Bad Games

74



“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 f*ck 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 f*cking 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, a*shole. 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.”

“And she said that she was unable to have children.”

Arty said nothing.

“Did you catch that bit?” Amy asked. “I’m pretty sure she only said it the one time, but she did say it.”

“Like I said,” Arty began, nostrils flared, “she is sick

and—”

“The thing is, Arty, dementia can be strangely ironic,” Amy interrupted. “You forget some things, and then you remember others—usually things from the past.”

“I know that.”

“That’s why your mother was calling to your father. She had regressed back to a time when she believed he was still alive.”

“You said that already, bitch.”

“She regressed back to a time when she and her husband had just found out that she was unable to have children.”

Arty laughed. “So what am I? A f*cking mirage?”

Amy smiled and looked at Patrick. Patrick smiled back, turned to Arty and said, “No, you’re very real. But you’re also very adopted. You and Jim.”

Arty laughed again. “You two reek of it.”

Patrick smirked, looked over at Henry. “Detective?”

Henry nodded. “It’s true, Fannelli. Your mother’s attending physician was able to get hold of all her medical records dating back several years. A fibroid tumor was found in her uterus when she was twenty. Apparently the tumor was huge. Her uterus was removed as a result.”

Amy took over. “Your mother, while not necessarily past her prime, was no spring chicken when she—” Amy held up both hands and mimed quotation marks “—gave birth to you. I mean, nowadays thirty-six doesn’t seem too old to have your first child. But over thirty years ago? People were poppin’ out two or three before they even reached thirty. Why would such loving, nurturing parents like yours wait so long to have children? Makes you wonder doesn’t it?”

Arty shook his head. “This is bullshit. I would have known. My brother and I would have found out somehow.”

“Different time, Fannelli,” Henry said. “We’re talking the 70’s here. Adoption practices were a bit more lax back then. You could adopt at a young age and keep it a secret from anyone and everyone—including you and your brother.”

Arty stuttered. “I would have…remembered.”

Amy chuckled. “Doubtful.”

Arty’s breaths grew short and shallow. “I’m two years older than Jim. I would have at least been two.”

Now it was Patrick’s turn to chuckle. “Right. And we all remember so much at the ripe old age of two, don’t we? Hell, I’ll even give you four. Can you remember anything from when you were four, Arty?”

Arty pulled at his cuffs again, a clang instead of a clink this time. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me Jim isn’t my real brother either, right?”

“No, no,” Henry said, “I’m fairly certain he is. There’s a minuscule chance your parents adopted two American children from two separate families. I’d bet good money Jim is your biological brother.”

“Do you know what all of this means, Arty?” Amy asked.

Arty didn’t reply.

“It means that you and your brother aren’t really the unique individuals you think you are. You were raised by loving parents…but you weren’t born to them.”

Arty said nothing. Patrick took over.

“Did you ever read The Bad Seed, Arty?” Patrick asked. “It was a fantastic book that came out in the mid-fifties. Written by a guy named William March. They made it into a play and a movie. The movie was damn good too, except for the fact that they changed the original ending. It wasn’t really their fault though; their hands were kind of tied. You see at the time they had to comply with the Motion Picture Production Code, meaning the ending had to be morally acceptable; the bad guys weren’t allowed to win, so to speak.

“Still, the movie was good enough to be nominated for an Academy Award. Patty McCormack was downright creepy as the little girl. You and your stupid brother wish you could be as creepy as that little girl.”

Arty stayed quiet. He just glared at the couple—a mix of hate and confusion.

“I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let me give you the synopsis, okay? Basically the book is about this adorable, seemingly perfect eight-year-old girl who is actually downright evil. The little girl is a total sociopath who can flash her blue eyes and pearly whites one minute, and then kill a fellow classmate the next in order to get a penmanship medal she felt she deserved.

“The loving mother begins to suspect something is wrong with her child, and fears she may have inherited her nasty old grandmother’s evil genes. You see, Arty, it turns out that grandma was quite the notorious serial killer in her day, and poor old loving mom fears that her innocent little daughter might have inherited those awful, awful genes.” Patrick smiled. “Do you see where I’m heading with this, Arthur?”

Arty said, “Shut up.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t know about this classic, Arty, what with all your ‘research’ and all. I would have told you about it before, but I didn’t have much of a chance.” He turned to Amy. “Why is that you think, baby?”

Amy scratched her head, her eyebrows scrunched, lips pursed. Then everything popped, and her eyes were bright and wide, her mouth an O. “You were being gagged and tortured at the time, honey. You couldn’t have!”

Patrick slapped his forehead. “That’s right. Why didn’t you tell him about it then, baby?”

Amy gave her husband a silly look and sang, “Honey...I was being gagged and tortured too.”

Patrick slapped his forehead again. “Duh!”

Arty yelled, “Shut up!”

“You remember your little spiel about Serial Killer Stanley?” Patrick said. “That’s what you called him, right? Stanley?” He looked to Amy again.

“Yeah, I think that was it,” Amy said. “Although I kind of liked The Three Stooges reference better. Found it more amusing.”

“Yeah, I did too. I like the Stooges. Again, I would have told you and your brother that, but…” Patrick wrapped an imaginary gag around his mouth and head, made his lips disappear, then splayed his hands with a helpless shrug.

Amy laughed.

“Henry, I want these f*cks out of here now. I have rights; this is beyond f*cking absurd.”

Detective Henry pretended to look out the window. Patrick was sure he saw him smirking.

“Let’s not get off track,” Patrick continued. “It’s contagious, this lecturing stuff. I can see why you and Jim felt the need to bore us for so long with how cool you thought you were.”

“Henry!”

Patrick continued. “Sorry, sorry…let’s get back to our buddy Stanley. So! Arty…you said Serial Killer Stanley was a serial killer because he came from a long line of serial killers, yes? Those were your words, if I’m not mistaken.” Patrick’s haughty delivery was the equal of a prosecutor to an ignorant defendant.

“Shut the f*ck up!”

“Did you know The Bad Seed was based on a true story? That there really was a serial killer grandma that had an eight-year-old, serial killer granddaughter?”

This was a lie, but Patrick hardly cared. He was having too much fun. “I guess the point I’m trying to make here, Arthur, is that in this case—in your case—it looks like heredity was the winner. Hey, you know what I just thought? What if your real father’s name was actually Stanley? How f*cking funny would that be?”

Amy laughed again.

“So you know what I’m thinking here, Arty?” Patrick said. “I think—no—I bet. I bet my newly saved life that your biological parents, the real people responsible for bringing you into this world, were just as sick and f*cked up as you and your brother are.” Patrick quickly corrected himself, “Oh, sorry…as you are. Guess I’d have to say were if I’m talking about Jim, yeah?”

Arty finally spoke in a tone below a shout, though it clearly held no guarantees it would remain as such; his face was near purple with rage, veins bulged his neck and forehead, looking as if they might split the skin. “You don’t know that. You don’t know that for sure.”

Amy shrugged. “You’re right. Nobody does—including you. We might be able to find out though. Do some digging maybe? If we really tried I’m sure we could come up with something.” She looked at Detective Henry. He raised both eyebrows and nodded in agreement. Amy continued.

“But I don’t think you want us to do that, do you, Arty? In fact, I don’t think we would want to do it either. I think it’s best if we just let it fester inside that rotted head of yours. Because deep down I think you know the truth. We all know the truth. And if you’ll forgive the pun…that seed we just planted? That seed that’s gonna keep on growing and growing…? That’s enough for us. That seed will put a smile on the face of my husband and I for the rest of our very long lives.”

Patrick took another step closer towards the bed. He wanted to hammer the point home. “So enjoy your time in prison, Arty. I wouldn’t hold my breath on waiting for any budding shrinks to come look you up. Especially not after my wife and I make certain that everyone knows the true origins of the ‘infamous’ Fannelli brothers.”

Patrick began guiding Amy towards the door. Before exiting he looked at Arty, smirked and added, “Maybe Amy and I will send you a card on Mother’s Day.”

Detective Henry barked a laugh, instantly covered his mouth and said, “Ah shit. Come on.” He ushered the Lamberts out of the room.