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Spark Konners was turning red with anger. His hands formed two sledgehammer fists. Win wanted that, Myron knew. Anger made you stupid. Spark was fed up. He had been insulted and humiliated by the little rich guy standing in front of him. The little rich guy had crossed a line. Heck, more than one line.
“Spark,” Myron said. “Don’t.”
But Spark was too far gone. He loaded up for a big roundhouse swing that, if it connected, would have probably toppled a skyscraper. It didn’t connect, of course. Win saw it coming a mile away. He sidestepped, waited for the precise moment Spark was fully off balance, then Win swept Spark’s leg.
Spark dropped hard to the tarmac.
Win moved fast. He grabbed Spark’s hair, pulled his face to the phone, let go of the hair, stepped back.
The phone was unlocked now.
In a blind fury, Spark got to his hands and knees and bull-rushed Win. Win waited until the very last moment, slid to the left, tripped Spark.
Again the big man fell hard.
Myron moved toward Konners, tried to put himself between the two men to prevent more physical confrontations. Win had so far been only defensive. If Spark tried again, that might change.
Win scrolled through Spark’s phone. “Looks like you made a phone call after you left the hotel suite, my dear lad. Four-oh-six area code. Who were you calling?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
“Hold on.” He pressed a few more buttons. “Four-oh-six… that’s in Montana.”
Spark got to his hands and knees. He was planning another attack. Still staring at his phone, Win took out a large handgun and pointed it in Spark’s direction.
“I’m a pretty good shot,” Win said. “But you can test that if you so wish.”
Myron tried once again. “Win.”
Win sighed. “Your warnings are like your appendix—they’re either superfluous or they hurt you.”
Myron frowned. “Seriously?”
“Not my best analogy, I admit.” Still reading off his phone, Win said, “Tracking the number now. Hmm. Got it. According to the location towers, the phone is currently emanating from a Budget Inn in someplace called Havre, Montana.” Win glanced toward Myron. “Get on the plane. The flight to Havre is a little over two hours. I’ll pin-drop you the phone’s location.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
You park outside the home of Walter Stone.
It is two in the morning. The house is dark other than the dim glow from a computer monitor coming from the downstairs den. Walter is fifty-seven years old. His house is a three-bedroom Cape Cod of aluminum siding and faded brick on Grunauer Place in Fair Lawn. He has two sons, both in their twenties. One just had a baby, his first grandson. Walter is at his keyboard. He got laid off last April. The Foodtown supermarket he had worked at for thirty years shut their doors, and they won’t find new work for an older white guy, no matter how good he is. That’s what he tells people. It’s the truth, in his mind. His wife is named Doris. She plays pickleball three times a week and does her best to find ways to keep out of the house most days. Right now, she is upstairs sleeping. After dinner, that’s where Doris always goes. Upstairs. Walter stays downstairs. They’re both good with that.
You sit outside in the Ford Fusion. You wear gloves and a ski mask. You have a gun on your lap.
Walter, you assume, is still giddily typing away.
He thinks he is safe behind internet anonymity.
Walter started off on social media like most people his age—poking fun at it, wary of the time suck, thinking it’s something lazy kids do. He hates the new generations—Generation X or Y or Z or Alphas or whatever—thinking they’re all soft and spoiled and that they’d rather suck off the tit of his taxes than do a day’s honest work. Walter’s youngest son Kevin is a bit like that. Into computers and video games and whatnot. A total waste of time, if you ask Walt. Still, at some point, Kevin signed his dad up with a Twitter account first. Not sure why anymore. Guess so Walt could see what the fuss was about. Maybe use it as a free news feed or something. Walter would be damned before he gave any money to the local paper or watched the lies on lamestream TV. Once he started checking out the site, well, maybe it was because Kevin created his account or maybe there was some weird algorithm, but Walter’s Twitter feed filled up with tweet after tweet of the dumbest, most vile, naïve load of bullcrap you could ever imagine. How did people get so dumb? None of these idiots posting all day have a clue how the real world works. The only thing they were more full of than shit? Themselves. Man, they all thought they were the cat’s ass, didn’t they? Endlessly pontificating and condescending and yeah, Walter knew what those words meant. And don’t even get him started on the thumb-up-the-ass, brain-dead women. Jesus H. Get a boyfriend or something. All whining anytime a guy said boo to them or bumped into their elbow. Man, that got Walter’s goat. Everything a guy does nowadays pisses them off. Heck, just talking to them was an “act of violence.” Oh, and not talking to them—ignoring them? That was disrespectful and sexist. When Walter was young, a girl liked to get a wink and a nod. It was flattering. Try that now and she’ll blow a rape whistle in your face. I mean, get a grip, sweetheart. You’re not all that.
That’s kind of what happened at Foodtown too.
Once that foreign chick Katiana started working the deli counter—Katiana who on her very first day smiled at Walter and touched his arm, clearly flirting with him even though he sported a wedding band clear as day—ever since she complained to HR, it was over for him. That’s how it is. No one cares about the other side. A woman complains about you, you’re cooked. And all Walt did was try to be nice. Katiana was a recent divorcée (smart guy her ex, escaping that bear trap of a bitch) and so Walt figured he’d make her feel better about herself, compliment her figure and whatnot. She wore tight clothes for a reason, no? Suddenly his transfer to the store in Pompton Lakes, poof, gone. Oh, they didn’t fire him. They let him stay until the store closed. Three weeks’ severance after thirty years. A week’s pay per decade. Bastards. And now, months later, here on this goddamn computer, all these smug online bitches just like Katiana are spouting off these brain-dead rules about how men should act in defiance of all natural laws, as though the world just started yesterday. Jesus H. One bitch who calls herself “Fit Amy” if you can believe that, she keeps going on and on about how she’s scared to get into an elevator alone with a man—that, get this, the man should wait and take the next elevator if he sees a woman is alone in one. Seriously? And so Walt wants to lay a little knowledge on her. Not a big deal, right? He sets up a second account because if you just tell the truth in this world, they come after you. That’s how it is now. Fuck freedom of speech. You want to go online and tell this man-hating elevator rider, “You’re so ugly you’d be grateful if a man raped you on an elevator,” well, the truth hurts now, doesn’t it, sweetheart?
So Walt, a smart guy, a quick learner, made up a fake account with the name Rotten Swale. Not because he was afraid to speak his mind. Not Walt. He wants everything out in the open, believes in the free flow of ideas, so that stupid feminazis get drowned in an avalanche of logic. But that’s not how it works anymore. Not in today’s sissified world. These chicks are zealots. If they find out who he is—“dox” is what they call it—they’ll write to Stop-N-Shop or that new Green Grocery opening up in Ridgewood and threaten to boycott or sue or whatever if Walter gets a job there. That, my fellow Americans, is how nuts these people are. So yeah, he sets up the anonymous account on a whim. Like he won’t really use it. That’s what Walter thinks until the desire—no, the need—to set these bitches straight is too strong to resist. So that’s what he does. Or should he say, Rotten Swale does. They get an earful of the truth from Rotten Swale. They may not listen. But they’ll hear. And that one chick who calls herself Fit Amy, that my-shit-don’t-stink profile with her fucking bio talking about BLM and rainbow flags, this chick with these giant knockers and the shirt buttoned low, always bending forward into the camera during her rants, inviting men to stare down her blouse, and so Rotten Swale tells her in subsequent comments that a) “No one would watch if you didn’t have a big rack” and then b) “You’re a dumb lying whore who sucks cocks at the truck stop” and then c) “Your seven-year-old daughter deserves to get ass raped,” which, well, Walter doesn’t really believe, but you need to say something that will get their attention, and boy, does this chick need a good solid fucking from someone like Walter, from a real man who will pin her down and show her what’s what.
This goes on for a year.
Walt posts more and more. Worse and worse. Rotten Swale gets blocked after a while, but—no problem—Walter just takes on another identity. Late Towners. And then other. Seattle Worn. On and on. He remains anonymous.
