Bad Games (30 page)

“Shouldn’t he be in jail or something?” Amy asked.

“They’ve got to treat him first. Don’t worry; we’ve got him under constant supervision. If he so much as sneezes, we’re there to say ‘God bless you.’”

Amy snorted. “Even God wouldn’t waste His time on a psycho like that.”

Detective Henry gave Amy a slight nod in agreement.

Patrick sat up in his bed. “What about the other one?”

“James Fannelli?” Henry asked.

“Yeah.”

“Very dead.”

“Good,” Amy said. She reached behind her head and folded her pillow in half to prop her head higher. “What else?”

Henry pulled at his tie. He felt sweat on the back of his neck. “Your friends…”

“Lorraine and Norm?” Patrick said.

Henry lowered his head. Amy started to cry.

“Yeah, we kind of knew already,” Patrick said. “Arty he…basically told us what they’d done.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said. He let a moment of silence go by before continuing. “The mother is still alive,” he said. “She’s being treated here as well.”

Patrick turned to his left, exchanged looks with his wife. She was wiping tears from both eyes. “What’s her condition?” Patrick asked.

“She’s stable, but she’s been pretty out of it since she’s been here. Came to for a short while, but just babbled a lot of nonsense. Her records show she suffers from dementia.”

“Yeah, we know,” Patrick said. “We got the whole inside scoop from the psychos themselves.”

Henry gave a sympathetic smile. “Right; you mentioned it in your initial statement.”

Patrick nodded with a slow blink.

Henry looked over his notes again. He flipped a page and ran his index finger down the paper, muttering to himself as he skimmed each line.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Patrick asked.

Henry glanced up from his notes. He appeared startled out of thought. “Who?”

“The mother. What’s going to happen to the mother?”

Henry lowered the notes to his side. “I imagine she’ll be here a bit longer.”

“We mean when she gets better,” Amy said. “What will happen to hear when she heals?”

Detective Henry shrugged. “With her condition—and I’m talking about the dementia, not the gunshot wound—there’s no way to be sure. You said in your statement that she had no recollection of being a mother, and she was calling for her deceased husband the night she was shot by her son.”

“That’s right,” Amy said.

“Well then my guess would be that things for her will only get worse. Without her sons around to look in on her she won’t be trusted to live on her own. She’ll likely be committed to a rest home of sorts.”

Patrick frowned and shook his head. “Poor ignorant woman. Maybe it’s for the best she loses her memory after all. I mean, I’m sure the last thing she’d want to remember is giving birth to two fucking psychopaths that could shoot their own mother.”

Henry fingered his notes again. He kept his head down as he read. “Her attending physician here was able to gain access to her medical history from a previous doctor in Philadelphia. According to those records…”

When Detective Henry had finished talking, Patrick and Amy asked him for a favor. At first he rejected their request, stating that it was unorthodox and unnecessary. The couple pleaded their case, running through the events of that final night in grizzly detail. Henry had looked away halfway through their plea. The Lamberts continued to talk, to outline the just cause of their favor; how it would bring closure to a nightmare that may never
have
closure.

When Henry turned back around and faced the couple, his face was red. Whether it was red with anger at the ordeal this poor family had endured, or red from frustration at the Lamberts’ inability to take no for an answer, the couple hardly cared. The only thing they did care about was when detective Henry broke down and said, “Okay.”

Amy and Patrick followed Detective Henry down the hospital’s corridor towards the east wing. They held hands along the way, moving slowly, grimacing from time to time from the pain their wounds were causing them for moving around sooner than they should be. This was worth it though.

Henry glanced over his shoulder at the couple as they hobbled along, still in their hospital gowns, looking as if sleep had completely eluded them these past few days. “You sure you’re up for this?” Henry asked, slowing his pace for them.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Patrick replied.

“Same here,” Amy said.

Henry shrugged. “Okay—shouldn’t be much further now.”

The couple followed Henry around a corner as they approached the east wing. Ahead of them, a police officer sat outside one of the rooms, reading a magazine.

Henry nodded to the officer in the chair. The officer looked at Henry, then at the Lamberts, then back at Henry.

“It’s okay,” Henry said. “I’ll take full responsibility.”

The officer looked at the Lamberts one last time, smiled an obligatory smile, then lifted his magazine and resumed reading.

Henry placed his hand on the door’s handle and looked over his shoulder. He made solid eye contact with both Amy and Patrick. “I’m trusting you on this. If you’ve got something else in mind…”

They both shook their heads at exactly the same time. “We gave you our word,” Amy said.

Detective Henry gave one hard nod then turned back around and opened the door.

Arty Fannelli turned to the male officer sitting to the left of his hospital bed. “Are you
ever
going to be replaced by a female officer?” he asked.

The officer didn’t look up from his
Sports Illustrated
when he replied, “Sorry, dickhead, you’re stuck with me.”

“Dickhead? Are you allowed to talk to me like that?”

The officer turned the page and continued reading. “Yup.”

Arty pulled at his handcuff strapped to the bed’s frame. “Are these really necessary? I’ve been here a few days now; I think you can trust me.”

The officer frowned at something in the magazine, muttered, “
Overpaid prima donnas…
”

“Hello? Are you listening? I was stabbed eight hundred times for Christ’s sake. Where the hell am I going to go?”

There was a knock at the door. The officer stood and threw the magazine onto his seat. Detective Henry walked into the room.

“Hey, you know he called me a dickhead?” Arty said to Henry.

“You are a dickhead,” Henry said.

Arty laughed. “So what’s up, Mikey? You stopping by to ask a few more questions?”

“Not exactly,” Henry said. He walked over towards the officer on duty and stood by his side.

Arty said, “Well what is it then? You finally pulling Chuckles here off-duty? If so, can I put a request in for something with a bit more curves? No offense, Chuckles.”

“Why would I do that?” Henry asked. “It’s probably in your best interest to start getting used to men.”

Arty smiled. “You
really
think I’m gonna serve any time, Mikey?”

Henry raised an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“Of course not. An anomaly like myself?”

Henry smirked. “
Anomaly?
”

“Oh I’m sorry, Mikey, am I talking over your head? I’ll try and put it in layman’s terms.” Arty cleared his throat, loving it. “You see there are thousands of headshrinkers out there who will want to know why my brother and I did the things we did. They’ll want to know why all their stupid little theories about evil and human behavior were ultimately fed to them in one giant shit-burger.

“They’ll keep me in cushy hospitals and kiss my ass in order to find out what makes me tick, and, more importantly…” He flashed a pornographic leer. “What
excites
me.

“Hell, there’ll probably even be a fucking
waiting list
to come see me. Every budding shrink with a hard-on for stardom will be desperately trying to solve the riddle of the infamous Fannelli brothers so they can write the next bestseller.

“Was it nature? Was it nurture?
What?
It was
neither
? Holy shit! This truly
is
great! We can’t send him to prison! We need to
study
him! Take CAT scans of his brain, find out how he’s wired, ask him endless questions written by so-called experts who circle jerk to Freud. We need to find out what makes this guy so
unique.

“I mean come on, fellas. I’m the kind of guy
movies
are written about, for Christ’s sake. The kind of real-life boogeyman screenwriters salivate over. How often do you come across someone composed of pure, unfiltered malevolence?”

Arty paused, a smile on the corner of his mouth. He remained fixed on the two officers, gauging the impact of his words. He never noticed the two visitors who had entered quietly to his right.

“And this will go on for as long as I want it to,” Arty continued. “I’ll give them a taste…” He held up his thumb and index finger as though pinching a bug. “A teensy- weensy taste. And then when the time is right, I’ll give them a little more. And then a little more after that. I’ve got the tools and the smarts to keep the game going for a
very
long time. You see, Mikey and Chuckles, even when I’m confined I can orchestrate a game to amuse myself.

“So please, don’t even—for one second—try some of your spooky cop talk in an attempt to scare me about the horrors of prison…because I’m not going there. Somebody of my stature belongs under a microscope; not behind bars. And we live in a sick enough society with a fucked-up-enough legal system to make it happen. And we both know that, don’t we?”

Someone cleared their throat to Arty’s right. He turned his head. Amy and Patrick were standing side by side, a big smile on both their faces.

“What the hell are
you
two
smiling at?”

“Officer, would you mind giving us a minute here?” Henry said. “Go grab a soda or a coffee or something.”

The officer shrugged, and then nodded to both Amy and Patrick on his way out.

Arty shifted in his bed and pulled at his cuffs again, metal on metal clinking. “What the fuck do you want?”

Patrick said, “Just wanted to touch base.”

“
Touch base?
” He looked at Henry. “What the hell is this?”

Detective Henry said nothing. Arty turned back to the Lamberts. “I’ve got nothing to say to you two.”

“No?” Amy said.

“
No
. You murdered my brother.”

Patrick laughed. “Right…and it wasn’t justified or anything.”

“No, it wasn’t. You two should have just known your role and accepted your fate. You’re fucking
peasants
that were put here for
our
enjoyment. Period. Taking your life is akin to thinning a menial herd. You taking my brother’s life is tantamount to blasphemy.”

“That’s the way you see it?” Amy asked.

“That’s the way I
know
it, Amy,” he said. “I’m surprised you even need to hear this again. I’m quite sure I made myself clear the first time around. What were you hoping for, a moment of regret now that my brother and mother are gone?”

Amy shook her head. “No, I knew better than to hope for something like that.”

“Well good for you. Maybe you’re not the stupid little cunt I thought you were.”

Patrick took a step closer to the bed and Henry twitched. Patrick held up a hand and nodded an apology.

Arty laughed. “See? Even in here you’re powerless, Patrick. I just tug those little strings of yours and you dance like the big predictable puppet you are.”

“You call me powerless, yet here
you
are,” Patrick said. “And your brother is likely room temperature right about now.”

Arty snorted. “You keep thinking whatever you want to think, hotshot.”

“I will, thank you.”

Arty looked at Henry again. “Alright, are we done here? I still don’t know what the hell this is—”

“Your mother’s alive,” Amy said.

Arty jerked his head towards Amy. He studied her hard, as if trying to read a bluff. “I call bullshit,” he eventually said.

“Call whatever you want,” Patrick said. “It’s true.”

Arty went back to Henry. “Is it?”

Henry closed his eyes and nodded once.

“I want to see her.”

“What makes you think she’d want to see
you
?” Amy asked.

Arty ignored her. He kept his stare on Henry. “Detective Henry, I want to see her.”

Patrick’s turn now. “You
shot
her, asshole. You shot her with the intention of killing her. Why would she want to see you?”

Arty turned back to Patrick. “I was
freeing
her, you ignorant ass. I was ending her suffering. It’s what she would have wanted.”

“Nah,” Patrick said. “You did it for yourself. It’s what
you
wanted.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“Oh I know some things,” Patrick said with a smirk.

“Whatever.” Arty looked back at Henry. “I want to see my mother.”

“She’s unconscious, Arty,” Amy said. “Nobody knows when she’ll come around.”

“Shut up! Nobody’s talking to you! Detective Henry!
I want to see my mother.
She’ll want to see me. She’ll want to see her only
living
son the second she wakes up.” He shot a quick glare at the couple on the word
living.

“What if she doesn’t remember you again?” Amy asked.

“She will.”

“Maybe,” Patrick said. “Maybe not. She might tell you something you don’t want to hear.”

“I am her son; her flesh and blood. She’ll remember me again.”

“Then why did you shoot her?” Patrick asked with a chuckle. “If you’re so sure she’ll remember you again, then why did you shoot her? Why
free
her?”

“I don’t have to justify anything to you. I was doing the right thing. You could never understand.”

Amy inched closer to the foot of the bed. “You know, your mother said some things that night I found interesting.”

“Good for you.”

“She said she didn’t know who you were.”

“She was confused.”

“She said she wanted to see her husband.”

“She’s
sick
and she was
confused
. She was talking nonsense.”