The Humanist

by Kenneth James Allen

  The waitress appeared from nowhere and poured me an unsolicited cup of coffee. I watched the thick black liquid ease into the cup and winced at the thought. Her brown hair, as dull as the look on her face, was in a tight bun. She was fifty, with plenty of wrinkles showcasing her experience.

  “Thank you, Flo,” I said energetically. Maybe too enthusiastically.

  “Huh?” she replied, her tone completely lacking in care or kindness.

  I tapped my chest. “Your nametag. Flo.”

  She looked at the tag. “Oh. Bitch quit last week. You eating or just wasting my time?”

  The segue was seamless. I glanced around the diner. “Expecting a rush or something?”

  She placed a hand on her hip. “Do you want a menu or not?” I could sense the irritation in her voice.

  I smiled. “No, Flo. I’ll be fine drinking whatever this stuff is you poured into my cup.”

  She left without a retort.

  I stared through the glass windows into the parking lot, wondering if I should sip the coffee. I never communicated with Fur directly—only through a third party who assured me she was the best. They told me I would know when she arrived. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Was Fur really a twelve-year-old boy who would get dropped off by his parents? Christ, that would be awkward. The cops would have a field day with that one. Maybe Fur was a retired, seventy-year-old NASA astrophysicist with nothing better to do. Shit, perhaps Flo—or whatever her real name was—was Fur. I hoped it was someone I had no interest in fucking. I wasn’t looking for more complexity. Besides, I preferred to keep my business and pleasure separate.

  Right then, the barking roar of a motorcycle stole my attention. It came to a stop to the left of the diner’s entrance. I didn’t know much about motorcycles, so I couldn’t tell you what it was, but it was something like a Harley. The rider jumped off. From my vantage point, I could tell they were wearing a black leather jacket and a black helmet, their face hidden by a reflective visor. I watched as they pushed in through the front doors and stood there, scanning the interior. Ripped jeans and boots completed the profile. I held my breath as they looked at me. There was no mistake about it.

  They approached, pulling off their helmet as they did and revealing her face. Young. Too young? Old enough to ride a motorcycle, I suppose, or at least steal one. She had short black hair that was streaked with pink and flattened by her headgear. Her dark eyes, accented with even darker eye makeup, stared at me as she slid into the booth opposite mine. Her face was like porcelain, with three stars inked below her left eye. I couldn’t help but gaze at her ear and nose piercings. I found them intoxicating and had to stop myself from reaching over to touch her. Goddamn urges.

  She pulled off her gloves and pushed them into her helmet. She messed her hair up, blew a bubble with the gum in her mouth, and cupped her hands on the table. There was silence as we took each other in.

  “How old are you?” I challenged.

  “Old enough to know better,” she replied.

  Flo appeared with a cup.

  “Beer,” Fur stated.

  Flo left.

  Fur looked down at the cup in my hands. “Christ, you’re not actually drinking that shit, are you?”

  “You come here often, then?”

  She looked down at the table, then raised her head. “What do you want?”

  “Who says I want something?”

  She looked around the diner, then back at me. “Do I look stupid to you? You kind of stick out. Wait, you’re not a cop, are you? You’ve got to tell me you know.”

  I scoffed. “I’m not a cop.”

  We looked over each other until a beer bottle hit the table top. Fur grabbed it, took a gulp, then placed it down. She picked up her helmet. “Well, this was fun, but I’ve got better things to do.”

  “Wait!” I said as she got up.

  “Listen, kid. You’d better talk...and make it interesting.”

  So, I did. I told her my idea, and what I wanted from her.

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “You know you could outsource that shit to India for a fraction of the cost. Why me?”

  “Because I need something secure. Something locked down for certain people. I want it off the radar. I don’t want feds or anyone else sniffing around. I want everything separated. I need offshore accounts, and nothing traceable. I need you because I would rather do unethical shit with someone who deals with illegal shit. That way we’re both on the hook. Besides, I need someone I can trust.”

  “And I look trustworthy to you? You do know what I do, right?”

  I laughed. “Do I look trustworthy to you?”

  She looked me over. “Nope. Sketchy as fuck.”

  “Exactly! So, when do you think you can have something?”

  “It’s going to cost you. And a shit load more than we first discussed.”

  “I thought as much.” I pulled an envelope from my coat pocket and placed it on the table. I looked around the diner as I slid it over.

  She scoffed. “No one around here gives a shit, trust me.”

  She took the envelope and a quick look inside. “This is a down payment.”

  “Of course. There is more coming, as well as a percentage in the profits.”

  “How much of a percentage?”

  I paused, just for a moment. “One.”

  “One? Really?”

  “Hey, one percent of a lot is a lot of money.”

  “I think more like thirty-one.”

  “What?” I said incredulously, almost spilling my cup. “Thirty-one? Are you serious? How about nothing? And you give me back my five grand, and I walk away?”

  “I would wish you well with that.”

  “Don’t think I can’t find a replacement.” I stared hard at her. “I found you. In fact, fuck it, I might just give the five g’s to a teenager in India.”

  She leaned forward on the table. “And I could spend every waking moment splitting that bullshit wide open. I could take your funds. Crumble your capital. And drop a bread crumb to the SEC and the feds to top it off.”

  “Oh, really?” I said, folding my arms.

  She leaned forward. “Oh, I get really creative when I’ve got nothing to do.”

  We looked at each other, sizing each other up. Eventually, she put a hand inside her jacket and pulled out a small device, about the size of a phone. She pressed a button and slid it over to me. I picked it up. A digital recording device.

  “Listen,” she said. “This is a sign of good faith. Twenty-one per cent.”

  “Seven,” I countered.

  And so, it continued. We settled on twelve. It seemed like a good number for both of us.

  “You will make enough money to forget about all this other shit you’re doing and retire to a beach in the Bahamas,” I told her. “Trust me!”

  “Yeah, well, I’d rather have a hut in Vietnam and a garage full of motorcycles.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” I said, shrugging. I held my hand out across the table. “Do we have a deal?”

  She reached out and shook it, then asked, “Do you have a name?”

  “Atlas.”

  “Sonja,” she replied.

  It turned out neither of us used fake names that day.

  “So,” she said, “Where to from here?

  “I need something to show the prospective investors. Nothing too complete, but something that shows the capability.”

  “When?”

  I sipped the coffee and winced, then swallowed it against my will.

  “End of the week.”

  She looked at me, a blank look on her face.

  I didn’t tell her, but she would make a damn fine poker player.

  “Well, I’d better get started then.” She thrust the envelope full of cash into her pocket and stood at the end of the table. “Always a pleasure doing business.” She turned away.

  “Wait!” I called out. “How am I supposed to get in contact with you? Do we just meet back here?”
/>   She turned. “You aren’t supposed to get in contact with me. I’ll get in contact with you.”

  “So, you’re walking out of here with my idea, my money, and no means for me to find you?”

  She blew another bubble with her gum. “It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it? Oh, and if you think the device I gave you was the only recording I have, you’re not as smart as I think you are.” She winked, pulled on her helmet, and pulled away from the diner with a roar from her motorbike.

  I liked her a lot.

  Too much.

  Chapter 10

  I take a deep breath and look over Taylor.

  “Boom. Just like that, we have our players in the story. There’s me—the hero, of course—Talon, the ‘bad’ guy, and Sonja, the dazzling sidekick. And let’s not forget the supporting roles of old man Tealson and my very special friend with benefits, Olivia. There also were, and will be, a bunch of cameos that don’t mean shit, and so just like in the movies, we can ignore them.

  “Now, I’m sure you see me as some kind of sociopath, or worse. But I’ve done numerous online assessments, and I passed them all. In fact, I believe the correct term is antisocial personality disorder. Which is the first problem, because I socialize all the time, even with...that guy...from accounts. Greg, or Brett, or something. Told me a joke once I’ll never forget.

  “What about the other elements?” I steady myself in my seat and check each one off of my fingers. “Good intelligence. Well, can’t argue there. But what about delusions, unreliability, lack of remorse, insincerity, poor judgement, incapacity to love, trivial sex life?” I sit back and think about that last point.

  “What does ‘trivial’ mean, anyhow? Anyway, the point is...well, shit, I can’t remember the damn point I was trying to make.”

  I look down at my lap.

  Just then, there’s a bang on the table, and I snap my head up. Grant is half standing, his hands still constrained to a bar on the table. His bulk is methodically heaving with every breath. His look has turned, his dark eyes are like inkwells swirling with hatred.

  “Stop fucking me around. If you have something to say to me, then just say it. Or so help me, I will rip this bar off the table and ram it up your ass. Those guards would need to stick a shotgun against my head and pull the trigger to stop me. Atlas, I’ve got nothing to lose. Can you say the same?”

  I sit back and look into his eyes. Menacing. Not the same ones I saw all those years ago. Certainly not the same ones I saw when the guards brought him into the room. Anger had been brewing within him, and now it had an outlet.

  “Tick tock, Atlas,” Grant says, his words coming out between breaths.

  “You know,” I replied, thoughtfully, “there’s a lot of argument about nature versus nurture. Does your environment change you?” I pause.

  Grant doesn’t move.

  I tap the table. “You know, I think it’s all bullshit. I mean, you take an innocent man and place him in jail, and he becomes an animal because they treat him as such. They strip him of everything, and so he returns to his primal desires—to survive at all costs.

  “Now, you take a guilty man and set him free in the community, and what happens? He doesn’t go all soft. He doesn’t feel the warmth of society, doesn’t go right his wrongs. He doesn’t evolve with technology. No. The powers that be have simply given him a second chance to do another bad thing, but this time, to do it smarter. See? It’s not about where you are or how you grew up. It’s about black and white, right and wrong, good and evil.”

  Grant tugs at his constraints. The metal clangs together and echoes around the room. I trace the sound as it bounces off the walls. When I look back, Grant has changed. His prison garbs have been replaced with a white coat, and he is writing something on the table. I squint at him, rub the sides of my head.

  He looks up at me. “What are you looking at?”

  I shake my head. “What happened to your orange jumpsuit?”

  He looked down, then back to me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I blink, and Grant has returned. Standard issue prisoner attire. Wrists bound.

  Grants eyes half closed. “Can you hurry the hell up? Sick of the bullshit. You can stick your stories in your ass and go to tell someone else. I’m done being walked through your bullshit.”

  I stand and hold my hands out. “All right, all right. I get it. You just want to get to the punch line, huh? Well, believe me, the joke’s a hell of a lot funnier when you hear the setup. And let’s face it, you know the ending. I mean, you’re living it, right? You are the very end of the story. There is no more. For you, anyway. Me? I’ve got a yacht waiting for me.”

  I sit and slap my leg. “Aha! Goddamn, that’s what I was getting to before! The point I was trying to make! Sit, Grant, please. We’re so very close.”

  Grant silently, reluctantly, eases his tense frame into the chair.

  “Very good, Grant. The point before was this. We have all our players. Everyone, that is, except one.”

  I lean forward and point.

  “Everyone except you.”

  Chapter 11

  It was Friday. Anticipation had been building toward my first night as a player in Talon’s lair. I called the number on the membership card from a payphone that somehow eluded evolution. Ever since I had conceived my brilliant idea, I’d been moving my extracurricular activities off the grid. Call it paranoia, call it genius. Either way, I was separating my worlds, and I wanted to dip into one without the baggage of the other.

  After reading out my string of characters, I received the time and place and hung up without saying another word. I pulled out my phone and checked my bank account balance. After organizing the five thousand dollars for Sonja and waiting for my first increased wage to appear in the books, I was running low on funds.

  I thought about how I could raise sufficient funds to make the evening more interesting. Perhaps I could skim some funds from the work accounts and replace the losses with my earnings. I could ask Olivia for some, but, geez, how would that look? I wondered if my hacker friend, Sonja, would want to give back some of the initial payment. Nah, she would have either purchased another motorcycle, given me a loan with a bunch of unacceptable conditions, or simply laughed in my face. I also could have busted into a convenience store, which was just as appealing as any of the other available options.

  Which is why I ended up in a dodgy little pawn shop that felt half a world away. There were plenty around my area, and I passed several more getting to that one, but, as I said, I wanted to separate everything. I stood at the counter, which was a glass cabinet containing an array of weaponry: unloaded small arms, knives, knuckle dusters. God bless America, am I right?

  “Can I help you?”

  I looked up. At first glance, I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman. There weren’t any distinguishable features that gave away the person’s gender. If you held a gun to my head, I would say the person was a woman, but I’d never want to be in that situation to find out. But you’d be surprised at how little time ended up passing before I did find out. In my head, I called her “Mary.”

  Mary was wide, and that’s putting it politely. Fat hung out from her short -sleeved, army-green shirt. Her breasts somehow collided with her belly, which overhung her elastic-waisted pants. Her yellow-tipped stubby fingers rapped on the top of the cabinet; her nails destroyed down to the wick.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying not to reveal my confusion about their gender in my tone. “I just want to pawn something.”

  “Yeah, well, this is a pawn shop. What’ve you got?”

  I pulled up my sleeve and showed her my watch. I had stolen it from my caregiver after he had passed out in a drunken coma after one of his rages. Where that piece of shit got it from, I have no idea. After I had lifted it from his wrist, I had run as far away from that shithole as fast as I could. I’ve worn it every day since as a not-so-subtle reminder not to trust anyone you couldn’t bludgeon with a sledgehamm
er.

  “Meistersinger,” I said, unfastening it and handing it over.

  Mary looked it over dubiously, inspecting every inch. Her meaty hands fondled every surface. I felt ill watching her work. She was looking for any imperfection to justify the shitty price she was about to share with me. The search would be fruitless. Even what I was living on the streets, moving from couch to couch, that thing was the one thing I kept pristine.

  “I’ll give you fifty bucks for it,” she said bluntly. Her words came out fast and cold.

  “Fifty?” I scoffed. “What you are holding is a Meistersinger Pangaea. Recommended on that is three grand.”

  “Listen, pal, this isn’t Macy’s. I ain’t payin’ no retail and none of my clientele will be payin’ no retail.”

  “Now, I know you can get a couple of grand for that...easy.”

  She looked at me, poker-faced.

  “Listen up,” I said, leaning forward. “Because I’m going to make you an offer. You give me a grand flat, and when I come back here on Monday, I’ll pay you twice that to get it back.”

  She raised an eyebrow. Interest washed over her face, dollar signs in her eyes. She shifted her feet and folded her fat arms over her meaty chest. She couldn’t quite manage it, but I could tell she was readying for a fierce negotiation.

  “How about when you come back in here, you give me three.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I’ll tell you what I can do. You give me two grand. When I come back, I’ll give you three. And I’ll personally give you five hundred bucks for the trouble.”

  She chewed it over.

  I leaned forward on the counter. “Now, I know there are twelve pawnbrokers in this neighborhood alone, and I’m damn sure they’d settle for terms not nearly as good as what I just offered you. I’d prefer to do business with someone as respectable and upstanding as yourself. Please don’t make me go elsewhere.”