Chaser

by J. A. Konrath

  “I see you staring, Phin. Be careful. That’s how I chipped my tooth.”

  McGlade led us into a spa area, past a sauna, to a ten person hot tub and a kiddie pool.

  And in the kiddie pool—

  Sam squealed and clapped her hands again. “It’s a capybara!”

  My daughter knew about capybaras for the same reason I did; she obsessively watched nature documentaries on TV and the Internet, and usually forced me or Jack to view anything she found particularly cute, or particularly disgusting. Sam deemed the capybara the cutest animal in all of history, forever, for eternity.

  Harry said, “I got him because you told me about them when we talked on the phone, Sam.”

  Roy didn’t seem impressed. “Looks like a giant rat. With a cow head.”

  “It’s the biggest rodent in the world, Roy,” Sam told him. “They live in South America.”

  “This one lives in LA,” Harry told her. “Want to know his name?”

  “Tell me his name, Uncle Harry!”

  “It’s Richard.”

  Odd name choice.

  Richard the capybara stood neck-high in the kiddie pool. He had a brown coat and sort of resembled a hundred pound beaver, with a larger, squarer head. His squinty eyes made him look stoned.

  It being Los Angeles, maybe he was.

  I noticed something else dart through the water, and that something leapt out and belly-flopped onto the capybara’s back, then awkwardly stood.

  Waddlebutt, Harry’s chinstrap penguin.

  The capybara didn’t seem to mind being stepped on.

  “Not something you see every day,” Tom said.

  Even Jack seemed slightly amused, smiling for the first time since we’d arrived in California. “I gotta admit, McGlade. This seems like one of your better pets.”

  “And he’s clean. He’s in the water half the day, and he’s autocoprophagous.”

  “What does that mean, Uncle Harry?”

  “He eats his own poo-poo.”

  “Cool! Can I go in the water?”

  “The water is kind of dirty, sweetheart.”

  “I thought he ate his poo-poo.”

  “He did. But there’s still poo juice in there.”

  “No swimming,” I told her.

  “Can I feed Richard?”

  “You can feed him later. And I don’t call him Richard. He weighs a lot, so I call him Big Dick.”

  And there it is.

  “I love Big Dick!” Sam said.

  “Uncle Harry loves Big Dick, too. How about you, Jack? Do you like Big Dick?”

  Jack rolled her eyes. “You always ruin it with something.”

  “He can support your weight, Jack. Do you want to ride Big Dick?”

  “Ride Big Dick, Mommy!”

  “Uncle Harry said the water was dirty, Sam.”

  “Don’t you like it when Big Dick is dirty, Jackie?”

  Tom and Roy were trying not to laugh. I had to purse my lips.

  “Can I pet Big Dick?”

  “Yep. Big Dick is wild, but very tame. Big Dick likes to be touched.”

  The capybara began to walk over to us.

  Sam clapped her hands again. “Big Dick is coming!”

  Roy had tears in his eyes and slapped his thigh, and Tom had to turn away. I kept my chuckles to myself and noticed Jack put her face in her shoulder to muffle the laughs.

  When the titters stopped, Jack said, “Samantha, we have to get some work done. Why don’t you play some videogames?”

  “I want to play with Big Dick.”

  Harry scooped her up. “And Big Dick loves to be played with, sweetheart. Harry Jr. plays with Big Dick all the time. But right now I want to show you my Gamemaster 2.”

  “I had a Gamemaster 2, but it blew away. Do you have City Fighter?”

  “I have all the games.”

  “All of them?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Harry carried Sam out of the spa area, and I went to Jack. “Did you want to give Big Dick a kiss before we go?”

  “Why do dick jokes make every guy act like they’re eleven years old?”

  “You were laughing too. And you shouldn’t laugh at Big Dick. It makes him insecure.”

  Jack put her face in my neck. It felt good.

  “I’m nervous about this one, Phin.”

  “I know. But we’re getting paid a lot. Enough for a new start.”

  “Not Plastic. I mean yes, Plastic. But Erinyes bothers me more.”

  Jack was the strongest of us. If Jack was scared, that made me even more scared.

  “Two psychos is a lot to deal with,” I admitted. “But at least it’s only two…”

  HUGO

  The Man With Seven Tears does his four hundredth push-up, feeling the sweat start to come, as his cellmate punk watches from his cot, crying softly.

  Keep crying. Tears turn me on.

  He continues to crank them out, his arms shrieking, his core tight as a drumhead, pushing beyond the wall of pain.

  A bull bangs on the bars with his stick, and Hugo considers ignoring him.

  They know not to bother me when I’m working out.

  And I’m always working out.

  “Last guard that interrupted my reps got to see his own arm bone,” Hugo says, not breaking rhythm.

  “I know you aren’t threatening correctional personnel, Mr. Troutt, because that is a clear violation of the rules and will result in disciplinary action.”

  “So put me in solitary. I like solitary. No bitch ass bulls bother me.”

  “Warden sent me. We need you to fill out a visitor admittance form.”

  Visitor? I’ve never had a visitor.

  Is the Order reorganizing?

  Hugo immediately hops to his feet. The guard is six-two, stocky, but he backs away as Hugo approaches the bars and leers down at him.

  I weigh a hundred pounds more than he does.

  I could eat this guy. Alive.

  “Who wants on my visitor list?”

  The guard glances nervously down at the paper. “Ilse Koch.”

  Interesting.

  Is this the Order reaching out?

  Hugo follows procedure, turning around and sticking his hands through the bars to be handed the paper and a one-inch plastic ballpoint pen refill. He brings them into the cell, the pen insert so small in his massive fingers that he can barely hold it.

  After signing Hugo Troutt on the dotted line, he passes the paper and pen back to the guard in reverse fashion.

  Interesting. Very interesting.

  I’ve been rotting in this hole for over a decade with no word from the outside.

  But if the Order has returned, there’s a glimmer of hope.

  Hope that I might get out of here.

  Hope that I might see my dear, little brother, Phineas, once again.

  And beat him to death with his arms after I yank them out of their sockets.

  JACK

  I smiled.

  Dammit, Harry. I can’t stop thinking about Big Dick.

  “Everyone, this is the best woman to ever live, Consuela. Consuela, the guy who looks like he has a criminal record because he has a criminal record is Phin, the scary looking old crippled lady is Jack, Tom is the white one, Roy is the black one, and this teenaged girl is Sam.”

  Consuela, who was short and stocky with pulled-back greying hair and the scowl of Emmet Kelly, reached out her hand to Sam. “You don’t look like a teenager,” she said, her accent Puerto Rican.

  “I’m not. Uncle Harry thinks he’s funny.”

  “I know. El es muy irritante. Do you like ice cream?”

  “I love ice cream!”

  Consuela met my eyes. “Can Senorita Sam have ice cream?”

  “Sure.”

  Consuela took Sam’s hand and they walked off, McGlade calling after them, “Give us about forty minutes. We’re going to be watching some adult material.”

  I stopped smiling, knowing what was coming next.
<
br />   The four of us settled in the great room on some overstuffed leather couches, after voting four to one against having this meeting in the sauna.

  Tom put his laptop in the center of the table, and I eyed it like it was a snake ready to strike.

  “Let’s talk about Plastic first,” Harry began.

  My tension eased up a tiny notch.

  McGlade dug a remote control out of his pocket and pressed a button, turning on a flatscreen television. He started Windows 10, then opened up PowerPoint.

  “You have this on your computer? Why did you give me a folder?”

  “I wasn’t sure you knew how to work a computer.”

  “Seriously?”

  Harry shrugged. “Okay. Here.” He handed me the remote. “Start the Plastic presentation.”

  I’d never operated PowerPoint before, but I’d dug myself a pride hole and now had to save face or admit defeat. The remote had a ball on it that moved the cursor, so I clicked on the word plastic.

  A horribly disgusting picture came up on the screen.

  Harry McGlade, naked, about to do something, possibly illegal, with a watermelon.

  “Wrong folder, Jackie. Those are my website membership pics.”

  I tried to get the presentation to change, but the next photo came up.

  McGlade again, naked again, this time about to penetrate the mouth of a carved jack o’lantern.

  “Sort of looks like the President,” Phin mused.

  For a few seconds everyone studied the pic in silence.

  “Your Photoshop isn’t up to par,” Tom said.

  “Maybe it isn’t Photoshop. Maybe I’m really fourteen inches.”

  “Are your fingers fourteen inches too?”

  Harry squinted at his picture. “Damn. I need to fix that.”

  I began pressing random buttons, hoping to stop the slide show, and another picture flashed on the TV.

  McGlade, making a fake-surprised face, on the receiving end of an eggplant.

  “What is up with you and fruit?” Roy said.

  “Eggplants are vegetables.”

  Roy pressed. “And you don’t think that’s wrong?”

  “I made sure it was over 18 years old. I have the signed consent form.”

  I started pressing buttons randomly, hoping to stop it.

  Next pic, McGlade, naked and washing a Corvette.

  Next pic, McGlade naked, his penis on fire.

  “That one is hot,” Harry said.

  “You could also say you’re flaming,” Roy said.

  “Serving up a red hot,” Tom said.

  “You should see a doctor about that burning sensation,” Phin said.

  Everyone looked at me, awaiting my turn.

  “Talk about blazing a joint,” I said.

  Women can pun, too.

  Next pic, McGlade, doing something obscene and indescribable.

  “Jackie, remember when you asked me what a brass clown is?”

  “That’s a brass clown?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s messier than I expected.”

  “And illegal in a few states. The backwards ones.”

  “I can’t unsee that.”

  “But you know you and Phin will try it later.”

  “No, we won’t.”

  Next pic, McGlade, naked and doing a chin-up.

  “I’m surprised you can do a chin-up,” Phin said.

  “Photoshop again. Also, you all owe me $3.99. That’s my website membership fee.”

  I finally managed to get out of the presentation and return to the home screen.

  “You ready to give up, Jackie? Fair warning, one of these presentations contains all the photos I sent to RateMyPoop.com.”

  “Ain’t no such website,” Roy said.

  “Check it.”

  Roy tapped on his phone. “Day-am! It’s real.”

  He passed his phone to Tom, who winced. “Our species has sunk to a new low. We can only hope an asteroid wipes us all out.”

  I handed Harry the remote.

  “Moving right along, here’s the presentation Jack could have clicked on if she had even the barest hint of competence.”

  I hadn’t enjoyed seeing McGlade in the buff.

  But what he showed next was a lot worse.

  “First victim. Marlena Canderhurst, twenty-six years old. Abducted four hundred and fifty-eight days ago. She’d been having a drink in a bar in Del Rey, and woke up handcuffed to a bed, with this done to her.”

  What had been done didn’t look Photoshopped. It looked real as real can get.

  “Plastic removed her areola and nipples, and all breast tissue and extra skin, then placed the silicone implants in her back, over her shoulder blades, reattaching the nipples. While she healed, he kept her in what she called a room that looked like a hospital, for a week. No windows. No way to escape. When she tried to scream, or attack him, he drugged her. Here’s the tattoo he put on her front, where her breasts were.”

  Over the stitches, a single word written in black block letters.

  BECKY.

  “Who’s Becky?” Tom asked.

  “Becky chases Chad, Chad marries Stacy.”

  “Incel speak,” I said.

  Reading up on hate groups was one of my many dysfunctional hobbies. Incels were a relatively recent, ugly offshoot of the mens rights movement. Some activists campaigned for fairer family law practices, concerning divorce and child custody, and there was some merit there. But the antifeminists, and those men who felt women oppressed them or owed them, were largely misogynists.

  McGlade nodded. “Incels are a self-identified internet group of guys who call themselves involuntarily celibate. Some are just lonely guys wondering why they can’t get laid, others are toxic haters who think all women owe them a blowjob. According to the groupthink, a Chad is a typical handsome alpha male. Dimple in his chin, six pack abs, goes to a Big Ten school and joins his Daddy’s frat. All women want to get with Chads, because of their looks and status. Chads wind up with Stacys, who are the super attractive alpha females. The ones who turn heads when they walk by. Beckys are average women, though some incels also tag them as man-hating feminazis. They also want to get with Chads, even if it is just as a side chick.”

  “And some guys actually believe this shit?” Phin asked.

  Harry shrugged. “Attractive and famous men and women can pick and choose. And average women can go into a bar and pretty much always get picked up. So can gay men. Straight men cannot. We can argue about gender differences and genetics and sexism and society and a hundred other things, but it’s a good guess that a lot more men want to get laid than actually are getting laid, and some of them blame women.”

  “These incels,” Tom said, “are they normally violent?”

  “Like any hate group, they can work each other up on the Internet. Reddit, the Chans, darknet, and so on. Some are incited to violence. There have been mass shootings linked to those who identify as incel, and thousands of incidents of violence against women; assault, rape, murder.”

  “So Plastic is a misogynist,” I said.

  Harry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it.”

  Huh? “Are you defending him?”

  “No.”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t see the joke here, Harry.”

  “Look… we all know that beauty, and status, play a part in mate selection, even if it’s subconscious. We’re drawn to attractive people. People with symmetry. People with the preferred chest to hip ratio. This is indisputable, and remarkably consistent across all cultures.”

  Phin said, “This isn’t about attraction. It’s about hate.”

  “If you can’t have what you’re attracted to, it can cause negative emotions. Envy. Jealousy. Hate. You know the scene in the Matrix where Keanu is offered the red pill or the blue pill? The red pill is harsh reality, the blue pill is blissful ignorance. Incels believe they have been blackpilled. They think it is hopeless to find a partner.”

&n
bsp; McGlade sounded sympathetic, and I wasn’t having any.

  “Then the men who feel hopeless need to try harder,” I said. “In the animal kingdom, males put on elaborate displays to attract females. They spend a lot of time making themselves sexually appealing. Showing the females they are worth being with. All animals want to mate. Not every animal gets to. Maybe it sounds callous, but if you aren’t finding anyone interested in you, join a gym. Work hard and succeed. Practice your people skills. Learn to like yourself. Respect others. Follow your passions. Be confident, not a whiner. Make the world better. Women are attracted to more than just a good body or playing bass in a rock band.”

  “I agree, Jackie. But be honest. Which gender has more power and choices when it comes to dating? Who dates more? Unless the men are really cute, or rich, or famous, I’m pretty sure they aren’t having as much sex, or have been in as many relationships, as the average woman.”

  “The term incel was coined by a woman,” I told him. “There have been times I wasn’t asked to dance, or invited to prom, or when I was ignored while men flaunted over some supermodel-level hottie in the same room.”

  “I’m not saying everyone doesn’t get rejected. I’m just saying the proportions aren’t equal, and some men are bitter because of it. Believe it or not, I didn’t slay ass back in my day.”

  “To the surprise of no one,” Roy said.

  McGlade was insult-proof. “I wasn’t rich, wasn’t famous, my looks are average on a good day. The people that interested me tended to avoid me.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but that was largely a personality issue, McGlade.”

  “That’s part of my point. My personality hasn’t changed, Jackie. But now I can get laid whenever I want. Even though I’m older and gained weight and lost a hand. Why do I have this newfound sex appeal? Fame. Money.”

  “Confidence,” Tom said. “People are attracted to confidence.”

  “Sure. But my younger, broker, unconfident self would have found that unfair.”

  I dug in. “Women don’t owe any man, or anyone, anything. Sex isn’t an entitlement. It’s something that is shared, with consent. Like any relationship with anyone, it needs to be earned. And sometimes it can’t ever be earned. Women shouldn’t have to apologize if they don’t find someone attractive.”