Polarity: Chapter Three

A whipsaw of adrenaline exploded in Mizik’s gut, sending him off and running much like a greyhound does after hearing the shot of the starting gun. A wet squeak of friction came from the dew-kissed grass sliding against the smooth sole of his Thom McAnn’s. His belly ablaze, he did not feel his own motion; the yellow side of the house and the white picket fence of the neighbor’s porch and the back yard playground before him all seemed to rush along his vision, the house and porch diminishing; the playground getting closer. A chain-link fence fake- protected the playground from

intruders.

Adrenaline turned into panic as the fence appeared at its full seven-feet. Mizik felt his feet leave the ground, one after the other, and he reached out to grab the fence’s top bar; his right hand found the mark, the left hand missing it by inches, fingers sliding from the bar and down the links. A sound of doom escaped his lips, but his fingers clenched, finding purchase in the diamond shapes caused by the wrapping of wrought-iron links around one another. Holding on was not the end of the game; climbing followed.

His feet did not fit in those diamond shaped holes the way they had when he had been a wiry little squirt playing neighborhood tag. The wet, flat soles of his dress shoes lacked any sort of traction, so he tried to kick, slipping and almost losing his grip on the links and the top bar. He made the fence bend by pushing with his legs. This move gave him a bit more leverage, bringing the top bar of the fence an inch or two closer to his stupid hand. Someone behind him laughed and someone else hollered out commands and Mizik made another grab with his left hand for the top bar, this time achieving his goal.

He did a clumsy but successful pull-up, screaming with effort. Once he had the bar at his waist, he flipped forward, landing his heels in the grass of the playground, over-extending his wrongly bent arms. He let go so as not to dislocate his shoulders, and his backside dropped down to the ground, getting wet.

He began to get up, scrambling and shifting his balance from hand-to-knee-to-feet. Behind him, the fence made two ching! sounds, the second one reminiscent of a hard-coiled spring. He took one step and two tentacles wrapped around him while a pile of muscles crashed into his back, their too-heavy weight causing his diaphragm to clench and his wind to flee and his balance to give up the fight, sending he and the pile of muscles into the moist, overgrown grass. Damn. He loved this suit.

The pile of muscles disappeared, a sweet relief, and Mizik attempted to breathe. "Stay on the ground! Hands behind your back, don’t you move, motherfucker!"

How the hell did this cop figure Mizik to put his arms behind his back when the officer had told Mizik not to move? Police really did not make sense when they gave certain commands, and Mizik wondered if they realized this or not. No matter, for Mizik could not move his arms. The useless things were like al dente pasta noodles, flopping off his back and back to the ground. Growling, the officer grabbed Mizik’s arms and shoved them against Mizik’s back; the officer laid a knee on them. A noise like the air unzipping vibrated; zip-tie handcuffs. How about that. This cop was hi-tech. Efficient, too. Mizik did not hear heavy respiration; the officer had made short work of Mizik without getting winded.

An engine roared from somewhere. "What the fuck?" the officer said. Mizik knew why and had to hold back a laugh. The P.I. had fled. The officer began cursing in Spanish, calling Price something that came off as both angry and romantic. Had Mizik known any Spanish, he would have just found the comment ugly.

The officer took a stronghold on the nape of Mizik’s neck, the steel fingers crushing meat against spine, stinging like five agitated wasps. The officer began leading Mizik to a latched door in the fence, saying, "If this is padlocked I’m going to throw you over to the other side, pendejo." Mizik strained to see the latch, praying. He could see a lump of steel dangling and jutting out from the middle of the fence at the latch, but it looked old and broken.

"You’re lucky," the officer said.

"Jesus, you’re like a mad dog," Mizik said.

The officer cranked his wrist, bringing Mizik’s face down to his. "Do NOT smart off," he said. His eyes were ancient brown stones set in a young face, probably late-twenties; a few years younger than Mizik. The officer reached up to his chest, mashing a button on the box all police clipped to their uniforms, the one that helped call for backup. Mizik thought it was called a ‘squawk box’, or something.

"Base, this is Echo Five. I have a suspect in custody . . . judging by the look of him, this is the caller. His nose may be broken . . . don’t want an ambulance." The officer grinned at Mizik, who huffed. The officer continued: "Suspect tried to run, uh . . . other suspect fled the scene, is not in custody, repeat, I do not have the other suspect in custody. Suspect two driving a white Honda Accord, maybe 1992 model." The officer stopped, thinking. "Suspect two claimed to be a private investigator. Need backup." He released the button and removed the padlock from the latch, opening the fence.

"Excuse me officer, what’s going on here?" A man asked from behind them. Mizik looked and saw two children, a boy and a girl, standing next to the tall man as they stood rapt in their own backyard.

"Nothing sir," the officer said. "Sorry about your fence." The part of the fence that the officer had leaped from to tackle Mizik had been irreparably bent.

"Don’t worry about it," the man said. "Whatever it takes to catch a crook." The man laid his hands gently on both of his children, and led them back inside of the house. Mizik thought that if this had been his yard, he would have told the officer that he, Mizik, planned to bill the city for the damages.

2

Officer Moreno slammed the stupid businessman against the rear bumper of the squad car, banging the rich guero’s thighs against the chrome. The cochino cried out – good. Moreno flat-palmed his back, bending him over, and sent him face-first into the white, steel trunk of the cruiser. The pendejo began babbling a bunch of nonsense about lawyers. Chistes, for sure. Lawyers did not work hard to help a flight risk.

"You got anything in your pockets that’ll stick me?" Moreno asked. The man stayed quiet. "If I get stuck it’s gonna be bad for you, comprendes?"

"There’s nothing." Moreno reached into his back pockets, removing a leather wallet. He tossed it on the trunk, and reached into the man’s front pockets, finding only keys, which he also threw on top of the trunk. Moreno patted down the man’s chest, feeling nothing on the man’s torso. "I’m going to frisk your legs and if you fucking kick me . . . ." Moreno set about that task. He found nothing, and the man did not try to kick him.

Moreno grabbed the man by the back of his collar, pulling him around to the back door of the cruiser. He opened the door with his free hand. "Get in," he said. "Watch your head." The man’s head wound up banging against the lip of the car’s roof, as many heads of uncooperative suspects had before. Moreno smiled. He slammed the door, walking around to the back of the car and picking up the man’s wallet.

He flipped the wallet open, seeing the ID almost right away. Another car pulled up, stopped, and two officers got out, stretching languidly. Moreno scoffed. "Who you got there?" the driver, Officer Bates, asked.

"Mason Mizik," Moreno said. "Anyone else coming?"

"Just me n Pullman. You want I should run that name? Mizik?"

Moreno nodded, handing over the wallet. "Have Pullman search that vehicle. I’ll find out who lives here." Moreno left the two officers to their work, walking up to the front door of the yellow house. He rang the doorbell. After waiting a few minutes, he balled up a fist and cop-knocked on the door, slamming his fist against the thick wood, intending to give the impression to any tenants within that a battering ram worked to break the door into small pieces.

"Easton Police, open the fucking door, now." No answer. Moreno knew someone as in there. Otherwise, why had Mizik been visiting? He sighed, shaking his head. Without a warrant, no options remained, not yet. He turned to the SUV, seeing Bates and Pullman about their search.

"Got anything?" Moreno asked. He hoped for dope. If there were drugs in the car, he could kick in the door and own that house.

"Nothing except this case," Bates said, holding up what appeared to be a laptop computer case. Who had the damn laptop? The private investigator. Pedazo de cabrón.

"Yeah, Mizik said that P.I. was trying to steal his laptop," Moreno said.

"P.I.? Like a private eye?"

No, like pussy invader, you stupid fuck. "Yeah. The other guy, the one who got away. He offered to help me chase Mizik. I take off he turns tail and escapes while I’m focusing on the other fucker."

"That’s kinda funny," Pullman said.

"Bates, what you find on Mizik?" Moreno asked, ignoring Pullman.

Bates scratched his nose. "Uh. Well, he works for Loomis Industries, no priors. I guess he’s some kind of engineer, or some shit. I hate to see his lawyer."

"Won’t be any lawyers," Moreno said.

"Makes ya say that?" Pullman asked. Christ, that guy was stupid.

"You think Loomis is gonna spring for a lawyer for a guy they sicced a private eye on? No way."

Bates and Pullman looked at each other. Bates shrugged, walking back to his cruiser. Pullman began to follow him.

Moreno shifted his eyes to Mizik, wriggling around in the back of Moreno’s cruiser, trying to get comfortable. Why had he tried to run? Fear? The guy did not have much of a chin. Moreno’s mother always said that one should never trust a man with a weak chin, and Moreno agreed. Chinless people often ended up being jotos like Mizik. Moreno spat, turning back to Bates and Pullman, who were both getting back in their cruiser.

"Hey. I want you two to find out who lives here."

"We can’t bust down the door."

"Did I ask you to bust down the door?" Moreno clenched his fists, crossing his arms and hiding his fists under his armpits. "Of course I can’t break down the door. I was hoping you guys would find some dope on Mizik. I can, though, have you run this address so I can find out who lives here."

"My RMS isn’t working," Bates said.

"Bullshit."

"No, for real. It’s on the fritz. I’ll look it up at the station."

Moreno wanted to scream, pull his gun, and fire off into Bates’ chest, sending a big, bloody package of dipshit white-boy organs and bones into a gory palette of flesh colors pattering to the pavement. He could see it in his mind, but the fantasy would have to do, for now. Mierda, if Moreno made detective these two buffoons would not be giving him a bunch of lame excuses. Yesterday he had taken the written test, and when the results came in, putting up with shit like this from dumbasses like Bates and Pullman would be a memory.

"Just see what you can do," Moreno said.

"We can leave a note," Pullman said. He got into the car with Bates, laughing. Moreno watched them drive away, wishing he had a rocket launcher.

3

What a shitty day. Things had gone from bad to worse so fast that Mizik could not make any sense of the events leading up to his sitting in the back of a police car. One minute he had been copying certain important notations from Bunting in his own laptop, the next he found himself beaten senseless by some junky who claimed to be a private investigator, and now he was here, arrested, zip-cuffed and altogether discomfited. A hard-working member of the (upper) middle-class should not have to undergo such indignities. The cop had physically assaulted him. The true criminal, the thief, got away adding insult to injury. And an immigrant prepared to take him to jail. Maybe even an illegal one. The immigrant got into the car and grabbed his radio to tell dispatch his intentions. Mizik interrupted.

"You know, I called you guys. That other guy, that professed private investigator, he beat me. And tried to steal my laptop."

The immigrant continued to speak, ignoring Mizik.

"Excuse me sir," Mizik said. "I’m talking to you."

"Shut up." The immigrant finished talking to dispatch and hung up the radio.

"You ran," the immigrant said. "Why did you do that? If you stayed still, you wouldn’t be here. No dope on you, so why run?"

"What are you going to do about the thief?"

"What I can. Why don’t you tell me why you think he stole your laptop? Who is he? What’d he want? Maybe you stole it from him, and he was getting it back."

"That’s false. I don’t know who he is, or what he could want. A terrorist maybe."

"Right, because you’re a weapons engineer, no?" The immigrant laughed. "That’s a good joke."

"I am a weapons engineer. There are some specs on that laptop. Terrorists would want those."

"You’re lying."

True. Lying made Mizik’s body hot and his insides crawl with sizzling nervous adrenaline. But there was no way he was going to tell this Mexican anything else about the contents of his laptop. He would never tell any cop, to be fair. Unless they used torture. Good thing he did not live in Syria. But still. Rather than lie, Mizik got the idea to simply limit his answers. And try not to get hot.

"What’s your name?"

"Moreno."

"Can I see your birth certificate?"

The car wobbled a little, and Moreno, laughing to near tears, straightened it out. He began to cough, blinking his eyes one at a time. When the car was again pointing forward and easy to control, he wiped the tears of shocked humor from his eyes.

"Holy shit, I busted Donald Trump, a fucking Minuteman maybe. My birth certificate. Are you serious, guey?

"You know what I think? I think Loomis hired him to find out if you had some information you were not supposed to have. I think maybe you were selling this information to the guy you went to see."

"He’s just a friend."

"I think that’s why he wouldn’t come outside. I know he was home, dude. I know. And I know I’m gonna question him. I’m gonna bring him in and he’s going to tell me everything you won’t."

Now, Mizik decided it was his turn to laugh. He guffawed, leaning forward, resting his head on the mesh partition between him and Moreno for a moment. He leaned back before Moreno could order him to, letting his laughter taper off as he rested against the seat. Mizik retorted with a parry of his own. "I have the right to remain silent," he said.

"I think," Moreno said, "the private investigator took your laptop because you have something on it that Loomis hired him to find. Maybe you stole it from them. But you’re dirty, amigo. It’s written all over your face."

"Loomis would never hire someone like that. The guy’s a junky. You could tell. His nostrils were full of orange boogers."

"Orange boogers?"

"Yeah. I don’t know what it was."

Moreno rolled his shoulders, dipping his head, his eyes on the road. Mizik hoped his comment about the boogers had the immigrant contemplating the importance of the orange powder dotting the sinuses of the private investigator. If Mizik could only be proven the victim of a junked-out thief perhaps his lawyer could get the charges lessened if not altogether dropped.

Nevertheless, fear crept by degrees into Mizik; jail lie ahead. Would they give him his own cell, or cast him into what the television programs called "G.P."? He would be locked up with a bunch of feral, ink-covered men, and they would all want some soft, white hands to touch their pricks. Mizik prayed for the second time that day, petitioning THE LORD to please make this cop soften and see value in Mizik’s statement. Did he have to go to jail? Is that what God wanted? Could He not touch Officer Moreno’s hard, law-dog’s heart?

"Do I have to go to jail?"

"Yes, you do. You ran from me. That’s a felony.

"But they’ll eat me up in there."

Moreno scoffed. "Could be they have better things to do."

Mizik wriggled, trying again to get comfortable. His wrists were sore and stinging, trussed behind his back, straining his shoulders any time he tried to rest his back and neck against the seat. Did a wetness coat his wrists? If he bled, by God, he could shout police brutality. And there would be Hell to pay.

Damn right. It was called a cock in the ass. Mizik’s.

"Officer Moreno, maybe if I tell you what I think the guy wanted, you’ll let me off with a ticket, or something?"

"No. But you can save yourself a lot of time, and maybe I can get you locked up in segregation, until you can see a judge."

"I’ll make bail before then. I can pay it right now."

"I’m not setting your bail. It’s a Felony charge. You can’t I-Bond out on a Felony. You have to see a judge. So probably you can pay your bail by Monday, if they’re not all fishing."

Fishing? For real? "No kidding."

"No kidding. They like to fish. It gets them away from people like you for awhile."

Three or four days in jail. Seriously? Mizik did not think so. The private eye had to have been after the list of names on the hard drive of the laptop, and the Manifesto, written by Mason Mizik and William Bunting, stored on the thumb drive, the names of individuals sympathetic to their cause rested in type. The Manifesto, if read, could be considered a sort of terroristic threat. Thus, Mizik and Bunting had already done enough to land the both of them in jail for a really long time. Bunting would get him out faster than what this beaner claimed.

Loomis Industrial had a Grand Plan. When the big-suits jabbered on and on about the particulars of this mandate, any listening could hear the capital letters in their pompous voices. Mizik and Bunting did not agree with their designs, but at work let on nothing; outside of work they talked about it, plotting what sorts of actions they may take to thwart Loomis’ scheme, a scheme that would further ruin the economy for guys all the way into Mizik’s tax-bracket, but leave the "one-percenters" filthy rich and overflowing with slave labor. They wrote the particulars of these conversations, and some philosophies, into the Manifesto.

It did make sense for Loomis to send a private investigator after Mizik. Why they had chosen a junky, Mizik did not know, but that aside Loomis must have sure knowledge that Mizik, at least, plotted against them and that he may have a cabal of like-minded, equally important employees copacetic to his subversion. He bet that Loomis also knew about Bunting, bio-weapons engineer, and that made him sensitive for he could easily become more of a liability than Mizik. Bunting was talented at organizing teams. He had been doing it for years and his teams came up with some of the more interesting weapons specifications and schematics, a few things that had gone to Area 51 and a few things, with Bunting’s aid, that had gone to Plum Island. Loomis could not send the cops after these guys. Maybe not even someone respectable, like a Pinkerton. They could afford the Pinkertons. Instead, they send that other guy.

Of course, he had gotten away and Mizik was here, so did it matter? Perhaps Loomis would spring Mizik, rather than have Mizik talk to the police about . . . what exactly? No. They were going to be angry. He had nothing on them the cops would want. They were going to let him be raped.

Goddammit, he was going to be violated by some gangbanger. Or group of gangbangers.

No. Being Bunting’s golden boy, he had a chance. As the North Side gradually gave way from the polished, rich houses and hardware stores to the cracked concrete labyrinth and liquor stores of the West Side, Mizik resolved to wait it out. If he went to Federal prison rather than county jail, he had no chance, because it would be a sentence of years rather than days, and his buttocks would be calloused by the time he made parole, if he could manage living until then.

Stop thinking that way. Bunting could not afford Mizik landing in Federal prison.

Moreno turned down Elliot Street, driving them south, to the Lower West Side, where Ballard County Jail loomed hungrily at the edge of the City, like a brickwork ogre squatting at the caste-system borderlands. Mizik had never been there. He imagined twenty-foot high fences whose top bars were guarded by serrated spirals of Concertina wire and stern guards with high-powered rifles and night vision scopes stationed in stone towers. The building itself would be a damp, sweating castle.

"Will I get medical attention?"

"It’s possible," Moreno said. He drove slow like a delivery boy. Maybe he had run out of questions for the time being. Or maybe he wanted to torture his captive by creeping closer to the ogre, not a detention center but the giant stomach of a bigger beast. Moreno looked stiffer than before. Mizik figured the immigrant had a hard dick in the presence of something wicked and indispensable to his very job. The slimy, gutting sensation burned now in Mizik’s throat, and he practiced not-crying for the remainder of the drive to jail.

Polarity: Chapter Two

Price hated stakeouts. Many of his colleagues did not understand this loathing; they were of the opinion that stakeouts were the job. Price opined that the job entailed making his living nailing dumb asses to the wall. Not sitting in a balls-hot vehicle and watching the world go by while waiting for some mark to make a move. Come out of the car when the mark did do something stupid and try to be quick with the camera or even the fist if the situation called for such action, and his sleeping legs may buckle from being in one position for too long, or he may trip over his own two stupid feet, having temporarily forgotten how to walk. It sucked.


Worse, he always had to bring a receptacle for urine, preferably a two-liter bottle, something he could cap off so he didn’t knock it over and have a car that stank of uric acid and salt leaving him sitting next to his own greasy piss for hours and hours. Fine company, piss. So, no. Fuck stakeouts. They were a means to an end, not the whole goddamn job.


The dough kept him going. Price made a decent take for catching the wife’s infidelity or the supposed cripple working on his car while he told the insurance company sob-lies of an injured back. Most of the insurance companies and pissed off CEOs paid pretty well, but sometimes--like this time--he got a big gig from a major industrial corporation. Loomis Industrial had quoted Price one hundred dollars an hour to make find out if one of their top engineers had a side-gig selling specs for weapons manufacture on the black market. Evidently Greg Evans, CEO of Loomis, believed a cabal operated just under his feet though he could not prove it. So far, only gossip worked for evidence. But Evans had his suspicions. Price watched that suspicion right now.


Mason Mizik.


Ten minutes ago, Mizik had parked his Escalade in the driveway of an individual Price suspected to be in cahoots with Mizik. Price had done some research on the motherfucker. A few phone calls got him a name. William Bunting, clean as a virgin’s clitoris. Price was not, at least not right now, interested in Bunting. He only waited for Mizik to come out of the house and get in his car.


Price crushed an orange pill with his cigarette lighter, the powder spreading nicely on to a compact mirror Price kept for this express purpose. Adderall tasted like rotten sugar when snorted, and made his boogers look like Tang, but damn if they did not keep him sharp as a tack. He was addicted to the damn things, but so what? Whatever it took to get the job done. Fuck social taboos. Hell, the whole enterprise was a taboo, going under the cops, going after people because they were breaking other people’s laws, but not society’s; well, that made the client something of a contractor, did it not? Price valued such altruism, especially regarding his own wallet.


He wanted to turn on the radio so he could stop thinking about pointless crap. He could not, for that may draw attention to him. Fuck.


He began getting hard. Fucking drugs. They always did that to him. No matter, his penis would go back down soon as long as he did not think about--


Mizik came outside, carrying a laptop case. The man made few mistakes and always had that damn laptop in a hardshell case. Price knew that the case held every shred of evidence the company needed to nail Mizik and pay Price. He thought he might bill Evans for an extra hour due to the pain in the ass that stupid laptop caused. Ever try to photograph the inside of a closed laptop? Impossible.


Screw it. Time to take action. Price got out of the car, but slowly, so his legs would get the hint.


“Woof! Hey, buddy! Yeah, you sir. I need some help.”


Mizik saw Price coming and began frantically fumbling in his Jos. A. Bank pants for his car keys. Fumbling, Mizik blinked, and shook his head. Then, he reached out and pressed a button on the door of the Escolade. Dumb ass. He’d forgotten that the vehicle opened with the push of a button as long as the keys were within a few feet of the door. The luxury SUV blinked and beeped, and Mizik threw the door open.


But Price closed in with feline speed. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Please. I need a jump.”     


Mizik stared now, having stopped in his tracks. He looked terrified.


“Sir, come on. I mean, this is suburbia. What am I going to do to you?” Did that argument suck? Who cares? Price stopped his approach short of getting in Mizik’s car. Mizik hung his head and fetched a sigh. Mizik raised his head to Price, who formed his eyebrows into an A-shape.


The mark, feeling backed into a corner, gave the lame excuse: “I don’t have any jumper cables.”


Price reached out to Mizik, maybe to put a hand on the man’s shoulder, unnerving Mizik into jumping toward the passenger seat. Could be, the idiot thought he could escape into the leather if he tried hard enough. Rabbit-ass businessman. Scared of his damn shadow. It figured.

2

“Where you headed, bro?” Price asked. Mizik sweated, clutching his encased laptop to his chest and scooting ever closer toward the passenger seat.  Almost in the shotgun seat, half an ass-cheek on the console, Mizik grabbed the door handle to make a break for freedom. “You don’t need a jump,” he said.


“Don’t even try it,” Price said. He allowed the grin he had been suppressing to take control of his face, making him feel like a shark. “Do you mind?” he asked Mizik. Getting into drivers’ seat, he forced Mizik to scoot the rest of the way over.


“Police,” Mizik said.


“No, I’m not a cop. What you got in there pal?” Price pointed at the laptop. “You’re acting like it’s your Precious, or something.”


“This is attempted . . . Grand Theft Auto.”


Price looked around for traffic. There was none. “Easy, fella,” he said. “You’re gonna bust a vocal cord. Show me what you got on that laptop, and I’ll go away.”


Mizik punched Price in the jaw, a soft, pathetic collision; the tougher man knew Mizik had pulled his punch at the end, as if he were afraid to hurt his very attacker. Price reached over and whapped a callused palm across Mizik’s temple.


“Bells a’ringin now,” he said. “Gimme the case.”


“No.” Mustering all his grit, Mizik brought a closed fist down on Price’s balls.


“You . . . oh, you sonofabitch,” Price said. “Now it’s gonna . . . augh.” Mizik went for the door handle again as expected, and Price snatched Mizik’s ear before the rabbit could so much as swing out one of his thin legs. Price yanked Mizik back almost fast enough to rip away the shell-pink shape of acoustic cartilage.


“You know how it gets up in your guts?” Price asked. “Makes you feel like you got to shit.” Mizik, sweating and whimpering, tried to nod. Price let go of him, satisfied Mizik had forsaken trying to escape. He tilted his head back and gave a snort. Mizik squinted, looking up Price’s nose.


“Why are your boogers orange?” Mizik asked.


Price broke Mizik’s nose with a hard, fast jab. Mizik began to howl, and Price slapped him in the mouth. Mizik began crying with his mouth open, his throat making no sound. Blood coursed freely down Mizik’s undoubtedly expensive button down dress shirt.


“Jesus,” Price said. He took the laptop case and inspected its foam rubber sides, shocked.  “I can just unzip this? This whole time I’d been sure you had a hardshell briefcase or some shit.”


“By node! U bwoke it! Bwood aw over!”


“By node I did and if you don’t open this goddamn case I’ll rip the whole beak off your face.” Price was sick of fucking around. He wanted to get out of here. By now, with this weasel’s screaming, someone must have called the cops. Could he get away with lifting the laptop? No. Because Mizik would just say he’d been mugged by a crazy man, and Price would look like a marauder. Mizik scrambled to unzip the case. Good.


“You can’t just assault peepow. I’ll bress charges.”


“Go ahead.”


Inside the case lay a state-of-the-art, twelve-gig laptop. Now, he just had to get the password out of Mizik. Price opened the laptop and pressed the power button. After a light sigh from the underside of the laptop, the screen came on and requested a password.


“Password,” Price said.


“No.”


Price reached for Mizik’s nose. Mizik shrank back, throwing his hands up in defense. Price grabbed his left wrist, wrenching and locking the hand toward the wrist in a paintbrush hold. Mizik screamed. “I’m calling the police!”


“Call the cops, Mason. Go ahead. But first, password, or I’ll break this, too.”


“It’s hexagram42,” Mizik said. Price let go of Mizik’s wrist with a smile, and punched in the password. It worked. The screen came up, with a background pattern of spheres as decorum, dotted by icons. A few of them looked interesting, but there was no time to inspect their various avenues. Mizik waved his hand across the screen of his smart phone.


“Any other passwords I don’t know about?” Price asked. Mizik shook his head. “There better not be. Because I’m going to scope this out, bud. Make no mistake.”


“We’ll see,” Mizik said. He put his smart phone to his ear. Price wanted to leave, or beat Mizik some more so that the soft man could not make the call, but his inner voice--the one that made any investigator worth their salt--told him that possessing the laptop required he stay and watch the magic unfold.

3

Most people think that when the police answer a call, they show up on location fast, with blazing red and blue lights, and wailing sirens. This is false. What really happens is far less dramatic. They arrive in silence. Their cruisers are mouse-quiet and when they brake, the engine breathes rather than rumbles while idling, and the lights and sirens are off.


Price saw the police arrive on scene, but neither he nor Mizik heard them over Mizik’s high-pitched, petulant whining. Price was, for his own part, glad that the cops came when they did, because he was about to elbow Mizik in the gut so the wimpy bastard would lose the wind to yell. No air equals no bitching. Fuck the extra charge of aggravated assault. He wanted to go home after this, call Evans and put an end to this case. His chances of doing such were far better if the cops did not see him using Mizik’s ass to play Kick the Can.


“Mizik, shut up. The cops are here.”


“No! Wait, what? Fuck you.”


“Fuck me?” Price asked. “Shit, you called them.” He got out of the vehicle.


“Ungh,” Mizik said.


Price sighed, folding his hands at his chest and saying; “You know they’re going to want to see that laptop, yeah?” Mizik closed his mouth.  


Mizik turned his head toward the open drivers’ side door, jumped out of the shotgun seat and began walking around the vehicle, intending to close the laptop Price had left open on the seat.


Price wondered why Mizik bothered to so much as exit the vehicle. The cops were here and they hated it when people took off walking once they arrived. Once again, rabbit-ass businessman. He had no idea how to conduct himself around police.


Price heard the door slam as the policeman got out of his car. He was of Mexican descent. Good. Mexican cops were a whole lot of fun. They liked to kick ass almost as much as the black cops.


“Sir, stop walking,” the officer said. His hand fell to his sidearm. Mizik took two more steps, his head bowed toward the ground as if he thought this might make him invisible. The posture would not help if the cop decided to shoot him in the calf, which he certainly would if Mizik did not comply. “Sir,” the officer said. Price recognized the Voice of Authority. The one that said ‘I’m through being polite’.


Mizik’s lower lip quivered like a wobbling clam. He looked like a spoiled little girl. Trying to suck up his emotions, his features accused Price of this new trouble, like it had been Price who had called the police, and not he. Mizik seemed to believe that Price had been remiss in not informing Mizik that once the police were on any scene, all present parties were considered guilty, and candidates for arrest. Well, fuck that. Mizik ought to have known the cardinal rule of the Shady: never call the police.


Still approaching, in the grass now, the officer instructed Mizik to step around to the back of the vehicle. Mizik tensed. Price could read that clenching of the muscles, saying “cut and run” to their owner. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, if Mizik cut and ran? Shit, it’d be a godsend, and Price began willing Mizik to do exactly that, to run.


A dull throb began pulsing in Price’s temples. The officer’s jackboots rustled the grass, soon to clang on the pavement of the driveway. Mizik was running out of time. Go. Come on. Go, you fucker.


“Sir,” the officer said, “you are not following my instructions. I want you to slowly walk around to the back of your vehicle and--SHIT!”


Price did not know whether his will worked in this case but Mizik shot off toward the back of the yard like a crazed cat on cocaine. “Stop,” the officer said. Whipping his head toward Price.


“Well, come on, let’s get him,” Price said.


The officer remained still, now looking only at Mizik, who was still within view.


“I’m a private eye. I’ll help you,” Price said. Knowing the time to think about it, or call for backup had passed, the officer bolted after Mizik, passing Price and leaving a light, pleasant breeze smelling faintly of Axe. Price started running after the officer. Both of them could see Mizik struggling in a poor effort to scale a seven-foot high chain-link fence of the common sort found in any suburban back yard.


Still running, the officer jerked his head left, to see if Price still followed. Price did, and seeing that, the officer pumped his legs harder, hell-bent for businessman.


Price dug in his heels; bending his knees and turning his head, he switched directions. He booked back to Mizik’s SUV, to the open laptop lying on the drivers’ seat. Its screen was black now, the computer having gone into sleep mode. Price reached out, and with only a split-second stop, he shut the laptop and took it.


In that second, he caught a glimpse of something next to the open carrying case on the floor, a small black thumb of technology. Yes. Score one external drive, a storage tool capable of holding a few gigs of useful information within its tiny shell. Price leaned over, firing his arm out as if throwing a punch, snatching the little guy from the floor.


He pocketed the thumb drive, simultaneously removing his car keys. They jingled at the end of a beer-bottle keychain as he ran so hard to his car that he slammed against the door before opening it. Dropping the laptop into the side-seat, amongst the McWrappers and the closed two-liter bottle of urine, ass found drivers’ seat; slamming the key into the ignition, he turned the crank, starting the car. The four cylinder awoke, barking and growling to life. Price gassed it, hoping that the officer was still occupied, maybe grappling with Mizik.


Throwing the automatic drive select to D-1, he found himself almost rooting for Mizik to get away. The car picked up speed, and Price shifted into D-2, gaining extra pick-up out of the engine. By the time he was shifting into D-4, the little Honda cruising almost up to seventy-five. Price pumped the brakes, spinning the steering wheel left, going into a controllable skid that fired him on to a side street, and out of view of the Mexican officer, should he be already leading Mizik back to the squad car. Price picked up speed again, using the same maneuvers to get the hell out of that suburban dream and on to the main road, where he would hit the freeway and be four towns away before the officer could so much as report a runner.


The little Honda had balls, if properly coaxed. Price checked his rearview once before hitting the freeway. No cops. After navigating the exit and seeing the freeway more or less clear--rush hour would have just ended by now--he floored it, hitting one-twenty and keeping it there. Any faster, and the car’s computer would shut down the engine. Four minutes and three towns later, Price eased off the gas, slowing down to a respectable, less conspicuous sixty-five miles per hour. Petting the steering wheel, he slowed his breathing, catching his wind.


He took the next exit, pulling into a KFC on the left side of the road. He pulled around the back of the restaurant, parking alongside of a dumpster opposite the street. He left the engine running, unbuckling his seatbelt. He knew he could not stay long or some half-smart manager may suspect him of drug activity, and call the police. Screw that action. It had not been long enough between excitements, for Christ’s sake.


Goddamn, had all that really worked? The officer was going to remember his face. How many private investigators were there in the city? How many of them had worked for the force in a previous life? Surely more than Price. Hope floated in his head again, doing everything to will the officer to not recall Price’s visage.


Running had been stupid. Now, he faced a charge of felonious evasion. Damn dirty drugs. They were the whole reason he had to run. Price opened the console, reaching for his bottle of pills. The label-free bottle did not belong to James Price. Each one of those orange bastards is a felony unto itself, Price knew. He would take the one over the other. Yet, the real bitch of everything lay within the fact that he could not go to Loomis Industrial, find Evans, and get paid though he now had the laptop Evans asked him to confiscate. By the time he got there the fucking cops would be waiting for him. Surely Mizik had spilled the beans by now. There was no way that soft fuck had managed to evade that fit, sawed-off responding officer.


Price had only one place to go, so he would go there, to her, and she would berate him for stupidity, but take him into their home, and other points of entry.


What a fucking life. Price pulled out his phone and began punching in a text message.

JobJudge.com

Ah, America. Land of the Judgmental.

"Get a job, fuckface!"

"You're one of the lazy."

"You don't pay taxes."

"Loser!"

"Just go get a job."

These sorts of comments are about to drive me to acts of barbarism. Why? Well, let's break it down.

"Get a job, fuckface!" Okay. Obnoxious, especially over the internet which is the only place I hear it. If you're going to say something like this to a person, have the balls to say it to their face, coward.

"You're one of the lazy." Really? My unemployed status must be due to laziness, right? There couldn't possibly be any other factors, could there? It isn't that I get doors closed in my face, or hear that companies aren't hiring. It has nothing to do with the fact that I have no license and as such no vehicle, and location has nothing to do with it, right? Lazy. Hm. Come over. Let's lift stones and do martial arts for a few hours. No bullshit. I'm serious. You are invited. Hit me up and I'll show you lazy.

"You don't pay taxes." Well, why the FUCK should I? Why should anyone? Isn't the idea behind paying for something to get something in return? Anyone who is proud of paying taxes right now is, to me, a sucker. The best example of this is the government shutdown, or Congressional Paid Vacation, as I like to call it. Two weeks paid vacation for Congress, money that came out of you proud fuckers' pockets. You're not going to get your returns until after the 31st on account of it, but yet no one is pissed at the Congress, right? Must not be, no one's doing anything. In fact, my lazy ass seems to be the only one with the balls to say anything about it. Instead of rising up and pointing the finger where it belongs everyone shits on unemployed people. Get pissed at the Congress, not at me. Not only did I not invent the concept of Welfare, I'm not on it. I'm not taking your fucking money and I don't goddamn want it. Get fucked.

"Loser!" I see your point. Now, allow me to kick the fucking dogshit out of you. In fact, I think I'll break your fucking arms, just throat check you and kick you in the knee, throw you into a couple of kimora arm bars and break the fucking things. When I'm done, you'll be unable to work, lose your job and find that you're a loser too, cocksucker.

"Just go get a job." Tried. Still trying. Here's an idea--how about you give me a job? I suppose now you'll give me some sort of shit about wanting a handout, eh? The fucking things don't just grow on goddamn trees. There's no magical Land of Labor. Sorry. How about this for an idea as well--STOP LAYING PEOPLE OFF FOR THE DUMBEST AND MOST PETTY OF SHIT. My last lay off came due to "At-Will Downsizing" or what I like to call the "because we fucking feel like it" clause. There's a lot of that going on these days, isn't there?

Sure, jobs are out there. But there are factors to be considered. Driving record and credit reports are taken into consideration when getting a job. Also, criminal record. Anyone inclined to hit up www.blackbook.com can find out anything they need to know about a person using their SSN--required on any application--going back to their juvenile criminal record. Don't believe me? Try it. Look yourself up. I did, and found shit going back to when I was 16. My last offense was in 2004 and it was dismissed, but who cares? It's the ARREST that matters.  Transportation is a factor. Location is a factor. Many applications are internet based as well, and instead of a job, what you get are invitations to some back-alley college, which is nothing but a front for the debt racket--the new Ponzi scheme--where the education and opportunity is promised but not delivered.

Unemployed people are becoming a new race, just the same as Caucasian, African, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Native American, etc. Since it is politically incorrect to dog others for their race, now it is chic to dog others for their employment status.

Consider this post a slap in the face to you ignorant judges out there. Call us lazy? Maybe you're lazy. Shit, I thought you had a job. Where do you find the time to worry about what the fuck I'm doing? Don't you have work to do and a Congress to support? These fat fucks are hungry and crying "feed me, Seymour", and they will ruin your life if you don't make money for them to eat.