The Carma Klown 10

Chapter 10

© 2013 by the author

Wednesday, ca. 10:00 p.m., June 9, 2010

It was regrettable, of course, but you could never predict how people would react. The police were hushing it up. There had been nothing on the TV news and only brief mentions in the online versions of the Times and the Post of Milowski’s suicide. A “high-ranking” source in the Police Department “familiar with the case” (“speaking anonymously,” of course, “because he was not authorized to make a statement”) said that Milowski had been distraught over his failure to advance beyond ordinary patrolman. It was implied that an assignment to the court system was the department’s tacit way of handling officers who weren’t quite suitable for the streets. Neither paper mentioned the video. It apparently hadn’t come to their attention yet.

The video had been posted on several sites, but as yet the identities of the cops weren’t widely known, and no one appeared to have drawn the link between the cop shown in the video and Milowski’s suicide. The comments sections appended to the video were uniformly enthusiastic.  His fans applauded the police as victims. They were, if anything, disappointed that he hadn’t forced the two officers to do more. Some of their suggestions were quite inventive, almost worthy of The Carma Klown himself. Some were a bit too inventive—who knew what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Well, he was learning. He had to admit that it was upsetting to find that viewers were focusing on what he was doing, not why he was doing it. Really, he must find a way to make his message clear. Obviously the next video would be crucial to his campaign.

The one thing he had found encouraging was the response of the police, both locally and throughout the country. The cops’ internal email system and the online websites for police officers had been filled with outrage and anger—the things they were threatening to do to him when they caught him were barbaric. He shuddered to think of them. Fortunately there was no chance that the police would ever get that close to him.

Chief Bronson had felt that the video deserved a response and had sent a message to everyone on the force pledging to spare “no effort in the hunt for this maniac”; at least that’s what the original message had read. He had been able to intercept it before it reached anyone and changed the passage to read “spare no effort to find and reward The Carma Klown for his help in showcasing the fine efforts of these two sterling officers. It makes you proud to be a pig”—a much more suitable statement, even if he did say so himself. The resulting brouhaha had somewhat overshadowed the video for a time and might even lead to Bronson’s resignation. As satisfying as that had been, however, he would have to avoid similar interventions in the future. The Police Department might take steps to increase the security of its internal communications system. Not that that would stop him, but it would take time to restore his access, and he had much better things to do.

And it would cause a momentary delay in his tracking of the activities of The Carma Klown Task Force. It helped to keep abreast of what they were doing so that he could, should it prove necessary, intercede and misdirect them in a timely fashion. Not that he expected to have to do so. He was happy to note that the “clues” he had left the police were working just as he had planned. Like this report giving the results of the “tox screens” on samples of Rossiter’s and the two cops’ blood. “High levels of metabolites characteristic of prior ingestion of flunitrazepam (other names: Rohypnol, Narcozep; street name: ‘roofies’) were present in all three blood samples. The levels are consistent with intake of a compound in the benzodiazapine family twelve to thirty-six hours before the samples were taken. Further analysis should reveal the exact drug administered.”

Well, he had given each of the men a dose of Rohypnol at the end of the sessions, but the purpose was not to make them more acquiescent and cooperative (they had already been ready and willing to accept all his instructions). Rather, it was to mislead the police about what he was using to make them so docile. Also, it helped to mask the compounds that he was using. According to Professor Stephens, the drug regime was untraceable, but one could never be sure. Better to give the police an easy answer than to create a mystery.

It had been a stroke of luck that he had happened across Stephens’s government research project seven years ago. As an undergraduate, he had been investigating government contracts, especially those from the military, given to professors; his intent was to publish an exposé that would force the university to stop the research. His report on his findings did succeed in embarrassing the university temporarily. His talents in hacking computers had allowed him to read all the professors’ reports. Then he had hacked the college newspaper’s computer and arranged for the story to be printed on the front page. The feds had shut the paper down while they investigated the source of the report—an investigation that came to nothing, not that the government could admit that. In the end, they made an example out of the editorial staff of the student paper. The last he had heard, a couple of them were still in prison somewhere for releasing classified information.

But he had held back the information on Stephens’s work. Initially it had attracted his attention because of its ultra top secret classification, the highest given any of the projects on campus. Once he had read Stephens’s reports and looked at the test results on an unwitting group of student-subjects, he knew that he could put these “suggestibility enhancement and compliance augmentation” (SECA) compounds to better use than the military. And Stephens had become so cooperative about supplying him with the drugs. He didn’t even suspect that he had become another test subject. Even now, years later, he was only too ready to provide what was needed. In the unlikely event that the coroner’s office succeeded in identifying the chemical composition of the drugs, the military could step hardly step forward and admit their role in the creation of the SECA drugs and supply the police with information that might help them track him down.

And now the participants in the next video had been selected. Friday during the day he would administer doses of the first drug appropriate for men of their weight. Then later, his chosen stars would receive the second drug. The camera and the set and the tattoo machine were ready, and the next clue for Chang and his helpers was prepared and waiting to be incorporated into the new video. He still had to record the instruction tapes for the participants to listen to, but there was plenty of time to do that tomorrow or Friday.

*****

Thursday, ca. 12:30 a.m., June 10, 2010

Jeff sat in front of his computer screen, not really seeing the words he had typed there an hour earlier. I should know better by now, he thought. I should know not to let Michael see that I  worry about him. He hates that. It’s bad enough that everybody in that oversized family of his takes every opportunity to tell him that he’s wasting his talents. His father lectures him every chance he gets. So what do I do, I come along and start in on him about how dangerous his job is. It makes him think that I think he can’t take care of himself. And I had to do it on a day that started with me losing my temper at him.

Jeff scowled at the screen and then closed the program without saving the file. It had been a waste of effort, anyway. He carried his mug into the kitchen, poured the cold tea into the sink, rinsed out the mug, and set it in the dishwasher. Time to bite the bullet and apologize, he thought. Oh, bad choice of words. Forget bullets. Anyway, time to apologize and make up.

The bedroom was dark. Michael lay on his side of the bed, facing the wall. When Jeff walked in, Michael stiffened and moved closer to the edge of the bed. He was pretending to be asleep, but no sleeper was ever that tense. Jeff sat down on the foot of the bed, next to Michael’s legs. He put a hand on Michael’s calf. “Hey.”

There was no response. Michael wasn’t even breathing. His body was rigid and unmoving.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I behaved like a bitch today.”

This time a noise came from somewhere in the vicinity of Michael’s chest. The “hmph” could be taken as either an acknowledgment that Jeff had spoken or agreement with what he had said—or both.

“I’m not trying to justify or excuse what I said. I was wrong. But I can’t help worrying. I don’t know what I would do if you were . . .” Jeff caught himself before he said killed. “. . . injured or hurt. I depend on you so much. For so many things. I need you in one piece, and it frightens me to think about living without you. So rather than deal with my fears, I take it out on you. If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m not perfect. I know you can take care of yourself. It’s just that I wish you never had to do so. Or rather, that I never had to worry about you doing so. I can’t help it. I worry.”

The silence lasted for several beats. Finally there came a muffled “Come here” from somewhere near the location of Michael’s head.

“What?”

“Come here.” Michael rolled over on to his back, pushed the covers down, and reached out his arms. “No, don’t take off your clothes. Just come here. Right now.”

Jeff crawled onto the bed and lay down beside Michael. Suddenly Michael’s arms were around him, grasping him tight. “You’re not the only one who worries. I worry about all those monsters and evil wizards you have to deal with. It keeps me awake nights.”

“Yeah, right. I’ve noticed you tossing and turning and not being able to sleep. But it’s not the same. My monsters aren’t real. Yours are.”

“There as real as the monsters you think I face. Look, I’m not a patrolman. I don’t walk a beat. I don’t go on high-speed car chases or get in shoot-outs with the bad guys and get fired at fifty times from a gun that can only hold six bullets. It’s not like television. I deal with white-collar criminals with expensive lawyers who never let me get close to their clients—physically. The closest I get to criminals is a computer screen. I may end up knowing a lot about them, all sorts of secrets they never imagined would see the light of day, but I deal with pixels and emails and financial records and phone records and GPS logs. I don’t even have to testify in most cases. I find the evidence and somebody else takes it from there and confronts the criminal. I know I complain about being left out of investigations, but I am. Most of the time I sit in my cubicle. The biggest danger I face is the stale coffee in the breakroom. And the more successful I am at using computers to find evidence, the more the department will make me do that kind of work, and only that kind. They’ve got plenty of guys who can make arrests. They don’t have lots of people with my knowledge and skills, and even the department isn’t going to misuse me by letting me out from behind a computer. So you don’t need to worry.”

“But in a few hours you’re going to be at this Syswide.”

“I’ll be part of a team. It’s a tech company. No one’s going to be shooting. As soon as we serve the warrant, they’ll be on the phone to their lawyers. We hope that they will cooperate. If they don’t, the department will threaten them with the cancelation of its contract with them. They get a lot of money from the department, not to mention other city departments. They run the library computer system too. They’re not going to jeopardize their business with the city. It’s as much in their interest as in ours that they find the problem and fix it. We’re just looking for a few specific records. We won’t be there for long. At worst a few people will start shouting and making threats, but there’s no danger. I can guarantee that.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t sound convinced. I’ll tell you what. If I get shot, I’ll buy you dinner tomorrow night at the Milano. You can order tortellini in that butter and cheese and cream sauce that you like, and I won’t point out that your arteries are hardening just from the smell alone.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not joking. You’re more likely to die from eating rich food like that than I to be shot ‘in the line of duty.’ Now, it’s my turn to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For overreacting. I know I’m too sensitive about working for the police. You know how much I’ve had to hear from my parents about that. So I push back when I think that I’m being criticized. Especially when I think you’re criticizing me. I can deal with my parents—they spent my entire childhood giving me practice in how to deal with them. I can listen to them complain, but then I can leave and come home to you. But I’m closer to you, and that makes it more difficult to distance myself. Mainly because I don’t want to distance myself from you. I try to tell myself that you wouldn’t worry if you didn’t love me and need me. So in a way your worries are a sign that you care about me. But I still get mad sometimes. Because you do know that you have better ways to get my attention and show that you care for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“This. . . . and this . . . and I especially like this.”

“Mmm. It’s one of my . . . ohh.”

“Are you all right?”

“Oh, you know I am. Better than all right. Stop teasing. Maybe I should take my clothes off.”

“No, let me do it. Undressing you is like unwrapping a special gift.”

An hour later, both settled down to sleep, their bodies comfortably entwined in one of their customary arrangements. Jeff’s head was cradled on Michael’s chest, with Michael’s left arm clasped around his back and holding their bodies close. It had, Jeff thought, been better than usual make-up sex. Not great, but better than usual. We were both too tense and too self-conscious that we had to be careful. We couldn’t relax enough to let go and be wild. But the right things had been said, the right things had been done. We’ll be able to continue as usual. But it hadn’t solved the problem. It’s like we’re using sex now to paper over our differences and hoping that the fun and excitement will help us forget that we had an argument. I will still worry about Michael’s safety. I just have to find a different way to show him that I need him to remain safe and whole, that I love him and support him but . . . but what? That I don’t want to have to take care of him if he gets injured? That I don’t want to have to be noble? That I’m a selfish bastard who wants him always to be what he is now? Am I that shallow? What am I really afraid of?