Castle Danger--The Mental States

by Anthony Neil Smith

  Eventually, he moved to one of the two chairs beside the couch. The chair I’d chosen myself if I’d come to have an important talk with someone in this grand apartment. He waved to the couch like he owned the place — again, I was aware of the irony.

  “Have a seat, boys.”

  I crossed my arms. Stood my ground.

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine, ma’am. If you’d please, let’s get on with this.

  Thorn didn’t sit. Just stood behind the Senator as he always had — literally and figuratively. Staring us down. I thought of that moment in Engebretsen and Haupt’s interrogation room, when Thorn and Dylan were the ones to come take me to the Senator’s house. My first peek into the Holy of Holies.

  Terrible analogy.

  I let Joel take the lead. So what if Marquette hadn’t been on that RV with me? It still felt as if he’d been the one abusing me. Seeing him again froze my blood in a way I hadn’t expected. I couldn’t even look at him. Had to focus on my feet instead. Joel sat closest to Marquette, while I took the spot on the couch farthest away and sat on the edge as if hoping for a chance to escape.

  But there would be no escape. Not for any of us. Nor this time.

  The Senator arranged himself, picturesque, with his legs crossed and his hands flat on his lap. “Now, Manny, where are your manners? Couldn’t you offer us a beverage?”

  I flipped him off. “Fuck you.”

  Joel barked out a laugh.

  Gotta love Joel.

  9

  What a cozy scene — me, Joel, the Senator, and Thorn, with possibly a hundred police officers and/or state troopers and/or SWAT teams surrounding the building waiting for a chance to arrest Joel and me for a wide variety of crimes, including attempted murder.

  Andrew Marquette chuckled at us, the freak and the redneck on his dear departed sibling’s expensive couch. “Tennyson’s out of surgery. Thought you’d appreciate that, Joel. Means you’ve once again slipped right through on murder charges. Lucky you.”

  “That’s hardly a matter of luck. He’s alive because I wanted him alive.”

  A glance back at Thorn. “You agree?”

  The security man shook his head. “Fucking Marine is a maniac. Tennyson’s lucky that Skovgaard’s a shit shot.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Thorn shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Joel looked as if he’d like to take a shot at Thorn to shut him up once and for all. He wouldn’t, though. Too much was riding on this.

  The Senator pushed on, “You wanted me here. I’m here. What’s this all about?”

  My turn.

  “This is about you telling Chief Neudecker to kill your sibling. Your own sister.”

  “My brother. Get it right. And I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Your sister.”

  “He was a man in a dress.”

  “No, you don’t get to call her that.”

  Finally got him to grin. He couldn’t help himself. “If you haven’t noticed, I can say pretty much what I want, and make any of you do what I want. Up to a point, sure, I do need to be seen to respect the law, but look what happened to the both of you when you went rogue. The question now is what we do about it, because as I’ve just told you, I’m no killer.”

  “You killed Hannah. You had Dylan kidnapped and raped, and he’s dead, too. You had me kidnapped and raped, and I’m pretty sure you intended me to die on camera.”

  He shook his head. “Ridiculous. Fairy tale. This reeks of desperation.”

  “You know I have the evidence that you and Raske run the Fancy Rooms.”

  “Do you, now?”

  “You know I do.”

  His eyes. Those fucking eyes. “I don’t see how that’s possible. What you probably have are fakes that Hans created with Photoshop, trying to pin something on me, something as laughable as his cross-dressing. Wouldn’t surprise me if he and Raske were behind all of this to get some petty revenge.”

  He coughed and leaned forward in his chair. “By the way, Joel already knows that Thorn turned off the mikes, so the only ones hearing this are you two, my trusty companion here and myself. And even with that, I’m still telling you that none of this bullshit ‘evidence’ you have is true. All fabricated. All lies. If this is another blackmail attempt, fine. There’s nothing to blackmail me with. I’m sick and tired of people like you making demands on me. Sick and tired of you thinking I’ll take the easy way out and give you money. First, my own brother, and now, you two. And I won’t even bother with the ones that come through the mail. Real kooks, I tell you.”

  He pushed out of the chair and started pacing, the same as he did in his kitchen. Bad habit, I supposed.

  Well, I wanted to get back into the dialogue before it turned into a monologue. “You’re saying that we won’t be able to trace this money from the website back to you?”

  “Didn’t you hear a word I said? Of course you won’t! I never paid a dime — and never made a dime — from any goddamn porn site. I sure as shit never told anyone to kill anyone else. And I’ve got no love for Daniel Raske whatsoever.”

  “I can turn these over– ”

  “Fine! Do it!”

  My mind was scrambling. It wasn’t that I believed the son of a bitch, but I think he truly believed himself. Plus, I suspected he was always one step ahead of anyone with leverage against him.

  If he didn’t care about the files we had, the receipts, then it was because he’d already had someone go back in and fix it for him. What we had would look like an attempt at framing him. He probably knew that Hannah had the info minutes after she’d gotten it, so it had probably sat there, hidden in a computer, just waiting for someone else to find it and try this exact same thing. And once they had, it would make it look as if Marquette’s enemies were the shady ones. The man would always make sure he looked whiter than white.

  Which is why he’d had Dylan kidnapped.

  Which is why he’d roped the Chief into killing Hannah.

  Contrary to our desperate hopes, this wasn’t a chaotic mess at all. This was longtime planning. Very longtime. Which begged the question: How long had Marquette been waiting for the opportunity to kill his sibling? It had nothing to do with Hannah’s gender and everything to do with Andrew’s lust for power.

  Shit.

  I turned to Joel. “You’ve got to shoot Thorn.”

  “Jesus, Manny!”

  “Seriously. Shoot him. Center of his chest, not his head. Do it.”

  And Joel, bless his simple heart, stood, pulled his weapon and unloaded two for center mass. Thorn went down.

  I pointed at Marquette. “Him too.”

  For the first time, I saw the mask slip. The real Andrew Marquette was sitting in that chair, his skin suddenly pale, his face alive with fear.

  Joel knew I didn’t really mean it. Otherwise, we would’ve had a dead senator.

  “Wait! No! No! Please!” Jerked his head back to look at Thorn, flat on his back, not moving. “What have you done?”

  I stood, took several slow steps towards the chair, stepped past Joel and stood over Marquette. “Joel’s already made peace with going to prison, so he might as well do it for killing you. As for me, once you’re out of the picture, no one will spin our evidence away, so it’ll have enough impact to get me off Scot-free.”

  “No one’s going to believe you.”

  “We’ll see. But even if I go down, too, at least I’ll feel a little better that the man who killed his own sister and nearly took me out along with her, is dead. Besides, I’ll finally be able to tell the world my story without you interrupting.”

  “From Death Row!”

  “Yeah, but so what? I’ll spend the rest of my dwindling days destroying your memory. Slowly, too.” I placed one hand on each armrest, looming over him, leaning closer to his face. “And your parents, what they did to Hannah, and how you couldn’t care less.”

  Raised myself up again to my full ten feet of righteous indignation. Then I stepped aside and nodde
d at Joel, who readied his pistol.

  “Manny, wait, call Joel off. What if you run the campaign?”

  Joel surprised us both by firing a round right through the chair, stuffing flying out the other side. Inches from Marquette’s thigh.

  Marquette squeezed into his chair as deep as it would let him. “STOP! Joel, I’ll give you Thorn’s job! Head up the security team!”

  He lowered the gun. “The guy I just shot, you want me to take over for him?”

  “Yes, yes, listen, that was a misunderstanding. We can explain it away. I was the target of this whole Fancy Rooms thing, which is why they took Dylan and you and Manny, and then came after me when they saw I would not be deterred.”

  “Deterred from what?” I asked.

  “From real change! You know, for you, for trannies and queers and all that! Democrats were doing it under a false flag. Republicans joined in because they’re scared of the religious nuts. Come on, this is how the game is played, guys.”

  I turned to Joel, saw the disgust in his eyes as he returned my glance. With a tired shake of the head I turned back to the Senator.

  “This is not a game. It wasn’t a game in that RV, and it wasn’t a game for Dylan. He’s dead, you know.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to die!”

  Oh, yes, more of that please.

  “But he did.”

  Marquette squeezed his eyes closed. “It was an accident. A stupid accident. It had to look convincing. And you, that was all Tennyson’s idea. I didn’t know until it was too late.”

  “Joel, shoot this piece of– ”

  “No, wait! You don’t understand politics! He swore to me you were trying to bring me down! I had to go along with him. That makes sense, right?”

  What made him a great liar were the small bits of truth in every lie. String together enough of them, and some kind of truth emerges. Enough to connect the dots.

  “Think about it, Manny! A transsexual campaign manager who survived an assassination attempt. Working at the top level of state politics with a Republican!”

  “Senator–”

  “Andrew. Call me Andrew.”

  “Senator, we’re surrounded. We’re about to be arrested. We’re fucked. I need a show of sincerity here.”

  “Are you saying I’m lying? You don’t trust me? A gun to my head, and you don’t trust me?”

  “I need a show of faith, man. I need a sign, or I can’t trust that you won’t just flip-flop on your promise and stick us on death row. In which case, I might as well let Joel blow off your head, go out with a bang.”

  He held up a hand, said, “My phone is in my pocket. Can I get it?”

  I leaned down and frisked him, felt all around until I found the hard square in his back jeans pocket. I pulled it out, handed it to him.

  His hands shook. His fingertips slipped across the glass, sweat greasing it up. But he managed to hit enough buttons to make a call. “Senator Marquette for the Commander, please.”

  Right to the top. The head of the St. Paul police department, Commander Kochlin, the only one who could tell the troops surrounding this building to stand down with a single command.

  In spite of the shaky, sweaty mess of man in front of me, Marquette’s voice was steel. Like a bad dub on a Cold War movie.

  “Commander? Listen. I’m sure you’re aware of our situation. Well. I’m not so sure this will make sense to you, but I believe an attempt has been made on my life, and the two men widely reported to be terrorists on the run actually helped save me.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Thorn move his leg.

  Marquette: “Yes, I know, but it was Tennyson. He’s the one. Mm hm. Mm hm. Trust me, sir, I’ll explain everything, but I wouldn’t be talking to you if it hadn’t been for Jahnke and Skovgaard.”

  Thorn sat up. Pained look on his face. He lifted his chin, saw me, and winked.

  “Yes, Commander, a breakdown of communication.”

  “Senator,” I said.

  He ignored me. “A lot of people are hurt, I know, but these two brave men here only did what they had to do to keep me safe.”

  “Senator?”

  He looked over. By then, Thorn had pushed himself off the ground. He winced and held his chest, but was otherwise alive. When Marquette finally noticed, his voice faltered midsentence. Thorn stepped over and plucked the phone from his hand, then turned it off and slipped it into his pocket.

  “The fuck, Thorn?”

  “They can’t kill me. I’m solid gold, man.”

  “What?”

  Thorn ripped his shirt where the bullets had landed, two small, twinkling pancakes embedded in his vest. “I think you need to listen to them, Andrew.”

  The three of us stood in front of his chair and looked down at the poor guy. To break the eerie silence, I took the lead.

  “We got every word. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. We’ll play it for Tennyson. We’ll play it for the cops. We’ll play it for the press. In fact …”

  I pulled out the phone Fergus had given me earlier, put on the speaker and dialed the preset number.

  Nice answered on the first ring: “Manny?”

  “Did you get all that?”

  “Yes, we’ve got it.”

  “And is Kristi with you?”

  Another familiar voice. “Here, Manny.”

  The Senator’s eyebrows stitched together. “Who is that?”

  “One of them is Dylan’s Guardian Angel. The other is Kristi Ferrari, who I think has written quite a bit on your campaign. The two of them just recorded everything we talked about.”

  He looked at Thorn. “I thought you turned all that shit off?”

  “I did. Then I gave Joel the password to turn it back on, and he gave it to the girl.”

  Back to me. Marquette regained some of his swagger and waved a finger in my face. “It’s all garbage. All said under duress. Any judge you pick, the most bleeding heart faggot you can find, would throw this right out. It means nothing.”

  “No, Senator. It means everything. This is the end of the road for you, because we didn’t record this to take you to court, or let those cops outside drag you kicking and screaming to jail. Far from it. All we’re going to do is play the tape, tell our stories, and let the public do the rest.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep.”

  “My lawyers are going to –”

  “Sure, they will. That’s what they do. They’re lawyers. They’re gonna law. But it’s not going to mean anything. The damage will be done by the time you win in court, and then the appeals will make the public ignominy last even longer. I’m sorry, Andrew, but you will find out very shortly that your road to the governor’s mansion has been shut down.”

  Head in his hand, covering his eyes. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Kristi, you still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How fast can you write it up? Post it online?”

  “Fifteen minutes, probably less.”

  Marquette stood and swiped the phone. “You can’t print any of this!”

  I took it back from him. “Yes she can. And she will. And you should probably start working on that speech where you tell people that you’d like to spend more time with your family.”

  “You have no idea what you’re doing. It’s all going to blow up in your-”

  I didn’t want to listen to any more of his rage, his justifying, his condescension. I put the phone in my pocket, flexed my fingers, and slapped the living fuck out of him. Right across the face. I instantly regretted it — I swear something snapped — and clutched my throbbing appendage to my stomach and walked away. Shouted over my shoulder, “Someone get him out of here. We’re going to be late for jail.”

  Because, oh yeah, there was no doubt that no matter what happened next — and I was pretty certain we’d snuffed out Andrew Marquette’s political ambitions completely — there was absolutely no scenario in which Joel and I, and probably Thorn, were not about t
o be carted off to jail.

  Twice in one day? Bring it on. No sweat.

  10

  So, let’s talk about endings.

  In real life, endings aren’t anywhere as clear-cut as they are in fiction. Andrew Marquette’s political ascension, for instance, may have felt like a crashing conclusion, but it actually took much longer to go through all the death throes. He tried. Bless his cotton socks, he really tried to keep the train going, playing the victim card for every hand, but over the coming weeks, not even he could game the public.

  That said, the consequences weren’t just long-lasting and far-reaching for him. They also complicated Joel’s and my life in ways we hadn’t foreseen.

  But there was some long overdue gratification in knowing that Kristi Ferrari was very careful in what she chose to highlight, and when she chose to publish it. I’m sure it was maddening for the Senator, not knowing what he would have to defend against every morning, another new post on the paper’s website picked up by all the local TV stations, the national political blogs and so on and so forth.

  Senator throws campaign manager under the bus.

  Senator shows true colors under duress, calls politics a ‘game’.

  Senator involved in his own aide’s kidnapping? Was it a prank gone wrong?

  I mean, we knew a murder charge wouldn’t stick. Sadly, there wouldn’t be that sort of justice for Dylan Roof and Phil Konzbruck. Daniel Raske found a way to erase the evidence of them ever having been in a Fancy Room, and he found a patsy to take the fall for the porn pit in the church basement. But the rumors grew louder, and Kristi kept feeding the public’s suspicion that the Senator was personally involved with Raske’s filthy business empire. That sort of innuendo stuck, and regardless of the threats to sue her and shut down the paper, her reporting was rock solid.