Your Decisions Will Have Consequences

1

Force would remember December 20, 1993, for the rest of his life. He would regret his deed on that date for the rest of his days.

***

A month ago, he had discovered the true identity of "his" lady. He had learned about her past, and this had plunged him into difficult contemplations which lasted almost a month. He needed to find the strength to decide to do what was right.

He needed to do so because—and this understanding was the most frustrating of all for him—Flaminga might easily be the Villain.

Force carefully concealed the thoughts weighing on him from those around him. He worked with Cord as usual, predictably reacted to the loss of the yearly bonus with a sad sigh, and conscientiously did all his work. No one could have guessed that something was wrong with him. Still, upon arriving home, he would re-read, over and over, the materials he had collected: newspaper clippings from nine years ago and articles by Flaminga from the moment of her work for the magazine "Women's Secrets". He looked for hints, links, and details—and he found them. He began to comprehend his role in the game that this woman supposedly started—and realized that for her he was just the guarantor of her safety. What did they say? "Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer?" I was a fool, and I was fooled. Love, damn it. Ugh!

Despite all the facts, it was difficult for him to decide to act. He did not find the courage to lay out everything to Chief and Cord, to admit what he had done because, in that case, he would lose his job. But I must at least part with Flaminga…

***

So, on December 20, 1993, standing at Flaminga's door, he tried to gather his strength and mentally put forward everything he had been rehearsing.

Greeting. Say everything right off the bat. Argumentation. Goodbye.

Force felt that he would screw up. Because he is, well… like that. He always messes up. That is probably his nature to screw up.

He pressed the doorbell. Let it be.

***

She and Force have not seen each other in almost two weeks. "Work," he had said, "the end of the year. Sorry."

Flaminga understood him perfectly: she was running around non-stop, as if stung in the ass, over the New Year's issue. But they had, fortunately, called up and kept each other informed of each other's affairs.

Unexpectedly for her, Flaminga had become attached to this ridiculous fat man.

That evening, she decided to pamper herself. She had bought beer, salted peanuts, rented two melodramatic films, and looked forward to the love torments of the unfortunate heroes on the screen. Still, as soon as the opening credits ended, the doorbell rang.

Whom could it be at this hour of the night?

Flaminga opened the door and saw a crumpled-up-looking Force standing at the threshold. He had not warned that he was coming. Very unlike him.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Force said:

"Flaminga, I know everything."

He didn't even say hello.

Flaminga winced, and in bewilderment, asked:

"What do you know? And actually… Hello."

"About your past."

Thoughts rushed about in Flaminga's head. Is he…?

"We must part."

"What? Wait, what are you talking about?"

"You created the Villain to get revenge on Cord for what he did to you. Or rather, what you did to yourself."

Damn it, what had I been thinking? That by seeing the investigator, I could hide my past? DAMN!

"What are you talking about? I did nothing!"

"Really? What about the mockery of the investigation in your articles? And of me? Didn't you get to know me to get even with Cord?"

Her heart was pounding. Perhaps a little truth was worth telling? But Flaminga couldn't change her tone.

"You want to know? Well, listen. On the day the prostitute was killed, I was in the park. I ran into the crowd of onlookers. And then I noticed you. And I recognized Cord. Then the thought occurred to me: could I give him back a little something? For what he did to me. I decided to get to know you," Flaminga poked her finger into Force's chest, "to keep abreast of your affairs. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Force gave her a hard look.

"You used me."

"Of course!" she threw up her hands. "I'm a damn journalist! My profession is to use people!"

"You pretended to love me, slept with me, and all of that only to find out information."

"And you turned out to be another idiot who was led around by a vagina. What a marvel!"

"You're scum, Flaminga. I really loved you."

Flaminga slapped him a resounding slap in the face and immediately felt ashamed, as if she had struck a child. This look of his, the way he stooped as he walked away… Flaminga wanted to grab his hand, apologize, explain everything, but the moment was lost: Force was gone.

2

Meanwhile, Cord was finishing preparing material on Familiar: he gathered everything together, systemized it, and composed an evidence database. He also met with Sky and Fiddler, as they would have to testify against Familiar. Cord wrote speeches for them. Mort's testimony would allow Familiar to be put behind bars until the end of the investigation. A threat to a police officer, even if not on duty, is a serious violation.

Yes, Familiar was hardly the Villain, but he was still a killer; therefore, he should be held responsible. But there was one difficulty.

Cord promised him until next year.

They say the culture of honor is long gone, but despite this, Cord always corresponded to the norms adopted by him as a child. For example, if you say 'I promise,' you must do it. If you tell someone, 'You can count on me,' then it must be true. He was irritated that these words, for many, were just empty sounds, but he taught his friends and acquaintances the opposite was true. In any case, if these words were said by him.

When he had been at the resort, Cord had promised Familiar that he would not touch him until the end of the year. Now he faced a moral dilemma: to act according to the law and break his given word to imprison a criminal, or to act according to honor and destroy in an instant the image of himself that he had built for so long. Yes, he would find something to justify himself. Yes, they would understand him. But would he respect himself after that?

The most offensive thing: in the toilet of the Tranquil Village restaurant, he had simply spouted off what came into his head, hoping only to avoid death at the hands of a man on the edge. He made a good argument, and it was apparent that Familiar was hesitating. And Cord decided to finish it off to quickly return to his friends, safe and sound. He gave the Familiar time. He could have taken a risk and not done that. In that case, in early December, Familiar would have been sitting in court already and maybe listening to a verdict.

But principles, principles… Was he ready to betray them for the sake of legal justice and for the sake of his professional duties?

Let's suppose. Let's just say he was ready. However, the second reason that prevented him from doing so was much more significant.

If Cord succeeded, he would disappear from Dia's life for several weeks or even months: there would be a lot of work. Not a single normal person would abandon a pregnant wife, especially during the period of their happiness.

A moral choice is what it is called. Cord was not particularly fond of detective stories—they were often stupid entertainment, although the opposite was suggested to be true. What always amazed him about them was that, between duty and personal life, the main characters always chose duty. Their lives, of course, went straight down the tubes. It is unlikely that this would happen to him—Dia would understand this and even support him—but here something else which had arisen: Cord himself did not want to plunge into work right now. He wanted to enjoy these happy days to the maximum, with his beloved and his friends, and he wanted to spit on the world around him. At least let them all kill each other off. In the end, he was not an idealist. He was merely a cynic.

He chose Dia.

3

Familiar parked his pickup in the garage. That was it. Next time he would leave here only on business.

For an entire month, he waited for punishment, waiting for Cord to report the gun, waiting for his father to know it… but everything was quiet, and this worried Familiar even more. Like the calm before the storm.

He decided not to tell his father about his stupidity and not ask for help. He could handle it. He must. He does not need nannies and does not want to be branded a daddy's boy. Once, he did a stupid thing when, in a panic, he wrote to him on his pager: "I need help. In the park." His father then scolded him for the wording, although Familiar tried to make it not seem suspicious.

And what did his request lead to? He put his father in jeopardy.

Familiar pulled two twenty-five-liter cans of gasoline from the back of the pickup and dragged them into the basement, where there was a generator. He walked along the cold dark hallway past the wooden stairs to the second floor, opened the door to the covered veranda, and went to the far left corner, to the hatch into the basement. Familiar went down carefully: the concrete stairs were steep. Finally, he refueled the generator and started it up. Let there be light!

Then Familiar went to turn on the heaters. He decided to turn them on only in the bathroom and in three rooms: the kitchen on the first floor, which was next to the veranda, and the living room and the bedroom on the second floor, to the right of the stairs. In the latter two, there were the only interior doors in the house, which could be locked with keys—into the living room and his parent's bedroom.

Such security measures existed because, in one corner of the bedroom, hidden behind a fake panel in what looked to be an average clothes cabinet, there was a gun safe.