This Is How You Die Read online

  He watched the nuisance teen depart. He had never threatened any of his daughter’s boyfriends, and since the death of their mother and her rise into adolescence, there had been many. Since she was fourteen, she had been dating older boys, but any attempts he made to stop her, mostly by talking to her, only seemed to make things worse.

  Annabelle had seen everything from the house. He knew she would have been watching and the only thing that surprised him was that she hadn’t rushed out to face him. It was further proof, if he needed it, that this was all a game to her. She didn’t care about any of her boyfriends and only cared about tormenting her father. She was a sick little child plucking the legs off a spider one by one, before tossing it back into the wild.

  “I hate you, you know that?” Annabelle stood in front of him, an expression of utter contempt on a face that Lester had once looked upon with pride. He tried not letting her see that her comment hurt him, but he was having a hard time hiding it. “How can you do that to me?” she begged to know. “I loved him.”

  That was just another part of her act, her manipulation. He decided to go along with it.

  “You’re a child,” Lester said. “You don’t know what love is.”

  “How dare you say that to me!” She looked like she was ready to slap him, and he would have welcomed that, but she didn’t. Instead she stormed up the stairs, her heavy heels slamming into every stair as she went. He knew she wasn’t finished, though, and when she reached the top, she glared down at him. “Our love was more than you could ever understand. You’re just a bitter old man. Bitter because no one ever loved you!”

  She stormed into her room, slamming the door behind her. Lester stayed where he was, staring up the stairs. That comment didn’t hurt him; he had heard a lot worse from her. What did hurt him was that he felt like he had completely lost her, and that his son was going the same way. Without either of them to rely on and live for, he only had himself. And what was he these days? A failed policeman? A failed husband? A failed friend? A failed father?

  “You know what,” he said to no one in particular. “Fuck you.”

  There was only so much bullying, only so much torture, and only so much hatred that one man could take. He was going to do his best to save his son, and if he had already failed, then he was going to take revenge. He knew where Mass lived. He had been there before, fulfilling his duties as a police officer. Now he would go to fulfill his duties as a father.

  He grabbed his coat and opened the door, just as a bombardment of loud music exploded out of his daughter’s room and flooded down the stairs. He paused for a moment to listen to it, slowly shaking his head to himself. Her taste in music was even worse than her taste in men, which was saying something.

  He took a pen and a piece of paper, scribbled out a note that said, “Gone to do the right thing. If you need me, tough—piss off somebody else for a change,” and stuck it to the door on his way out. She would see it and it would annoy her. She hated it when he talked back, when he had the balls to say anything to her. The fact that he wouldn’t be there for her to vent that annoyance and that hatred would send her around the bend.

  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 broth
er 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.