The Lie Detector (Patreon)

[WP] No normal lie detector has 100% accuracy. However, this one does - and it does it by changing reality so that whatever is spoken becomes the truth.

"A lie detector? Really?" Jimmy sneered at the detective tending to the machine. "You think you're gonna get anything out of me with that thing?"

"Well, it is the latest experimental model." The detective, one Jimmy had never crossed horns with before, turned to him with a hand held out to shake. "Harry Belafonte. Thanks for agreeing to sit in for this test."

Jimmy rolled his eyes as he shook the man's hand. "My lawyer said that if this thing cleared me, they had to let me go. I'm good with that."

Belafonte grinned disarmingly, the overhead lights glinting off his glasses. "I'm sure the truth will come out and you'll walk out an innocent man."

That one statement shocked Jimmy to his heels. He'd never heard any detective anywhere say that, except in tones of deepest sarcasm. Despite that, he managed to rally with a reply. "That's what I've been tellin' your guys all this time."

"Well, now you get to tell your side of it. Won't you have a seat?" Belafonte gestured at the comfortable-looking chair on Jimmy's side of the table.

"Okay, then." Jimmy sat down and Belafonte bustled around him. A heavy cuff went around each wrist, and a motorcycle helmet went onto his head before an opaque faceplate slid down, obscuring his view.

"Hey, what the hell is this?" demanded Jimmy.

"Relax," Belafonte said soothingly. "We don't need any inputs from your visual cortex to muddy the waters. Can you hear me?" There was the creak of a chair and a rustle of paper.

"Yeah, I can hear you." Jimmy was still dubious, but if the guy wanted to do it this way, he could handle it.

"Very well then. Let's get started. What's the criminal status of your father, Angelo Bennelli?"

Jimmy barely managed to avoid snorting. As if he was gonna drop a dime on his father in the first ten seconds. "Pa's never committed a crime in his life."

"Hm. That's interesting. And your cousin Benny the Butcher?" Belafonte's voice was smooth and even.

While Jimmy knew for a fact that Benny had cut up a dozen men and fed them through the sausage machine, he shook his head. "He runs a butcher shop. Nuttin' more than that. Clean as a whistle."

"Good, good ... and your other cousin Bobby the Knife. How did he get that nickname?"

Bobby had gotten that nickname by slitting the throats of six men during a frantic back-street scuffle some years ago, but Jimmy wasn't about to squeal on him either. "In grade school he was always carvin' his name on his desk. No matter how many pocket knives they confiscated, he always got another one."

"I see. So he's never committed a crime with a knife?"

Under the helmet, Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Nope, and not without one either. Same as Pa and Benny. He's clean."

"Hm. So what's your opinion on the Bennelli crime family? Do you have any relationship to it?"

Jimmy couldn't believe Belafonte was still asking questions in that dry, academic tone. "It's like I told you, there ain't one member of my family was ever guilty of committin' a crime. Not one. There isn't any Bennelli crime family, and there never was."

The rustle as a page was turned. "That's good to hear. So, have you ever heard of the Franklin Syndicate?"

This was another New York gang. Jimmy had clashed with them on more than one occasion, but he'd also worked with them as well. There was no way he was gonna stab them in the back. "I know Moses Franklin pretty well, but there ain't no Franklin Syndicate. They're all just honest businessmen."

"That's interesting." Another page was turned.

One by one, Belafonte led Jimmy through the most comprehensive directory of the New York criminal underworld he'd ever encountered. Time and again, Jimmy denied any scrap of criminality from anyone he knew. By the time it was over, he felt utterly drained.

"Are you satisfied?" he asked. "Can I go now?"

There was no answer.

Lifting his hands--when did Belafonte take the cuffs from his wrists?--he removed the helmet from his head. Placing it carefully on the table, he looked around. No machine, no notepad, no Belafonte.

"What the fuck?" Frowning, he got up from the chair and went to the door. Unlocked, it opened into the corridor. "Hey!" he called out. "Can I go now?"

A female police officer stuck her head out of an office farther down. "Excuse me, but who are you and what are you doing in here?" she asked.

"Jimmy Bennelli," he told her, wondering how long she'd been working there that she didn't know his face. "I was in here with Detective Belafonte, and he musta stepped out for a bit. Wondering if I can go now."

"Belafonte?" She frowned. "I don't know any Detective Belafonte. Only Belafonte in the precinct is the Captain. Jim Belafonte. Perhaps someone's playing a prank on you, sir?"

Well, it certainly didn't feel like a prank, but Mrs Bennelli's fair-haired boy wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Eh, probably," he said. "So I can go?"

She chuckled. "Certainly, sir. I'll just walk you out."

And so they walked out of the precinct station. At any minute, he expected to be called back, possibly handcuffed, but nothing of the sort happened. Even the desk sergeant didn't look twice at him.

"Jimmy, there you are!" He looked around to see his father getting up from one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. "We were worried about you, son!"

"Yeah," Bobby added from beside him. "So we came down to file a missing persons report. Family dinner's tonight, cuz. Don't want you missing it. Cousin Benny's doing the catering." He kissed his fingers. "I hear he's cornered some of the tenderest veal from here to Jersey City."

Jimmy wasn't sure what was going on, but as they walked out through the doors, he tried to keep up. "That's Benny the Butcher, right?"

"That's the one, son!" His father clapped him on the shoulder. "Actually, that's a good nickname for him. Benny the Butcher. I like it."

"Me too, Uncle Angelo," Bobby added. "We should tell Benny when we get back. He'll get a real kick out of it."

As they walked down the steps outside the precinct station, all Jimmy could think was, what the fuck is going on here?