The Monsters We Believe in

Nervously I passed through the maze of prison safety protocols followed by a security guard that could only accurately be described as hulking. As per the arrangement my agent made, I couldn’t go anywhere in the prison without being followed by this giant of a man. He was to be my shadow, silent and ever present.

If the constant chaperone wasn’t enough to make me feel uneasy, it didn’t help that wherever I went in the prison I could see the sharp red lights of security cameras. Every interaction I had inside would be carefully listened to by an army of prison officials to ensure no messages were being passed without their knowledge. I was not permitted a copy of this recording nor was I allowed to carry in my own recording device. I wasn’t allowed anything that could connect to the internet, transmit a signal, or be used as a weapon. My car keys, my laptop, and my belt were all forfeit at the security doors. The only thing I was permitted and the only exception to the rule was a large suitcase with an old-fashioned typewriter built into it. The machine was archaic. There wasn’t a circuit board or battery on it, and It weighed nearly twenty pounds. My agent had thought this much precaution was extreme, but the prison was unrelenting about their rules, especially when it came to their most notorious criminal.

In my mind it was all a small price to pay for the kind of access I was going to get. Plus, the thought of carrying around a typewriter seemed very Earnest Hemmingway to me.

The guards led me to a small room with no windows. As we waited, the room was silent other than the hum of the white florescent lights built into the ceiling above us. Even these were behind a set of iron bars so no one could break them or use them as a weapon. I wondered for a moment if The Boxer would do something like that. He was a killer. The entire world knew what he was. He had been the right-hand man to Elliot Black one of the world’s most dangerous criminals. At one point in his life, he was the heir apparent to the most notorious criminal organization in the world. He was infamous. He had more power and money than any man could ever want and instead of taking it and following in the footsteps of those who came before him, he turned himself in. He wasn’t in this prison because someone had brought him to justice. He had chosen it.

The world exploded when it happened. Every news station, every reporter, every article was hyper focused on the event. One of the world’s most dangerous criminals walks into a police station and turns himself in, his hands still covered in blood, gun still smoking. What does he turn himself in for? He admits to one crime only. Murder. Whose murder? The murder of Elliot Black, Leader of the Myriad, and king of the underworld.

He offered no explanation. Gave no reason or defense for his action and instead, just went quietly to prison. Now after sixteen years of confined silence he agreed to an interview.

When the door began to open, I could feel my body tense. The entire room stood at attention as he entered. It had the effect of making him feel much less like a prisoner and more like a king. I had always heard that he was a short man, but in reality, he seemed only a few inches shorter than the average height of a man.

He sat in the chair opposite mine and nodded for me to sit. I hadn’t even noticed I was standing. I followed his instruction. There was a moment where neither of us spoke. He just looked me over, sizing me up. I, in turn, studied him. In the underworld people had known him as Handsome Felix. This was a lie. Never before had I met a more disfigured man in my life. His face was composed of more scar tissue than regular skin. Where there weren’t scars his face was pock marked and pale. He had black hair which was shorn close to his scalp. The hair atop his head remained just shy of an inch long and from his cheeks something resembling a beard grew, but due to the damaged skin across his face, it came in as sporadic thick tangled patches. His nose bore the marks of multiple breaks that had never fully been remedied. Half of his right ear looked like it had been torn off. He had an underbite that in conjunction with everything else gave him a striking resemblance to a bulldog.

He was broad, but his frame had more in common with a steel drum than a bodybuilder. The chains around his wrists almost seemed fragile in comparison to his forearms.

Because of all these features it was easy at first to ignore his eyes, but the longer I sat with the man, the more I could feel that dark gaze boring into me. They were somehow the most striking thing about him as though he had learned over the course of his life to command respect with just a look.

Felix leaned forward and rested his weight on the table taking in a long low breath, “Have you got a question for me, or have you come to stare?” He asked in a low smoker’s baritone that almost felt like sandpaper over skin.

“Well, right. Let us begin.” I managed to say as I put the first sheet of paper into my typewriter.

“Let’s make something clear. I’m not going to answer any questions about my childhood. My parents neither. This isn’t going to turn into some therapy session. I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me or make me out to be some kind of victim because my family weren’t around. It’s nobody’s fault ‘cept mine that I am the way I am. Got it?”

I nodded my head that I understood.

“Alright.” He said in a softer tone. “Ask your question. Ask what you and everyone else is dying to know.”

“Why did you do it Felix? Why did you kill Elliott Black?”

Felix nodded at this. “How much do you about him?”

I had done considerable research in preparation for this interview. This question landed right in my wheelhouse and if I had been thrown off at all at his entrance, I found my footing now. “I know he was the leader of the Myriad for four years. he was thought to be the most dangerous man in the world, but in reality, his grasp over the criminal underworld was slipping with each passing day. He had a brother who died in a shootout and a sister who many believe was just as wicked as he was though she somehow escaped justice when the FBI took the Myriad down. I know that many people wanted Elliott dead, but none of them took the shot, and I know that you did.”

“You know all that, do you?” Felix asked unimpressed. His expression was strange. He was nearly smiling, like he had heard a familiar joke for the first time in many years.

He let out a slow sigh and began, “When I met Elliott, everything was different. He was running only a small part of the family business.” As Felix said this, he looked down at the prison floor his face caught up in the memory.

“I was a dock worker at the time, hauling crates on and off the liners that would come into port. The boys down there liked to set up a makeshift boxing ring to fight in once work was over. Now I’ve never been the kind of man who walks away from a fight, so I spent a lot of nights bloodying my knuckles on the faces of my coworkers there.”

“That is where I met him. The myriad had a couple of the other dock guys in their pockets. People paid to leave out some shipments on the regular paperwork. Elliott came down to make a payment and caught the back half of a fight of mine.”

“It hadn’t been my best fight. My opponent sucker punched me after the bell. I levied some insults about his mother. At one point the guy had me against the ropes. I remember seeing spots. He told me he I could end the fight if I ‘asked nicely’. That’s not my speed, so I spit my own blood in his face, and he knocked me out with a heavy right hook.”

“When I awoke the boys had dragged me into some warehouse where Elliott was waiting for me. He asked me why I hadn’t just given up when I could. I told him straight. I told him ‘I don’t beg.’ I guess he liked that answer.”

“If you’re looking for what motivates a man to do what I have done I think that is where you can start. I never wanted to be the kind of man who begged for anything. I refused to be pitied. I didn’t want to be beholden to anybody for their so-called mercy. Pride. That’s what makes a monster out of a man.”

There was silence in the room. Felix was running his hand over his torn ear. “I already looked like a monster back then though. Maybe not as much as I do now, but the collection of scars had already begun. I used to think looking like this was the cost of respect. People said anything about me I made them pay and they in turn took some chunk out of me with a stray punch or knife. When I was young and stupid fear and respect looked a lot alike.”

“That’s what Elliott saw in me anyways. A man who was feared wherever he went. A man who wasn’t afraid to fight. A man who would take what he wanted. Honestly, I was a great candidate for the Myriad.”

“Elliott had his own issues though. I don’t think I would have joined up if he had hit me with some recruitment speech. No, the truth is, he was just as desperate as I was, and I saw that look in him. He wanted to prove himself so desperately that he was willing to do almost anything. There was this inevitability about him. Anyone who spoke to him could see it. He was either going to take control of it all, climb all the way to the top, or he was going to make one hell of an impact when he fell along the way. It was only just a matter of time. Two months after I joined up, I was his right-hand man. He took care of the business side. I took care of the people who didn’t cooperate. It all worked well for a while.”

There was a beat of silence before I prompted him to continue. “What changed,” I asked.

Felix looked at me very seriously. “What do you think happened? Only one thing can ruin something like that.” Felix slouched back into his seat a bit more, “There was a woman.”

“When Elliott took control of the Myriad from his father it was bloody ordeal. Many members of the family took issue with Elliott and made attempts on his life, but he was far too well protected. But there were other ways to hurt Elliott. People went after those closest too him. Elliott put me in charge of his sister’s protection until the issues within the myriad were sorted. Bailey Black was her name, but I’m sure you already know that. When I met her she was going through cancer treatment. She was bald and had bright green eyes, but when her hair grew back it fell in beautiful red curls. I spent nights by her bed side in the hospital making sure no one tried to kill her in her sleep.”

There was a pause as Felix looked down at the ground. He sat quiet for a long while. I tried to think of what to say to get him to continue.

“Do you believe there is good everyone?” He asked breaking the silence.

I pulled my hands from the typewriter and thought to myself. In a way he had voiced the question I had come to find out. Felix was the most dangerous man I had ever met. Looking at him it would be easy to dismiss him as a monstrosity, to relegate him to the dregs of society and think of him as an outlier that should not be counted when factoring the things a man was capable of. But to do that, would be dismissing his last act of freedom. For some reason or another be it virtue or something else entirely, He had turned himself in.

“I don’t know.” I answered honestly.

“Bailey did.” Felix said in a heavy sigh. “I know what people see when they look at me. I see that fear in their eyes. It’s a fear I’ve earned. It’s a fear I thought I wanted to see in others, but she didn’t look at me that way.”

He was quiet again.

“Then how did she look at you?” I asked.

Felix responded in a somber lowered voice, “It was like she was seeing something no one else could. Like she was looking right at that grain of good she believed was inside me despite everything I had done to prove otherwise.”

“In the end it didn’t even matter whether she was right or not.” Felix sighed again. “I would have done whatever it took just to keep her looking at me that way.”

“She had always tried to stay out of the family business. Her father had protected her from most of it, but as things heated up under Elliott’s management, she found herself drawn in just to stay alive. I remember her telling me she wanted to get away from it all. I told her I would take care of it, but she was convinced Elliott would never just let either of us go. He was dangerous and unstable. We needed to deal with him first in some way or another.”

“Without telling me first, Bailey decided the best option was to go to the Feds. She decided it would be better to put him in prison then in the ground. She asked me specifically not to kill him. Behind my back she began working with an agent named Hoa Tran. Agent Tran promised her that both of us would be protected so long as Bailey could deliver evidence that could finally put Elliott in prison and help bring down the Myriad.”

“In a lot of ways Bailey didn’t know her brother like I did. He was smart, manipulative, and vengeful. The only way either of us were getting free was if he was in the ground. If we tried to disappear, he would find us. If we put him behind bars, he would have those still loyal to him track us and kill us. I had been with him for years. I knew how he operated. Still, as wicked as I knew he was, I didn’t want to kill him. It was because of him I wasn’t doing odd jobs at the docks anymore. If that wasn’t enough of a reason, I had promised Bailey I wouldn’t. So, there was only one real alternative.”

“That morning I told Bailey that Elliott and I had a meeting across town, but in in actuality I had gone to his office to reason with him. On the day of Elliott’s death, I had gone to ask his blessing for both of us to leave the Myriad.”

“Elliott’s office was located above a bar he owned. The bar was a front. because a lot of his money went through the place, he kept it well secured with cameras all over it. none of them recorded audio because he liked to be able to speak freely in his own bar, but the video showed him exactly who came calling. His office was where the real business was done. He had no cameras in there, instead he had a hidden camera that watched the door, so he knew if anyone was entering without his permission.”

“When I told him, I needed to talk he walked me down to the bar and ordered me a drink. We sat together in a booth we had been in a thousand times before, drinking familiar drinks and smoking the same cigars, but something was off with him. I could tell. He looked too calm. The Myriad was in turmoil all around him and he looked like none of it bothered him at all. It wasn’t confidence. It was something else. I told him I didn’t want to waste his time. I told him that I had some news he wouldn’t like but I needed him to get over it so we could all move on. I told him Bailey and I were leaving, and we weren’t coming back.”

“’of all the people I thought would betray me I never imagined it would be you two.’ He said to me. I Kept my hand by my pistol below the table. I had seen Elliott kill before. Each time a look came over him as though he were Steeling himself. I waited to see that look come into his eyes again. This time, signaling my own death. I waited for a long time, but it never came. Instead, He put his hands on the table and said we could go. He just had one condition.”

“He told me to get on my knees and beg.” Felix spit the line like it was poison. His expression was a mix of hate and anger. He looked very much like the monster I thought he was when he had entered.

“So, you killed him?” I asked.

Felix looked down at his hands chained in cuffs.

“No.” He said. “I got on my knees and I begged.”

“Elliott punched me square in the jaw when I did it. He was angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him. Said I was pathetic. Said I wasn’t the man he had thought I was. That I wasn’t a man at all and that I could take his traitor of a sister wherever and that if he ever saw me again, he would kill me himself.”

“Even as he yelled these things in my ear, I shook with anger. I had killed men for far less then this insult. Killing him would have been easy, but this. this was far harder. I remained on the ground as he walked away. My fists were clenched, and my knuckles were white, but I had done it. I thought everything was going to be alright now. That somehow a monster like me was going to get the happy ending.”

“It was about then that I heard a shout from upstairs followed by a gunshot.”

“It was Baileys voice. Somehow, I knew running up those stairs was sealing my own fate, but I did it anyways. I didn't have another choice.”

“I rushed up the stairs gun in hand and smashed through the door. Inside I could see Bailey and Elliott wrestling for Bailey’s gun. A fresh hole had been shot into the wall behind them. Scattered across Elliott’s desk were confidential pictures and files. Seeing them I knew immediately what Bailey had done. Elliott slapped her across the face. She fell backwards into my arms. It was clear in Elliott’s eyes he also knew what Bailey was up too. ‘Both of you. Traitors. Leaving me to die.’ He yelled as he waved her gun at the two of us. ‘The Myriad the Feds they all want to kill me and you two are going to run away so you don’t have to watch them do it.’ Bailey began to speak, but Elliott was too far gone. I recognized that steeling look in his eye. He was ready to kill. His finger hovered over the trigger. I held my body in front of Bailey’s and prepared for the worst. Under his breath I heard Elliott whisper ‘you deserve each other’.”

“Then he put the gun to his forehead and he shot.”

The room hung in silence.

“Ironic huh.” Felix said after a long pause without a drop of humor in his expression.

“The only crime I’ve been convicted of is the one I didn’t commit.”

“Why, why did you turn yourself in then?” I asked breathlessly.

“Because there was no note. No one was going to believe he did it, Bailey had gunpowder on her hands, and the Feb’s were tapped into Elliott’s cameras. They had seen three people go into the office and only two come out.”

“So, I told Bailey I loved her and to go home and that I would take care of things. As she left, I rested Elliott’s bleeding head on my lap and considered the options. There was an inelegant solution involving bone saws, duffle bags, and industrial carpet cleaners, but I just didn’t have the time. Agent Tran would have a warrant in hours. If they found a speck of blood Bailey, me, or both of us would likely spend the rest of our lives in prison. I couldn’t let bailey go down for it. Control of the myriad also now rested either with her by blood or me by seniority, so going to the myriad would be signing our own death warrants. Anyone in the family would look at us and see an opportunity to seize control."

"The truth was Bailey needed federal protection and she could only get that if she helped bring down the other players in the myriad. Now that Elliott was dead the feds would want her to turn me in, but I knew she would never do it. I needed to be removed from the equation. So, I gathered what evidence I could on the family and left it on Baileys doorstep with instructions to seek federal protection when I was gone. I walked into that police station with Baileys gun in my hand and I took the fall.”

Again, a heavy silence fell over the room.

“Why tell me all this? Why now?” I asked my head reeling from what he had shared.

“A month ago, Bailey died. Cancer came back. People out there still speak of her in the same voice that they speak of Elliott. They think she’s as guilty as he or I am. That’s why I’m telling you my story. The truth is I deserve to be in here. My path always led to here or to an early grave.”

“But her, the world needs to know that she was a good woman. I don’t want people tarnishing her legacy. She brought the myriad down." Felix said as he stood.

Guards escorted Felix back to his cell, but I remained at that table for a long time. My mind reeled over everything he had told me. I kept coming back to that question he had asked me, ‘is there good in everyone?’ I felt further from an answer then when I started. He had made many sacrifices for someone he loved, but was that enough to really say there was good in him?

My typewriter felt heavier then ever as I lugged into out into a grey clouded afternoon. I waited at the corner of the street for a car to pick me up.

I decided, as I took a long drag from a cigarette that maybe there wasn’t a clean answer. For now it was enough to understand that maybe Felix Hart was just what people believed him to be, be that a monster, killer, or something different all together.