William Bernhardt - Capitol Threat

F or Michel

My sister, my friend

Lad of Athens, faithful be

To Thyself,

And Mystery—

All the rest is Perjury—

—EMILY DICKINSON

I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

That’s what I kept saying to myself, throughout the entire ordeal, and long after it was over. But there was never any choice, not really. I did what I had to do. I knew someone would probably end up dead. I just assumed it would be me.

As we embarked on this misbegotten adventure, I checked to make sure my weapon was primed and loaded and simultaneously reminded myself that Schopenhauer postulated the existence of an indifferent universe. An Immanent Will shaping our destiny. Not that the cosmos is actively opposed to us, as some of the nihilists might have you believe, but simply disinterested. There is no such thing as luck, because the concept of luck presupposes a sentient being dealing out favors. So in Schopenhauer’s view, the ease with which the whole job went down, at least initially, was due not to providence but merely to the chance occurrence of inconceivable and uncontrollable forces.

As it turned out, Schopenhauer was wrong. I had a huge load of luck coming my way. I just forgot to duck before the inevitable reckoning.

I couldn’t believe how simple the break-in was. We bought the costumes at a party shop, for heaven’s sake, right next to the pointed hats and the noisemakers. I suppose the dubious authenticity didn’t matter—we looked, at least at first sight, like two members of the local police. Flipped the fake IDs Jack had bought and we were inside. I was stunned at the effortlessness of it all. Granted, we weren’t breaking into a bank. I didn’t expect security at that level. But I expected something, given the value of the merchandise. The lack of security was why Jerry accepted the gig when Renny came calling. This is the second most profitable criminal enterprise in the world, he told me, but the security is no better than what you’d expect at a comic-book convention. Jack didn’t care about the merchandise; he certainly had no appreciation for it. It was a job, one he couldn’t do alone, so he dragged me along. Into the fire. We are tested by fire; that’s what Nietzsche taught. What does not kill us makes us stronger. So I accepted. So I would be stronger. At least I told myself that was the reason. Maybe I just wanted to make enough money that I didn’t have to take every petty job that came my way. Maybe I wanted enough money so that the next time I had to make a decision—like the one that took Catherine away from me—I wouldn’t make the wrong one.

Must’ve been the way I carried myself, or the look in my eye, or perhaps the fact that I was way too underweight to be a police officer. Maybe it was my long blond hair, or excessive makeup, or the party-shop shoes that didn’t quite fit. I’ll never know for certain, but one of the museum guards began scrutinizing me intently almost immediately after we arrived. I knew he was suspicious. And I knew that the more time passed, the more opportunity he would have to do something about it. So I cold-cocked him in the face. Elbow to the nose, sudden flash of searing pain, blood everywhere. His partner reacted, but not fast enough. Jerry flattened him before he could unsnap his holster. A few more blows to the head and they were both laid out on the cold marble floor, their faces looking as if they’d been scraped with sandpaper. That was the problem with these security guys—they didn’t really expect trouble. They didn’t have the wariness of true beat cops, the subliminal awareness of possible death lurking behind every door. Maybe we were teaching them a lesson, I thought, just as Locke argued that all life, all experience, was instructional. In the future, they would be more careful.

“Have a reason for that,” Jerry asked, “or just didn’t like the way he looked at you?”

“He made me,” I answered.

“He didn’t have time. Suspicious, maybe.”

“We were going to have to do it eventually.”

“Yes, but you didn’t have to do it so quickly and with such gusto. Better hope that basement is where we think it is.” He grinned in a way that made me disgusted with myself just for being with him. “You really do hate men, don’t you?”

I didn’t bother trying to deny it. “I have my reasons,” I said quietly.

We made our way down to the basement, where the goods we wanted were stored—the ones that didn’t appear on the official inventory. It was a dark, dank, and dingy place, obviously not meant to be viewed by the public. But what was stored there! Beauty and banality, all commingled in one subterranean package.

We went to work. Jerry had a list. We were very selective. I used my X-Acto knife to cut a lovely oil of a wooden ship loaded with men being tossed about by a wicked storm. It looked old, but I wouldn’t know; philosophy was my gig, not art history. We were almost finished when I heard Jerry say the single simple sentence that changed everything:

“I’m keeping Isabella.”

“You can’t do that.”

“What—you come this far only to balk at a little kidnapping?”

“We have a list, Jerry. If we go off-plan we risk getting caught.”

“We took that risk the second we put on these cop suits.”

“They won’t pay a ransom. This is supposed to be a snatch and run, pure and simple.”

“Then I’ll keep her. She can be mine. All mine.” He hugged the statuary as if it were an actual naked woman. A wild, dangerously crazy look flickered in his eyes. “I’ll be good to her. I’ll be so good she’ll never want to leave me.”

I’ll just bet he would. I stopped cutting and drew myself up to my full height, which not incidentally was three inches taller than his. “I won’t let you screw this up, Jerry. It’s too important. I need this.” And I did need it. I felt that in my inner core, for reasons I couldn’t even begin to explain. It was like a Kantian imperative.

“So that’s it?” he growled. “End of discussion?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” I returned to my work. The sooner we were out of there, the better.

Naturally, he wouldn’t let it go. “Did you forget that this is my job? That you’re working for me?”

“Yeah, and you’re working for Renny, and this is not what he told you to do.”

“You’ve always been a pain in the butt, you know that? Too damn smart to have anything to do with the rest of us morons. Except the way I see it, for all your supposed brains, you’re here in the same cellar with me, doing the same grunt work, living hand-to-mouth, hoping today isn’t the day the feds finally show up at your doorstep. Hell, you couldn’t even keep your own kid—”

“ Jerry ! End this!” I didn’t mean to point the knife at him. I mean, how much damage could I really do with an X-Acto? It was just a gesture, an unintended one. But Jerry took it as a threat. He kicked the knife out of my hand, then threw himself on top of me. I might have been taller, but he was a lot heavier. He pinned me down, his hot, sweaty, disgusting body much too close to mine.

A moment later, his fingers wrapped around my neck.

“I don’t need you anymore,” he whispered. “You’ve already done everything I needed you to do. You’re expendable.” He clutched my throat even tighter. His fingernails pierced my flesh, drawing blood. I felt light-headed, unfocused, like my consciousness was slowly slipping away. “News flash, Vickie. You’re not the only one who knows how to hate.”