Sledgehammer Ex Machina
an absurdist tale by Jon Wesick
Please give a warm welcome back to Jon Wesick, who has graced our posts before with his absurdist sense of humor and adventure. In today’s story, he pokes fun at writing that inserts excessive drama and conflict, thinking that’s how to make a story great. (Hint: it’s not. The conflict has to have gravitas, and the characters have to sell it. Too much, and it becomes wearisome.) This is applicable even to viewers of TV and movies, and consumers of paperback fiction, and even internet fiction (like this)!
Content warning: Domestic abuse, hate crimes, and sexual situations
Sledgehammer Ex Machina
by Jon Wesick
Special Agent Claire Danforth clipped the film badge to her belt and followed the production manager through radiation detectors and onto the factory floor.
“SEM-9, pressurized water reactors for the Virginia Class Submarine.” Art Fizzler pointed to metallic cylinders that resembled beer kegs large enough to give every American a blood alcohol concentration of 0.8. “Once the reactor vessels pass QA, we load them with nuclear fuel.” He swiped a keycard to open a door into a room marked with yellow-and-magenta trefoils. “I believe you know NCIS Special Agent Amatory.”
Amatory had eyes the color of the Portage Glacier and a cleft in his chin so deep a woman’s tongue could get lost in it for days.
“Morning, Nick.” Danforth nodded to her colleague.
The room contained two workstations behind radiation-resistant glass. Ordinarily, workers at each manipulated remote-controlled arms to load fuel rods into reactors. Today, both were vacant.
“Here’s the problem.” Fizzler took a seat at one of the stations and maneuvered a radiation detector toward metallic tubes that hung from a crane like an infernal windchime designed by J. Robert Oppenheimer. There was no reading.
“Someone made off with real fuel rods and left dummies behind?” Danforth asked.
“Worse than that,” Fizzler said. “Our naval reactors use highly enriched uranium, the kind that can make a bomb.”
***
“Can I have your attention?” Danforth said to the FBI agents in the briefing room. “This is NCIS Special Agent Nick Amatory who will be working with us.” She gestured toward him. “We have a serious situation.” When she pulled down a screen near the wall, there was a sheet with a penis drawing attached.
A man in a madras sportscoat laughed.
“Wishful thinking, Agent Paterfamilias?” Danforth removed the prank and motioned to the agent by the laptop to project a picture of a fortress-like building. “The Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge processes the nation’s highly-enriched uranium. Somewhere on the way to the V. Gates plant, insiders diverted the fuel rods and replaced them with phonies. This uranium could make a nuclear bomb so no word of the theft can leak out, lest we cause a panic. That means even your families, people.
“Maybe the thieves plan on selling it to a foreign government. Maybe they’re building a bomb. Experts say it wouldn’t be hard to cobble together a primitive gun device like the one that took out Hiroshima. Unfortunately, these are unstable. Drop one and it could go off. If you find it, wait for the Nuclear Emergency Support Team to disarm it.”
“What if it’s already left the country?” Agent Dubious asked. “And what if this isn’t the first batch to go missing?”
“We’ll have to do the best we can. Each team will be issued radiation detectors, and we’ll all wear film badges to monitor any exposure. Let’s start by going over the entire supply chain and reviewing anyone who had contact with the missing fuel rods.” Danforth paused when a man built like the Hohensalzburg Fortress entered. “Assistant Director Bellicose.”
“This case is important!” Bellicose’s stare could make a Belgian Malinois hide under the coffee table. “You need to solve it in twenty-four hours or else you’ll be inventorying penguin turds in Alaska.”
No one dared tell him that penguins lived in the southern hemisphere.
“Agent Responsible,” Danforth said after Bellicose left, “get all the documentation from Art Fizzler at V. Gates. I want the rest of you to work with her to create a timeline. And Paterfamilias, go over the security clearances for everyone involved.”
“But that will take months,” Paterfamilias said.
“Don’t go soft on my Paterfamilias. If you have enough time to play pranks, I’m sure you can rise to the occasion,” Danforth said. “Anything else?”
“About V. Gates,” Amatory said. “Sixty percent of it is owned by a conglomerate called S. Ihnen out of Abu Dhabi. They claim there’s a firewall that closes off the American operation, but…”
“Good point, Nick. You and I will visit V. Gates’s VP.” Danforth grabbed her purse, led him to the garage, and unlocked a Ford Crown Victoria, a car that shouted cop louder than a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
“God, I missed you,” Amatory said once inside. “I can’t get that night in Albuquerque out of my mind. I want to slather you in honey and eat sopapillas from your navel.”
“It was a mistake, Nick. I’m a married woman.”
“Come on, Claire. When will you accept the fact that Ned isn’t right for you?”
Danforth’s cell phone rang. “I’ll be right there,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Ned Junior has been arrested.”
***
“That Porsche out front sure is a beauty,” Danforth said to the desk sergeant at the Lincolnhurst Police Station. “Who’s the lucky guy who owns it?”
“That would be Detective Campenella.”
“Just who I’m here to see.” Danforth showed her badge. “FBI.”
“I’ll page him.”
The man who came to meet her had a stork-like body and the ashen complexion of a heavy smoker. After escorting Danforth to his office, he explained Ned Junior’s situation.
“Your son and two of his buddies beat up a Muslim girl. Doctors at Memorial don’t know if she’ll suffer permanent brain damage.” Campenella placed mugshots of two tattooed skinheads on his desk. “These are your son’s friends, Dylan Foot and Shelby Rider of the National Socialist Aryans. Better get him a good lawyer because we take hate crimes seriously in Lincoln County.”
“As a professional courtesy, you might say my son was acting as your confidential informant. Otherwise, our Financial Crimes Division will start asking how an underpaid detective can afford a sportscar like the one parked outside.” Danforth circled Campenella’s desk. “You wouldn’t believe how thorough they are in finding fringe benefits not declared on your Form 1099. You could end up owing interest and penalties. So, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?”
***
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Danforth asked her son once she got him in the car. “That girl could have died!”
“Someone has to protect western civilization. You’re sure not.” Unlike his father, Ned Junior had the body of a bar spoon, hair like a cocktail strainer, and a mustache that could peel lemons.
“Unbelievable! You’re grounded for the next six years, mister.”
When Danforth and her son returned to their two-bedroom Craftsman home, they found her husband seated behind escargot shells and a dozen empty bottles of Dom Perignon while “Project Runway” played on the big-screen television.
“Go to your room!” Danforth ordered her son. She turned her ire on Ned Senior. “Your son just got arrested for beating up a Muslim girl. Where were you when he fell in with a group of neo-Nazis? Instead of being a father, all you do is drink.” She swept the bottles off the table.
“If you attended to your duty as a wife and mother this wouldn’t have happened.” Ned retrieved champagne from the ice bucket, shot the cork at a poster of Billie Eilish, and drank from the bottle.
“Someone has to earn money in this family and it sure isn’t you.”
“I could have earned plenty but I sacrificed my career as a fashion designer for you and your precious FBI.”
“Fashion designer? Don’t make me laugh. No one wears plaid jodhpurs with platform shoes any more. As for my wifely duties, you might be able to get it up if you went to the gym instead of stuffing yourself with foie gras all day!”
Ned’s punch took her by surprise. After coming to on the kitchen floor, Danforth removed frozen peas from a refrigerator that wheezed like an asthmatic bulldog climbing stairs to a doggy bed on the sixth floor and held them to her swollen eye.
***
“What happened to you?” Amatory asked.
“Oh, I walked into a door.” Evidently the makeup didn’t cover up her black eye as well as Danforth thought.
“It’s going to get worse, you know.”
“Ned apologized, bought flowers, and promised to never do it again. Marriage is hard work, Nick.”
“Want me to talk to him?” Amatory touched the pistol on his hip.
“No.” Tears flooded Danforth’s eyes. “I just want someone to hold me.”
Nothing says romance like Motel 11. The queen-sized beds, plastic coffee machine, sign with the checkout time, and clank of the ice machine through thin walls provided the pampering Danforth craved. After a dozen athletic rounds of lovemaking, she and Amatory snacked on peanut butter crackers and caught the last half of “Sleepless in Seattle” on cable.
“I suppose that missing uranium isn’t going to find itself.” Danforth reached for her bra and panties.
“You deserve better than him, Claire. It could be like this every day if you left him.”
“It’s complicated, Nick.” Danforth finished dressing. “I’m going to get more crackers.” She opened the door a crack and froze.
In the doorway of a room across the hall, Ned Junior was French kissing a woman who looked like she was on a day pass from the nursing home. Huge turquoise rings camouflaged her wrinkled fingers, but nothing could cover up skin that sagged like a bloodhound’s jowls. Danforth’s nails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists. She wanted to give that granny a piece of her mind, but how would she explain her afternoon tryst with Amatory? After dipping fingers into Ned Junior’s trousers as if trying to retrieve an engagement ring that fell into a urinal, the cougar handed him a wad of twenties. Not only was Ned Junior a neo-Nazi and rent boy, but he’d left the house after Danforth grounded him.
Danforth dragged Amatory to the parking lot so she could observe the cougar leaving from the car.
“What’s going on?” Amatory asked.
“Shh.” Danforth watched the woman get into a silver-gray Lexus. Keeping a few car lengths behind, she followed her out of the lot and onto the Lincolnhurst Expressway.
“Dispatch,” Danforth said over the radio. “I need you to run a plate Mike, Lima, Foxtrot, six, six, niner.”
“Dispatch, Mike, Lima, Foxtrot, six, six, niner belongs to Amanda Bellicose, address 155 Park Avenue.”
Danforth dropped back. The woman paying her son for sex was her boss’ wife.
***
Danforth parked in the V. Gates lot. She and Amatory presented their credentials in the lobby and took an elevator to the twenty-fourth floor.
“We’re here to see George Snood.” Danforth showed the receptionist her badge.
“Mr. Snood is a very busy man. Do you have an appointment?”
Danforth shook her head.
“Hey! You can’t go in there,” the receptionist yelled when Danforth and Amatory barged into Snood’s office.
Snood and a woman wearing shoulder pads that would put Tom Brady to shame leaned over a table examining fabric swatches. With his shaved head, Nehru jacket, and polyester slacks, he could have been one of Ned Senior’s two or three customers.
“I suggest something daring for the curtains. Maybe a mauve or magenta,” the woman said.
“Excuse me, Mr. Snood.” Amatory showed his badge.
“That’s Dr. Snood. I didn’t spend six years in graduate school to be called mister. Thank you very much.”
“Dr. Snood,” Danforth said. “Claire Danforth FBI and this is Nick Amatory from NCIS. We’re investigating a matter of national security. Millions of lives are at stake, and we could sure use your help.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“George Snood, VP of V. Gates’s Nuclear Division,” Amatory answered.
“Get Belair in here!” Snood barked over the phone.
Faster than a popup ad appears when researching current events, a man in a pinstriped suit entered the office. He wore glasses, carried a briefcase, and had hair graying at the temples.
“I’m Augusta Belair, Dr. Snood’s attorney. He’s not answering questions right now. If you don’t leave, I’ll sue you for harassment.”
***
“Do you know who he is?” Bellicose shouted.
“Vice President of V. Gates’s Nuclear Division,” Danforth replied.
“He’s not only a VP but a VIP. He eats lunch with Bob Eubanks, has Pat Sajak in his rolodex, and is so rich he doesn’t care that rolodexes are out of style. That’s who!” Bellicose walked from behind his desk to tower over Danforth. “I can’t have you annoying the rich and powerful just to go on a fishing expedition.”
“Sir, it seemed reasonable to interview the man in charge of the company that lost the uranium.”
“Reasonable? I’m beginning to have serious doubts about your competence to lead this investigation, Danforth. What do you have on the American Red Cross?”
“The Red Cross?”
“Think about it, Danforth. Who benefits from a nuclear disaster? The Red Cross, that’s who! After a city gets wiped out, donations will go through the roof. Oh, I’ve had my eyes on them for decades. Their so-called charity doesn’t fool me. I’m ordering you to make the Red Cross your chief suspect. Now get back to work!”
***
“I got a lead,” Amatory said. “Turns out George Snood’s parents took in Jimmy Louche as a foster child.”
“That Jimmy Louche?” Danforth downed her fourteenth triple espresso and it was only a little past 6:00 AM. Now that the Red Cross was the Bellicose’s priority, she and Amatory had to search for the real suspect during the hours between 5:00 PM and 7:00 AM.
“One and the same. Rumor has it, he and George are still tight. Louche spends most of his time at his club, the Zircon G-String, which means his home should be vacant. Unfortunately, Bellicose will never give us a search warrant.”
“Let’s roll.” Danforth grabbed her purse.
Louche lived in a two-story Italianate home with bay windows next to the covered doorway. Even though it was July, he had yet to take down his Christmas lights.
“Search the ground floor.” Danforth put the lockpick into the slot and soon the front door was open. “I’ll check upstairs.”
She tiptoed up the stairs and checked several bedrooms before she found a home office with an amazing reproduction of Vermeer’s The Concert hung on the wall. Danforth pressed enter on the laptop atop Louche’s mahogany desk. The computer prompted her for a username and password. She tried Guest, Louche, JLouche, and JimmyL along with PASSWORD and 12345 before the laptop let her in. It then prompted her to synchronize cloud storage, set a default browser, and finish installing Windows 11. As Danforth opened Louche’s email, she heard a gunshot. She rushed downstairs and found Amatory standing over an eighty-year-old man sprawled next to a walker on the hardwood floor. Blood soaked his pajamas and the tube feeding oxygen into his nostrils had come undone.
“I had to do it,” Amatory said. “He was going for his gun.”
“We are so screwed.” Danforth looked around. With no search warrant, they couldn’t explain what they were doing there. “All right, let’s make it look like a burglary gone wrong.” Danforth retrieved Amatory’s shell casings. “Grab the silverware and let’s bolt.”
****
When she got home around midnight, Danforth found divorce papers on the kitchen table along with a Post-it note that said, “Sign or I’ll take full custody of Ned Junior.” The agreement gave her husband the house, child support, and half of her salary.
“Pretty bad, huh?” Ned Junior had come down the stairs wearing the silk boxers he slept in. “Things would go a lot better if I testified that dad beat you, but you’ll have to do something for me first.”
***
“I’m here to see Road Rash.” Danforth scanned a half-dozen bikes in the motorcycle garage. The air smelled of motor oil and exhaust fumes.
“I’m Road Rash.” Wrench still in his hand, a man in a sleeveless T-shirt stood from behind a Harley. Tattoos of swastikas and eagles covered his arms.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Danforth asked.
He led her out back by the dumpster and lit a cigarette. “What do you want? If it’s sex, you’ll have to pay me.”
“Ned Danforth said you need a favor.”
“Oh, you’re the FBI chick. In that case, you don’t have to pay me.” Road Rash laughed and broke into a coughing fit. “Here’s the deal, honey. The Visigoths got a rat problem and that rat’s name is Alan Beeman. At least, that’s what he told us. Turns out he’s an undercover FBI agent. All you have to do is find out where this rat has his cage, and we’ll do the rest.”
“It might take a little time,” Danforth said.
“Better hurry, honey. If you leave rats too long, the problem tends to multiply.”
***
“Got a minute, Agent Danforth?” Detective Campenella asked by the entrance to the field office. In his dark suit he reminded Danforth of an undertaker trying to sell her a fourteen-karat gold urn to transport the cremains of some second cousin to a scattering in his ancestral homeland of Turkmenistan.
“I’m a little busy.”
“It’ll just take a minute.” Campenella grabbed Danforth’s elbow. “Come on. I’ll buy you a coffee.”
He led her to a mid-century modern diner a few doors away. The building had a sloped roof cantilevered over plate glass windows and sign that said, “Dottie’s.” They took a booth in the back and a waitress appeared carrying a carafe of coffee.
“What can I get you, hon?”
“You got breakfast all day. Right? I’ll have four eggs, four pancakes, four bacon, four sausages, and four slices of toast.” Campenella closed the menu and looked at Danforth. “You?”
“Just coffee, thanks.”
“You familiar with Carlo Bianchi?” Campenella asked after the waitress left.
Danforth nodded.
“Of course you are.” Campenella dumped four packs of sugar into his coffee. “He’s into everything, numbers, prostitution, drugs. If it’s illegal, chances are Bianchi has his fingers in it. He runs a high-stakes poker game out of his nightclub, the Obsidian Cockscomb.” Campenella laid grainy, eight-by-ten photos on the table. “Take a look at these.”
They showed Special Agent Nick Amatory at the poker table looking more and more dejected as his losses grew.
“Then there are these.” Campenella showed crime-scene photos of the elder Louche’s body. “That’s Carmine Louche, father of Jimmy Louche. I can’t prove your partner murdered one of Bianchi’s rivals to repay a gambling debt, but he looks dirty to me.” Campenella swept up the photos as the waitress brought his breakfast. He poured a gallon of ketchup on his eggs and dug in.
***
“Special Agent Danforth, I’m Haughty and this is Deadpan. We’re from the Office of Professional Responsibility.” The agents from the FBI’s version of internal affairs showed their badges. “We’d like a word.”
The three entered an interview room. Danforth sat across the table from the others who had their backs to a two-way mirror.
“Know why you’re here?” Deadpan asked.
“No idea.” Danforth kept a poker face while her insides churned like a cement mixer full of rattlesnakes. The old man’s murder, blackmailing Campenella, or meeting with Road Rash could send her to prison.
“It’ll go easier on you if you admit your wrongdoing.” Haughty sipped bad coffee and winced as if the paper cup contained a frog smoothy.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Danforth said.
“We’ve received a sexual-harassment complaint.” Deadpan rested his elbows on the table.
“Agent Paterfamilias told us you mocked him in front of colleagues,” Haughty added.
“Yeah!” Danforth said. “After he drew a penis on the projector screen. If you should be investigating anybody, it’s him.”
“Ever hear of a guy named Beeman?” Deadpan asked.
“Beeman.” Danforth’s breath caught in her throat like a frozen turducken. “Can’t say I have. What did he do?”
“Internal information leak,” Haughty said, “Don’t worry. We’ll track down the source. Back to the matter at hand. We still might save your career.”
“If you enroll in a six-week sexual harassment seminar,” Deadpan added.
“I’m in the middle of a national-security investigation,” Danforth said. “Millions of lives are at stake.”
“The Bureau takes microaggressions seriously,” Haughty replied.
***
“I’m Wayne and I’m a sexual harasser,” a man with pockmarked skin said.
“Hello, Wayne,” the group replied.
Danforth watched a moth bat its head against a fluorescent light while she and a dozen abusers sat in a church basement.
“I used to be a Hollywood producer,” Wayne continued. “I roofied actresses and had sex with them when they were unconscious.”
“Excuse me.” A man raised his hand. “Aren’t we supposed to refer to them as actors, these days?”
“Good point. Thank you, Wayne.” The leader looked around the room. “Do we have any newcomers?” She pointed at Danforth. “How about you? Tell us your name and what brings you to Harassers Anonymous.”
“This is a misunderstanding. Some sexist at work embarrassed me with a penis drawing and reported me after I defended myself.”
“Sounds like victim blaming to me,” one of the participants said.
“Yeah! Denial ain’t a river in Egypt,” another added.
Danforth’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me, I’ve got to take this.”
“Claire, it’s Nick. I followed Louche and Snood to a warehouse on the east side. I’ll text you the address.”
***
“SWAT team’s five minutes out.” Amatory held his pistol at the ready outside the warehouse’s entrance. “Anything could be in there: sword-wielding BJJ fighters, Krav Maga masters with machetes, Karate black belts with chainsaws, bears with Kalashnikovs, or Belgian Malinois with flamethrowers.”
“We don’t have time.” Danforth drew her pistol. “Let’s split up.”
After Amatory circled toward the rear, Danforth entered and trained her pistol both left and right. A strange whir came from farther inside. She rounded a stack of wooden crates and saw a corrugated-aluminum box the size of a phone booth and containing a mass of gears, flashing lights, and what looked like a 1965 Dodge Dart’s transmission. Beside a spinning metal disk, nixie tubes on the control panel counted down to detonation.
“Not so fast, Claire!” Danforth’s husband held a detonator the size of a TV remote. “One push of this button and the whole city will be a pile of radioactive slag.”
“Ned? You’re behind the theft of enriched uranium?”
“That’s right.”
“And all that neo-Nazi stuff Ned Junior was spouting, he learned it from you?”
“Nuking Lincolnhurst will kick off the race war that’s always been coming,” Ned said. “Better to fight now while we’re still strong.”
“I thought you were an unemployed loser, but I’ve got to say that seeing you leading a conspiracy is kind of hot.” Danforth inched closer. “Once this is all over, let’s spend a romantic weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Maybe we can stay at a bed and breakfast, preferably one with a waterbed.”
Danforth fired from her hip and shot the remote from Ned’s hands because that’s something someone who spends fifteen minutes a year at the shooting range can totally do from fifty feet away.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s only a decoy. Remember that old shotgun, the one your father gave you before he died? Well, I used it to make the real bomb.” Ned looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes from now, the timer will pull the trigger, and it will fire a slug of enriched uranium into the rest, creating a critical mass that will destroy the city.”
“Where is it?” Danforth aimed her pistol at her husband. “Face down on the ground! Now!”
“Drop the gun or lover boy dies!” Shielded by Amatory’s body, Art Fizzler emerged from the shadows and held a pistol to her partner’s head.
“You!”
“That’s right. I was behind it all along.” The manager from the reactor assembly building pressed the barrel against Amatory’s head. “Now drop the gun.”
“It’s okay.” Danforth set her pistol on the concrete and straightened with her hands raised. “We can talk about this.”
Fizzler released his hostage and Amatory did a slow clap.
“Don’t look so shocked, Claire. I was behind it all along. Sleeping with you was just a way to gain your confidence so I could sabotage the investigation from the inside. Let’s just say that delivering the nuke will clear a whole lot of gambling debts and finance a nice retirement. I’m thinking something tropical, Belize, Malta, or maybe even Katmandu.” Amatory drew his pistol and murdered Ned. “When I found Agent Danforth under attack by terrorists, I returned fire but I was too late to save her.”
“See you around, Agent Danforth.” Fizzler fired two rounds into Danforth’s chest.
***
“DC up in smoke, good or bad?” Joseph Goebbels asked.
“I always believed government should be small enough to strangle in a bathtub,” a Belgian Malinois replied. “They did our work for us.”
“It’s a tragedy.” Hitler pounded his fist into his palm. “How can I resurrect my Thousand-Year Reich based in Toledo? But let’s not dwell on current events because today we celebrate the wedding of our friend Claire Danforth.”
An organ played and Danforth found herself in a wedding dress while Herman Goering walked her down the aisle toward Hitler who wore a surplice and ecclesiastic stole. The groom in a tuxedo turned. He was her son.
Danforth woke with a dry mouth and noticed the wall-mounted television tuned to Jackal News. She only realized she was in a hospital after reaching for a cup on the nightstand and feeling the tug of an IV in her arm. A blonde woman with kind eyes entered.
“I’m Doctor Gibson. I removed the bullets and your left lung so you should be able to return to work in a few days. Agents Haughty and Deadpan are waiting to see you.” She turned the page in Danforth’s chart. “And by the way, you’re pregnant.”
Meet the author:
Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, I-70 Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Pirene’s Fountain, Slipstream, Space and Time, and Underside Stories. His most recent books are The Shaman in the Library and The Prague Deception.
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