American Lies

by Joshua Corin

  Although the filthy windshield provided, more or less, a view of the road ahead, it was hardly necessary once they left Conyers’s main artery and plunged down a semi-paved path into the deep pine woods. The van’s poor suspension did little to cushion its passengers from the path’s bumps and divots, and Xana had to brace herself to keep from having her scalp smack the ceiling.

  After about a half mile of bumps and divots and potential scalp-smacks, Buzz asked Xana if she liked to hunt.

  “Because I like to hunt,” he added before she could even respond. “I like to hunt deer the most. I like to hunt them because they’re fleet-footed and that makes them a challenge. I don’t like the way they taste, though. I put lots of steak sauce on it. After it’s cooked, of course. I don’t eat it raw.”

  The deeper they drove into the woods, the dimmer the inside of the van became.

  “My favorite meat is cow, but it would be dumb to hunt cows. They’re slow, so they’re no challenge at all. Plus, their breath smells so awful. You ever had a cow sneeze on you? That’s the worst. You get its snot all in your hair plus, when it sneezes, its breath kind of sticks to you as well and for the rest of the day, you might as well just lock yourself in your room because you are going to stink. How did I get to talking about cows?”

  The only item in the back of the van that Xana could maybe use as a weapon was Buzz’s water bottle, which he’d nearly finished. His sidearm was snapped into its holster.

  Undoubtedly Rocky was armed, too.

  “Tell me something,” said Buzz, “because nobody can give me a straight answer, okay? What year did the Muslims come?”

  “What year…?”

  “Yeah. Because I know it wasn’t in the late nineties because I was around in the late nineties and I didn’t see any Muslims. But it couldn’t have been too much after 9/11 because I remember going to the store to get an American flag for my neighbor because his flag got chewed up by his dog and I saw a couple of blacks in the store and the female one was wearing those head scarfs. So what I’m asking is what year they all came here. I would have seen it if it had been in the newspaper. I read the newspaper every day.”

  The van started to slow. Wherever they were going, they’d arrived.

  “Ah well.” Buzz reached for the door handle. “Guess you don’t know, either. Just one of those mysteries.”

  Buzz climbed out first and then waited for Xana to follow.

  Xana didn’t.

  Rocky showed her his long-nosed .357 and nodded toward the open door.

  Xana joined Buzz in the clearing, which itself was not much larger than the van. The treetops far above them were dense and walled off most of the sunlight. As a result, the air here was cooler, although still soup-thick with humidity.

  Somewhere to the west, in the direction from which they came, a few twigs snapped. Maybe some fleet-footed deer.

  “Hey, Rocky,” Buzz asked, “where’s everybody else?”

  And Rocky pulled the trigger on his .357. Good-natured Buzz went down like a bag of stones.

  Xana looked away. The next bullet would be for her. Then, what, they would stage the scene to make it look like she had shot Buzz and had carjacked the van and had driven here to meet up with her coconspirators when they’d double-crossed her? It made sense. This way, the investigation would assume Buzz had been a victim, kidnapped somehow from outside the municipal center, and they would avoid looking too deep into his known associates. As to how Xana, handcuffed in the back of a squad car, had managed to kidnap an armed law enforcement officer, well…just one of those mysteries.

  Rocky touched the tip of his handgun’s elongated barrel to the back of her skull.

  Execution style.

  And Xana felt…satisfied? Yes. Maybe. Catharsis, at the very least. Closure.

  This was the end, and she was okay with that.

  No more fighting. No more guilt. No more blame. No more snide brush-offs from former colleagues. No more Sirens singing to her from the inside of a full glass bottle, their wet echo for release, theirs, hers. No more girlfriends disappointed and then passive-aggressively upset because no, damn it, they couldn’t change her into a better woman. No more grousing from her back every time she woke up. No more grumbling from her knees every time she stood. No more condescending explanations from inept men in power. No more bad news to make her feel grim, no more good news to make her feel jealous, no more slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

  Bang.

  Well, no. Not bang. More like snap. More like the snap of a stick. More like the snap of a stick from the woods behind them. More like the snap of a stick from the woods behind them made by one of the twelve vested FBI agents who, now that their concealment was blown, rushed out of the woods with their Glocks on a horizontal line with their arms, which were on a horizontal line with their gaze, just as they had been taught at Quantico.

  Could Rocky have still pulled his trigger? Oh, absolutely. He would have ended up a corpse shortly thereafter, but at least he would have taken Xana with him. He’d already killed Buzz. But Rocky, unlike Xana, apparently feared death, that undiscovered country from which no traveler returned, and he pushed his hands to the sky and his knees to the mud and oh, well, Xanadu Marx would live to see another day.

  Chapter 31

  “You’re welcome,” said Del.

  “Fuck off,” replied Xana.

  She was returning to Stone Mountain the same way she left—in the back of a squad car. At least this time her wrists weren’t cuffed.

  Theirs was one of many police vehicles and unmarked sedans in a train along I-20W. Somewhere among them, his wrists definitely in cuffs, sat their neo-Nazi captive, whose full name was not Rocky but Stephen Joseph Neaderlander.

  From what Xana had overheard thus far, Stephen Joseph Neaderlander belonged to First Americans, a white nationalist organization with thousands of dues-paying members across six states, including Michigan and Georgia. Xana suspected that in the next few hours, if not already, each and every one of these thousands of racist patriots would be getting an armed visit from Uncle Sam.

  Case closed?

  Del certainly thought so. Look at that smirk contorting his face like stretched latex. The face of a man expecting a handshake and a blowjob from the president. It had been Del’s gambit to let Buzz drive off with Xana. It had been Del who had led the clandestine pursuit across highway and car wash and forest. It had been Del who had first concluded that Buzz was the inside man.

  How?

  Xana didn’t know and Xana didn’t care. A good part of her was still standing in the clearing with a gun to her head. A good part of her, perhaps the good part of her, was still waiting for that gunshot.

  “Where are you going to head off to now, Xana?” asked Del. His voice still sounded pinched from when she had pounded him in the nose. “Because you’ve broken all the china in our shop and it’s time for you to go. This isn’t an official request. I can’t, on behalf of the U.S. government, force you to leave the state. You have rights. But why stay where you’re not welcome? Even a dog knows when it’s unwanted. What I’m saying is, and I mean this with only a little personal disgust, it’s time for you to find a new home, doggie. And it shouldn’t be an ordeal. I’m willing to guess you don’t have a lot you need to pack. You never struck me as the sentimental type. Now if I had to move, say to D.C., say for a promotion, well, now that would be a headache. You see, I have a family. Kids in school. A wife. And they have many friends. For us to uproot ourselves would be difficult. We’d do it—don’t get me wrong—but it wouldn’t be easy. Packing alone would take weeks. I guess what I’m saying is that you have certain advantages. You should use them. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  Xana leaned toward Del, who was still eyeing her from the passenger seat and said, “I remember your wife. Her name’s Ericka. Yo
u always brought her around for the office Christmas party. I remember her so vividly because she always looked so sad. Simply the saddest person there. I would’ve tried to cheer her up, but, well, I hate people. She’d stand over by the punch bowl and never drink a drop because she had to be the one to drive you home. And everybody noticed and no one was surprised because we all knew you were a douchebag. I was a drunk bitch, but I’m sober now. And you’ll always be a douchebag.”

  “Do you have any idea what I just accomplished? I’m going to be famous. I’m going to be writing books about this. So how about you show me some respect?”

  “You really think it’s over?” Xana relaxed away from him. “You really think a bunch of militiamen with a history of rhetoric and not one recorded incident of organized violence or civil disobedience, not even a disruptive protest, is responsible for not only the theft of an American combat drone but the destruction of two mosques?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “How did they get the drone, Del?”

  “I’m sure our friend Stephen Joseph Neanderlander will tell us, and if he doesn’t, someone else will. By this time tomorrow, we’ll know how they got it and where they’re keeping it and what else they were planning on using it for.”

  “And the outbreak at the hospital?”

  “We’ll have all our dots connected. Don’t you worry.”

  A few minutes later, as they crossed the line into Stone Mountain, Del did something funny. He looked in the rearview mirror and muttered, “Were you just busting my balls before or do you really think we’re missing something?”

  To which Xana shrugged. She had been busting his balls. Absolutely. But also…

  It was something Jim Christie had told her, had told them all, time and time again:

  “You haven’t finished your work till you’ve checked your math.”

  Wise words.

  Over the course of her career, Xana had ignored this mantra of wisdom very, very often. And it would have been to her peril, too, had she not been so damn…what? Smart? Lucky?

  Del, who was neither smart nor lucky, could hardly afford to make her mistakes.

  Jonesy was waiting outside for her under the awning of the municipal building. A sweat-licked handkerchief dangled from his left hand. He waved at her with that hand and the handkerchief waved at her, too. When she got out of the car, she very nearly gave him a hug, but then she remembered herself and merely gave him a small grin.

  One of the local lawmen handed her a small plastic bag from Piggly Wiggly. In it were her keys, cards, phone, and a two-week-old receipt for beef jerky. She signed the form indicating she had received her items.

  “You can keep the bag,” the lawman told her.

  Xana pocketed her personal belongs and tossed the bag in the nearest bin.

  “Are we done?” she asked Jonesy.

  “You tell me,” he responded. “You know this procedure much better than I. But if you’re asking me if they’re filing charges, the answer’s no. Not even for sucker punching your buddy over there.”

  “Yeah, he wants to get rid of me.”

  “They’re still going to need you if the gentleman they picked up goes on trial.”

  Xana chuckled. Right. As if this were going to go to trial.

  “Well, if my services are no longer needed, I believe I am going to pick up my cat from campus, head home, and watch several hours of mindless TV. Although it behooves me to remind you that I can no longer be your sponsor.”

  Xana ceased chuckling.

  “You know why, so don’t make me say it. And don’t make me say I didn’t warn you, my dear. You deliberately stepped into traffic and you got hit by a car. I’m useless as a sponsor if you won’t listen to me. I can recommend a few folks. I’m sure you’ll ignore them, too.”

  As Jonesy ambled toward his Mustang, Xana sat on every instinct to call out to him, berate him, beg him, anything. But he was right. He was right and he had saved her and he deserved to be left alone.

  Back in her own car, Xana cranked up the air-conditioning and matched the cool air with a long, warm sigh. Some of the tension in her shoulders billowed through her lips and away, away. How long had it been since the clearing in the woods and the gun to her head? An hour? She gripped the steering wheel until its leather creaked back at her.

  Certainly there was a difference between being ready to die and wanting to die.

  Which one was she again?

  Xana shifted into reverse. Soon the press would be here. All the more reason to drive off.

  Del stood in the doorway of the municipal building. He was deep in conversation with some higher-up from Homeland Security.

  Go, she told herself.

  Think of Hayley.

  Leave, she insisted.

  You’re not wanted here.

  Xana scratched at her steering wheel. Stared at the men. So many possibilities they might be ignoring.

  She could always call. Yes. If she thought of anything, she could pick up her phone and give Del a ring and—okay, maybe not Del, but somebody. She could contact Konquist and—

  Oh, fuck. Konquist.

  Had anybody called him? Had anybody told him yet about his nephew?

  Xana backed out of the parking lot and hopped on the main road and used a voice command to have her cellphone ring up Konquist.

  “Hey,” he said. “I was wondering what had happened to you.”

  Shit.

  “Are you still at the hospital?” she asked.

  “I’m actually on my way back to the precinct. Why? Did something happen?”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “Oh, hey, Xana, I’m going to have to call you back. It’s my—what’s-his-name—my captain on the other line.”

  “Wait!” Xana picked up her phone. “Are you still there?”

  No. No, he wasn’t.

  On the other hand, she could now see that she had two missed calls. One from about seventy-five minutes ago. And one a few minutes after that.

  Same number.

  Hayley’s father.

  He didn’t leave a voicemail either time.

  She merged onto the freeway, gunned the accelerator, and called him back.

  Chapter 32

  Malik had always prided himself on being clearheaded, but at the moment, as he sat in this empty room on the empty, no, near-empty south wing of the hospital’s second floor, his mind had become fogged with doubt.

  At the very least, the two bozos at the nurse station were sympathetic to whomever had attacked hundreds of Muslims. At the very least, the governor’s proposal about segregating Muslims left the bozos pink with cheer. At the very least, they seemed to have had an inkling of the governor’s proposal before the man had delivered it. At the very least, they claimed to still have a few more balls in the air.

  At the very least, it seemed as if these bozos were complicit as fuck.

  However…

  This was one heck of an accusation to make. And what was Malik supposed to do exactly? Wheel himself out into the corridor and confront them? Interrogate them?

  At the very least, they could be armed, and at the very least, he most definitely was not.

  But his brothers in blue were armed, and there was a gaggle of them upstairs, milling outside Ray’s hospital room. Malik searched his phone for his LT, found the contact info, and was about to press call when he stopped himself.

  Best to text instead of calling. Just in case the bozos had keen hearing.

  Malik opened the text window, considered his message carefully, typed:

  “Two suspects, may be armed, floor 2, south wing”

  And was about to press send when the phone slipped out of his hands and clattered against the tile floor.

  Malik had never heard anything so loud in his life, a
nd he’d grown up with a mother who bayed when she cried.

  But had the bozos heard it?

  “Hey, Hank, what the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know, Clint, but I’m gonna go check it out.”

  Ah.

  Malik grabbed the phone off the floor, set it on his lap, and surveyed the room for places to hide. There were no places to hide. The beds were gone, probably repurposed to other floors. The windows didn’t open, as if he would have been able to do much if they did. Even the bathroom—

  Oh. The bathroom.

  Quickly, Malik rolled himself toward the small bathroom. Its door was already, mercifully, open. He crossed the jamb and one of his wheels smacked right into the toilet. Second loudest sound he’d ever heard in his life.

  And speaking of sounds, weren’t those footsteps approaching?

  Malik reached for the bathroom door’s knob, and as gently as he could, he tugged it toward him. Not to shut it completely—a closed door might look suspicious—but to leave it just slightly ajar.

  In doing so, he must have shifted his weight because his phone once again tumbled away, hitting the floor with a decibel equivalent of a firecracker exploding.

  Thus solidifying Malik’s earlier conclusion that Allah was both real and a huge dick.

  The footsteps neared. Sneakers.

  Malik ogled the toilet tank’s porcelain lid. If he pried it off, it could function as a shield or even a bludgeon. But first he would have to reposition his wheelchair just so he could reach it, and then he would have to pry it off without making any noise, and what was the likelihood of that?

  On the other hand, there was his phone, still facedown on the floor, and a text message that all he had to do was send.

  He picked up his phone.

  Turned it over.

  The screen had gone dark, which would have been bad enough if there also wasn’t a series of cracks running every which way across its once-smooth surface.

  Then the sneakers stopped outside his room.

  “You see anything, Hank?”

  Malik held his breath, waited for a reply.