Hit After Hit

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Copyright © 2016 by JP Bloch

MCP Books

2301 Lucien Way #415

Maitland, FL 32751

407.339.4217

www.MCPBooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

ISBN-13: 9781635055498

LCCN: 2016915080

Distributed by Itasca Books

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To Tristen, who’s a big hit.

There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.

—Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I

1

When they found what remained of the body, I had to work fast, like a Lamborghini in high gear. It was all I thought about: Who could I blackmail, bribe, scare the crap out of, and the usual cha-cha-cha? I fretted over cash up front PDQ, which meant money laundering with Hymie the Worm to the tune of 10 percent, but these things came with the territory and the hell with it.

Eating and sleeping? Forget about it. I lived on black coffee, single malt scotch straight up, and Little Debbie Chocolate Marshmallow Pies. My wife, Sherry, had to coax me into bed, which meant I got some every night. I married wisely. Sherry knew when to raise the ante and when to fold, and she played devoted wife as needed. One night during the trial I bawled between her breasts, and she was shrewd enough not to say anything. When you’re handcuffed to fear, the last thing you want to do is talk about it. Talking makes it too real.

Throughout the trial I waited for Lady Luck to spread her legs wide open. By the time the deck of cards played out, I knew she was no friend of mine. The night before I had to testify, I dreamt that I stood at the edge of a cliff facing another cliff that I stood at the edge of, and in between myself and myself was a gaping nothingness too wide to cross. I woke up in a cold sweat and Sherry held me for a long time.

When I entered the courtroom the next day, I tripped on the edge of the carpet, and everyone laughed. I pretended to think it was funny too. The witness box smelled of furniture polish, giving me an instant headache that bordered on a high, but I ignored it. Our dirty family lawyer, Ammonia O’Toole, winked at me as I solemnly swore to BS the right BS, or however it went. I was no stranger to criminal trials and committed perjury the way other people jaywalked. But this trial reminded me of a long row of dominoes. The absence or presence of that little word not before the word guilty would determine whether we all fell down.

If Ammonia O’Toole were a pizza, she’d be a deep-dish deluxe. She started as an actress/model, a.k.a. call girl/stripper, but conned her way into law school, courtesy of Dad. She changed her name to Ammonia because she thought it sounded pretty. That’s how she was—Ammonia found lots of things pretty that other people didn’t. The name suited her to a T. Great for cleaning up messes, but poisonous as hell.

Are you Mr. Corcoran Ambush, also known as Corky Ambush? Ammonia asked me.

Yes, I replied, my conscience wearing its poker face like the vest of a three-piece suit. Sure, somebody got bumped off. But the family came first. Whenever I got subpoenaed—and I got subpoenaed often—the words rang in my head over and over: Family first, family first . . .

Mr. Ambush, could you please tell the court your occupation?

I am chief of staff for my father, Aiden Ambush.

And for the record, Mr. Aiden Ambush is . . . ?

Oh, sorry—president of the United States.

And how long have you been the president’s chief of staff?

For as long as he’s been president. Almost eight years.

I did lots of other things for Dad, but to share them would’ve violated my Fifth Amendment privilege.

And before you were White House chief of staff, what did you do? Ammonia asked.

I was my father’s press secretary while he was governor. And before that, I attended Harvard Business School. I graduated summa cum laude. I added this to remind people that I didn’t flunk out like that King of the Tabloids, my junkie older brother, Nick. He sat in the front row of the peanut gallery looking like he’d been living in a sewer. His jitters told me he’d mixed a speedball into his morning fix.

Show-off, Nick said in a loud voice, pointing at me. Mama’s boy.

The federal judge banged his gavel and stared at Nick with over-the-top intensity; the trial was being televised all over the world.

One more outburst and you, sir, will be held in contempt of court.

Contempt of court, Nick mumbled. That’s a good one. Don’t worry about me, Judgie-Wudgie. I love the court. I love it so much I want to marry it.

Guards, remove this disruptive individual.

Nick held out his wrists to be cuffed, as if his arrest signified a protest for a noble cause. No doubt the media would give his little drama plenty of airplay. Nick pretended to hate publicity and lied that it kept him from getting clean. I knew he lived for attention, especially when his shenanigans bumped commander-in-chief Dad off the front page. People were transparent to everyone but themselves.

I don’t care what your last name is, the judge said, you are a disgrace.

The world is a disgrace, said Nick as they carried him off. Life is a disgrace.

Nick wasn’t in much of a position to damn the rest of the world since he did nothing but score smack and shoot it up. Or, I take that back—sometimes he snorted it. He was the oldest of the four of us brothers, the original heir to the throne. After he flunked out of Harvard and blew his trust fund on H, it fell to me as second oldest to pick up the pieces. I did as Dad commanded. I changed my major to Advanced Management, and withdrew my Fulbright application to study the Dutch Masters in Amsterdam. It’s hard to believe that at one time I majored in art, though I still liked to doodle during family meetings about black market weaponry or murder for hire.

Nick’s junkiedom was a PR nightmare for our political dynasty scam. The long and the short of it was that I got stuck cleaning up after him, which—take it from one who knew—required more scrubbing than blood on a white carpet. I considered it my responsibility to keep the family name a good one, or at least good to stupid people. And fortunately for us, most voters were dopes. Dad’s wimpy opponents made speeches about hugging trees and the usual liberal mumbo jumbo. All Dad had to do was salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance and voters flocked to him like pigs at a trough.

My, summa cum laude from Harvard Business School, Ammonia said. Mr. Ambush, would it be fair to characterize you as deserving your position as chief of staff?

Absolutely. I am aware that some people call it nepotism, but the president looks for the hardest workers when making appointments. He doesn’t waste taxpayer money.

Ammonia flashed her killer smile at the jury. Your family must be proud of you.

Well, I’m proud to be an Ambush, though it’s quite a responsibility to live up to.

I’m sure we all agree that it is.

The hoity-toity federal prosecutor stood up in a snit, like someone squeezed her nipples without asking permission. We enjoyed making fun of her name, Suzette Swift, because swift she wasn’t. Back in the lower courts, I encountered her a few times when I testified in support of Nick being given another chance to fuck up. We always won, which drove Suzette crazy. I had no idea how she got promoted to the federal level, let alone assigned such a high-profile case. Maybe nobody in their right mind wanted to go near it.

Your Honor, Suzette said, this is not a soap opera. It is a trial about the brutal murder of an innocent woman.

I wanted to say, Innocent? Now I’ve heard everything. But I didn’t get to be chief of staff by losing my cool. That was Nick’s specialty.

The judge banged his gavel again because that’s what judges do. I agree, Counselor. The witness will stick to pertinent facts and not confound the case with manipulative sentiment. The Ambush name is not a free pass. Not in my courtroom.

Ammonia and I traded glances, as if saying to each other, Damn it, a clean judge. The judge slated for the case owed us a favor, but at the last minute she had what the media called an aneurism, so now we were stuck with this Honest Abe asshole. I wondered how many more times before the trial ended he’d say that the Ambush family didn’t get special treatment.

I understand, Your Honor. I wrinkled my forehead with fake sincerity. And I do not expect a free pass, as you call it. My family has nothing to hide. We want Fabergé Fox’s killer brought to justice as much as the people do. More, even.

Suzette waved her arms with impatience. Your Honor, may we please get on with it? This is turning into a circus.

We apologize, Your Honor, Ammonia said with a sob in her voice, as if she ran over a kitten with her BMW. Now then, Mr. Ambush, did you know the deceased, Ms. Fabergé Fox?

I smiled and looked sad at the same time. Yes, as a professional colleague and personal friend. She went to Harvard Business School, so we had that in common, though she was younger than me. She was treasurer for my father’s reelection campaign. Did you know that she came up with our slogan, ‘Aiden Ambush—for Real Americans’? My father runs his campaigns like an extended family, so my mother and three brothers all got to know her. As everyone knows, after the last election she got appointed secretary of the Treasury. I like to recall how proud she looked her first day in office, with her famous black hair and those almond eyes. And such an authoritative, regal bearing.

I heard one of the jurors whisper, I thought it was pronounced Faburg, like iceberg.

No, dummy, whispered back another juror, it’s Faberzsay. Like Zsa Zsa. As in the eggs.

What eggs?

Shh, I’ll tell you later.

Is everything okay, jurors? asked the judge.

We’re fine, Your Honor, said the non-idiot juror. How comforting to know that at least one juror had no idea who or what anyone or anything was.

Did you see Secretary Fox on the evening of November 15 last year? Ammonia asked me.

Yes. On the last night of her tragically brief life, Fabergé came to my youngest brother Jeremy’s thirty-fifth birthday party. It was held at Gull’s Nest, our family compound on Swatchama Island. The entire Ambush clan was there. Fabergé acted quite boisterous. Frankly, I think she had a bit too much champagne. She cheered louder than anyone when Jeremy announced his plan to run for the US Senate upon finishing his second term as a congressman. I hate admitting it, but I’m the teensiest bit jealous of Jeremy. He inherited the Ambush family charisma while I’m more of a behind-the-scenes person.

Ammonia coached me to say stupid things like this to make us sound like a normal family with sitcom problems. Given how our country had gone down the toilet, Ammonia reasoned that commie liberals wanted a guilty verdict just to see the Ambush family fed to the lions. So I needed to give the impression of being a regular guy, every mother’s son. The predictable objections from Suzette would, in turn, seem over the top and create sympathy for the defense.

What Ammonia didn’t know was that I did envy little baby Jeremy. Who wouldn’t? His life was a walk in the shade in comparison to mine. Ever since he could shit into a diaper I had to hear how he was the golden boy who’d be the second Ambush Prez of the US of A., as if everything I did for the family were a figment of my imagination.

I made news all the time as Dad’s chief of staff, and held press conferences with the confidence of a three-year-old who had the sandbox all to himself. I was conspicuous as hell. But I looked like the guy who didn’t get the girl at the end of the movie, the one brother who was short and had irregular features. Moreover, my fundamental contempt for pretty much everyone had a way of peeping out. (It’s never necessary to tell people you don’t like them; they already know it.)

By contrast, Jeremy looked like Brad Pitt with a lobotomy. He was born to shake hands and kiss babies. If they announced the world was ending he’d smile and say something like, How disappointing. He looked perfect in TV campaign ads wearing a hard hat and rolled-up shirtsleeves as he went over blueprints with a couple of nobodies, extending his arm to point at nothing.

There I was, trying to fix what the press called the trial of the century, while Jeremy sat in court as his schedule allowed, doing nothing but looking presidential. He might as well have been posing to get his likeness added to Mount Rushmore.

In case you couldn’t tell, Jeremy and I hated each other’s guts. Sometimes I thought I hated him more than I liked anyone I’d ever met. But our work for Dad overlapped, and this forced us to be civil. The public would’ve sold its soul to see Dad in the courtroom, but he avoided it for what I termed legal complications that would obfuscate due process.

I could be pretty full of it when I tried.

Our enemies thought we Ambushes got life handed to us like a Ritz Cracker with Cheez Whiz on top. But I hadn’t gone twenty-four hours without working for the family since I graduated college almost twenty years ago. I wore surgical gloves so many times I should’ve crazy-glued them to my hands. I was so adept at cleaning a buzz saw you could eat off the blade. I always worked.

Dad never told me I’d inherit the empire. He clung to the hope that Nick would get clean, and asshole Jeremy competed with me for Dad’s attention. The only person who recognized the sacrifices I made was Nick, as if his one remaining familial responsibility was to remind me of being second choice. Dad and everyone else took my loyalty for granted. When Dad got distracted he called me Nick—uh, Corky, as if my name were Nickacorky.

Over the years, I cultivated an ice-cold nature that turned on and off like an animated GIF. When family duty called, no genuine fourteen-karat emotion came in or out. Yet no matter how much I tried to hide it, I felt like a fraud, a loser posing as a winner, living out someone else’s destiny rather than my own. Nick never said it out loud, but the Ambush sadism in his bloodshot eyes told me he knew my dirty secret.

All four of us brothers inherited the Ambush kink for cruelty, though we each expressed it differently. Each of us was his own man. Mom brought her own brand of sadism to our DNA, making us kids doubly blessed. When Dad left her for a woman half her age, Mom had him dry-cleaned, pressed, and hung on a hanger. As she told Dad at the time, it was nothing personal, just business.

I liked those monster movies where some guy lost control and turned into a creature with talons and big sharp teeth. That’s how I felt when I got pushed too far. But I was my father’s son. I mastered how to keep my rage on the inside. In a way that’s hard to explain, I controlled my emotions with my eyes. I had this penetrating concentration.

2

My little speech about envying Jeremy pissed off the prosecutor, exactly as we’d hoped it would. She played into our hands like a fly into a spide r’s web.

Your Honor, said snarky Suzette, "the witness is not a guest on Dr. Phil. We are not here to listen to him share his ups and downs with his brother the congressman."

Sorry, Your Honor, Ammonia said. Chief of Staff Ambush, would you characterize your brother’s birthday party as a happy occasion?

I glanced at Jeremy with a fake nice expression, and he responded in kind. How I despised the motherfucker, especially that motherfucking smile. I wanted to sock him in the mouth and knock out all those vote-getting pearly whites.

Very much so. My Uncle Stewie did a hilarious lip-sync and dance to that old song, ‘Come On-a My House,’ and Fabergé joined in. They were the hit of the party. Uncle Stewie likes those old-time women singers for some reason. I forget who sang this one. Rosemary Clooney, I think. Or was it Patti Page?

Suzette stood up yet again, wearing a look of anguish that suggested standing up was a primitive form of torture banned by the Geneva Conventions.

"Your Honor, is this a game show? Are we playing Name That Tune?"

Just to drive her crazy, Ammonia said, "The prosecutor appears unsure as to what we are doing here. We are not a soap opera, not a circus, not Dr. Phil, and not a game show. It’s like we’re playing charades."

Enough, said the judge, pounding away like a woodpecker. Everyone will come to order at once. Mr. Ambush, this is your final warning. Stay on track.

Yes, Your Honor, I said. I apologize. It’s just that it’s painful to talk about Secretary Fox. To die so young, with so much potential. The morning after Jeremy’s party, we were devastated to learn she was found dead. Utterly broken.

Suzette was worse than my wife, Sherry. I couldn’t say a damn thing around the house without her correcting me.

Your Honor, Ms. Fox was not found dead like some passive nothing. She was horribly bludgeoned to death on the Ambush family private beach.

Anyone who could walk and chew gum at the same time realized this was no inside job. Sure, sometimes people got a little too much in the way, if you see what I mean, but bludgeon a woman to death? I’d hang the son of a bitch who did it myself. By his thumbs. Or better yet, by his wangdoodle. Getting messy with a guy was one thing, but we were raised with strong family values, which included never hitting a lady.

Move to strike, Ammonia said, in response to Suzette’s soapboxing. Is the prosecution now a witness?

Agreed, said the judge. The witness will continue.

Thank you, Your Honor, I said. Of course we were all the more horrified to learn that Ms. Fox was murdered on our private beach, and in such a violent manner. My father had been working with the police since four in the morning, when the beach landscaper spotted her. Dad called 911, and then he called me.

Why would she be found on your private beach? inquired Ammonia.

Gull’s Nest is the only place that any of us get to relax. Fabergé loved it. At around sunset, she wanted to walk on the beach. She said she needed rejuvenation. Those were her exact words. ‘I need to feel rejuvenated.’ How tragic.

Did she invite anyone else to walk with her?

No. She was firm that she preferred to walk alone.

Did you see her return from the beach?

Not to the best of my memory. Ms. O’Toole, you have to remember there were several hundred people gathered, I had official duties to perform, and my lovely wife, Sherry, and I have two teenage children. So I had quite a lot to do without keeping track of the whereabouts of some—I mean, Ms. Fox.

So you know nothing about who attacked her?