thank you.”

  Arty looked at Henry again. “Alright, are we done here? I still don’t know what the hell this is—”

  “Your mother’s alive,” Amy said.

  Arty jerked his head towards Amy. He studied her hard, as if trying to read a bluff. “I call bullshit,” he eventually said.

  “Call whatever you want,” Patrick said. “It’s true.”

  Arty went back to Henry. “Is it?”

  Henry closed his eyes and nodded once.

  “I want to see her.”

  “What makes you think she’d want to see you?” Amy asked.

  Arty ignored her. He kept his stare on Henry. “Detective Henry, I want to see her.”

  Patrick’s turn now. “You shot her, asshole. You shot her with the intention of killing her. Why would she want to see you?”

  Arty turned back to Patrick. “I was freeing her, you ignorant ass. I was ending her suffering. It’s what she would have wanted.”

  “Nah,” Patrick said. “You did it for yourself. It’s what you wanted.”

  “You don’t know shit.”

  “Oh I know some things,” Patrick said with a smirk.

  “Whatever.” Arty looked back at Henry. “I want to see my mother.”

  “She’s unconscious, Arty,” Amy said. “Nobody knows when she’ll come around.”

  “Shut up! Nobody’s talking to you! Detective Henry! I want to see my mother. She’ll want to see me. She’ll want to see her only living son the second she wakes up.” He shot a quick glare at the couple on the word living.

  “What if she doesn’t remember you again?” Amy asked.

  “She will.”

  “Maybe,” Patrick said. “Maybe not. She might tell you something you don’t want to hear.”

  “I am her son; her flesh and blood. She’ll remember me again.”

  “Then why did you shoot her?” Patrick asked with a chuckle. “If you’re so sure she’ll remember you again, then why did you shoot her? Why free her?”

  “I don’t have to justify anything to you. I was doing the right thing. You could never understand.”

  Amy inched closer to the foot of the bed. “You know, your mother said some things that night I found interesting.”

  “Good for you.”

  “She said she didn’t know who you were.”

  “She was confused.”

  “She said she wanted to see her husband.”

  “She’s sick and she was confused. She was talking nonsense.”

  “And she said that she was unable to have children.”

  Arty said nothing.

  “Did you catch that bit?” Amy asked. “I’m pretty sure she only said it the one time, but she did say it.”

  “Like I said,” Arty began, nostrils flared, “she is sick

  and—”

  “The thing is, Arty, dementia can be strangely ironic,” Amy interrupted. “You forget some things, and then you remember others—usually things from the past.”

  “I know that.”

  “That’s why your mother was calling to your father. She had regressed back to a time when she believed he was still alive.”

  “You said that already, bitch.”

  “She regressed back to a time when she and her husband had just found out that she was unable to have children.”

  Arty laughed. “So what am I? A fucking mirage?”

  Amy smiled and looked at Patrick. Patrick smiled back, turned to Arty and said, “No, you’re very real. But you’re also very adopted. You and Jim.”

  Arty laughed again. “You two reek of it.”

  Patrick smirked, looked over at Henry. “Detective?”

  Henry nodded. “It’s true, Fannelli. Your mother’s attending physician was able to get hold of all her medical records dating back several years. A fibroid tumor was found in her uterus when she was twenty. Apparently the tumor was huge. Her uterus was removed as a result.”

  Amy took over. “Your mother, while not necessarily past her prime, was no spring chicken when she—” Amy held up both hands and mimed quotation marks “—gave birth to you. I mean, nowadays thirty-six doesn’t seem too old to have your first child. But over thirty years ago? People were poppin’ out two or three before they even reached thirty. Why would such loving, nurturing parents like yours wait so long to have children? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?”

  Arty shook his head. “This is bullshit. I would have known. My brother and I would have found out somehow.”

  “Different time, Fannelli,” Henry said. “We’re talking the 70’s here. Adoption practices were a bit more lax back then. You could adopt at a young age and keep it a secret from anyone and everyone—including you and your brother.”

  Arty stuttered. “I would have…remembered.”

  Amy chuckled. “Doubtful.”

  Arty’s breaths grew short and shallow. “I’m two years older than Jim. I would have at least been two.”

  Now it was Patrick’s turn to chuckle. “Right. And we all remember so much at the ripe old age of two, don’t we? Hell, I’ll even give you four. Can you remember anything from when you were four, Arty?”

  Arty pulled at his cuffs again, a clang instead of a clink this time. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me Jim isn’t my real brother either, right?”

  “No, no,” Henry said, “I’m fairly certain he is. There’s a minuscule chance your parents adopted two American children from two separate families. I’d bet good money Jim is your biological brother.”

  “Do you know what all of this means, Arty?” Amy asked.

  Arty didn’t reply.

  “It means that you and your brother aren’t really the unique individuals you think you are. You were raised by loving parents…but you weren’t born to them.”

  Arty said nothing. Patrick took over.

  “Did you ever read The Bad Seed, Arty?” Patrick asked. “It was a fantastic book that came out in the mid-fifties. Written by a guy named William March. They made it into a play and a movie. The movie was damn good too, except for the fact that they changed the original ending. It wasn’t really their fault though; their hands were kind of tied. You see at the time they had to comply with the Motion Picture Production Code, meaning the ending had to be morally acceptable; the bad guys weren’t allowed to win, so to speak.

  “Still, the movie was good enough to be nominated for an Academy Award. Patty McCormack was downright creepy as the little girl. You and your stupid brother wish you could be as creepy as that little girl.”

  Arty stayed quiet. He just glared at the couple—a mix of hate and confusion.

  “I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let me give you the synopsis, okay? Basically the book is about this adorable, seemingly perfect eight-year-old girl who is actually downright evil. The little girl is a total sociopath who can flash her blue eyes and pearly whites one minute, and then kill a fellow classmate the next in order to get a penmanship medal she felt she deserved.

  “The loving mother begins to suspect something is wrong with her child, and fears she may have inherited her nasty old grandmother’s evil genes. You see, Arty, it turns out that grandma was quite the n
otorious serial killer in her day, and poor old loving mom fears that her innocent little daughter might have inherited those awful, awful genes.” Patrick smiled. “Do you see where I’m heading with this, Arthur?”

  Arty said, “Shut up.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know about this classic, Arty, what with all your ‘research’ and all. I would have told you about it before, but I didn’t have much of a chance.” He turned to Amy. “Why is that you think, baby?”

  Amy scratched her head, her eyebrows scrunched, lips pursed. Then everything popped, and her eyes were bright and wide, her mouth an O. “You were being gagged and tortured at the time, honey. You couldn’t have!”

  Patrick slapped his forehead. “That’s right. Why didn’t you tell him about it then, baby?”

  Amy gave her husband a silly look and sang, “Honey...I was being gagged and tortured too.”

  Patrick slapped his forehead again. “Duh!”

  Arty yelled, “Shut up!”

  “You remember your little spiel about Serial Killer Stanley?” Patrick said. “That’s what you called him, right? Stanley?” He looked to Amy again.

  “Yeah, I think that was it,” Amy said. “Although I kind of liked The Three Stooges reference better. Found it more amusing.”

  “Yeah, I did too. I like the Stooges. Again, I would have told you and your brother that, but…” Patrick wrapped an imaginary gag around his mouth and head, made his lips disappear, then splayed his hands with a helpless shrug.

  Amy laughed.

  “Henry, I want these fucks out of here now. I have rights; this is beyond fucking absurd.”

  Detective Henry pretended to look out the window. Patrick was sure he saw him smirking.

  “Let’s not get off track,” Patrick continued. “It’s contagious, this lecturing stuff. I can see why you and Jim felt the need to bore us for so long with how cool you thought you were.”

  “Henry!”

  Patrick continued. “Sorry, sorry…let’s get back to our buddy Stanley. So! Arty…you said Serial Killer Stanley was a serial killer because he came from a long line of serial killers, yes? Those were your words, if I’m not mistaken.” Patrick’s haughty delivery was the equal of a prosecutor to an ignorant defendant.