John Hart - The King Of Lies

“I must say, Work, I’m a little surprised.” She tossed the flowers in a wastebasket and placed the wine on a side table.

“What are you doing here, Barbara?” There was no mistaking the anger in my voice. Vanessa backed away, but Barbara went on as if she had not heard me.

“The way you talk about this little slut at home, I thought you’d used her up.” Barbara’s eyes moved over Vanessa as if they could focus heat and char flesh at will. “I guess you wanted one more fling for the road.” I saw Vanessa wilt, and felt my heart break. “For old time’s sake.” Barbara stepped closer, her eyes still hot on Vanessa. “I guess I was wrong.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “None of it.” But already Vanessa was heading for the door. Her name passed my lips, but my feet were slow. She passed Barbara before I could reach her, and my wife’s words slipped through the thin armor of her exposed back.

“Did you really think you could compete with me?”

Vanessa turned, caught my eye one time, then slammed the door shut behind her. Barbara yelled at the silent door.

“Stay away from my husband, you white trash whore!”

Suddenly, I did not know myself. Rage carried me to Barbara’s side and tightened my hand on her arm. Rage spun her around. Rage lifted my hand. But I brought it down. I slapped her so hard, I knocked her to the floor. Then rage filled me again, threatened to kick her, to crush her into utter and silent submission. Rage wanted blood. Rage wanted payback. And the rage was strong.

I had to fight it down, crush it through sheer will. Otherwise, I might have killed her.

Barbara must have seen it burn in my eyes, for she did not say a word until the killing light dimmed. In its absence, she saw what she expected to see, the man she’d been married to for ten years. The empty man. The shell.

If she’d seen the truth, she would have never opened her mouth to me again.

“Are you finished?” she asked. “Finished acting like what you think a man should be?”

“Is that supposed to hurt?”

“Truth sometimes does.”

“Listen, Barbara. I told you before. We’re finished.”

She smoothed the back of her hand against her cheek. “We’re through when I say we’re through. I’ll not be made a laughingstock. Not by that woman and not by you.”

“You are so like my father,” I said, and put my hand on the door. She smiled, and I stared, amazed that I’d not seen it sooner. She was like my father. Same values. Same detachment.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said, climbing to her feet, straightening her clothing with a contemptuous air.

“It wasn’t meant as one.”

She breathed deeply through her nose. Her face was flushed, her eyes as shiny and hard as new dimes. “One of us has to be strong,” she said. “And we both know who that is.”

I paused halfway out of the office. “Don’t kid yourself. You can call a lunatic a genius, but at the end of the day he’s still crazy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that an obsession for control is not the same thing as strength; it’s just obsession.” I thought of Vanessa. “I know what strength looks like,” I said.

I don’t know what she saw on my face: disgust, maybe pity. And the truth was this: My wife has never been strong, just angry, and there’s a huge difference. Deep down she knew this.

“You need me, Work. Whether you know it or not, you will always need me.”

As I passed down the empty hall in pursuit of Vanessa, I heard Barbara’s final words. They rang with her confidence and I told myself that it was false. This time, she was wrong.

“You know where to find me,” she screamed, and I walked faster. “You’ll come back.” I broke into a run. “You always do!”

I hit the exterior door with my shoulder. It flew open and the afternoon light blinded me. I squinted, shaded my eyes, and saw Vanessa behind the wheel of her truck. She reversed out of her parking spot and sped toward the exit. She slowed at the street but didn’t stop, then turned right and accelerated, blue smoke spewing from the exhaust. I ran behind her, called her name. I smelled burned oil, heard my breath and my beating heart. People stared, but I didn’t care. I sprinted down the yellow line and I called Vanessa’s name.

She didn’t stop.

But I wasn’t going to let her go, not this time, so I ran back for my truck. I’d catch her on the road or at home. Somewhere. And we’d finish what we’d begun.

I was out of shape and breathing hard when I hit the grass strip that separated the parking lot from the road. I stumbled, caught myself before I went down, then fumbled for my keys. I found the right one, shoved it into the lock, and turned it. She couldn’t be too far away, no more than a mile.

I looked up as I opened the door and saw Barbara standing by the rear entrance of the building. Her face was expressionless as she watched me. I, for one, had nothing to say. My eyes probably said it all.

Then I was inside the truck, the engine hot, my foot on the gas. I backed out of the spot, pointed the truck toward the exit. And just like that, my universe changed. Suddenly, there were cars everywhere, pouring into the parking lot. Flashing lights. Uniforms. I was blocked in, surrounded by vehicles.

Nobody drew weapons, but I saw the guns and my heart stuttered. I found it hard to breathe; I knew what was happening. Then Mills was at my door, and she knocked on my window, her face surprisingly empty.

I’d created this scene in my mind on countless occasions: lying awake at night, feeling the wheels turn, so grinding and relentless. Somehow I’d thought that it would never happen, but I’d pictured Mills, and always, without fail, I’d imagined a fierce glee. Somehow, this nothingness was worse.

I rolled down the window, not really feeling my arms.

“Would you turn off the engine and step out of the car, please?” A stranger’s voice.

I did what she asked, and the ground felt rubbery beneath my feet.

Mills closed the truck door behind me, and I was very conscious of the sound it made, a metal door slamming shut. Uniformed officers flanked me; I didn’t recognize them, and I realized that Mills must have chosen them personally.

Mills continued, and as she spoke, I felt hands turn me, bend me over the hood of my own vehicle.

“Jackson Pickens, you are under arrest for the murder of Ezra Pickens. You have the right to remain silent…”

The metal was hard, unforgiving. I saw rust I’d never seen before. I smelled my own breath. I heard a grunt and realized it was mine.

“Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

I looked up and saw Barbara. She was still against the building and I sought her face. It was almost as empty as Mills’s had been, but something bent her features and it looked like anger.

I felt the cuffs cinched tight around my wrists. Somebody pulled me upright by the back of my shirt. People had collected on the sidewalk and they stared. I stared back as Mills finished reading me my Miranda rights from a card.

“You are entitled to an attorney.” Here she looked up and met my eyes. “If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to represent you.”

I didn’t want to look at her face, so I tilted my face to the sky, suddenly thinking of the hawk I’d seen from the bridge. But this sky was empty, and if redemption moved in it, it did so in a place that I could not see.

“Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?”

Finally, I looked at her. “Yes. I understand them.” Another stranger’s voice, this one from my own mouth.

“Search him,” Mills said, and again the hands were upon me. They patted me down, ran up my legs, groped my crotch and my armpits. They took my wallet and my pocketknife. Under the public eye, they took my belt. I was not a person anymore. I was part of the system.