Damnable

by Hank Schwaeble

  “So call in Deputy Pasty-Face and have me arrested,” he said. He touched his lips against hers again briefly, retreated a few centimeters to watch her eyes as they switched focus between the two of his, back and forth.

  “I can’t do this,” she said, her voice so low now it was barely audible.

  He kissed her again, more urgently this time. He felt her kiss back, felt the flick of her tongue graze his as her lips parted. She shrugged her hand free from his grip and grabbed him by the hair, the other hand clawing against his back. She opened her mouth wider, devouring him, her tongue extending deep. Tasting, probing.

  She seemed unnaturally light, weightless, as he grabbed the back of her thigh and stood straight, lifting her off the ground. She wrapped her ankles across the backs of his knees, never taking her mouth off him. He spun and stumbled forward a few steps until they bumped against the wall. He groped for the door latch nearby, still kissing her as he threw the deadbolt. It took him twenty seconds to cross the room like that, stiff-legged and unsteady, another five once he reached the bedroom until he reached the bed.

  He fell forward onto the mattress with her beneath him. They bounced lightly against each other.

  She sucked in a breath, like someone coming up for air. “This is a crime scene.”

  He kissed the side of her neck, sliding his lips from below her ear to her shoulder and back again. “The bed is made. You already searched it. There’s nothing in here to find.”

  “We shouldn’t do this,” she said. He unbuttoned her blouse and began to kiss the middle of her chest, kneading the sides of her breasts with his lips. He unclasped the front hooks and pushed them apart, let the cups fall to the sides.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No.” She swallowed, drew in a sudden breath as he tugged on her nipple with his teeth and began circling it with his tongue. “But we have to be quick.”

  He slid down until he was kneeling in front of her, running his hands up under her skirt and kissing her belly. She kicked off her shoes, ran her heels down his back. He curled his fingers around the silk bands of her thong near her hips and peeled them down. Her skirt bunched around her waist.

  The well-manicured strip of light brown hair pointing toward her vagina was cottony, fragrant. The perfumed scent of it blended with the light odor of sweat and the moist, briny scent below it. He kissed his way lower, brushing his nose against her clit, inhaling her. He parted the outer lips between her legs and traced the contours of them with his tongue. She let out a moan as he licked her, gasped as he thrust his tongue deep. He felt her hands find the sides of his head. Her fingers burrowed into his hair.

  “Still want this to be quick?” he asked.

  “Take however long you want.” Her panting, whispering voice was even raspier than normal. She pulled down on his head, pressing his face into her. “Just don’t you dare stop. Not without finishing what you started.”

  WRIGHT FLIPPED THE PHONE SHUT AND FELL BACK NEXT to him on the bed.

  “The uniforms have been delayed, thank God. Fortunately, Maloney didn’t ask too many questions. I told him I’ve been on the phone and asking you questions all this time.”

  “I heard you. I was right here.”

  She stuck out her lower lip, blew a few strands of hair away from her face. “I can’t believe we just did that. I can’t believe I just did that. Oh. My. God. I just can’t believe it.”

  “If you’re calling me unbelievable, I’ll take that.”

  “I’m saying, I have no idea what came over me.”

  Hatcher yawned, stretched his arms. “I’m pretty sure it was me.”

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Oh, come on. It wasn’t so bad. You certainly seemed to enjoy it. I know I did.”

  “That’s not the point. It was completely reckless. Aston ishingly, foolishly reckless.”

  There wasn’t much use in arguing the point. It was the truth. And he had to admit it bothered him a bit, too. In hindsight, acting out a letter to Penthouse was a bit surreal. And weird.

  “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not exactly something I planned. We just got swept up in the moment. It happens.”

  She sat up, started to button her blouse. “I don’t even want to think about what I look like.”

  He leaned forward, ran his hand down her back. “You look great.”

  “Why do I think that means I look like a woman who just got fucked silly—while on duty no less—in the apartment of a possible missing person?”

  “I told you that you dug me,” he said, flopping backward onto the mattress. “You wouldn’t listen.”

  “Okay, so maybe I was attracted to you. A little. Big deal. You’re a good-looking guy. Believe it or not, I don’t go around balling every guy I’m attracted to.”

  “I would hope not.”

  She turned away and finished buttoning her blouse. Hatcher sensed her body grow quiet, could tell she was forming a question.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Know what?”

  She twisted back to look at him. “What did I do to give it away? I thought I was doing a good job of not sending you any signals.”

  “Remember when I took your gun?”

  “Not something I’ll be forgetting anytime soon. And I should hate you for that, by the way.”

  “I did it partly to test you.”

  She blinked a few times, thinking. “Test me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I wanted to know if you were interested.”

  “And me punching you and threatening you and telling you that you were under arrest convinced you?”

  “No, you not hurting me did. You could have tried to knee me in the groin, or gouge my eyes. You could have even simply left and called for the nearest patrol car to come assist. But you didn’t want to hurt me, didn’t want to get me in real trouble. You were just pissed.”

  “You’re a strange guy, Hatcher.”

  Hatcher shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “You know, Maloney put together a jacket on you.” She leaned back on her arm. Her voice softened. “I read it. I didn’t understand much of the military jargon, but I remember it said you were some kind of Special Forces interrogator.”

  “Something like that.”

  “And it said you were convicted of abusing a foreign national.”

  “That was the charge I was sentenced under, yes.”

  She rolled onto her stomach. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “I don’t mind you asking. I’m not sure I should answer.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I wasn’t meaning to pry.”

  Hatcher let out a long breath. “I stuck a pistol in the mouth of an Iraqi interpreter and blew the back of his head off.”

  Wright swallowed. She watched him, examining his face. “You’re serious.”

  “My jokes may not always be great, but they’re usually funnier than that.”

  “Why would you do something like that?”

  “I was having a bad day.”

  “Is that supposed to be one of those funny jokes?”

  “No. I wasn’t the only one having a bad day. That Iraqi and another were caught after an IED exploded near a barracks on one of our installations. It killed several GIs. They were both employed by the army, had access to the base. They were considered trustworthy. The other one had text messages in his phone that indicated another attack was imminent. But he wasn’t talking. The sight of his comrade’s brains in his lap loosened his jaws. I’d do it again if I had to do it over.”

  “Hatcher . . . that’s horrible.”

  “No. Horrible was the sight of American soldiers with their limbs missing, good kids from Alabama and California and Kansas who were betrayed by people we’re over there trying to help.”

  “And you think getting mad at that justifies cold-blooded murder? It doesn’t matter whether he deserved it.
What matters is the kind of person you are.”

  “I didn’t do it because I was angry. I did it because American lives were at stake. And I didn’t murder him. He was already dead.”

  A look of confusion contorted her face. “What do you mean?”

  “He had a heart attack. Apparently some congenital defect.”

  “Are you saying you shot a dead man?”

  “He was being interrogated separately. The EMTs hadn’t even arrived, but he was all gone. I could see what was happening, saw them being ridiculously gentle on the other guy, saw that he just knew he had absolutely nothing to fear. He had that mocking smile in his eyes, like we were powerless and the clock was ticking. I realized nobody there had the balls to do anything about it. As long as he had that look, he wasn’t going to talk. So, I got rid of it. I dragged the dead guy into the room like he was still alive and did it before the other one could tell he wasn’t. By the time I shoved the pistol I’d just taken from his cohort’s mouth into his, he couldn’t get the words out fast enough.”

  “I guess I should be glad to hear you’re not a murderer. But still, that’s brutal, Hatcher.”

  “The Iraqi government thought the same thing. They refused to believe the heart attack wasn’t caused by torture. Torture was a big issue by then. Uncle Sugar couldn’t afford to let it go.”

  “I’m surprised you only got twelve months.”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they wanted to keep this quiet. But to do that, they had to offer a sacrifice, appease the locals. They knew if they leaned too hard on me, I’d be inclined to spill my guts about the role I played for our government, about what I was tasked to do over there.”

  “What was that?”

  “Things far worse than what I was prosecuted for, that’s for sure. It’s the dirty little secret of war. We want to pretend torture doesn’t work. We want to pretend we’re too civilized to engage in it. Wrong on both counts. It does, and we’re not.”

  “So they gave you a light sentence hoping to keep you quiet.”

  “Yes. That, and because they didn’t want some inconvenient details to come out like the fact I wasn’t even the one doing the interrogation. That I was summoned to observe through a two-way mirror. Or that they left a loaded pistol on the table a few feet from me. That three MPs and four field-grade officers watched me pick it up, check the clip, and walk by them into the interrogation room and drag the guy’s body next door. Any one of them could have stopped me. No one said a word.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that was why I was brought in to observe. I don’t think they knew I would do exactly what I did, but they did expect me to do something.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Hatcher waited a long moment before responding. “You know why I was selected for my prior specialty?”

  She responded with a subtle shake of her head.

  “The army gives everyone in SF these psychological profiles, a bunch of tests and questionnaires. At first, I thought it was because I scored so well. But that wasn’t it.”

  The light in the room was fading, casting everything in a dim, silvery glow. Hatcher lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He could feel Wright’s eyes on him as he pondered his own words. He thought he may have already said too much, shared too much, but he kept going anyway.

  “They knew from experience. It doesn’t matter how just the cause, or how much the bad guy has it coming. How vital to the mission it is, or how many lives it saves. You can toss that all aside. What they wanted, what they needed, carried a steep price tag, and I was the type they could live with having to pay it, so long as they didn’t have to themselves. They all knew the score. The rest of the people around you, your peers, they stop looking at you the same way. They keep their distance. They know it has to be done, but they can’t relate to you anymore. I had no family to speak of. Hadn’t seen my mother in years; my father in over a decade. No siblings, not that anyone knew of. Was unmarried, didn’t even have a steady girlfriend. In their eyes, I could afford the price.”

  Wright put a hand on his chest, gave it a gentle press. Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.

  “That’s why they picked me,” he continued. “Same reason no one stopped me. It had to be done, and I was just the guy to do it. They needed someone they could live with damning.” His eyes settled on hers for a moment, then he leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling again.

  “I was damnable.”

  CHAPTER 12

  HATCHER WATCHED WRIGHT PULL AWAY FROM THE CURB, her car merging between two taxis. He stood there and waited until she was out of sight before he started to walk in the opposite direction. He took a left at the first corner, continued down the block a ways and crossed the street in the middle. On the far side, he walked back in the direction he’d come and stopped once he reached the corner. He scanned the area. No one seemed to have followed him. The sidewalk was almost empty, with no one headed his way. No cars had left their spaces. No shadows occupying driver’s seats.

  The sun was setting behind the horizon of rooftops. The shaded streets erupted with color as the western sky beyond glowed a yellow orange. Hatcher continued walking until he reached an avenue, the crosswalks busy with foot traffic. He rounded the corner, merging into the flow of people, and dug into his pocket. The cell phone that Fred had slid into his pants back at Garrett’s office felt warm and solid in his hand. The small, square LCD on the front of it was blank and colorless. He flipped the phone open, once again surprised at how ridiculously small these things were getting.

  The larger screen on the inside was dark and empty. It took him a moment to figure out how to turn it on, trying several buttons. A colorful design expanded and swirled into a logo before being replaced by a background picture of a well-lighted cityscape. Unlike the one on the wall in Deborah’s apartment, this photo was slick and professional.

  Now what? Hatcher pressed a few buttons, found a way to toggle through a menu. No contacts were listed. No voice mails. No photos. No text messages. He scrolled through another screen, found the call logs. Accessed an icon that said outgoing. Nothing. Tried incoming.

  One phone number came up.

  Hatcher started to commit it to memory, then thought to press the send button. The screen changed and the word connecting appeared, a looping set of ellipses beneath it.

  He placed the phone to his ear and listened as the digital buzz indicated it was ringing on the other end.

  “Hello?” The person who answered tried to disguise his voice, but still sounded to Hatcher a lot like Fred.

  “You have an interesting way of making new acquaintances,” Hatcher said.

  “Who is this?”

  “I think you know.”

  A scrape came through the tiny speaker, followed by a rustling noise. The sound of someone switching ears. “Are you by yourself?”

  “Other than scores of people walking by on the street.”

  “Are you being followed?”

  Hatcher scanned the nearby storefronts, used his peripheral vision to see if anyone stuck out. “No. But you are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you really think the NYPD would just let you go so easily without asking more questions? And without getting better answers?”

  Fred hesitated. “I was careful. I’m always careful.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Where’s Susan.”

  “She’s here with me. She’s terrified.”

  “I’m assuming you gave me this phone because there are things you want to tell me.”

  “Yes.” A pause. “Where would you like to meet?”

  “I’m going to come to you.”

  A longer pause. “You said I was followed. Will that be a problem?”

  “You were, no doubt about it. But that’s okay. Just tell me where you are. And stay put.” Hatcher turned his attention again to the buildings across the
street, reading every sign. Thinking there had to be someplace nearby he could find a pay phone. “I have an idea.”

  Hatcher listened to Fred supply him with the address and the nearest cross streets. He glanced over at the street signs and related his location, asked how far that was, then told him he’d be there in twenty minutes and flipped the phone shut.

  A block away, Hatcher found a phone at a Laundromat. He used the change machine to get some quarters and dialed the Thirteenth Precinct. The desk sergeant connected him to the detective squad. He waited on hold for over a minute before Detective Wright picked up.

  “I hope this isn’t you calling already just to say hi. Needy guys are very annoying.”

  “Hasn’t it been two days yet? I’ve had so many women lately I’ve lost track.”

  “Are you trying to get me fired? What do you want, Hatcher?”

  That raspy voice. So damn sexy. He could still smell her on him, feel traces of her, like a rub-on lotion. Barely an hour ago, she was moaning and clawing his back and panting dirty encouragements into his ear. It was almost enough to make him feel guilty for what he was about to do.

  Almost.

  “Are you surveilling that old guy and the woman who were down at my brother’s office?”

  “No.” He could hear her breathe into the phone. “I guess I’m supposed to ask why you want to know.”

  “Nah. It’s not important. You’re obviously not interested in them.”

  The line went silent for a moment. Hatcher thought he heard her huff. “Okay, fine. Why are you asking?”

  “Because I thought you’d like to know I just saw them walk into a building not far from Deborah’s apartment.”

  “That’s . . . Are you sure?”

  Hatcher smiled. He stared out the window at a couple holding hands across the street. “Yes. Positive.”

  “How positive?”

  “Positive enough. Tell me something—if you’re not keeping an eye on them, why are you so reluctant to believe me? And if you are, surely they couldn’t have slipped your surveillance.”

  “You are a very annoying man, you know that, Hatcher?”

  “So I’ve been told.”