Do Not Call

by Julian Folk

  He sees his junk from an angle he never expected to. Vincent stuffs it in, withdraws the phone, closes Robert’s mouth and holds it closed. A painless choking.

  Hearing nothing, he reads Vincent’s lips:

  “Alright, Big Bro, spit it out. You’ve had enough.”

  But I’m not Robert Yard anymore; I’m not even here.

  He’s gone and everyone’s safe.

  Chapter 16

  ’Tis a pity Robert had to die.

  Agent Yard was a shade past the prime of life. Three young sons, a loving wife and a girlfriend who loved him more, whom he thinks no one in the National Security Family knows of. Uncle Sam invested millions to train poor Robert. His ability and expertise saved untold American lives. But his value to the Family—and its Cause—paled relative to that of Vincent, who now photographs the desecrated corpse.

  Jasper has an epiphany. It goes without saying, he will need Nikki, and she will need motivation to help him. So he takes his own photos.

  “Oh yeah, Jasper gets in the act,” Bud says and pats the nonagenarian’s back. Gently. But it still upsets the old man’s balance.

  “So, Jasper, if you would please inquire about the location of Robert’s peeps in West Virginia…” Vincent says.

  “You guys gotta let me use Melody’s holes,” Bud says. “I’ll tear her six new ones for ya.”

  The old man ignores this savage fantasy and flicks his nails on his phone. “In the interest of transparency, Vincent, I should tell you that I inquired already,” he says. “My sources pleaded for time. I told them it’s past time.”

  Years ago, Jasper stored Nikki’s number. He interviewed her for a position upon her college graduation and guided her to the FBI, instead of an off-book team. Nikki possesses the intellectual and physical aptitudes that are vital if one is to excel on the finest kill squad. When one considers her training in Japan, which she refused to disclose, she could’ve made the most capable killer Uncle Sam produced in this century.

  But we’ve moved beyond the age of assassination.

  This is a new time. The new programs demand assets in thrall to their dark side. Nikki’s personality lacks three key qualities: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. These traits comprise the so-called Dark Triad.

  To work on Vincent’s program, the Holy Grail of American national security, one must possess the Dark Triad, with a sprinkle of sadism.

  But not the sadism Vincent displayed in this room.

  His attack on Agent Yard crossed the line. Its barbaric nature suggests emotional disorder. Vincent’s failure to keep the man alive and extract the location of the hidden-away family testifies to severe incompetence.

  The time is nigh. Ordinarily, you ride a horse like Robert Yard for decades until he breaks down. On the other hand, you ride a horse like Vincent DeSantis for a couple years before he self-destructs.

  Jasper’s ridden Vincent for ten years.

  This aberrant boy has outlasted his expiration date.

  The boy must tidy up and be put out to pasture. Otherwise he’ll turn on Jasper. And blow up the Program. Shatter Jasper’s legacy. Imperil country, Family and Cause.

  Jasper watches the nutjob wash his hands and change shirts.

  “You are so much farther along in your career than I was at your age,” he tells him.

  “Thank you, sir,” Vincent says. “I’m so grateful to have your trust.”

  Jasper thinks, Without your geriatric master, you’d be in a padded cell, freak.

  “As I see it, there’s just one thing you need to learn,” Jasper says.

  “Teach me,” Vincent says.

  “One must teach oneself,” Jasper says.

  “To do what, sir?” Vincent says.

  “To let go,” Jasper says. “Grudges kill a man dead. Look at me. I haven’t ruminated on the misdeeds of a Kennedy since, well, 1968. Letting go saved me.”

  “After we find Connor and finish the work, I’ve got no one left to hate.”

  As ever, Vincent ignores feedback.

  “Wonderful,” Jasper says. “Oh, and Vincent, I must throw you under the bus at the meeting.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Be assured that memories of this meeting will be…blown to kingdom come.”

  Feet from Robert’s corpse, Vincent and Bud boot up their com stations. The Programmers’ needs are minimal. Mostly security feeds.

  Their man Arun haunts the main building, awaits opportunities to tie up loose ends.

  Vincent’s wife, Maisie, runs the Program in D.C., and monitors pertinent events from the Annex.

  Jasper runs a secret Beta Team in New York. This team studied the successes and failures of the Program and analyzed Vincent’s/Maisie’s individual decision-making. The Beta Team’s reports contained devastating criticisms of Vincent’s actions in North Berkshire. The boy did nothing right. Adrian, Beta Team Leader, made the claim that he could have eliminated the target, Connor Yard, in seventy-two hours. Tantalizingly, Adrian claimed that Vincent could be made to succumb to his own program in the same time frame.

  But Jasper’s afraid.

  What if Vincent is a finer chess player than Jasper credits him for?

  What if the boy plans to eliminate the nonagenarian right now?

  Jasper shuffled into the meeting ten minutes late.

  Michael Plinkton mugs him with a hug. Noland Bridgewater escorts him to his seat. Jasper loathes the old man treatment. At ninety-four, he is slow, deliberate and cautious in his movements, not debilitated.

  He sits and recalls Noland Bridgewater’s interview eight years ago. The kid rated high in narcissism, moderate in Machiavellianism, low in psychopathy and devoid of sadism. A poor fit for the Dark Arts. Not even a good fit for NSA.

  Due to a shortage of viable candidate, Noland got the job.

  ’Tis NOT a shame he’s about to lose it…

  Jasper wouldn’t be surprised if this sneaky young prick spies well and widely. He wouldn’t be surprised if Noland knows what’s about to happen and already prepared an escape plan. He wouldn’t be surprised if Noland proves to be the biggest threat to the Program…

  Owing to his skepticism of Noland’s fitness for NSA, Jasper ordered Plinkton to put the kid in charge of monitoring the Programmers, a job that calls for the elimination of the one who fills it.

  Plinkton announces to the assembled men that special agent Robert Yard is missing; Jasper corrects him: “Robert’s been sent to a better meeting.”

  Noland commences the presentation.

  He says nice things about the Program’s perfect 99/99 record on five continents. Then he dives into discussions of Vincent’s recent outbreak of ineptitude and erratic behavior, like calling himself Marcello, seducing a target’s wife and impregnating the woman seven months in advance of her husband’s scheduled elimination. Like ordering the Programmer Bud to snap Robert Yard’s neck in the North Berkshire house at an hour when the place crawled with cops. Like creating the spectacles of the car hacking and the swatting.

  Such reckless stupidity.

  But why does the kid choose to air the Programmers’ dirty laundry to this hip crowd, when it’s already in the news?

  Jasper states the community’s priorities:

  “The goose laid the golden egg, gentleman. We’re in it for the egg. Not the goose. May we agree on that and press forward?”

  Noland flushes maroon.

  Jasper mistrusts men who struggle with public speaking. They’re covert narcissists. So many petty, ugly thoughts to hide.

  The kid finesses his presentation to conclude it on an up-note.

  Jasper’s phone vibrates.

  “Excuse me one moment,” he says. The text message reads “20.” He rises. Perhaps for the last time. “I must confer with a colleague. Let us share our thoughts upon my return.”

  He taps the button on the phone and starts shuffling toward the double glass doors.

  “You need help, sir?” Noland asks.


  “No no no, I’m fine,” Jasper says and glowers. “Please sit, discuss.”

  The tap commenced the countdown. The nonagenarian shuffles toward the conference room doors faster than he has moved in this millennium. Too fast. I should’ve brought a cane. His center of gravity tilts forward. Each stride exacerbates the lean. He falls upright onto the doors.

  The countdown reads “10.”

  Jasper’s momentum parts the doors. Their resistance balances him. He lets go and forges ahead.

  Fears rain like hail; worries thunder.

  Jasper hired Vincent with the intention to kill him. He keeps a team of backup Vincents in New York. He contracted the Beta Team to kill Vincent.

  It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility that Jasper himself is a kind of Vincent to the National Security Family. What if the plan was always to kill Jasper? What if the Family just hasn’t pulled the trigger yet because it admires his work? What if the Family’s holding Jasper to account now for the Programmers’ failures? What if Vincent cut a deal with them? What if the Family wants a new patriarch?

  What if none of this is true and Vincent’s so crazy he’ll kill Jasper anyway?

  Jasper hastens his pace. The countdown ticks under six. The phone slips out of his fingers. He kicks it ahead of him. The angle of his forward lean precipitously increases.

  He’d rather fall and shatter his bones than have the flesh burned from them.

  He hears the patsy open the conference room door. The man was abducted by Iraqi forces from an ISIS encampment. Not even serious about his faith. Jasper’s fund compensated the patsy’s family. He freely chose this job, this fate, this martyrdom.

  The man attempts to chant “Alahu Akbar!”

  Instead he chants “Aloha Akbar!”

  If Jasper’s hearing this, he’s way too close.

  The doomed men waste bullets.

  Jasper swings his arms and runs. The mental countdown in his head ticks down to zero. No explosion. Vincent’s giving him extra time; Vincent is saving Jasper’s life.

  The left hamstring tears. It lasted ninety-four years; the exertion of this mission sunders it. Jasper defies the pain, shifts the burden of his weight to his right leg. The right Achilles tears.

  He pitches forward.

  Vincent detonates the patsy’s vest remotely.

  Jasper pictures the boy’s finger tapping the button on the smart phone. The boy watched. The boy waited. The boy saw to it I was safe.

  Fire and debris pass above and around Jasper. His hair and suit burn. His scalp singes.

  If Jasper does live, so does the boy, for a while. Kid deserves more time. Today he showed his boss he has a moral code. Jasper already knew that Vincent respects family. Now he knows the boy respects authority. The nutjob exhibited loyalty.

  The boy lives another day. The Program lives another day. Its critics do not. Soon the North Berkshire mess will be sanitized to Jasper’s satisfaction.

  God is good; I am great.

  Chapter 17

  Gabon

  E.J. chaperones an elephant family’s trek.

  He recognizes the matriarch, and she recognizes him, presumably from his odor, and lumbers to him, hugs him with her white-splotched trunk and acquiesces to his desire to walk alongside the family, instead of his usual practice of scouting the terrain ahead or shadowing the beasts at a distance comfortable for them.

  E.J. calls these megafauna punks.

  A year ago, this family numbered nine. This year, thirteen. The four new babies, each born at more than two hundred pounds, take turns charging E.J., nearly laying him low. When a teen punk mock-charges him, E.J.’s life flashes before his eyes. But the matriarch pets him again, her trunk tousling his Jesus hair; she restores the militant anti-poacher’s faith in his calling.

  Most nights, he hears machine-gun fire and low-pitched groans. The soundtrack of extermination hurries the punks. The families he shadows have even quit mourning the dead. They sniff carcasses or bones and carry on.

  Tonight, he hears no human-made sound, just the natural life of the jungle, though much quieter than it was five years ago, when he erected his anti-poacher fort.

  So strange to not hear gunfire.

  He walks next to the matriarch’s baby, who nurses often. The family has probably gone hours without water. A bunch of holes near the camp ran dry. Sky’s been stingy lately. Confuses the matriarch and stresses the punks.

  E.J. splits his attention between the jungle and his memories. He screens hundreds of incidents of Connor acting superior in elementary school, middle school, high school and even college, including that time Connor rode the bus to Binghamton, got fucked up with E.J. and his crew and acted superior even under the influence of four drugs: alcohol, pot, acid and Mollie.

  Connor’s arrogance bites.

  The guy pissed off hundreds of people in his thirty years. E.J. rattled off a pretty comprehensive list to Connor on the phone. No one on the list raised a red flag, though. Other than Eric Rice, no one dwelled on Connor’s hauteur.

  Eric bullied E.J. in first grade: Tripped him, pulled his pants down, jumped him, spread rumors. E.J. fought back. Didn’t take no shit. Officer Rice bullied E.J. in fourth grade: singled him out for scorn in Little League, leveled false accusations to other parents. E.J.’s mom and dad ran up the Rices’ stoop, hammered on the door and gave ’em hell. Gave it to ’em loud enough so the neighbors heard. Refused to be intimidated by the badge. Neither Eric nor Officer Rice bothered E.J. again.

  Why did they let up on him and go crazy on Connor?

  Because, following each bullying incident, Connor complained to a teacher, and Jan and Jimmy complained to the principal. The Yards called the police after Eric and his friends jumped him in junior high. The police quashed the complaints for years until Officer Rice cracked Connor’s skull. Detectives and prosecutors interviewed Connor in the hospital. He told the truth. News 12 Long Island interviewed the family about the assault. The Nassau County PD put Officer Rice on desk duty. After Eric castrated Connor, Connor spoke longer and in more detail to law enforcement and news media. CNN and CBS News interviewed the whole family, including Robert, who rode the bus home from Binghampton.

  So, Connor snitched each-and-every time; it electrified Eric’s madness, dissolved the freak’s inhibitions. Connor snitched jubilantly and walked with the pride of a lion. The kid held his nose so high in the air. His pride acquired a disdainful edge and transformed to that hated hauteur.

  Connor was awful sometimes.

  E.J. recalls junior year at Carey High School, the Eric-free, post-castration year.

  E.J. had developed the worst cystic acne on Long Island. Cysts riddled and reshaped his neck and jaw; they presented like small pebbles embedded in his face. Weekly, his mother drove him to a dermatologist who pumped them full of cortisone. Spring came and his acne positively exploded. The red army conquered and occupied the totality of the map: his forehead, nose, mouth, cheeks, chin, scalp, neck and even his ears. A giant cyst grew on E.J.’s eyelid and occluded his vision, so the doctor prescribed Accutane. A high dose.

  The patient grew sullen, a side effect of the drug. His face cleared and scars healed. His skin was immaculate. With one exception: each Friday of his five month course of treatment, a gigantic cyst grew on his left cheek. Typically two inches-by-one inch in area. A raised cyst. Headless. Pus-free. Unpoppable. Cream didn’t shrivel or dull it. When pricked by a pin, it hardly oozed or bled.

  A block of rock solid inflammation.

  From Friday to Saturday, the dermatologist was off-duty and didn’t regard E.J.’s cysts as emergencies. His mother wouldn’t drive him to another doctor. He suffered those weekends.

  Connor wouldn’t look past it.

  The guy talked about E.J.’s cysts, in the nicest voice, in the kindest tone. He wouldn’t stop. Connor talked about them to every girl they met at coffee houses or punk shows, assuring the ladies E.J.’s face would be totally clear at treatment’s end.

/>   And it was. So Connor shifted his fixation to the gap in E.J.’s teeth, the sweat stains on his shirts, or the dandruff in his hair. Connor identified minute imperfections, harped on them, turned them into insecurities and wouldn’t stop.

  There was a trace of Eric Rice in it.

  The matriarch splashes at a watering hole. The splash brings E.J. back to the business at hand. This parched mother punk hesitates to pull a long drink.

  Baby punks frolic.

  The watering hole baffles E.J.

  He consults his phone’s anti-poaching app to ascertain longitude and latitude. He passes near this clearing often. Weeks ago, it was bone dry and a fraction of the size. He spied punks mating here.

  What the hell happened?

  The matriarch lingers at the south end. Still hesitant to hydrate. She listens to another family of punks at the north end. They drink. So the matriarch starts. The mothers and teen punks join.

  This feels so wrong.

  E.J. breaks out his night vision goggles. They reveal the watering hole to be bigger and more highly populated than he previously thought. Other anti-poachers in his team shadowed families to this hole. This is the biggest gathering of elephants E.J.’s witnessed in the jungle. Huge herds of ninety-to-one hundred no longer form. To adapt to paramilitary-style poaching, the punks break apart into ever-smaller units.

  Hmm.

  The lip at the edge of the hole reeks of “machine-made.” The clearing expands far to the east, absurdly far. A strip of land at the center divides the water into two holes. On that strip, a bull bangs a cow.

  Wait, there are two bulls, two cows.

  In Zimbabwe and other places, poachers poison watering holes, killing hundreds of elephants and perhaps thousands of other creatures.