The Winner: Part Seventeen

For not being under arrest, I sure feel like I prisoner.

I’m sitting in a gray interrogation room with fluorescent light bearing down on me from the two excessively bright lamps on the ceiling. There’s an institutional metal table in front of me with a paper cup filled with rancid coffee one of the cops got for me from the break room. A clump of powdered creamer spins on the surface. I take a sip of it just to jolt my mind into gear.

I’ve been sitting here for a half hour now. I got to the station an hour ago. When I first arrived, the Sergeant on Duty offered (then insisted when I initially turned him down) me a shower in their locker room. One of the cops who brought me in escorted me down there. I really didn’t care whether I took one or not. Afterwards, I still didn’t feel clean. Sitting in my own shit for almost a day had already left a rash on my ass that burned whenever I walked. Afterwards, they gave me a clean set of clothes they had from a charity box: a pair of green sweatpants that was a size too big and a Dwight Yoakam concert T-shirt that was two sizes too small. I don’t know what happened to my old clothes but they can chuck them in the dumpster for all I care.

I hear someone unlock the door behind me (I wasn’t even aware it was locked, which deepens my paranoia). Two men in charcoal gray business suits walk in, who I assume are the “defs” those two pig assholes were referring to. They mutter a hello to me as they pull up chairs and start laying out some files on the table in front of me. To my additional dismay, they also set out a tape recorder.

“Mr. Peanutz,” the first guy says. “I’m Agent D’anci from the FBI Western Divison. This is my partner, Agent Johnson. We had you brought in to answer a few questions.”

Agent Johnson doesn’t say anything, he just studiously picks through the file in front of him. I’m betting he’s the one whose gonna play the “bad cop”.

Questions, the one thing I don’t want to answer. “Before I answer anything, can I ask you something?”

Agent D’anci nods, “Go ahead and ask.”

“What is going on here? Am I under arrest?”

He shakes his head. “You are not under arrest, but you have been named as a ‘person of interest’ in a kidnapping. We’re hoping you can shed some light and possibly help us resolve this situation quickly.”

“Our best chance to solve a kidnapping typically comes within the first seventy-two hours, before the perps can go to ground,” Agent Johnson adds, still not looking up from his file.”

Agent D’anci presses the red button on the recorder to turn it on. “Mr. Peanutz, do you know a woman by the name of Angela Clements?”

I’m assuming that’s Apple’s real name. “Blonde, kinda skinny? Big nose?”

“Yes, that’s her. She went to the police tonight to report that her infant children had been forcibly taken from her home that morning by some unknown perpetrators. She also said that the men mentioned you by name and that when she told you about this, you went off to meet with these men, presumably to pay a ransom. Is this true?”

“Yes,” I say, then I immediately realize that was a stupid move. If they think I know something, then I’m gonna have to help them which will make Van Hertzwelder think I’m going to the police to turn them in. I’ll be a dead man in no time.

Hell, maybe I should just tell the FBI everything; about the kidnapping, about the assassination plot. I’ve got nowhere else to go. However, there is also the possibility that these FBI agents were sent by Van Hertzwelder to see if I’ll break under questioning. That would fuck me up even worse.

“Is the modified Tracfone you had in your possessions the same as the one Ms. Clements gave you today, which she said was from the kidnappers.”

I nod.

“Please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’,” Agent Johnson says, pointing towards the recorder.

“Yes,” I say. Again I wonder if admitting this is a good idea. I’m pretty sure I’ll feel this way through this whole interrogation. “At least, that’s what she told me.”

“What did she tell you?”

“That some guys kidnapped her kids, gave her that phone and told her to give it to me,” I say. “Keep in mind, I didn’t see any of this so I don’t even know if it happened or not. Someone called me on the line and told me to meet them in a parking garage if she wanted to see them again.”

“Did they ask you to deliver some sort of ransom?”

“No. They just wanted me to meet them.”

“Why would they go to so much trouble just to meet you?” Agent D’anci asks. “Are you that hard to meet?”

I don’t answer that.

“Where was this meeting to take place?”

I gave him the location of a parking garage that wasn’t the one I actually went to. I have to throw them off the trail somehow. “Can you describe the men you met there in as much detail as you can?”

“I can’t,” I say. “They never showed up there. I waited where they told me for an hour and they never showed up.”

“And they never tried to contact you again?”

I shook my head. Agent Johnson pointed at the recorder, so I say “No.”

“What did you do after they didn’t show up to the meeting?”

“I just wandered around the city for awhile. I ended up falling asleep in the park and that’s when those officers found me.”

“You just wandered around all day?” Agent D’anci says. “You wouldn’t happen to know of anyone that could corroborate that?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I say. “I’m sure someone on the street remembers a guy walking around who smelled like he shat his pants.”

“Did you go into any businesses? Any place someone would recognize you?”

I throw up my hands. “What did I just say?”

“I’m just trying to help you here,” Agent D’anci says. “You must realize how bizarre this looks. Somebody kidnaps a woman’s kids, tells you to meet them somewhere but then don’t show up, and afterwards you just walk around like a homeless person with a load of shit in your pants and fall asleep in the park.”

“I’ve been under a lot of stress,” I say dryly.

“You do realize everything you’ve told us so far raises far more questions than answers,” Agent Johnson says. “For one, what’s your relationship to Ms. Clements? Why would someone kidnap her children to get to you?”

“We’re friends.”

“Really? How long have you known each other?”

I sigh. “Not long.”

Both the FBI guys look at me like they want me to elaborate more, but I don’t. Finally, Agent D’anci says.

“Listen Mr. Peanutz, Ms. Clements told us everything. She said the two of you have some sort of arrangement where you give her money and she relieves certain, well, fetishes, of yours. Though, I think that if I’d just won the lottery and wanted to play sugar daddy, I’d have probably picked a better looking girl than her, but to each their own.”

I still sit there, stony and silent.

“Is that how you would characterize your relationship with Ms. Clements, because if that’s what’s keeping you from telling us the truth, let me assure you it shouldn’t. We’re just here to investigate the kidnapping, not any crimes secondary to that.”

Well, they know. There’s not much I can do to deny it, so I answer, “Yes. I help Apple out with money for her kids and she…helps me out.”

“With what Poopy?” Agent Johnson says. “Your incontinence problem? Cause some of the stuff she says you’re into I wouldn’t do to a damn dog.”

I cock my eyebrow at him, “You want me to go into detail.”

“How did you meet her?”

I tell them about the night at Friday’s and how she caught my eye. I kind of ramble on and I feel on the verge of tears towards the end. I have to admit, talking does make me feel better, even if it’s to some assholes from the federal government.

“You are a real winner Poopy, picking up chicks from on of the most ghetto-assed strip club in this town,” Agent Johnson says. “But when you picked her, you must have doubled down.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m trying to tell you the truth here.”

Agent Johnson smiles, “Yeah, right…” he says. “Not only do you happen to pick up a girl from the nastiest titty club in this town, you managed to pick the one girl who was the old lady of one of the captains of one of the biggest biker gangs west of the Mississippi. A guy who we caught transporting a fuckton of pure Chinese meth across state lines. Some real Shabu, not some shit a guy made by boiling some cough syrup and picking the crystals of a dirt rug. You never met her old man, did you?”

Where the fuck was this going?

“I might have seen him once or twice when I dropped her off at her trailer, but we never talked. I knew he was a biker, but I didn’t know he was in a gang.”

“His name was Luke Clements. His street name was something like Scratch or Scrape or something cliché like that, but most people know him as Luke. You sure you never met him?”

“I…might have had a beer with him, but that was all.”

Agent Johnson leaned back and smiled. This fucker knows something.”

“You want to know something funny. We can’t find Luke anywhere. His gang buddies don’t know where he is. Angela doesn’t know where he is. He seems to have disappeared right off that face of the earth. Now, I know, I know…that’s not very funny. The funny part is that he ended up disappearing right after he turned state’s evidence. After catching him transporting that much weight over state lines, we could have set the bail so high that no one could make it. But we wanted to roll up some of his buddies in this investigation, so we gave him a taste of freedom, then brought him in and hit him with the number of years he’d be facing and what he could do to get out of serving those years. He decided to cut a deal with us right then and there. He didn’t even tell Angela about this. He goes missing the day before he’s supposed to be interviewed by the DEA and Homeland Security for this. This all adding up to be quite a number of coincidences, wouldn’t you say?”

“You just got out of prison less than a year ago,” Agent D’anci says. “And when you were inside, your cellmate was Armando Herrera. ‘El Diablo’ they called him. Did he tell you that him and his crew are the biker’s direct competition in the meth trade in the west?”

I can’t even keep up with this any more. “Listen, I’ll ask you again, am I under arrest?”

“No, you are not. But we can detain someone without charges for up to eight hours for questioning. You’ve only been here for less than one.”

“Bikers, prison, I don’t know what information you think you think you’ve got. Frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m not saying anything else until you’ve got me your lawyer. So go get me one.”

“Get your own,” Johnson says. “You’re not under arrest. That means no public defender for you..”

“Fine, bring me my phone I’ll make some calls.”

Agent D’anci looks over at Agent Johnson, who gets up and leaves the interrogation room to get my phone.

“Poopy, are you concerned about the safe retrieval of Ms. Clement’s children?”

“Of course.”

“Then, you are admitting a kidnapping has taken place,” he says. “Is the reason you are reluctant to talk to us because you’re implicated in this kidnapping?”

Nice try, asshole. I just stare at him until Agent Johnson comes back with my cell phone. It’s not the one that Burke gave to me, but rather my personal RAZR. That’s fine, that’s all I need. The two of them stay in the room like they want something.

“I need some privacy,” I say. “And I’ve watched cop shows before. If I’m talking to my lawyer, everything I say is inadmissible, so you might as well turn off any bugs you have in the room.”

“Why would we need to bug the conversations of an innocent man?” Agent Johnson asks.

“Come on,” Agent D’anci says. He and his partner exit the room. I am unnerved, but not surprised to hear them lock the door behind them. I turn away from the door so they can’t see me. Just as I flip the phone open and start going through my address book, it starts beeping. I have a new text message coming through, sender blocked:

POOPY WE KNOW WHERE U R AND HOPE U R NOT DOING OR SAYING ANYTHING STUPID. U CANT HIDE FROM US. ERASE THIS IMMEDIATELY. U CANT TRACK THE SENDER OR REPLY. UR BUDDY B.

Fuck, they know where I am. However, if they’re close enough to know when to send a text message the second the FBI have left the interrogation room, then they probably know I haven’t said anything implicating them or letting them in on the conspiracy. This was all an accident and not my fault. On the other hand, I don’t imagine Burke is the type who has a really loose notion of assessing fault. If he suspects I’m even close to ratting them out, I’m sure he’ll find a way to silence me. I have to get out of here quick.

Of course, I don’t have a lawyer, so I call Sergei, figuring he probably knows one.

“Mr. Peanutz! Haven’t heard from you for awhile!” he says. Sergei sounds more than a little drunk and I can barely hear him over the rap music playing in the background. “You should come to Club Chernobyl. DJ Kremlin is spinning here tonight. He’s wrecking the decks! He’s part of the KGB syndicate!”

“You know people in the KGB?” I say incredulously.

“Of course. The Killa Ganja Beats is best hip-hop in all of Russia.”

Dammit, why did we have to introduce free markets to those communist bastards. “Listen Sergei, I need you help. Do you know any lawyers?”

“I know people who know lawyers. You in trouble?”

“Yes. The police are detaining me.”

I hear some rustling in the background, doors slamming, Sergei yelling something at some people in Russian. He must have ran into the bathroom or something so he could hear. “You’re with the police Poopy. How come? This doesn’t have anything to do with that thing you asked me to do for you earlier, does it?”

“What thing? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sergei, please don’t be stupid and talk about that over the phone. Conversations with my lawyer are protected, but not ones with you, and I’m very sure that those FBI agents are next door listening to this call. “Look Sergei, I just got a booked on a DUI, that’s all. I just want you to send me a lawyer who can get me out of jail tonight.”

“It’s midnight,” Sergei says. “Any lawyer I call now will want a large retainer to get them out of bed at this hour.”

“Ballpark?”

“Two-thousand dollars.”

“You know I’m good for two thousand dollars.” I tell Sergei which police station I’m being held at and he says to hold tight, he’d make some calls and send a lawyer to get me out of here.

Here’s Sergei, saving my ass once again. I wonder if I should tell him about the whole conspiracy plot, especially since he’s likely to get caught up in it when it goes down. Yeah…probably. Hell, he probably can get us all flown to Russia or something, out of the grip of Van Hertzwelder and his goons. I’d have to be careful about it though. And now is definitely not the time.

I wrap up the phone call and I can hear the door unlocking almost immediately. Agent Johnson steps back in the door.. The timing makes me pretty positive that they were listening in on the conversation.

“I see you’re finished with your call,” he says, grinning. Fuck it, who cares if they were listening in. I doubt it was enough to tie Sergei in with the kidnapping.

“Did you get your great powers of observation from FBI school, Captain Obvious?”

“My colleague and can’t question you further until your lawyer shows up. So I thought we’d leave someone here to keep you company. Perhaps she can help jar your memory.”

He pushes the door open further and Apple steps into the room. She’s got bandages over the cuts on her face and her hand is in a cast. Her face is swollen up so much I can’t tell what sort of expression she has.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Agent Johnson says with a smirk on his face. He shuts the door, but doesn’t lock it this time.

“Apple!” I say with as much mock enthusiasm as I can. “Are you doing all right? How are you feeling?” I get up and embrace her but she doesn’t embrace me back. I whisper in her ear, “They probably have the room bugged. Be careful what you say.”

I let go of her. She says nothing, just reaches in her pocket and pulls out a bottle of Vicodin. She struggles to open it with her wrapped up hand.

“Here, I’ll help you with that,” I say, taking the bottle. Apple starts crying.

“I just need one. They’re for the pain in my mouth.”

I shake out one Vicodin, snap the bottle shut and hand it back to her. Apple dry swallows the pill.

“Poopy…why aren’t you helping the FBI persons?” Apple says. “Didn’t you see my children? Were they there?”

“No, they weren’t there,” I say. “No one was there when I went there. Apple, why did you go to the police? Those people you who beat you up told you not to involve them.”

“I got scared,” she says, starting to sob some more. “When you didn’t come back, I thought they might have taken you too. I thought I was all alone, Poopy. Please don’t be mad.”

I guess I can’t fault her logic, even though it might get us killed in the end.

“What do these people want? Do they want money? Why won’t you give it to them?”

“These people couldn’t care less about money,” I say.

“But I thought you said you didn’t meet them? Poopy, why are the police all saying that you’re lying to them?”

I lean in closer and start whispering in her ear again. “I can’t talk about it here. I’ll tell you once we’re out of here, just trust me, I can’t say anything here.”

“What do you know, Poopy!” her voice is getting louder now. “If you know anything that can get my children back you tell those cops, right now.”

“I don’t know anything that can help them,” I say.

“Bullshit,” she spits. “I don’t even think you know how to get my kids back. I’m gonna do everything the FBI tells me to do.”

I grab her by her swollen face and get face to face with me. “Listen you dumb cunt,” I sneer. “If you want to see your kids ever again, you will do exactly what I tell you to do. The people who have them will kill them, they will kill me, and they will kill you unless you go out to those FBI agents, right now and tell them this is all just a hoax. You tell them your kids are fine, that you made up this story because you’re mad at me and wanted to get me in trouble. They’ll probably charge you with giving false information to the police, but that’s okay because I’ll get a lawyer to get you out of trouble.”

“If I do that, how do I know I’ll get my babies back?”

“I don’t know, but you have to trust me Apple…”

“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” she screams. “STOP CALLING ME THAT. MY NAME IS ANGIE, NOT APPLE! THAT’S NOT ME, I’M NOT APPLE”

I let go of her face and she pounces on me, knocking me back flat against the ground. She starts pounding on my chest. “MY NAME IS NOT APPLE YOU SICK FUCK! WHERE ARE MY KIDS! TELL ME NOW!”

The cops hear the commotion inside the room and come tearing in. It takes two of them to pry Apple off me. She struggles as they pull her out of the interrogation room, still screaming “WHERE ARE MY BABIES POOPY? WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN YOU PIECE OF SHIT?”

I’m winded and the cops remaining in the room don’t help me to my feet. Once I’m up, I hold onto the table to steady myself. Agent D’anci comes back into the room.

“Mr. Peanutz, all I can say is that you really got a way with women.”

The Winner: Part Sixteen

I was in a state of shock. I wandered around the city in a state of pure shock. I couldn’t think, I could only walk. I was so out of it, I almost got creamed by a bus crossing the street. I just kept walking. The angry shouts of the bus driver and his passengers nothing but an afterthought.

After going around like that for a few hours, I finally sat down on a bench in the park and sat down. I don’t know how long I was sitting there when two annoyingly cheery dudes in yellow shirts came up to me. According to their T-shirts, they were part of some Christian homeless outreach program. They handed me a pamphlet, a bologna sandwich, and a bag of potato chips.

“We’re just goin’ around today letting you that Jesus loves you and is looking out for you bro. Tomorrow is a new day!”

I don’t say a thing, I just stare at them and they move along to find the next bum they can try and save their souls with. If it wasn’t the empty, angry look in my eyes that prompted them to move on, then surely they must have caught a whiff of the load of shit drying in my pants. After they are gone, I decide to try and eat the bologna sandwich. I get down maybe four bites before I puke it all back up onto the sidewalk in front of the bench. Some of the vomit dribbles off my chin and down the front of my shirt. I no longer only smelled like shit, I was also covered in vomit. How much lower could I go?

That’s when I was able to actually compose my first thought since I left the garage. While it wasn’t all that profound, it hit me with the power of a religious revelation: my only way out of this situation is to slide off the radar completely. Don’t go home, don’t find an ATM and withdraw more cash or use your credit card. Through a freak turn of fate, you won a lottery and briefly tasted money and power. But this is what I really am, sitting on a graffiti scrawled park bench, smelling like shit and caked in vomit. Now, the only way to survive is to embrace what I really am. Go off the radar completely and never return to the life I’ve been living. Begin again at zero.

I entertain the idea of doing that long enough for it to be pleasant. Then reality slowly chipped away at it. For one, there was no way Van Hertzwelder would let me live. Even if I didn’t know about their conspiracy, he was still pissed enough about his date rapist son that he’d spare no expense trying to get me. And if I was cut off from all my resources, there would be no way I could hide from him for long.

Besides that, running right now would pretty much condemn Apple, her babies, and my mother to death. Burke is right about me; I am a piece of shit, but I’m not so horrible as to let everyone around me fucking die to just to save my own ass.

So, I was back to square one on how the hell I was gonna get out of this mess. I sigh. It was too much to think about and I’m exhausted, so I lay down on that filthy bench and take a nap. The only dreams I’ve been having lately are bad ones, but the one I had on bench was the kind of dream you want to live in forever. It wasn’t much. I was in some sort of normal house, which looked vaguely like my mother’s house, but without the grime and religious nick-nacks and it also seemed to have a basement. I had some good, not-too-important but still respectable job. What it was, I don’t know, but that’s the incomplete nature of dream logic.

Apple was there, but she was different. She didn’t have that white trash, gutter gawkiness about her. She was cleaned up. She looked beautiful and more than that, she looked happy, almost luminous. She was in the kitchen, making some sort of casserole and her babies were there, only they were about six years older than they are now. They run around the kitchen and Apple playfully tells them to finish their homework before dinner. I sit at the table while they work on math problems, reading the newspaper. There is a tie loosened around my neck.

Even in the dream, I knew this world was nothing but merry suburban complacency; the supposed American Dream. But dammit, I’d give anything to have it now, that dull but happy existence.

This self-awareness only starts around the same time I’m aware of someone firmly jostling my shoulder.

“Wake up sir. You need to wake up.”

They’re shining a flashlight in my eyes. It’s some fucking cops. I mumble something groggily, then slowly sit up on the bench. It’s the dead of night now. How long did I sleep?

“Sir, do you have some identification?” the cop who was jostling me says. He strips off the rubber glove he used to touch me with a snap.

I reach for my wallet, but all I feel is the wet seat of my pants where the shit soaked through. Fuck, someone must have stolen it while I was sleeping. “I don’t have any,” I say to the officer. “Why do you need it? Are you arresting me?”

“No,” he says. “But it’s illegal to sleep in the park after dark. We’re giving you a ticket for that and for public intoxication.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m just tired,” I say.

“Tell it to the judge. Can we have you name and social security number?”

“Poopy Patrick Peanutz,” I say. Having just woken up, it takes me a moment to recall my social security number, but I rattle that off too.

The second officer with the flashlight keys his radio and says, “Unit six-niner requesting a warrant check on a Poopy Patrick Peanutz with this SS number…”

“You know,” the cop says while scribbling something into his ticket book, “If you’re tired, there’s a shelter on 29^th St. They accept people up until ten as long as you’re sober, like you say you are.”

“I’m not homeless,” I grumble. “Just give me the ticket so I can go home.”

“Just trying to help,” he says, continuing to write on the ticket. “But you should definitely go somewhere and take a shower. Whatever it is you’ve been rolling in, it can’t be hygienic.”

I don’t say anything else, I just want him to hurry up and finish writing out the ticket, which seems to be taking forever. It looks like he’s nearly done when the other officer’s radio squawks back. “Unit six-niner, be advised, name and social provided for warrant check is positive for an APB on a witness in a possible two-oh-seven. Detain and bring to second district headquarters. There are some defs here prepping to interview him.”

What the fuck?

“Sir, please stand up,” the cop says. I notice his partner back up a couple paces and subtly undo the clasp on his holster. “We need you to come with us.”

“What’s going on? What’s this about?”

“We’ve been ordered to bring you in for questioning. That’s all we know.”

“Am I under arrest?”

The cop shrugs, “If that’s the way you want to do it. The only thing I do know is that one way or the other you’re coming with us. The brass don’t fuck around when it comes to a two-oh-seven.”

Oh well, what choice do I have here? I stand up and the cop puts a hand on my shoulder, leading me insistently to their car stationed at the edge of the park. They don’t bother to put cuffs on me. What the hell is going on here? I wonder if they are even real cops or if this is all just another thing Van Hertzwelder is doing to mindfuck me into going along with his scheme.

Anyway, I get into the back, caged part of the police cruiser and try to make myself comfortable. I can hear the two cops gag as they hop into the front seats. Fuck them. I know I smell like shit, they don’t have to make such a show of it. After rolling down their windows, they peel out and flash their lights and run a red light, anything to minimize the amount of time they have to spend with me in an enclosed space.

“Am I in trouble here?” I ask the cops.

“I have no idea. You can’t be in too much trouble though if you don’t have a warrant. But if the defs want to talk to you, I can’t very well let you just walk off.”

“What the fuck is a def? Hell, what the fuck is a two-oh-seven since that’s what I’m being questioned about.”

“Def is FBI. You know…’feds’ spelled backwards. Kinda an inside joke in our department…”

Hardee-har-har. These guys will have their own sitcom in no time. If the FBI wants to talk to me though, it can’t be good.

“A two-oh-seven is radio code for a kidnapping, so you must know something pretty important if the feds are here waiting to question you. You know anything about a kidnapping, Stinky?”

Both of the cops start chuckling. I don’t say anything, I just stew. My bad situation just gets worse and worse.

The Winner: Part Fifteen

“What…the…fuck?” I say, though it’s hard to say anything with a someone’s forearm against my windpipe. “I didn’t do shit! Why are you doing this?”

Carl Van Hertzwelder has finally gotten his composure back. “Let him speak, Burke. I’m interested in hearing how this scumbag can explain away killing my son.”

Mr. Burke coolly pulls away his wrist. I immediately suck in a lungful of air and start rubbing my sore trachea.

“I don’t know what the fuck you guys are thinking, but I didn’t kill Chad,” I say. “He killed himself, and in quite a disgusting way I might add. I had to sleep in the gym for a few days while they cleaned him out of my cell.”

Carl Van Hertzwelder smirks, “Keep telling yourself that. He killed himself because of the constant sexual assault he had to endure at your hands, Mr. Peanutz.”

“No one can prove that,” I say, though I doubt these fuckers are too concerned with airtight standards of proof.

“My assistant went to visit Chad a few times during his short stint in jail with you; mostly to deliver money he could use in the commissary. He observed that it was likely that Chad had been—what do you homos call it?—‘turned out’ and forced to feminize himself in order to garner protection.

“When we confronted him regarding this, Chad vehemently denied he was being forced to perform homosexual practices. However, knowing him as I do, Chad was a willful young man. He was too proud to admit he was being raped.

“Because of his denials, when he ended up dead, we had no idea who it was that forced him into this perverted arrangement. The prison board was far from thorough with their investigation, despite the amount of money I contributed to the election of the politicians who appointed them. So I hired my own investigators to work on it.

“Of course, getting information was difficult because of the riot, especially with all the media sniffing around the place. But after a few months, when that scandal died down we finally made some headway. We offered some of the surviving members of Trey-Dog’s gang pro-bono legal work in return for giving me the name of Chad’s rapist. And they all pointed their fingers at you, Mr. Peanutz…”

“Jesus Christ!” I yell. “You’re gonna believe some fucking gang-members you paid to tell you the truth? Those guys all it in for me over some other shit.”

“Poopy…can I call you Poopy?…they explained their whole arrangement they had with you. How they were blackmailing you into killing another prisoner, the event that caused that whole riot in the first place. And it wasn’t just the gang-members. Other prisoners corroborated their story.”

I sigh. Fuck. There’s no way to convincing these guys I’m innocent of this stuff (although, everything they’re saying is pretty accurate). “Well, if you knew so much, why didn’t you just go to the courts and have my sentence extended? What’s up with the cloak and dagger stuff?”

“There’s a couple reasons,” Van Hertzwelder says, steepling his hands on his lap. “For one, by the time we put all this together, you had already been released. Besides, as a lawyer, I can tell you that most of the evidence we put together would be inadmissible in a court.

“Two…I don’t want to just put you back in jail Poopy. I want you fucking dead and in Hell where you belong.”

Fuck, I knew this was coming, and to be honest, at this point I don’t care. “Well, if your gonna do it then hey, I’m here. Do it,” I say. “Just give Apple back her kids. They don’t have anything to do with this.”

“Believe me, I tempted,” Van Hertzwelder says. “But Burke is right. We have plans for you.”

“Pray tell.”

“You’re going to kill the President of the United States.”

I start laughing so hard my ribs hurt. I do this until I realize that Van Hertzwelder and Mr. Burke aren’t laughing. “Are you fucking serious?”

Van Hertzwelder says nothing, he just nods.

“I don’t know how much you talked to those gang members I was in jail with, but I’m not all that good at the assassination thing.”

“Don’t worry,” Van Hertzwelder says. “The actual killing part we’ve already got pretty much set up. We have a mole in the Secret Service that can expedite that. What we really need is a patsy, which is where you come in.”

“Why do you want me to kill Bush?” I ask. I thought that fucker made you fat-cat types panties wet.

“I’ll let Mr. Burke explain this one.”

Burke clears his throat, then turns to face me. “Mr. Van Hertzwelder has been looking into running for president next year. In fact, he’s been looking into running for several years now and has quietly gotten the backing of most high level neo-conservatives, as well as an endorsement from the Project for the New American Century.

“Unfortunately, neo-conservativism has come into great disrepute with the majority of American due to the Iraq War. All of our analysts indicate that a platform that sticks too closely to Bush’s foreign policy will be a political liability. Unfortunately, Mr. Van Hertzwelder will have to have such a platform since that is the condition of his PNAC endorsement.”

“Well then why do you want Bush dead?” I ask. “He sounds like your dream politician.”

“We have no beef with his policies,” Mr. Burke says. “In fact, we wholeheartedly support them. The problem is, Bush is a lame duck now. Almost every bit of his political influence has eroded away. In order to perpetuate his policies, we have determined that Bush will have to die.

“We expect that in the wake of a successful assassination of the POTUS, there will be a sort of ‘Camelot Effect’. After the JFK assassination, it was easy for Johnson to escalate US involvement in Vietnam. We are counting on a similar reaction in order to escalate the scope of our activities in the Middle East, especially when it comes to light that the assassin was a sleeper Islamic extremist with ties to Al Qaeda.”

“Well homie, you fucked up since I’m far from being an Islamic extremist with ties to Al Qaeda.”

Burke shrugs. “Perhaps in reality, but we can spin your background to make it look that way. We’ve been investigating you for some time Mr. Peanutz. You know your friend Sergei? The syndicate, of which he is a minor member, is heavily involved in money laundering. Some of that is done for terrorist groups all over the world. We even have evidence of some assault rifles they sold that ended up in the hands of Sunni insurgents.

“Also, your friend from Africa that you’ve been corresponding with…Ugundo I believe it is. Ugundo is the leader of a terrorist cell that invests in conflict diamonds. Through one of our back channels, we advised him that you were a contact inside the United States that could provide him with funding. He's been communicating to you in code in the last few letters."

"I didn't know that guy was a terrorist," I say. "I was just fucking with him, I wasn't gonna send him any money."

"We were just amazed that you've actually been writing him back. We've had pretty much every two-bit organization on the terrorist watch list sending you coded solicitations for money and logistics. So far you've been flying under the radar of the intelligence community, but with one call from us to the NSA, you could be in Guantanamo Bay."

I sit back. Something doesn't make sense with all this. "Your plan is interesting. But you're a bunch of fucking idiots if you don't see the gaping flaws in it."

Van Hertzwelder snorts. "Please...enlighten us."

"Okay," I say leaning forward. "First of all, Russian mobsters? Nigerian Islamic terrorists? Al Qaeda? How does this all make sense that I'd be killing the president?"

"It doesn't need to make sense," he says. "Let the conspiracy nuts make sense of it. As long as your record is sufficiently distracting to deflect suspicion from the principals, it will work."

"Very well," I say. "Which brings us to your second problem: how do you expect an ex-convict still under probation with all these supposed terrorist ties to get within a mile of the President?"

"That's a good question," Van Hertzwelder says. "I give this one to Burke as well."
Burke clears his throat. "As I said, we have a mole inside the Secret Service who can paper over any minor impediments to having a face to face encounter with the President. Your cover story will be one of an ex-convict who wins the lottery within a few months of being released. You decided to change your ways and credit your windfall to God and doing the Lord's work and use half of your considerable fortune to set up a scholarship fund for minorities. Christian, Republican minorities that is."

"Again, something I haven't done..."

Burke smiles, condescendingly. "You will. According to our records, you have a little over five hundred thousand dollars left in your accounts. We already have lawyers setting up the paperwork for your non-profit scholarship fund. All you will have to do is sign the checks..."

"Your winning the lottery was the thing that made me realize we could use you," Van Hertzwelder says. "Otherwise, you would have been dead weeks ago."

Burke coughs, signaling to Van Hertzwelder that he should let him finish.

"At the same time, we will be using journalists we've planted in the major media outlets to triumph the story of your 'miraculous conversion' and charity. Smile, you'll get some face time on Fox News when we set this up."

I don't smile. I really want to bite this nigger's nose off. I would if I wasn't certain he'd beat me to death afterwards.

He continues: "Since the President is making one last go at his 'faith-based charities' initiatives, we'll arrange through his Chief of Staff for the two of you to have a meeting, some PR for his bill that will look good for the cameras. This is when you will detonate explosives we will have attached to your person after you've been searched by security."

"Can't I just shoot him or something?" I ask. Burke gives a faggy little giggle.

"I'm afraid it's imperative that you die in the attack. Afterwards, we will leak the story about your alleged terrorist ties, blame the lapse in security on some whistleblowers in the NSA and FBI who have been giving us problems in the press, and everyone comes out ahead. Except you, that is."

Van Hertzwelder smiles. Even though I've been told I'm expected to die in this whole thing, I smile as well.

"Clever," I say. "But there's one last thing you overlooked in your plan. Now that you people have made the Bond villian mistake of telling me the who-when-where and why of your plan, what's keeping me from going straight to the authorities and telling them everything you've told me."

"Well," Mr. Burke shrugs. "You must remember that the lives of your stripper friend's infants lay in the balance. I can assure you, she won't mourn long as we would kill her too. We can also make sure something nasty happens to your mother when she arrives back from Argentina next week." He pats me on my knee. "Poopy, you must realize that we have you under almost constant surveillance and it would be fruitless of you to try and alert the authorities."

"Fuck my mom, fuck Apple, and fuck her little welfare babies," I snort. "You fucked up if you're counting on using them to ensure my cooperation. Good fucking riddance..."

"You convinced me," Van Hertzwelder says. "Let's just kill him now Burke."

"Whoa, I didn't mean that..." I say, immediately realizing that pointing this stuff out was a mistake.

Burke holds out his gloved hand to Van Hertzwelder, indicating to him to calm down. "Poopy, I know this is a lot for you to take in, but you would do well to realize that from this point on, you are a dead man. There is no scenario you can think up that we haven't anticipated with an entire section of strategists and game theorists. Within a month, you will be dead and the only choice you have in this manner is how you are going to die."

"Let me put it to you this way," Van Hertzwelder sneers. "If you don't play ball with us, you won't get to die quickly and cleanly in some bomb-blast. I know these guys who are ex-Army who used to do interrogations at Abu-Ghraib. They know techniques that would give Jack Bauer nightmares. They can keep you alive for days, weeks even, until you'd trade your immortal soul just for them to kill you."

"I suppose I'm fucked then since I don't believe in an 'immortal soul' you churchy cuntstain."
I can literally see Van Hertzwelder's blood boil in his face at my insult. Burke jumps in before he can do anything.

"There is one last thing to consider," he says. "Let's face the facts, Poopy. You're a piece of shit..."

I mumble an insincere, "Thanks."

"It's the truth," Burke continues. "I know it. Most everyone you've ever encountered in your life knows it. Deep down in your heart, I'm sure you know it as well. You're existence is a downward spiral through the toilet bowl of life. Sure, you have your speed bumps now and then. Most people if they won a lotto windfall like yours would be able to do something positive with their life. You, on the other hand, have burned through over half your fortune in the space of three months. Even if we let you live, you know that things will be the same if not worse a year from now, or ten years from now. You fuck up everything you touch Poopy."

Burke pauses. He must expect me to say something or protest but I don't.

"On the other hand, truly consider what happens if you go through with our plan. True, you would save the lives of a few innocent people in your life, but men like you need more. You don't believe in an afterlife, but do you believe in the judgment of history? Go through with this and your name will be uttered in the same breath with John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. Long after people like me have been forgotten, your name will live on in infamy...

"Or, you could die a piece of shit pervert. It's up to you."

I sit there. There's so many thoughts racing through my mind it's hard to latch onto one. These guys mean serious business and it's plainly pointless to continue arguing with them. Finally, I squeak out. "Okay, I'll do it."

"Good to know we have your cooperation," Van Hertzwelder says. "Especially since you don't have a fucking choice."

I don't say anything. There's nothing to say since he's, essentially, right. Mr. Burke opens the door to the limousine and gets out, then motions for me to do the same. My knees are shaking horribly when I step out into the parking garage.

"Do you still have the cell phone we provided to you?"

I nod.

"Good. Keep it on you at all times. The SIM card is specially encrypted, so don't think you can give it to the authorities and they will be able to trace us using it. We will give you instructions through it. Failure to follow our instructions to the letter will first result in the death of the stripper's children, then the stripper, then your mother, and finally you. Do you understand?"

Again, I nod.

"Good. We'll be in contact with you in the next week or so when we have things in place," Mr. Burke says. "Enjoy the rest of your day Mr. Peanutz. From now on, they are numbered."

Mr. Burke gets back in the limosine and it almost immediately peels off, leaving nothing behind but the smell of rubber and exhaust fumes. I stand still long after it's gone, wondering if there is a sniper on me right now. All I can hear is the hum of pipes through the ceiling. All I can see is the bright daylight outside the parking garage.

And then I do something that I haven't done for a couple of months...

I shit in my pants.

The Winner: Part Fourteen

Between my broken toe and Apple collapsing to her knees to cry hysterically, it takes literally ten minutes to get upstairs to my loft. Several of my yuppie neighbors open their doors to see what the commotion was and see me practically dragging a beat up and bloody woman. I wouldn't be surprised if one of them calls the cops.

Once we're finally upstairs, I drop her on the couch and she immediately lays down and curls up into a ball and starts repeating "They took my kids…my babies…help me…please help me…" like she has been the whole way up here. I'm disconcerted by the amount of blood, tears and snot she's getting on the Italian leather. I grab a box of Kleenex and start cleaning up her face as best as I can.

"Apple, you have to calm down," I say as gently as I can. "Tell me what happened."

She just keeps on repeating: "They took them…I love them so much…they took my babies."

"Look at me. Who took your babies?"

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" she screams. She almost starts crying again, but she regains her composure. "Sorry. I've never seen these guys before, but they mentioned you. They told me to give you this…" she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a cell phone.

What the fuck is going on? I take the cell phone and look at it briefly. "Apple, start from the beginning…what is happening? What did these guys say?"

"Well, you know how I applied for welfare aid a few weeks ago. I finally got my food stamps from the county in the mail this morning, so I decided to go the market and get some food for the week.

"I left the babies by themselves at the trailer like I usually do. When I got back from taking the bus to the store, the door was open and the lock was busted. My place gets broken into all the time and I was worried they might have hurt the kids. Usually, it's just one of the tweakers from the trailer park, but when I went inside there were two men sitting in there with suits…"

"Suits?" I don't know too many people who wear suits.

"Yeah. Dark ones, like the one that Will Smith Negro wore in that movie with the aliens. But only one of them was a Negro."

Shit, I think. I've got the fucking Men in Black after me.

"They told me that they had my babies and if I wanted to get them back, I had to find you and give you that phone. Poopy, who are these people? Why do they want you?"

"I have no clue," I say. "I swear I don't know who would be after me. Why did you get mashed up?"

She sobs. "When they said they had my kids, I went after them. What else would a mother do? But they knew kung-fu or something and they hurt me real bad. I couldn't do nothin' to them."

"Did they tell you what they wanted me to do with this phone?"

She shook her head. I look it over. There were no numbers in the address book. It just seemed like a normal phone.

"We should call the police," I say, getting up off the couch and heading towards the charger with the cordless. "And your gonna tell them everything you just told me."

"No. No! Please don't! That's another thing they said; that if I told the police about this I'd never see them again."

"Apple, that's what assholes like that always say…" though, after a moment of reflection and considering what I'd just done to her boyfriend, perhaps getting the police involved shouldn't be my first choice. "Dammit, what the hell do you think I should do?"

"I don't know," Apple says. She seems calmer now. She stands up and comes over to me and nuzzles her face in my neck. "You like me, don't you?"

I don't say anything.

"I know you like me," she coos. "I've known for awhile. Promise me, Poopy that you'll do what you can to help me get my kids back, and I'll be your woman. I don't care if Luke comes back or not. If you get my kids back for me, you can do…that one thing you did to me…all you want. I'll even do it to you if you want. Just please help me get my kids. I'm nothin' without them."

She starts kissing my neck and her lips feel almost electric. They hold in them the promise of redemption that that priest couldn't offer me. I don't even care if I ever get to take a dump on Apple again, I want to help. I need to help.

"Apple, I swear to you I won't let anyone harm your kids."

She looks at me, her eyes welling up with tears. They look like tears of relief. "Thank you. God bless you, thank you. Anything you can do…please…"

We hold each other there in the middle of the loft for I don't know how long. She quivers all so slightly in my arms. At least I think it's her. After a second, I realize it's actually the cell phone vibrating.

I let her go and look at the phone. The incoming number is restricted. It keeps vibrating and vibrating. "Aren't you gonna answer it?" Apple says incredulously. I snap out of it and put the phone to my ear.

"Hello?"

"Is this Mr. Peanutz?" the voice on the other end is both tinny deep. They must be using electronic voice-masking.

"Who the fuck wants to know?"

"I see you received our message," the voice says. "If you want the stripper cunt to ever see her children again, you will be at the second level of the parking garage at Jackson and Lowell in one hour."

"What if I don't give a fuck what you do to her and her welfare babies?" I say.

Apple yelps. I mouth the words "Just kidding" to her, but it doesn't erase the look of alarm on her face.

The voice gives a sinister, guttural electronic chuckle. "If you don't, then you will be responsible for two more deaths.

Two more? Oh shit…

At first, I assumed these people were just kidnappers looking to shake me down for some ransom money. But does this guy know about what I had done to Luke? This situation could be worse than I thought.

"Come alone," the voice commands. "If you contact the authorities, they are dead. And also consider, if we have no problems with the idea of murdering babies, then imagine what we would be willing to do to you."

I don't say anything and the line goes dead before I can respond. I take the phone from my ear.

"Poopy!" Apple says, horrified. "You didn't really mean what you said, right? You promised me you'd save my kids…"

"I will," I say, snapping out of my shock. I look for a bigger jacket.

"Then why did you say that?"

"To throw them off guard. I had to look like I wasn't willing to play their game or…something," I say, trying to sound like I know what the fuck I'm doing. I throw on the seven hundred dollar leather jacket I bought last week and grab my wallet. "I have to go. I'm gonna get your kids back. Wait here."

"Do whatever you have to," I hear Apple say right before I shut the door behind me.

I run downstairs to garage and get in the Mercedes. I peel out of my parking space and lay a trail of rubber racing to get to the exit and almost take the roof off my car on the metal gate. Once out on the street, I calm down. I have to drive carefully. Getting pulled over would majorly fuck things up right now. Besides, the garage at Jackson and Lowell is only about ten minutes away. What the hell am I rushing for?

I try to think as I drive but my mind is racing in too many directions. Is this guy looking for a ransom, or blackmail or what? The only person who knows I had Luke killed is Sergei and the guys he got to do the job. Is he behind all this? I was of a mind to give him a call to see if he could scrounge up some protection for me when I go to this, but now I'm thinking twice about it.

I almost rear-end a Dodge at a red light. There's a sporting goods store nearby. I have time, maybe I should go in and buy a handgun. It seems like it would be a good idea to have one with me. These sound like serious fucking guys.

No, dammit, I can't. While I'm not sure what the gun laws are in this state, I'm sure they involve things like waiting periods and background checks, which I'd be sure to flunk given my felony record.

I keep on driving and soon I realize I'm going past Wal-Mart. Maybe I can get something to protect myself with. A hunting knife…anything. I screech into the lot and pull into the closest parking space to the front, which happens to be a handicap space. Fuck the crips. This is an emergency.

I half-walk, half-run into the store. The geriatric old greeter croaks out a "Welcome to Wal-Mart!" to me but I ignore him. I realize this is the same Wal-Mart I nearly lost my lottery ticket in months ago. I wonder briefly if this would all be happening if I had lost the ticket.

I briskly walk towards the sporting goods section, fast enough to lap all the land-whale sized women pushing their carts full of cheap Chinese manufactured goods, but not so fast to attract undue attention. I keep my eye open for those two security guards who beat the crap out of me the last time I was here. Once I get there, I look around for anything I could use for self-defense. I don't see any knives (or at least, no knives that would be good for anything more than cutting a tackle line) but there's a rack of BB guns over by the counter.

I look over the selection, eventually settling on the Beretta, or at least looked like a Beretta. I have to whistle to get the attention of the pimply-faced teenager in a blue vest and emo hair working the counter.

"Can I help you sir?"

"Yes you can fucking help me," I yell at him. "Get me that!" I say, pointing towards the gun I want. The teenager rolls his eyes, but pulls down the plastic encased gun from the wall. "And get me a box of BB's to go with them."

"Pellets," the teenager says snottily. "That gun fires pellets."

"What's the fucking difference?"

"Fine. If you want BBs you can have BBs. I don't care," he says.

"Just get me the fucking pellets. I want the thing to work moron."

I get more eye rolling and groaning from the kid who with great effort gets a box of pellets to go with the gun. "Anything else…ahem…sir?"

"No. How much is it?"

He punches some buttons on his register. "Seventy-three eighty. And I need to see an ID."

"Do I look sixteen to you, asshole?"

The little fucker gives me a smug grin and taps the sign partially hidden by a fishing vest against the wall. "Sorry. It's the rules. We must have an ID with all pellet gun purchases."

I give him a nasty look and slap my license and credit card on the counter. The little bastard takes his sweet time ringing me up. I sign the slip and he hands me my receipt. "Would you like a bag with that?"

"Fuck you," I say. I take the gun and the box of pellets and head straight towards the door. I keep my receipt out in case anyone tries to accuse me of shoplifting, but nobody stops me.

Though I haven’t really been keeping up with time, I couldn’t have been in the store more than ten minutes. Yet when I come outside, there’s a tow truck parked behind my car. The driver is busy hooking the chains to the bumper of my Mercedes. Right beside him, I see the two Wal-Mart loss prevention officers that fucked with me months ago. They see me rushing out of the store and start chuckling like they just watched Larry the Cable Guy or something.

“What the fuck is going on?” I scream.

“Sir, you were parked in a handicapped spot,” the fat one says, barely able to conceal a giggle under his semi-official tone. “The Wal-Mart Corporation takes great pride in making sure its stores are accessible to all its customers, regardless of disability. Therefore, we are required to tow your vehicle.”

“Tow? There’s no one in half these spaces!” I say, flabbergasted. “Can’t you just give me a ticket?”

“That’s at the discretion of the store, sir. Unfortunately we don’t recognize incontinence as a disability, you pants-shitting freak.”

I hear a whirring noise as the winch of the tow truck starts lifting my car up on its platform (and likely fucking up the alignment in the process). I growl and dig out my wallet. “Alright. How much do you want to make this all go away?”

“Go away?” the security guard asks. “What are you talking about?”

“How much money do you want? I have to have my car. It’s important. I have to be somewhere, now!”

“Are you offering us a bribe?”

I roll my eyes as I yank out a couple hundred-dollar bills from my alligator skin wallet. “Duh! Of course I’m offering you a bribe. How much?”

Suddenly, the smirks melt off their faces and they get righteous. “Sir, we aren’t for sale.”

“Jesus H Christ on a rubber crutch!” I scream. “You’re fucking security guards, not cops. It’s okay for you to take bribes!”

“No it isn’t,” he says, crossing his arms righteously. “We have a code.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I ask, money in hand.

My question is met with stony silence.

“Fine!” I yell, stuffing the money back in my wallet and my wallet back in the seat of my pants. “Fuck you both! I hope you both rot in a shit filled Hell!”

Their only response to this is laughter, but I don’t stick around. I start running as fast as I can. If I run, I might yet make it there in time. Jackson and Powell isn’t very far driving by car, but on foot I’ll have to sprint.

I make it three blocks before I’m winded. Christ, I’m so out of shape. Also, the pain in my toe is flaring up again. I keep hobbling forward as fast as I can. While I go, I try and work the pellet gun out of the insane amount of plastic packaging it’s wrapped up in. I tear at it with my teeth and cut my lip on a jagged shard of plastic. I wince and spit a bloody loogie on the sidewalk, but I get the pellet gun free.

I find the slot where I think the pellets go and pour a small handful in the bottom. I fiddle with the thing while I limp along and think I’ve figured out how to set the spring. I stop for a second and test the thing on the bench of a bus stop that has some smiling asshole hawking real estate on it. It fires sure enough, the pellet imbedding itself about a quarter inch deep into the plywood. Not quite as effective or satisfying as a handgun, of course, but it’ll probably at least hurt to get hit with this. I stuff it in my jacket and keep on going.

I try to jog again for the last few blocks to try and make up some time. By the time I’m within sight of the garage at Jackson and Lowell, the bones in my foot are grinding together like a mortar and pestle and I’m wheezing like my mom after she walks up a flight of stairs. I take a moment to catch my breath and look at my watch. I’m only seven minutes late. I’m not too worried. I figure that anyone who would go through so much trouble just to get me to meet them in a parking garage can deal with me being fashionably late.

There’s nobody in the booth at the entrance of the parking garage, so I walk in, trying to be as aware of my surroundings as I could. The door to the staircase is open, so I walk up to the second level. The lamps inside there flicker epileptically and the stairwell reeks of the urine of god knows how many homeless men who have camped out in there. I hold my breath until I’m outta there.

The second level is nearly empty. There’s maybe a dozen cars parked there. “Hello?” I yell and my voice echoes off the columns of metal and concrete. No one answers.

“I’m here you fucks!” I yell again. “What do you want?”

Still nothing. A sinking feeling comes over me. Maybe I’m too late.

Then I hear laughter behind me. I whip around and there’s this black guy behind me. Sure enough, he’s dressed in a black suit as well as a black trench coat. Apple was wrong however; he looked nothing like Will Smith. His hair is cropped neatly almost to the skull and he had a nasty knife scar that split across his face like a lightning bolt.

“Mr. Peanutz I presume…” he says.

“Yeah. Who the fuck are you?”

“You can call me Mr. Burke for the time being,” he says. He starts tapping the expensive gold Rolex on his wrist. “True to form, you’re not really much for punctuality.”

“I had a setback. Couldn’t help it.”

“With the lives of two innocent children hanging in the balance, I’d imagine one would do their best to minimize any setbacks that may occur.”

I chuckle. “I guess your right,” I pull the pellet gun out my jacket and aim it at “Mr. Burke”. “Speaking of innocent babies, tell me where they are right now nigger before I shoot you in the face.”

Mr. Burke starts laughing like this is Def Comedy Jam or something. “Oh dear, Mr. Peanutz. Do put that thing away before you take someone’s eye out.”

“The hell I am! Where are they?”

“Mr. Peanutz, do you see the glowing red dot moving across my chest right now?”

I did. It looked like one of those annoying laser pointers. The dot illuminates his chest for a moment then disappears.

“Notice how the dot is now gone?” Mr. Burke says, still smiling. “That’s because it’s now glowing on the back of your head. You have five seconds to drop that toy pistol before a very real seven-point-six-two millimeter steel jacketed round enters the base of your brain and blows your head clean off. Four…three…”

Mr. Burke starts to raise his hand and I drop the pellet gun. It clatters on the ground. Yeah, maybe that was a bad idea.

“Wise choice,” he says. Mr. Burke turns his head and a limousine suddenly turns its lights on and roars forward. It screeches to a halt right next to us. Mr. Burke grabs the handle to the rear door and opens it. “Get in.”

I’m paralyzed. I can’t move.

“Get in before I wave my hand and have the side of this car painted with the contents of your skull.”

That breaks my paralysis. I get into the back of the limo. There are two other men inside, another man in a black suit with an earpiece and an old white guy in a pinstripe suit. Mr. Burke gets in after me and shuts the door, blocking me inside.

The car doesn’t move. The old white guy glowers at me silently from across the limo. Finally, I break the silence. “Well, I’m here. What do you want?”

The old white guy finally speaks up. “Do you know who I am?”

I don’t know who is, so I shrug. “Are you a faggot?”

The old guy leaps from his seat and sucker punches me in the face. I raise my hands up to defend myself, but Mr. Burke grabs my wrist and twists it painfully, then puts his forearm against my windpipe to keep me pinned against the seat. The other man in black is working to pull the old white guy off me and back in his seat.

The old white guy finally gives up and settles back in his seat. He straightens his tie. “Wiseass piece of shit. I’ll tell you who I am. My name is Carl Van Hertzwelder. Have you ever heard of me?”

“Not ringing any bells,” I wheeze through my constricted throat. “I’m still voting for ‘faggot’ though.”

Carl loses it again. He jumps off his seat and the other man in black is doing is best to keep him off me. The expression on Carl’s face is pure rage. It’s almost comical.

“Dammit Burke!” he yells as he struggles against the other man. “Let me kill him now! Let me kill this piece of shit RIGHT NOW!”

“Control yourself, sir. I can’t let you do that,” Mr. Burke says, still pinning me against the seat. “Remember, we have plans for him. I can’t let you jeopardize them!”

“FUCK!” Van Hertzwelder screams. Then he starts pounding the leather car seat like a child throwing a tantrum. When he’s done, he looks at me red faced, like he’s on the verge of having a heart attack. He seems oblivious as spittle drips from his lip.

After a minute, he finally seems to regain his composure. “You might not know me,” he hisses. “But I’m sure you remember my son, Chad. Do you remember him you faggot rapist? DO YOU?”

I did remember, and suddenly everything began to click. I had that all to familiar feeling of my balls crawling up into my body cavity while my guts sank to the floor and then I had the all to familiar realization.

I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.

The Winner: Part Thirteen

The phone rings and I don't answer it. When the answering machine picks up, it's my mother. Her voice sounds crackly through the overseas line.

"Hey Poopy. I just wanted to give you a call and let you know I'm doing okay down here. Sorry about the last time I called. I was going through a really stressful period with my weight loss and surgery. They counselors have done an extra hard job making sure I'm mentally fit and assuring me I have the strength to lose weight and change my body in a way that matches my indomitable will. I just wanted to call and let you know I'm okay. I gotta go into surgery again to get my excess skin cut away and tightened. I'm getting implants and a bone shaving too. I'll call you next week. I'm almost finished here. I can't wait for you to see the new me. Love ya, Poopy. Hope everything is going well."

I start to cry when I hear her voice. The Poopy she thinks she loves is not the Poopy I really am. I am pathetic. I wish I was dead.

This has been a strange week for me. After watching the video with Sergei, I felt numb, almost sick. I couldn't sleep. Images of that movie kept going through my head. I couldn't process what was going on. I wasn't equipped to.

After another two days of staying locked inside my loft, my only human contact being with the pizza delivery man, I decided I needed to exorcise these feeling by confronting them. I took the DVD, which I hadn't touched since watching it at the Lazy-U, and stuck it in my Playstation and watched it again. I felt sicker after watching it, so I played it again and again. I ended up watching it for about four hours straight until I was completely desensitized. I forced myself to eat some cold pepperoni pizza while I watched it and managed to keep it down. Watching that horrible video actually calmed me down some.

Since I hadn't taken my Armani in to get the vomit stains washed off it, I went to the mall and just bought a new one. Afterwards, I went out for an expensive sushi dinner at a restaurant where it cost seventeen dollars for a single piece of maguro. I suddenly felt powerful, on top of the world. Why all the fear? I had gotten away with murder.

Something changed in me. I felt like a different person. Everyone I met, I looked at them and knew, "I could have you killed if I wanted" and laughed a little. I held my head up high for the first time, knowing that I'd crossed a barrier that few of the people who had always looked down on me ever had. Death, of course, was nothing I wasn't familiar with. I'd seen more gruesome deaths than most people would ever see, but Luke was different. Luke was one person I knew would be alive if it wasn't for me. The feeling was better than sex. I walked around with almost a skip in my step.

The paranoia subsided, but the nightmares remained. Every time I fell asleep, I began to have vivid dreams of Luke being tortured to death. The first few times, I dreamt I was in that basement, burning, cutting, torturing him to death, his screams ringing in my ears. I couldn't sleep more than a few hours without that scene popping into my head.

I tried watching the video again; thinking that by doing so I could remove it from my dreams but it didn't help. I stopped watching the video altogether, wondering if by repeating it so many times I was just making my situation worse. That didn't help either.

My mood was wearing down again. Last night, the dream changed again and instead of it being me who tortured Luke, I was the one handcuffed to the chair and Luke (with his face burned, his hair singed off and his eyes radiating fury) was bearing down on me with the knives and blowtorch. He ran the blue flame over my chest I don't think I actually felt the pain in the dream, but I did feel the panic, the cold, desperate, helpless sense of panic.

"This is what you deserve you fucking cunt dropping..." Luke said, but it wasn't Luke anymore. It was my mother, breathing spit and gin and halitosis in my face. Her doughy face twisted into mask of hate I hadn't seen since I was young.

That's about when I was thrust screaming back into consciousness. My sheets were soaked through with sweat and I felt like I was freezing. I went into the shower to try and warm myself up but I couldn't get rid of the chill that took over my body. I sat on the floor of my bedroom in the bathrobe. I was exhausted, but I didn't dare try and sleep again.

Of course, my mother calling me just now didn't help my state of mind...

I've been sitting on the floor for hours, but now I feel the desperate urge to get up and get out of the apartment. Even though I'm pretty sure my mother won't call back, I don't want to risk it. I throw on a red t-shirt, a black hoodie, and a pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans that I've never worn before and leave without even taking my wallet with me. As the door to the loft slams shut behind me, I get the weird sensation that I may never return.

The trip on the elevator to get to the ground floor seems interminable. Outside, the weather is clear and sunny and unseasonably warm and cheery. In other words, diametrically opposed to the way I feel. Even the weather seems to be mocking me. I walk around downtown aimlessly. I feel hungry and figure I should get something to eat, but I don't know if I can keep even a light meal in my stomach right now (and without my wallet, it's not like I can buy lunch anyway). I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going. I have no place to go to; no place that feels like home.

I walk for an hour. I don't even think while I walk, I just walk. Bums come up to me asking for spare change and I can't even work up the energy to go and tell them to go fuck themselves. A green Escalade almost creams me as I numbly through an intersection. The driver calls me a "dumb pig-fucker" and I don't respond. I just keep walking.

I stop for a moment and realize I'm across the street from a cathedral. Normally, I wouldn't give a shit, but I stand there transfixed by the architecture; the wooden doors painted gold and the gargoyles leaning ominously over the ledge of the spire. I don't know why this fascinates me since I have a deep contempt of religion, but I don't feel that contempt now. In fact, I feel curious. I jaywalk to the other side of the street and walk inside.

The interior of the cathedral looks even larger than the outside. There is a bowl of holy water sitting atop a large white pillar next to the entrance, as well as a large rack of candles. From the stained glass to the ornate crucifixes with a bloody Jesus tacked to them, everything was neatly clicking into my stereotype of what a Catholic church would be like. Since it's a weekday, the pews are empty save for one or two homeless people nodding off weeklong drinking binges and an old man who moved his mouth as he prayed with his hands clasped in front of him. I find an empty pew and sit quietly, feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Maybe I'll just sit here for a spell.

I hear a door open to the side of me and see a well-dressed man in a business suit step out of a confessional booth. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he briskly walks to the entrance, dips his fingers in the holy water and crosses himself while mumbling what must be a prayer under his breath. After he has left, the old man slowly gets up and shuffles across to the confessional, shutting the door behind him.
I can probably count the number of times I've stepped in a church in my life on two hands. Religion always seemed so stupid to me; a crutch for mouth-breathing morons who need a higher power to tell them what to do in their lives. I'm pretty sure the reason I've been drawn to this church is so I can confess. It's not that I suddenly believe in God all of a sudden, but I realize that I have this thing hanging over my head that I can't talk to anyone about (well, maybe Sergei, but who wants to talk to that asshole?) At the very least, maybe talking about it might get rid of the cold sweats and the night terrors I've been having.

The old man comes out of the confessional after about ten minutes. After he leaves, I wait for a minute to see if anyone else was waiting before me. When I'm pretty sure it's all mine, I nervously head into the booth, close the door behind me and sit on the small wooden shelf.

I'm not sure what to say, seeing as I've never done confession before. "Um, bless me father, for I have sinned. Um...what else do I need to say?"

The priest sitting behind the screen looks young; younger than I'd imagine a priest to be. "How long has it been since your last confession?"

"Actually, I've never done this before."

"Are you a new convert?"

"Yes..." I blurt out, but I suddenly feel uneasy about lying here. "I mean, no. I'm not a Catholic or anything...let me level with you, padre--I'm not even a Christian. In fact, I don't even believe in god."

The priest is silent for a moment. "Then...why are you here?"

"I just...need to talk to someone. I feel guilty and I need to talk and I figure this is the place to do it." I look directly at him through the screen. "Now, even though I'm not a Christian, you can't tell anyone about what I say here, right?"

The priest nods. "I am forbidden by the church to break the sanctity of the confessional, regardless of the beliefs of the sinner."

"You promise? You're not bullshitting me, right?"

The priest looks at me through the screen, vaguely annoyed. "What is this sin you feel the desperate need to confess?"

I take a deep breath and sigh. "Well, it's a long story..."

And so I start at the beginning, about how I was a down-and-out ex-con who was sent to jail unfairly. I tell him about winning the lottery and how in one stroke, my life suddenly had the potential for coming out okay. I tell him about Apple and how I fell in love with her watching her dance that night at the titty bar all alone. I tell him about how I came to hate her when I realized I would never mean anything to her because of her stupid, scummy boyfriend Luke. And of course, all of that is just a rambling set up to explain what I really wanted to get off my chest: how I paid to have him not just murdered, but tortured horribly first.

The priest says nothing as I go through the whole sordid tale. He says nothing after I finish. He just sits there and collects his thoughts. I don't feel better having said this all aloud. If anything, by doing so I am confronted with just how terrible it really is.

After a moment or so, the priest finally speaks: "Is all of what you said to me true?"

"Yes, father. All of that really happened?"

"If it's true, then you should turn yourself into the police."

I shake my head. "No. I can't do that. I can't go back to jail. Besides, going to jail isn't gonna bring him back."

"You're right. It won't," the priest says. "But you must be held accountable for your actions. Are you sorry you had this man murdered?"

"I don't know," I say. "I'm not sure I'm unhappy that he's dead. But if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't. These nightmares really suck."

"Son, why did you come here today? What did you think I was going to tell you to do?"

"I...I don't know. I just figured I needed to get it off my chest and then I'd feel better."

"Do you?"

"I'm not sure yet."

The priest turns to look at me through the screen. "You mentioned to me earlier you don't believe in God, but then why do you think that what you did is such a thing that can be made better by 'getting it off your chest?'"

I don't say anything. I don't know what I can say.

"You may feel that you are apart from God, but God is not apart from you. God speaks to you through your conscience and your conscience is what will eat at you because of what you did."

"Well, I'm sure my conscience will eat at me whether I turn myself into the police or not, so I'd rather not."

The priest sighs. "Yes, your conscience will still torture you even if you turn yourself in. That is God punishing you for what you have done and it is right that you will suffer. But I promise you: you will suffer more if you do not hold yourself accountable for what you did. Turning yourself in will be your first step towards righting this wrong and though you will suffer for it, possibly for the rest of your life, it is the only way you can be forgiven."

"I still don't see how that will make things better."

"The woman you told me about. The one whose lover you had killed out of jealousy; she doesn't know he's dead yet."

"I don't think so," I say. "She hasn't returned my calls in weeks. I don't think she ever wants to talk to me again."

"What is more cruel? To let her live her life not knowing what has become of this man she loves, or to know what happened, no matter how ghastly he came to his end? The latter choice may be harsh, but it will eventually allow her to move on with her life. You say you hate her, but that is just the flipside of love. They are more alike than they seem. If you ever loved that woman, you will let her know the truth and give yourself over to have justice served."

Again, I'm speechless. Everything the priest says makes sense to me, but I know that I can't turn myself in. After my experience in jail, I know I can never go back there.

"I can't go back to jail."

"It is the only path to forgiveness," the priest states.

I shake my head. "I'm not gonna turn myself in, and I think it's hypocritical of you to keep telling me to," I say. "After all, do you priests turn yourselves into the cops every time you blow an altar boy?"

The priest whips his head angrily towards the screen. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I say with reflexive snottiness. "I mean, sure, touching little boys might not be on the same level as having someone killed, but I don't see Dateline specials trying to catch murderers. Can't I suffer just as effectively out of jail as I can inside it? Hell, you said it would be worse if I didn't turn myself in, maybe that's the way to go..."
The priest groans. "Would you please leave?"

"Why? I'm still looking for redemption. I'm just trying to see if there are other options."

"Oh, quit the crap..." the priest sneers. "Go now. I'm pretty sure everything you've said here is a lie."

"No it isn't," I protest. "Why would I lie about that shit?"

"You think you're the first person to get off on making up crazy stories to tell in the confessional? Just recently I had some loser in here claiming he'd set a briefcase nuke to blow up the city in twenty-four hours because Satan told him to. That was obviously a lie. I get people like you in here every other week buddy. Your shtick is nothing new. You're just another sick, lonely asshole. Now leave."

"I swear I'm telling the truth!"

"Leave or I'll call the authorities and have you arrested for trespassing."

I'm quaking with anger now. I stand up and bang my head on the low wooden ceiling of the confessional. "Fine. I guess I must have struck a little to close to home with that altar boy remark. But I wasn't bullshitting you! I had the sonofabitch killed! Me, no one else! Remember that you boy-raping piece of shit!" I scream at him through the screen before kicking open the door.

I storm out of the confessional and I think the priest yells at me; something to the affect of never come back. I don't stop to listen to his crap. My yelling has the drunk who starts wheezing and coughing. I pay him no mind and head straight for the entrance. I give the pillar holding the holy water a swift kick, trying to knock it over, but it must be bolted into the floor since it doesn't budge and I break my big toe in the process.

"FUCK!" I scream, jumping around until the pain in my foot subsides to a tolerable level. The priest exits his side of the confessional and says he's calling the police. I spit in the bowl of holy water and hobble out the big, gold painted doors.

I limp as fast as I can until I've got about four blocks between me and the cathedral, then I slow down so as not to exacerbate the pain in my toe. Where to now? Well, I guess I should go home. Where else am I gonna go? I'll go to the hospital to get my foot looked later. Every time I step, a pulse of pain shoots up my leg and my anger at that priest, at god and the world in general flares up. It doesn't feel nice, but oh well. Anger feels better than depression.

After limping along for ten blocks, I finally end up back at the building my loft is in. As I walk in the doors, I notice a woman crying and desperately pressing the buzzer. She turns to look at me as I come inside and I see her cheek is swollen, she has a black eye and one of her front teeth has been knocked out. The woman's face is so battered that it takes me a second to realize that it's Apple.

"Ohmygod Poopy, it's you! Thank God it's you!" she runs over to me and nearly tackles me with an embrace (forcing my balance to my wounded foot, causing it to shriek with pain; I wince). "Please, you have to help me. You're the only one who can help me. I'm begging you, please HELP ME!"

"Calm down, Apple. Jesus..." I say. I'm more puzzled than worried right now. I'm sure she wouldn't be so glad to see me if she knew about Luke. 'What the hell is going on?"

"It's my children. They took my children. My babies! Please, you're the only one who can help me get them back! PLEASE POOPY! HELP ME!"