R.Scott Bakker - Disciple of the dog

I sat up in bed, blinking. This happens to me sometimes. It’s almost as if my memories possess a variable amplitude. The past concentrates, gathers valence, and assaults the now-to the point where it seems like I’m dreaming more than remembering. Sometimes the breakers overload and my brain snaps me out, like a reality fail-safe or something.

If there’s one thing my career path-as sketchy as it’s been-has taught me, it’s that things tend to be pretty obvious in the world of humans fucking over humans. Like I said, people repeat. This isn’t to say that every murderer is a serial murderer, only that a murderer will typically have a history of some kind. Why do you think cops and courts are so fixated on rap sheets? Events in our psychological future tend to resemble events in our psychological past.

So the presence of cons in Nill’s congregation fairly screamed for attention. I’ve been to prison, I know first-hand the vicious cunning that characterizes prison-gang power struggles, the way bloody shivs seem to float from cell to cell until they find the person-to-be-fingered-by-the-bulls.

Kill a man. Send another to the SHU. Two birds with one shiv.

Was that what this was? Was Dead Jennifer’s murder simply a higher- order weapon? A way for strung-out foot soldiers to take down their crazy Reverend? Albert even said these groups are far more likely to go gunning for one another.

I mulled these questions, considered the different angles from which these memories of mine could be interpreted. At some point a fragment of Nill’s initial sermon struck me. “Does a man let his dog run wid in the streets?” I had to laugh at that, it was so sad: fucking fortune-cookie racism.

I smoked another J.

Had a nappy-nap. It was a classic summer evening: a charcoal sky leaning low over the silhouetted town, contrails soaring violet to black. Molly still hadn’t come by to forgive me, so I drove by the police station. The plan had been to check in on Nolen, see if he was still in action, and if he was, see if I couldn’t sweet-talk a rap sheet on Nill out of him. Soon as I turned the corner onto Curtis Street, I realized that things were not going to go as planned. Vans packed the curbs and sidewalks adjacent to the station’s corner lot, all glossy in the dying light, festooned with decals on their sides and satellite dishes on their rooftops.

Something was going on. I drove by slow and more than a little paranoid. It’s hard to appreciate the power these Barbie-doll people have until you run into them in real life. It’s like a stage light follows them everywhere they go. They just seem brighter, cleaner than the rest of the world. Besides, I was well and truly stoned.

A crowd of ridiculously well-dressed people had assembled beneath a podium set before the station entrance. Portable lights glared, cut everything with brilliant clarity and pitch shadow. I crept along, hoping the rattle of my ancient diesel wouldn’t attract any undue attention. I parked illegally farther down the street. Resolved to become a terrorist if I got a ticket.

The air was warm and still, and I squelched the urge to buy a case of beer and party. When I was a kid, we used to play Ping-Pong in our driveway on nights like this.

I pretty much crept to the back of the scrum-slunk all incognito-like, you might say. Everybody smelled like air freshener. Made me think of McDonald’s bathrooms. Nobody paid me any attention because I wasn’t paying anybody’s bills. They were used to rubbing elbows with scalliwags, I supposed, what with all the loser journalists from the internet. Things had already started. Someone I didn’t know, one of those guys who looked like he had been born wearing a suit, was making a statement of some kind. Nolen was standing beside him, one pace back.

“-repeat: a firearm was found in the possession of the victim. Of course, the investigation is only in its preliminary stages, but I remain confident that the facts will bear out Chief Nolen’s version of events, and that he will be able to return to his duties, which, as you all know, are of the utmost priority…”

A firearm, huh? Clever boy.

Nolen’s gaze was too steely not to be medicated in some way. He saw me almost immediately. Even in a crowd of news models, my looks are quite striking. I could see the panic sputter beneath whatever wet chemical cloth he had thrown over his terror.

I shrugged and winked, hoped that was enough to let him know it was all okay. More than okay, really: co-operation was now a foregone conclusion. I almost convinced myself that it had been my plan all along, clearing out so that he could plant his evidence. Forensics could fuck it all up for him, of course, but forensics tended to confirm whatever it was the cops or the screenwriters wanted it to confirm.

No. Molly was the real question. She was still a believer, not a player like me.

I was surprised she wasn’t there. Her car was parked, so I knew she was in. One low light brightened the curtained corner of her window. I found myself staring at the 17 on her motel room door.

It was a capitulation, I know, but I couldn’t stop thinking of her heart- shaped ass. Dope makes me horny sometimes. The idea was to apologize first, then to let her know, not only that Nolen had saved his own bacon, but that we had actually made that possible by fading to black.

The real challenge, the real argument, would turn on the bum, whom CNN had identified as Alex Radulov.

Does a bum deserve justice? I certainly hope so, given that I’ve been a borderline hobo myself. I’ve had one foot in the gutter for a long, long time. And I’ve had many a friend who’s shrunk from the street lights, preferring to spark their pipe in the alley.

But let’s face it: there’s injustice and then there’s just bad fucking luck.

Maybe you think things are black and white, that we live in a do-the- crime-do-the-time world. But what about Nolen’s daughter? What about her swimming lessons? What about the rich soil of her life? Should we dry it out, parch it by putting away her father? Should we say “Tough fucking luck, kid,” to her? Or should we say it to Alex Radulov? Let him take one last hit for the human team?

I’m not saying I know the answer. All I knew was that I liked Nolen almost as much as I liked what he could do for me. Yep. I said it. Erring on the side of Nolen was convenient as all hell. If you find that odious, then ask yourself why the world needs judges and independent arbitrators. Mistaking self-interest for truth is just part of the human floor plan. Fact is, I was just doing something consciously that you do unconsciously all the time: believing what I needed to cover my own ass. Remortgage your house to buy a hybrid lately? No? Let me guess. You have a bunch of excuses…

And maybe that’s not so bad, considering how principles are as liable to get you a Hitler as a Gandhi.

This was what I had to impress upon Molly to get her to play bally. The virtue of hypocrisy.

I really had no idea how she would respond, aside from knowing she would be shocked that I could think such a thing. Unlike men, women possess an almost infinite capacity for moral surprise. No matter how many times the office sociopath burns them, they are hurt and mystified.

I reached out and knocked. The door swung wide as if she had been expecting me.

Except she hadn’t been expecting me. All that was left of her was a small puddle of blood. Fawk.

It had been quite some time since I had last experienced genuine terror. I had forgotten not so much the tenor as the immediacy. Wow. Bummer.

Her laptop was still up and running on the small table. The lamp next to her bed glowered with dim indifference. I could see DISCIPLE scrawled across a sheet of paper folded on the pillow. I sat on her bed, took comfort in the fact that her mattress was at least as hard as my own. I snapped the sheet up in tingling fingers. Opened it. Hydradyne Assembly Plant