That Nietzsche Thing

  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 cl
ock 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...