by Brian Hodge
Hardcopy in hand, he sagged at his desk once more. Think, think, trying to puzzle this out, what had happened last Wednesday to draw himself and Leonard together one final time?
Leonard had found this, obviously. Probably that afternoon; he’d had time to get it into his safety deposit box before the bank had closed. Spent a few hours of turmoil, then, nailed to two distinct sets of values, human versus corporate, and stretched tight between the poles. But surely he’d seen these files before. Although, in advance of the Caribe poisonings, it would have been something to which he’d have turned a blind eye, of that Justin had no doubt. And after the news broke? Perhaps Leonard had forgotten them, by choice or unconscious happenstance.
They were surely on the disk by mistake, though Justin could see it conceivably happening. Folders within folders, you could lose track of something electronically every bit as easily as you could in a stack of paperwork; the computer just helped to centralize the mess. If someone on Mullavey’s end had misfiled the folder in the wrong place, prior to copying the information Leonard was supposed to receive, then sure, it was easy to see how it could have happened.
Though for a deeper question: Why?
Justin copied the disk onto a blank from a drawer, pocketed them both, then shut down his Mac. He folded the printout and slipped that away too, and when he stood, the world seemed very small, very tight. No one beyond reproach, nor above suspicion. As a survival ethic it was compulsive, and felt ugly.
Yet, oddly enough, comfortable, like an old friend with whom the love and the hate warred constantly.
“See you tomorrow,” he said to Todd, his voice flat, his throat dry. Whatever Todd muttered in reply went unregistered.
The outer lobby, Segal/Goldberg Advertising, another day’s drama scant hours away. Justin paused by the rubber tree, with a lifetime of turmoil and only a moment in which to evaluate it. Divergent roads and the fork right here: one branch of willful ignorance, the other veering blindly off into terra incognita.
He would feel like a fool either way, but better the road that would let his conscience sleep.
Justin produced his keys, went through the motions of unlocking the glass doors, locking them again from the inside. Solely for Todd’s benefit, should he be frozen in Creative, listening for an all-clear signal.
Quietly as he could, Justin eased across the lobby carpet, sat waiting in the half light. Broad anodized window across the far wall, the world of midnight and moon beyond. April at home, cat in her lap, probably, while she read with distraction, or stared at the television, wondering about him. About these stubborn quests that sent him venturing into the darkness two nights out of the past four. Were they harmless, therapeutic? Or harbingers of calamity to come?
Justin stood. Padded softly to the hall leading back, found it clear. Followed it with the deliberation of a panther stalking prey, and when he passed Creative, he saw that, unless Todd was lying on the floor, out of sight, his pen was empty.
Not so, Leonard’s office. That Todd, busily engaged once more in his search for commodities unknown. The sweat across his brow was plainly evident in the light from the desk lamp. At the moment he was scrutinizing the adhesive labels on a plastic drawerful of Leonard’s disks.
“Todd,” Justin said from the doorway. This time, Todd jumped, something in his eyes that hadn’t been there the first time: A lie would not wash this second time. “What are you looking for?”
Tongue wetting nervous lips, Todd’s eyes shifted as he marshaled some sort of reserve within. When all else fails, bluff with indignation and bluster.
“None of your fucking business, Justin. You’re creeping around at night now, is that it? Anything to try and get a little dirt on somebody?” He spat out a disgusted huff. “Leave me out of your sad little games, why don’t you?”
“The phone number.” Justin took another step into the office. “Whoever you wanted, why couldn’t you call their home office today, or in the morning?”
Todd said nothing. A moment’s mystification, and then he was merely drawing a responsive blank.
Another step. “Nobody goes on vacation without telling their own company how to get hold of them. You don’t need to tear Len’s office apart for something like that.” Justin was glaring now, watching Todd sweat harder and try to conceal the fact; hating him for it, he had become every malfeasant backstabber made flesh. “So what are you really looking for?”
Justin took another step, and by now Todd was on his feet as well, appearing every bit as scared as Justin felt. They were both twitching, it was merely a case of who concealed it better, and Todd was looking like the loser.
They began to shout, Justin demanding to know what he was after, Todd insisting he be left alone. Veins began to throb and hands itch. Senses tingling, as if he might whirl and find someone behind him, come to silence him for what he now knew. Never an innocent, no longer ignorant. Incomplete knowledge could be a terrible burden.
Justin couldn’t stand it any longer, Todd’s refusal to cooperate intensely maddening. He was flexing the fingers of his right hand before he was even aware, and once he was, there was no holding back the fist. Leaning into it, whole body, and he was as surprised as Todd when he punched him. Only dimly feeling the shock in his knuckles and wrist.
Todd was staggered but not fallen, glaring wildly through splayed fingers clamped to his face. Should have known he couldn’t put him down in one shot, and Justin swung again, then a third time connected with his jaw, and finally Todd went out.
Even unconscious, on the carpet, he still looked surprised: I never knew you had it in you.
“Aw, fuck,” Justin groaned, and slid down the wall. He drew his hand in close, cradled it with the other; it ached in every bone. He flexed it stiffly, and it scraped internal protest.
Good job, Todd was out cold, and what the hell was it all about? What was he thinking, he could beat a confession out of Todd, some crazed admission that the wrong guy had hanged himself in a New Orleans jail?
Okay, practicalities had to come first. It had gone this far, so he had damn well better make Todd do some talking. He’d been up to something in here, that was obvious. Couldn’t stay here with him, though. The custodial crew had yet to reach this floor for the night, and he would be hard pressed to explain.
Though he would be equally hard pressed to explain dragging him past Angel in the lobby. Just looking at Todd lying there made him want to punch the guy again, out of spite.
Inspiration struck. Justin fumbled in Leonard’s drawer and found the half-empty bottle of Seagram’s. Uncapped it and doused a generous splash along Todd’s bleeding mouth. Patted it onto Todd’s face like cologne, and wiped away the excess with a tissue. Splashed more onto his shirt collar, then put the bottle back.
Justin got one arm around his shoulders, hauled him upright. Walked him, rubber-legged, out to the elevator. Just two survivors from a wild party, here comes the walking wounded.
“What the hell happened to him?” Angel cried moments after the elevator dumped them into the lobby.
“How long had he been up there before I got here?”
Angel shrugged, got on Todd’s other side to help. “I dunno. Half hour, maybe? No more than that.”
Justin steered them toward the main doors, keep it moving. “He was already into his desk bottle when I got up there. Looked super stressed-out to me, trying to work, pouring the Seagram’s down straight. What, I’m supposed to know what his problem is?”
“So why’s the side of his face all beat to shit?”
“He tripped over his own feet and smacked his desk. I couldn’t just leave him there. His luck, he’d still be sleeping it off when everybody comes in tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Angel shaking his head, sad old story. “You’re a good guy, Justin. That’s real nice of you.”
Oh sure. He took a deep breath while pausing for Angel to unlock the lobby doors. All he needed was for Todd to get a whiff of night air, revive, and
bob his head up with rebuttals.
“Man, I wouldn’t have you guys’ jobs for nothing,” Angel said. “Too much stress, not good for the heart, you know?”
Justin agreed, oh no, no no, not good at all. Look at him and Todd, probably need bypass surgery by the time they were forty. Angel warned him to think about another line of work, seriously, look what theirs was doing to them. All the while, helping to lug Todd down to the street and load him into Justin’s car.
The lies had gone off remarkably smoothly.
Of course, he was a professional.
Todd was showing the first few hesitant signs of coming around again by the time Justin got him hauled up the stairs and through the doors into the loft. It was well after midnight. Hi honey, I’m home.
April stood at the sofa and tabled the book she’d been reading. Everything about her in slow motion, from the straightening of her legs to the confusion spreading across her face. The tilt of her head, the way her face seemed to drift forward, toward him, in bewilderment.
“Justin.” Her voice, so flat, neutral. “Justin.”
“I can explain,” his own, so weary, but he didn’t take the time at the moment. He dragged Todd and his limp feet toward the kitchen, propped him upright in a chair turned hurriedly around from the dinner table.
Justin went running for the walk-in clothes closet, and when he emerged with three belts in hand, April was bending over Todd. One finger tracing the swell of his cheek, his jaw. By now the trickle of blood was dried. She sniffed the whiskey reek.
“Where have you been?” she said.
“Just the office.”
April, still taking it all in, Todd’s face, his presence, everything. “Did you do this to him?”
“Well … yes.” Justin flexed his hand again, really aching deeply at the moment, a sharp throbbing. Probably be stiff as hell in the morning.
April planted both hands on his shoulders as he knelt to lash Todd’s ankles to the chair legs. Tried to stop him, halfhearted, demanding an explanation. He pushed her hands away, then maneuvered Todd’s arms around the back of the chair and used the last belt to bind the wrists together.
He rose, looked April in the eye then, for the first moment since coming in with these burdens on his arm and his soul. The first moment he had really let her inside, look into my eyes and what do you see? She had thought he bore a finely contained insanity earlier? What was there now, now that he had discovered so many more reasons to court the muse of breakdown?
“I need ice,” he said, and turned his back on her. Rummaging in the freezer while she closed the gap, voice rising behind him in pitch and volume while he seized the ice trays. Emptied them into a large stainless steel mixing bowl, then filled it with water and submerged his throbbing hand.
Listen to her behind him — What could he have been thinking out there? Had he kidnapped Todd? And why, above all, why?
He turned back to April, face-to-face once more. At times there was so much he could hide from her, for her own good. Doubts and fears, flaws he wanted desperately to overcome, and above all, keep from her eyes. Other times it felt as if no corner inside was beyond her gaze. Moments like now were the rarest, and the worst: when he felt a shambles in every sense of the word, with nothing left to hide … and it was obvious that she couldn’t understand him at all.
“Don’t say anything more,” he whispered. “Just … don’t. Just look at something.”
He reached his left hand into his jacket pocket, withdrew the pair of disks and the folded sheet. Handed them over, let her move her uncomprehending eyes off him for a moment.
“Todd was there, taking Leonard’s office apart. I think he was looking for that disk. From the deposit box.”
“But you don’t know? You did this to him and you don’t know?”
His hand was numbing under the chill, and he raised it from the ice water for a moment. “Look at the paper. It’s a printout from a file on the disk.”
He waited while she read. Just the three of them, two standing, the other tied to a chair with belts — life was getting weird again. He watched every dart and glide of her almond eyes, could see her go over the paper once, twice, knowing what she must be thinking, This can’t be what it looks like, because he’d thought the same thing.
“The whole Caribe production schedule is in a file buried in that disk,” said Justin. “That one, the almond flavor? It was pulled out and duplicated as a separate file. They’re on there by accident, they have to be … but all the rest of it, it’s account data supplied by Mullavey Foods.” He submerged his hand again, felt the frozen burn. “They knew, April, they knew. Somehow they’d pulled this information out more than two months before the cyanide poisonings.”
She sidestepped away, arms falling limp at her sides. Knocked her hip against the dining table, then slid down into another of the chairs. “It doesn’t make any sense,” her voice far away as she dropped the disks and printout onto the tabletop. Staring into space a moment, then sharpening, hard focus back on Justin. “And neither do you!” She gestured at the newly stirring Todd, his groggy head shifting. “I’ll grant you the disk, the files, they’re real … but do you have any fucking idea what they must be doing to you? Do you have any idea how ludicrous it sounds that Todd Whitley would have something to do with them? And you beat him unconscious and you bring him into our home! You tell me why, Justin!”
“Because I tried to talk to him, and he wouldn’t cooperate.”
She was out of her chair again, teeth clenched, heading for Justin with small hands curled into fists, beating at the side of her legs, and, standing before him, twice against his chest. It seemed to deflate her, the fury lanced away like an infection, leaving only the confusion in her eyes. She sagged against Justin a moment.
“Todd’s involved,” Justin said. “Maybe he doesn’t know it. But he is. He is.”
She pushed her hair back from her face, and in the revealing gesture, April looked older. Drawn about the eyes and mouth. An April of forty, forty-five, bad years all, some possible future April after a life of lost battles, lost faith, blind love tainted by disillusion.
“Leave me alone with him,” Justin said.
No, she mouthed. “I can’t let you…” Shaking her head.
“I won’t hurt him. I just want to scare him into talking to me. He should be scared. I’m scared.” He touched fingertips to her cheek. “I won’t hurt him. I promise.”
She took one step away, another. “You really can lose it sometimes, can’t you.”
And he watched her recede down the loft, the left side, what served as hallway for other reaches, other rooms of artificial walls. All the way to her office, where he could no longer see her. Just knew she was there. Listening.
Now. Todd.
Justin scooted a chair around, sat in front of him. His bowl on the table, hand in the bowl. He’d thought Todd had been coming around a few minutes ago, but wasn’t so sure now. What a wuss, Todd had been out for twenty-five minutes. Maybe he found comfort in trying to sleep it off, like a hangover.
Justin got bored with waiting and flicked a spray of ice water into Todd’s face. Got immediate results, and did it a gain to bring him around more fully. Undeclared enemies before? These new rifts would never mend. There was a certain freedom in that.
Todd glared with little muscle behind it, as if he weren’t quite sure this was actually happening. Taking stock of situation, belts and chair, straining with discomfort and trying not to look worried.
“You really have fucked up now, you know that?” Todd said.
Justin flipped more water into his face, just to be petulant, and when Todd sputtered, sloshed the rest of the bowl at him. A cry and a shiver under the frigid deluge. Face dripping, Todd looked as if he’d been pulled half-drowned from a river.
“What were you looking for in Leonard’s office?”
“Not this again. I don’t have to talk to you, I don’t have to say a fucking word!” Radiant, then, with
the light of vindication. “Except maybe to a lawyer. Assault and battery, kidnapping, yeah, I think I’ve got a case.”
Justin arched his eyebrows a moment, shrugged. “Got a problem with witnesses, though.” He let that settle for a moment. “Just tell me what you were looking for. And why. And we can wrap this up early.”
“Kiss my ass. You want to sit here all night, then we’ll sit here all night, and I’ll sit adding zeros to the damages I’ll be suing you for. You think I’m scared you’ll tear off my fingernails or something?” He laughed, derisive, and the sound was so irritating, and so true, that it was a temptation to go for pliers just to prove him wrong.
But Todd was right. For the immobility of his position, he had the upper hand and knew it. No way was Justin going to start turning his face to putty, or his fingers to matchsticks. The promise to April had less to do with it than the simple fact that he couldn’t, he had no stomach for it. Opportunistic at times, maybe he was, but no sadist, and no inquisitor.
He could level with Todd, tell him what was on the disk, in hopes that he really didn’t know what he was looking for. Appeal to simple human decency, in hopes Todd had been duped, somehow, into pilferage. But this required a degree of trust. And faith. Both of which he was finding in short supply. If Todd really was involved, even peripherally, then such a tactic might backfire.
Hell’s bells. Part of Justin was ready to slink back down in defeat, and let him go. Sorry, my mistake, no hard feelings? The rest of him felt stubborn enough to call Todd’s bluff and let him see how defiant he would be after a few hours spent staring at each other.
Then he looked over toward the sofa and inspiration dawned.
Justin got up, grabbed a clean dish towel, halved it into a lopsided triangle, then whipped it into a thick cord. Moved behind Todd and tied it around his mouth, gagged him so he couldn’t bite. Todd’s indignation was renewed, and he bucked up and down in his chair, thumped his heels on the floor. When he tried to speak, every word was truncated.