That Nietzsche Thing (3 page)

I know it’s all but forgotten now, but back
then, Q became the whipping boy for pretty much all of society’s
ills. Who was behind the Geneing epidemic? Q. Who was responsible
for the outbreak of rampant crime? Q. Who was causing instability
in the Middle East? Q. Who’d caused the downfall of Western
Civilization? Q. Why was the Government running a deficit? Q. Who
kicked the dog? Q.

Calling him America’s Most Wanted would be a
major understatement. NeoCons, Progs, the Salvation Army, everyone
wanted this guy dead. No one since bin Laden had such a big target
pinned to his back.

And Vivian Montavez liked to draw curly
Q’s...

Of course, it didn’t mean anything. If she’d
liked to draw swastikas I wouldn’t have thought she was in league
with Hitler. But all those Q’s and the girl killed so
violently...and then for her body to turn up gone...

That was the kind of business nobody wanted
to get mixed up in.

Certainly not a beat cop working toward his
pension.

Chapter 4

The FBI was not short on transportation.

Where I, as befitting my position as a
Seattle Homicide Detective, rolled in my personal, 25-year-old
Honda Accord – for which the department paid me sixteen cents a
mile – Special Agent Constantine led me to shiny new, black Dodge
Charger, one of rank of perhaps two dozen identical cars parked
under the Interstate.

He beeped the keyless entry and opened his
substantial driver-side door. I looked down at the tinted glass of
my door. It looked like a snapshot of billowing smoke.

“Wipe your feet before you get into my car,”
Constantine ordered as he climbed in behind the wheel. I tugged at
the door handle and found it still locked. Constantine was yanking
my chain. I wanted to tell him what I’d wipe all over his Night
Rider muscle car, but I held my tongue. All I had to bargain with
was the girl’s address. Once we were there, I’d have to scramble to
find something that would continue to make me useful to the Special
Agent. I didn’t need to start antagonizing him yet.

Still, what a fucking prick.

Constantine flicked the door locks, and I
pulled open my door. Dropping into the leather bucket seat, I
rolled down the smoked, glass window and reached into my pocket for
my Zippo. As the Hemi V8 purred to life, I flicked my lighter open
and lit the tip of the cigarette, still dangling from my lips.

Constantine reversed out of his spot, hit the
brakes, shifted into first and turned to fix me with an annoyed
glare. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” he said, and
the Charger growled as it leapt forward.

“What?” I shrugged, feigning ignorance. But,
of course, I knew exactly what. I just can’t let shit like that go.
You know, let a dick be a dick. I guess it’s part of what makes me
so lovable.

Constantine pulled out from under the freeway
and onto James, cutting across traffic against the light.

“Take Sixth north,” I said. And the Charger
rumbled before the Town Hall. Constantine took a right, pulling
onto the one-way, and really let the engine roar to life.

Now that car could move.

“You don’t like me, do you?” I said to
Constantine as I blew smoke out of my open window.

“I know you too well to like you,”
Constantine seethed, not looking away from the road.

“You met me twenty minutes ago.”

“I know your
type
,” Constantine
corrected. “Before this – before Seattle – I was in Oklahoma
dealing with a teacher’s strike.” He turned to give me a dismissive
glance. “I know your kind all too well.”

I laughed, smoking my coffin nail. There were
a lot of ways to take a comment like that, but I just let it slide
off my back. “Good looking fellas, you mean?”

“Career make-job applicants. Professional,
public sector human speed bumps. What half a century of taxes and
cronyism has turned this country into.”

“Come on, Special Agent, tell me what you
really think.”

“I think you’re worse than a due-nothing
layabout. People like you and the teachers back in OK are a far
bigger social disease than the Genies. At least they’re getting in
nobody’s way. You, on the other hand, take a salary and fill a slot
that could be occupied by a perfectly proficient professional. But
no, the people of this city get you. Fonseca, I’ll tell you
something for free: Cities like Seattle are being torn apart by a
dead-eyed, zombie menace, but it’s not the Genies.”

Now I was starting to get offended. “Look, I
do my best, but—”

“‘Yeah, but,’” he interrupted. “It’s always
‘but’ with your type. If only we had more money...if only we had
more staff...no, the only but that’s a problem with your sort is
the one behind you: your lazy ass. Well, that’s what we’re here to
change.” Constantine looked around as he drove, up at the tower
blocks of condos as downtown turn into Belltown. “Just like the
country, this town needs a roots-to-branches reorganization. And
that’s what we’re here to do.”

I wasn’t smiling anymore. This whole deal,
the men with guns, wasn’t just about Federal wardship of our
incompetent city government. Special Agent Constantine was one of
Cassidy’s so-called Hot Kids. I’d read about them in papers. He was
one of the small army of ideologically pure, young NeoCons the new
President had recruited from the country’s small liberal-arts
Christian universities. They were something like a right-wing Peace
Corps, to be parachuted into the worst banana republics the United
States had to offer. They were nation building at home.

Rumor was, the halls of Brigham Young were
now little more than a ghost town. A whole generation of young
Mormons were putting their missions on hold to join up with the
Cassidy Administration.

But Constantine didn’t look that young. And
he sported a badge and a gun. Still, that didn’t mean he hadn’t
drunk the Kool-Aid.

“Take a left onto Denny, when you run out of
road,” I said. The Space Needle was looming about us. “You should
be more grateful. Without me, you wouldn’t have Montavez’s
address.”

“I hope you’re not laboring under some
mistaken idea that you’re making a good first impression,”
Constantine said, turning onto Denny.

“No,” I admitted. I’d finished my smoke and
tossed the filter out the window. I hit the control to raise the
smoke-gray window. Maybe I was fooling myself into thinking I could
keep my job. I had no sympathy for the Progs, but I certainly was
no NeoCon. Shit, I hadn’t even bothered to vote in the last
election, that’s how political I was.

“The Progs have run this country into the
ground,” Constantine went on. I doubted he cared if I was really
listening. He was speaking for his own benefit. “Fifty years of
deficit spending, fifty years of affirmative action, fifty years of
promoting loyalty and political correctness over competence. Well,
those days are now over. The country has the right man in charge,
ready to make the tough decisions to turn this nation around.”

“What the fuck is a
Neo-
Conservative,
anyway?” I interrupted. Hell, if I’d kicked the hornet’s nest, I
might as well kick it real good. “Isn’t that like being the
skinniest chick at a Weight Watchers?”

“Conservatism can’t simply be a reactionary
principle, Detective. To stand astride history screaming ‘Stop!’
does not win elections.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that why we have the Progs?
You sure sound like nothing more than Progs in red ties. Can you
name one unique policy you guys support that team blue
doesn’t?”

“I can name three,” Constantine answered.

“Oh yeah?” I perked up. This should be good.
I would have guested invading sovereign nations, but the Progs were
pretty good at that, too.

“The tripod of Neo-Conservatism. The three
C’s?”

“The what?”

“Three C’s,” he said again.

I could only answer with a blank stare.

Constantine held up a single finger as he
drove. “Competency,” he said. “Competency is the first leg of the
tripod on which our new America will stand. Competency has to be
returned to our public institutions. Starting at the top. No more
Presidents who can’t lead, no more Congressmen who can’t legislate.
No more judges with no wish to judge. But the country will heal
locally, too. Teachers must teach again, and police, police. That
means you, Fonseca.” He pointed at me with his single finger.

“And the first C leads to the second.”
Constantine added a finger to his count. “Community.
Why
aren’t teachers teaching and why ain’t police policing? Because
fifty years of Progressivism has destroyed the local communities.
That’s what must be rebuilt. Community is the second C. Without
community, there’s no pride, and without pride there’s no
competence.

“You’re a lousy cop, Fonseca, because you
don’t care. Why should you? Who are these people you watch over?
Family? Friends? No, we did away with that in our culture a long
time ago. Long before Geneing began. Geneing is the symptom,
Fonseca, not the disease. We can’t eradicate Geneing because we
don’t have the community infrastructure to combat it. All we’ve got
are cops like you. Cops who think it’s just a job. They clock in,
they clock out. That just isn’t going to cut it anymore. You have
to
care
to be a cop, care what happens to the lives that
you’re watching over. And that’s the final C.”

Constantine gave me three fingers as he
steered the Charger with his other hand.

“Compassion,” he went on. “None of the other
two mean a damn thing without compassion. That’s Neo-Conservatism,
Detective. Compassionate Conservatism. Those are the three C’s,
those are principles Cassidy is building his administration on –
Competence, Community, Compassion.” He ticked them off on his
fingers again. “That’s the recipe for a new nation, Fonseca. You’ll
see those words over the front door of the Town Hall before this
week is out. We’ll live and breathe them. All of us. Seattle will
be the model. But, they can’t simply be words.”

“Turn on the Queen Anne,” I said as the light
turned green before us. I didn’t have anything else to say. There
wasn’t much to say. Competence, Community, Compassion? Hardly
Liberté, égalité, fraternité...more like Travail, Famille,
Patrie...

Fitting, because Seattle was starting to feel
a little Vichy...

Chapter 5

Vivian Montavez’s flop was a four-story walk
up in the shadow of one of Queen Anne Hill’s large, digital
television towers. It was a worn, old 1920s building, but looked
well maintained. It didn’t add up as the usual Genie flop, but I
reserved judgment. Constantine parked the black Charger in the
two-minute loading zone.

He climbed out of the car and pulled a large,
black handgun from a holster under his jacket.

“Isn’t any need for that,” I said. “You’ll
freak out the locals.”

Constantine ignored me, stepping up to the
front doors of the building. They were unlocked, or rather the lock
was broken. Constantine pulled one door open and stepped inside,
keeping the automatic by his thigh.

I waddled on behind, fishing another Kools
out of my pack.

Climbing four stories, Vivian’s apartment was
the one with the view of town. The hallways smelled of mildew and
cooking food, and the muted sound of live music came from the lower
floors. Constantine climbed the stairs with purpose, peering
through the doorway at each landing, securing his six.

I stumbled on, lighting my smoke and taking a
long drag. At floor four, we walked the full length of the corridor
and came to the door of 4C. Constantine shuffled to the right of
the door and raised his pistol to eye level, readying for the
assault.

“On three,” he said as I stood,
uncomfortably. It worried me, what might happen if that big gun of
his went off. “One, two, three!” he counted off and sprang forward,
covering the door. But I did nothing. There was a potted plant by
the door. Some sort of rubber plant. As I got closer, I realized it
was plastic. It figured. There wasn’t enough light in the hallway
for anything to grow. Still, it was pretty bushy and I stuck a hand
into its soil. It took me only two seconds to come up with a
key.

I held it up and showed both sides to
Constantine. I put it in the latch and opened the deadbolt.

Constantine pushed past, sweeping the small,
one-bedroom apartment. He called “Clear!” from the bathroom,
bedroom and kitchen. I reached for my belt, drew my .357 Rhino, and
sauntered in.

Constantine’s SWAT antics might have been
silly, but he was right about one thing: I’d been through enough
strange doors in my time to know it was best to do so with a gun in
your hand.

A self-portrait welcomed me to Vivian
Montavez’s apartment, hanging in the small, rectangular hall. The
portrait was of a laughing, gorgeous dark-haired woman, showing off
a mouth of perfect teeth.

I was just able to recognize the subject in
the painting as the dead girl I’d last seen on a slab in the
Morgue. She was hauntingly beautiful, with large, black pearls for
eyes that instantly consumed you.

If Vivian had painted the self-portrait, she
was a pretty good artist. I mean, I didn’t know a damn thing about
art, but it was pretty nice. Sorta of a weird greeting to have in
your own apartment, maybe. A little narcissistic. But hell, I sure
liked looking at it.

Left there was door to a small kitchen. Old,
maybe as old as the building, but it looked clean and lived in. A
percolator was on the stove and a basket of fruit hung over a small
breakfast table. Right was a bathroom, the smell of lavender
distinctly in the air. I stepped past the portrait, though a bead
curtain and joined Constantine in the living room. There was one
more door that must have been to a bedroom.