3

Richard Mass was a thirty-year-old waste of space who had been a blight on the town since his early teens. Nearly two decades ago, when Mass was a preteen and Lester had only been on the job for a few months, they had run into each other at Mass’s school. He had lashed out at another kid, breaking his glasses and giving him a lifelong scar above his cheek that would remain as a testament to Mass’s anger. Lester remembered sitting in the headmaster’s office with Mass’s parents and listening to how their child was quiet, how he was the victim. They said that he was a tortured soul, an intelligent boy who wasn’t emotionally or mentally challenged enough at school, so he got into trouble to stimulate his brain. The teachers, the parents, and even Lester had all believed it, but while such stories and such children did exist, Mass was just a fucking idiot. He couldn’t read, couldn’t write, couldn’t multiply, and probably couldn’t tie his own shoelaces. This was no tortured soul. This was a disturbed little nuisance who could only put two and two together when selling drugs, whose only knowledge of biology came from fondling teenage girls and masturbating to lingerie catalogues, and whose only understanding of the solar system was that the sun revolved around the earth, Pluto was Mickey’s dog, and Venus had something to do with female hygiene products.

Mass had lived with his parents for much of his adult life, and throughout it all, they still believed he was a tortured genius. Some of the evidence they cited to maintain their denial was that their son often just sat doing nothing. To them, that proved that he was contemplating the universe and the human psyche. To everyone else, it was obvious Richard was just incredibly high and incredibly vacant.

He had moved out of his parents’ house a couple years ago and now lived in an apartment on the edge of town, paid for by the government and frequented by the police. Atwood once joked that they should place police headquarters there to save on fuel costs.

The apartment building was stuck in the middle of a small strip of unwanted wasteland, once a thriving piece of real estate with the potential to be a park, a family home, or even a business, now a desolate swamp of potato-chip bags, beer cans, broken glass, and used needles. After a few drug dealers moved in and their friends followed, the entire block became a haven for depraved hedonism.

When Lester arrived, he noted an old three-seater parked just outside the building. Its doors and windows were open and a subwoofer blasted out something barely recognizable as music. Several youths gathered around the car, drinking and smoking. A number of adults were with them, wearing the same clothes and the same glum, disinterested expressions. Lester scanned their faces as he approached and they stared back at him. He couldn’t see Mass or his son among them.

He parked away from the small gathering, locked his car, and then advanced toward the building. His car was just as shitty as theirs and all the others scattered around the block. That wouldn’t set him apart, but his clothes and his mannerisms would. They all wore designer sports gear, Adidas tracksuits, Nike trainers. But none were clean, all were stolen, and Lester knew the closest these delinquents got to sports was when they were being chased by people like him. He’d seen them and people like them day in and day out for years, and while he began his career thinking that everyone had something good inside them, that everyone had hope and everyone deserved a chance, he now understood they were all worthless, hopeless, and rotten to the core.

As he moved closer to them, Lester knew trying to hide, to fit in, would be pointless. He had been in the police long enough to pick up a few habits those on the wrong side of the law would spot. He had also dealt with many of them before.

“You’re in the wrong part of town, pig!”

Matty Ferguson, a kid playing tough at the front of the pack, hadn’t always been as bad as the others, but he hadn’t had a chance in life, and eventually he became just as hopeless, just as worthless, and just as despicable. He was from a family of no-hopers, a family where violence was as common, as natural, and as frequent as a morning bowel movement. He spent his childhood on the right side of the law, steering clear of a family that had more psychological issues than Charles Manson. The blood that had been passed to him from an insane mother, and to her from an insane grandmother, finally infected his mind when he was fourteen. A friend he had known for as little as three weeks forgot his birthday, and in response Matty forced his way into the friend’s home, took him by surprise, and proceeded to assault him, barking incessantly like a rabid dog as he did so: “How dare you forget my birthday!”

Lester stared back at the sixteen-year-old cretin and wondered what it took for a mind to turn so bad so quickly. He’d always been a firm believer in nurture over nature, evident in his own children, who had rebelled when the warmth and love had been sucked out of their lives.

“Fuck off back to your sty!”

Matty’s brother spoke up. He was older and had always been insane. Just like his mother, his grandmother. Just like his brother. Lester felt an unshakable pity, looking at the Ferguson pair. Maybe nurture had played a part. They had grown up without a father, after all. Lester himself had witnessed how an absent father, whether physically or emotionally, could turn good kids bad. And these kids barely qualified as good to begin with.

Lester lowered his head, tried to shake their shouts and his thoughts away. They continued though. Some of the shouts didn’t make it above the rattle of the music, but Lester ignored them all regardless. He turned to face them as he opened the door to the apartment building and he saw they were all still staring at him. A couple even spat at their own feet, indicating their disgust either at him or at their own knock-off trainers.

Lester had seen it all before, but it resonated more now than it ever had. The pity he had felt for the Ferguson brothers had blossomed into anger. He was angry at himself, knowing that his son could turn out to be just as worthless, just as insane, and that it would be his fault if he did. He was also angry at them; he didn’t deserve that sort of hate. He had arrested them before, but had been nothing but professional and, in Matty’s case, he had even been sympathetic. But despite that, they didn’t think twice about treating him like shit. They were just as bad as his daughter. The only difference was that he couldn’t and wouldn’t hit or hurt her. He couldn’t and wouldn’t show her just how much he hated what she said to him and just how much her actions hurt him. But there was nothing stopping him from expressing that anger toward the gang of delinquents.

He made a beeline for the oldest and biggest member of the gang. He looked a few years younger than Lester, built like a brick shithouse with tattooed arms exposed through a sleeveless vest. Lester had seen him around but had never arrested him. The older ones had the experience and the sense; they knew that if they needed anything doing—robberies, drug deals, someone to sit on their stash—there was always a line of kids waiting to do it for them. Kids like Matty Ferguson and his half-witted brother would take the risks and the flak so they didn’t have to.

The big man puffed out his chest and took a step forward as Lester approached. It was all bravado, keeping up appearances. Lester knew the big man wouldn’t hit him and would be careful with every single word he said, but the same didn’t apply to Lester. The big man was about to mock him, taunt him, but as soon as he approached, Lester swung. He felt one of his knuckles pop as he caught the big man square on the jaw. Even above the sound of the music—the bass pounding through the earth, through his feet, and through his soul like a second heartbeat—he could hear a crack as he broke the man’s jaw.

The man stumbled backward, slipped. The back of his head rattled off the side of the car and he slipped into unconsciousness, his body slumped up against the vehicle. Lester paused, a little shocked at his own power, at what all of that anger, hatred, and venom had morphed into. He had been fit and strong in his younger days, but he didn’t know he still had it in him. He turned to the others, who had already retreated several steps. They looked both angry and terrified, but their fear was the dominant emotion. They exchanged glances, wondering whether they should all attack, but no one was willing to make the first move. That was the problem with delinquent gangs. Take away their machismo and test them, and they lost their allegiances in a second. They talked a big game and stood proudly by their idiots-in-arms, but test them and they backed down like the cowards they were.

Lester grinned at them all, feeling a hell of a lot better about himself. He didn’t say a word to them, but he didn’t need to. He had told them everything they needed to know, and he had given himself all the satisfaction he needed with that one punch.

He turned his back on them and headed for the building, confident none of them would jump him. Once inside, he looked out through the glass to see several of the kids had retreated further, their glum and cocky faces filed with fear and uncertainty. Some of the others had gathered around their fallen friend, unsure if they really wanted to be there when he woke up and didn’t find a dead cop next to him.

Lester focused on Matty Ferguson and found himself thinking about his son again. The anger had dispersed, but he was still determined not to let the child that he had hugged, loved, and kissed so many times fall into the traps laid by a broken home, a damaged psychology, and a ruthless peer group.

He studied the displaced knuckle on his right hand. It hurt like hell and would hurt even more when the adrenaline faded, but it had been worth it. A noise from above interrupted him and he looked up as a drunken teenage girl stumbled her way down the stairs. She was wearing high-heels and with every step, he waited for her to break an ankle. She looked like she had been dragged through a hedge—her hair was a mess, her makeup had run, and her clothes were twisted. She wore a skirt so short that Lester could see her knickers and, when she finally made it to the bottom of the stairs, she caught him looking.

“Are you staring at my pussy?” she asked.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She lowered her eyebrows and nearly lost her balance as she tried to stand up straight. “What’s it to you?” she said, cockily slurring her words. “You’re not a cop and you’re not my father.”

Lester clearly was a cop and the fact that she wasn’t experienced enough to realize that indicated she was as young as she looked. That made her no older than fourteen, the same age as Damian, the same age Matty had been when his corrupt genes caused him to flip.

“Go home,” he told her bluntly.

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

He sighed. “Just go home, kid. You’re fooling no one.”

He ascended the stairs she had stumbled down, stopping on the second floor, outside Mass’s flat. The front door was wide open, looking straight into the hallway and one of the bedrooms. The door to the bedroom was missing completely, with a few remnants of broken wood lying on the floor and stuck on the hinge. From where he stood, Lester could see a young boy and a young girl in their late teens, getting heated on a bare mattress inside the bedroom. The boy, who had long and messy hair that probably hadn’t been washed in months, had his shirt off and was trying to remove the girl’s top as she batted him away, seemingly aware of just how exposed they were.

A middle-aged man walked out of the living room next to them. He stopped and stared when he saw Lester standing there, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth, a smile stuck stupidly on his face. The blank stare remained for a few moments until he turned toward the bedroom, standing in the doorway and egging on the two lovers while grabbing his crotch and asking them to make room for him.

Lester felt sick to his stomach to know that not only was this the environment his son was currently exposed to, but it was one his daughter had been living in for the last couple of years. These were her people, her friends, her boyfriends. The thought that she could be just like the girl in the bedroom, batting away the advances of a horny teen as he prepared to fuck here in front of a block of imbeciles, made him sick to his stomach.

Receiving another blank stare from the drunken pervert, Lester entered the flat and prepared to barge into the living room. He waited to see if the man would react, if he would stop him or alarm his friends, but he seemed more interested in the unveiling pornography ahead of him than in anything Lester had planned.

Mass was seated in the middle of a tatty couch, his glazed eyes staring at the television, which played an old repeat of The Simpsons. The room was thick with smoke and people, at least half a dozen, many of whom sat on the floor. They weren’t talking to each other but the occasional mumble and laugh indicated they knew of each other’s presence. Lester stood in front of Mass and blocked his view of the television, his hands on his hips.

“Where’s Damian?” he demanded.

It seemed to take Mass a few seconds before he realized someone had interrupted his time with his animated and less-than-animated friends.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Where’s Damian?” Lester repeated.

“Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?” Mass repeated.

Lester grabbed Mass by the collar and lifted him off the chair. He was thin and light. He felt like a mannequin in clothes as Lester dragged him across the room, kicked the television off its stand, and then pinned him against the wall behind it, making sure that everyone was now paying attention to him.

“I’ll ask you again,” Lester said slowly. “And if you don’t answer me this time, then I’m going to hurt you. Where. Is. Damian?”

Mass sobered up a little, but his body was still limp and he seemed incapable of resisting, or even twitching. “Hey, aren’t you that copper? I think I’ve seen you before.”

With his hands busy, Lester used his knee to drive some sense into the drug dealer, delivering a precise shot to his groin. He felt genitals crush into bone as Mass’s balls flattened against his own pelvis. Mass squealed and began to froth at the mouth. There was movement in his arms and his legs now, his body zapped into life by a jolt of electricity.

“This is police brutality!” he snapped.

Lester dropped him and watched as he struggled to retain his footing. He backed away and Mass turned to his friends, stuck motionless in their original positions. “You see,” he said, “they ain’t got the balls, these pigs, they’re all the same.”

At first Mass didn’t see the chair coming, swinging at him like a bulky baseball bat, and by the time he did, it was already too late. He crumpled into a heap on the floor, writhing in agony and struggling to retain consciousness.

Lester grinned, wiped some spittle from his mouth, and then looked around, his eyes on fire as he met with the horrified stares of drug addicts and users, some of them Damian’s age. “Where is my son?” he asked.

At once they all responded. Most of them pointed toward the door, but one of them shouted, “Bedroom!”

Lester checked the first bedroom. The kissing had stopped and the boy was now completely naked but for a pair of stained boxer shorts. She was trying to get away but he wasn’t letting her.

Lester shook his head and moved onto the second bedroom. This bedroom had a door, but it wasn’t locked. It was smoky and it stank of booze, must, and sweat. Damian was in there with a girl, sitting on the edge of the bed with a bong in his hand as she watched eagerly. He looked up when his dad entered—he was about to take a hit, his lips open and the bong poised.

Lester ripped the contraption from his son’s hands and tossed it to the other side of the room.

“What you doing?” Damian screamed. “I paid for that.”

Lester didn’t answer, and when his son yelled and kicked with the energy that had eluded Richard Mass, Lester overpowered him and dragged him to the floor.

“You’re embarrassing me!” he spat. “Get your fucking hands off me.” Damian managed to release his arm and he swung for his father, catching him on the leg. Lester ignored him and dragged him a couple of feet as he continued to hurl abuse and kick out.

After the third or fourth kick, Lester let go and stood over him. Damian was silent and still in anticipation as Lester, frothing with anger, eyes burning with an intensity that Damian had never seen in him before, towered over him.

Lester stood on his son’s arm and this time Damian didn’t flinch. “You move an inch and I will break your fucking arm,” Lester warned. “Do you understand?”

Damian nodded.

“I’ll be right back, but if you run away from me, then you better make sure that I don’t catch you. Do you understand me?”

Damian nodded again.

“You can’t treat him like that!” The girl who had been on the bed with Damian was now standing in the doorway, defending her fling.

“It’s okay, Shelly,” Damian said, his attention still on his father.

“Get off of him before I call the police,” she continued. “Or his father, he’s a policeman. So you better watch out.”

“This is my father,” Damian said, swallowing thickly. “Please, just go back in the room. I’ll be okay.”

She gave Lester another fearful look and then disappeared.

Lester ducked into the other bedroom to see that the boy’s stained boxer shorts had been removed and he was several minutes away from raping the girl. She wasn’t going to scream, kick, or run, even though she had the chance, but she clearly didn’t want to be with him and she looked disgusted as he approached her and tried, with increasing agitation, to get what he wanted.

The boy had his back to Lester as he entered the room, but Lester saw the fear and the disgust in the girl’s eyes. She was his daughter’s age and he saw some of Annabelle in her, which angered him even more. He thought of Sparky doing the same to her, forcing her, trying to get his own way. He saw red.

Lester grabbed the boy by the hair and yanked him off the bed. He heard the hair rip and the boy scream as he was pulled off the bed. He fought with him, his arms and legs kicking and swinging, but Lester silenced him by throwing him headfirst into the wall. The thud was loud and dull, strong enough to remove a chunk of plaster, which rained snowy debris onto the filthy carpet and onto the naked body of the boy beneath it. He groaned in agony and squinted away the pain as a large cut opened in the middle of his forehead and made a mess of his already messy face.

“What have you done?” the girl screamed.

“Excuse me?” Lester said, baffled. He took a step back as she raced around the bed to attend to the young man who had tried to sexually assault her.

“He tried to rape you,” Lester reminded her.

“So?” she spat, her disgust now directed at Lester. “I can deal with my own problems. What gives you the right to come in here and beat up my boyfriend?”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“He tried to fucking assault you.”

“So?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Ah, baby, I’m so sorry.” She bent over her fallen beau and used his discarded boxer shorts to wipe away the blood.

Lester shook his head in disbelief, realizing that out of pity alone, he had probably helped the dirty little pervert get what he wanted from his psychotic girlfriend. He left them to it and returned to his son, who was still lying in the hallway.

“Now, are you going to play nice and come with me?” Lester asked. “Or do I have to drag you all the way home?”

Damian held up his hands and slowly rose to his feet. “You win, Dad,” he said. “I’m all yours.”