One moment of sincerity was all he needed from the kid. Was that too much to ask? Somewhere beneath that pompous exterior was regret, right? You're not a human if you don't wish you did things better in the past.
A thin, bearded man tottered out of the liquor store, bottle in hand. Dizzy with alcohol, the man stumbled into the newspaper vending machine that was bolted to the sidewalk. He stared at it as if he had never seen one before. Befuddled, he scratched his head and waddled down the street whistling the theme song from Sesame Street.
How sad.
The drunk broke the fog that hung over Wade's eyes. The man needed help. He didn't have enough wits about him to see the vending machine, let alone make good decisions. As an upstanding taxpayer, he could feel a sense of pride over this man. But why? Where did that get him? The man was in the bondage of alcohol. Who could make good decisions in such a state?
The same applied to Carter and his big mouth.
No, it wasn't fair to judge a drunk man. Carter didn’t have his wits about him. It’d be easy to forgive a family man with a pension. But a loser? A stumbling drunk?
He needed to find some way to reconcile what he felt, to find peace, get this off his chest. If Carter offered one moment of regret this whole thing would end. But he couldn't expect that when the kid was buzzed.
Wade crossed the street, headed for home. He would have to confront Carter sober, maybe after work or on a lunch break. Something. With a little spying, some research, he could manufacture the perfect confrontation. No booze. No women. State the facts and get on with life.
He coughed, pulled his suit jacket tight across his chest, and headed into the darkness.
# # #
At one-thirty, a group of teenagers hauled Carter out of the bar by his armpits and tossed him into the tall grass behind Jokerz. The two guys doing the hauling were young, their skin still smooth and taut. Carter resented the way they treated him, like he was some freshman in their homeroom class instead of a tough guy eleven years their senior. How did they get into the bar in the first place? Hadn’t the bouncers carded them? A little facial hair and anyone got into Jokerz.
One of the boys opened Carter’s coat and fished inside his breast pocket.
“Hey, man. Ain’t you gonna buy me dinner first?” laughed Carter, his head spinning. Everything was all wobbly. He got silly when the booze went to his noggin.
The teens didn’t seem impressed. One of them snatched a small plastic baggie from Carter’s pocket and held it to the light. White powder cocaine.
“You were supposed to meet me out here a half-hour ago,” said the kid.
Did the young man's voice squeak? Was he still going through puberty?
“I was busy. You could’ve called.”
The kid took a wad of cash out of his pocket and put it in the empty spot left by the coke.
“It’s what we agreed on, all right?” The kid's voice growled.
Carter stumbled to his feet. This would go a lot smoother if the world stopped tilting.
“I can’t sell it unless you’ve finished your homework. Did you do your homework?”
Carter slapped his knee like he was the funniest thing since Jeff Foxworthy. The kids didn’t laugh. They exchanged glances back and forth at each other.
Why were they so uptight? He made this easy for them. No guns, no gangs. Deal straight with funny ol’ Carter and get the good stuff. When he was their age it was dangerous to get drugs and once you got them you never knew what they were laced with. He was convenient, honest. Why not laugh at some of his jokes?
He slapped the kid on the back like an old frat buddy. “Get out of here. You got what you want.”
The boys spat on the ground and strutted toward a giant Buick.
A Buick. It probably belonged to their rich Daddy who didn’t care what the boys were up to so long as they stayed in the football program. Blech. Kids these days.
“Different times,” whispered Carter. He fell backward into the grass, landing hard on his head, legs in the air. When the sky stopped twirling he got up and wobbled to his car. “Nope. Not the same. Everyone thinks they can get it for free.”
Carter unlocked his Chevy and collapsed into the front seat. His body slid down the backrest until he lay sprawled across the center console with his feet out the door and his head on the passenger seat. He coughed once, fought back vomit, and fell asleep.
# # #
Nausea came and went like waves on the ocean. Carter never considered himself a good drunk. Hangovers brought him to his knees. The veins in his neck throbbed.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.
Lights glowed too bright. His hair hurt. As he sold used cars to the good people of Kitrich, Indiana, Carter fought back the urge to vomit on their title and registration.
Hangovers took their sweet time and this one was a doozy, aided by the large glass window he worked under. This called for a nap in a dark room and a hit from the flask. But the company held strong to its random drug testing policy. He could lose his job. The boss was really uptight, itching for a reason to fire him. No matter. He was done for the day.
Time to escape, stretch his wings, meet some women, and forget his problems for a while.
Carter spent most of his work hours playing games on the computer. When he got tired of Minesweeper and Blackjack, he walked the lot searching for a higher calling in the chrome and polished metal. Sure he talked a big talk to Wade, but, inside, he hated the place. He resented his coworkers, the hours, and the lousy commission. But he held so many jobs in the last few years that he was certain he would never like one. All he needed was a paycheck.
He lifted a pile of papers and sorted through them as if particularly busy. The best way out was through the back where the doors didn’t jingle when opened. But that meant cutting straight across the showroom floor. He poked his head out of the cubicle. Nobody watching. Too many customers lingered for them to keep any eye on him.
Carter hustled for the back exit.
A few inches from the door, his eyes caught sight of the receptionist. She was tall with beautiful blonde hair, long legs, and white teeth. She wore a gray suit, and it was tight. A cry for help.
Always time for a detour.
He snaked over and leaned on her desk with confidence, jutting his elbow in front of her computer screen. She pushed her hair behind her ears and smiled in her flirtatious way, one eyebrow raised. While she was distracted, Carter stole a glance at the nameplate on her desk. Adrianna Dublin. There were so many women to pursue that he considered it a waste of time to try and memorize their names.
“What you got planned tonight?” he asked, pretending to shuffle through his stack of paperwork.
“Not much. Fast food and television.”
Carter smiled. Oh yes. This was going very well. She pushed everything aside and gave him her full attention. Hook, line, and sinker.
He tried to look sympathetic to her needs.
“How are things at home?”
Adrianna pouted her lips. “Aaron's gone all of the time. Working on some computer thing.” She shook her head. “I don't really care for it.”
“Sounds busy.”
“Sounds like I'm losing my husband to a circuit board.”
Carter leaned in. This kind of news whet his appetite. The last thing he wanted to deal with was a husband who actually paid attention to his wife. He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips. “I'm sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks,” she sighed. “It's part of life, I guess.”
Carter started to leave, then turned back as if a light bulb hung over his head like a cartoon character with a good idea. “Why don't we go out again tonight, the two of us? Have a little fun?”
Their last outing went very well. They spent the night dancing at a loud club with people much younger than themselves. She said she loved her husband, but she swung her hips like she was ready to sign the divorce papers. From what he'd gleaned, her routine was simple: she came home, cleaned the me
ss left by the stranger that shared her bed, and resigned herself to television and a microwave dinner. All he needed to do was convince her she was better than that and his work was done.
Her husband would never have to know.
She pouted. “I don't think that's a good idea.”
“You enjoyed yourself last weekend, right?”
She blushed, breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I had a great time.”
“A couple of drinks. I'll buy and we'll cut you off after one glass of wine. I promise.”
Seducing married women was his new game. He liked the thrill, the danger of being caught. Single girls rarely put up a serious fight, though they thought they played hard to get. Married women were more fun. It took some convincing to get them to the bar. These women needed him. They were ignored, wounded people looking for someone to listen, show them a good time. He provided a public service––comforting the lonely women of the world.
Adrianna played with her Post-It pad. “Since when have you limited yourself to one drink?”
“I didn't say anything about me. I can have all I want. We'll cut you off at one, unless you think you can handle more.”
She sat straight, rolling a pencil across the table. “I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“Is that a yes?” Carter smelled the kill. “I'll meet you at the same place at six thirty.”
“Seven,” she said, eyebrow raised. Hardball. He liked that.
“You got it.”
He winked at her and carried his useless stack of papers with him out of the door, hiding his Cheshire grin. Let the games begin.
CHAPTER FIVE
A computer bank clicked to life inside the Federal Building.
Aaron Dublin stood in a darkened closet, sleeves rolled up, elbow-deep in the back of a computer. For the last fifteen hours the screen remained frozen thanks to a group of hackers who took down the firewall shortly before five in the morning.
Aaron preferred the solid, old-fashioned method of fixing technology—unplugging the computer’s power and Ethernet connections until something changed. But that meant reaching deep inside a rat’s nest of wires to search around for one cable. In the process, he loosened a number of other connections, which, subsequently, caused more mayhem and destruction inside the system.
By midnight, he managed to reestablish a connection for the third time and everything clicked and hummed once more. The operating system started without issue after a ten minute boot. Code ran smooth, displaying nothing unusual as it dug through hundreds of thousands of calculations with each passing second.
Aaron ran his fingers through his short brown hair. Finally.
He stood and stretched out his sore knees which popped when he moved. He was only in his mid-thirties, yet his joints behaved as if they belonged to a much older man. Oh well. Such were the perils of office work.
The computer let out a high-pitched beep and the code froze on the screen. Aaron leaned over the desk and squinted at the monitor.
ERROR. EXPECTED FORGERY TYPE 13-0178.
Typical. The manual said it would behave like this if taken offline. He clicked “RECALCULATE”, and the numbers spun again in their hypnotic search for criminal activity.
Aaron groaned and twisted at the waist in hope of relieving the tension that crowded his spine. He could use a good meal, shower, and his own bed. When was the last time he slept the whole night? Or when he went home at five o'clock like everyone else?
His wife's fury grew with each passing day. Adrianna fostered images of the perfect family sitting around the dinner table every night. She wanted two-point-five children, a big house, and a dog, not to mention weekends at a cabin on the lake. Like that kind of tomfoolery was possible in the modern economy. College graduates waited in line for his job, willing to work longer hours for less money. Either he toiled into the night or someone else would do it for him.
She didn't seem to get that.
The high-pitch beep shrieked again. The screen displayed the same message: ERROR. EXPECTED FORGERY TYPE 13-0178.
Weary, he wiped the gunk from his eyes. Was this how he wanted to spend the best years of his life? Glued to a computer screen while his wife fell asleep in front of the television? Lost in an ocean of cubicles for twelve hours a day? No thank you.
He wrote the error on scrap paper and clicked the icon that allowed him to see the dataset. The screen displayed a dozen lines of budgetary code, many of which were highlighted in yellow. He stared at the numbers and exhaled. No correlation appeared at first. But, as was frequently the case, if a legitimate claim existed, it meant several days of analysis to even guess at any wrongdoing. Good boys and the bad boys were hard to separate in the beginning. Only labor-intensive research revealed the truth.
Aaron worked in the burgeoning field of forensic accounting, a term his friends wasted no time in mocking. The word “forensic” carried with it connotations of bank robberies and murder investigations. They interrogated him about how many dead bodies he recovered or killers he bagged.
But his job held little drama. At best, his department hoped to cut back on government waste and theft within the system. But since the system itself was so bulky and bloated, it took teams of people to scour the books of a single office. Hopefully this new computer program would broaden their scope without forcing them to become a budget crisis in and of themselves. One computer did the work of twenty men.
Yet kinks plagued the system.
He checked his watch. The hands neared twelve thirty. The boss expected him in his little cubicle again by seven in the morning. His heart fell. How exciting, another night on the couch in the office kitchen/copy room. While the couch was efficient, Adrianna wouldn't let him live that down.
Aaron gathered his tools and headed to the conference room to collect his thoughts.
Standing at the window he glared down at the parking lot, dark now as the timer shut the lights off at ten. He might see stars in the night sky if not for the light pollution emanating from downtown Indianapolis. The orange haze above the buildings only made him more isolated and alone. Thousands of people slept in every direction. Meanwhile, he remained awake to look out across this lonely parking lot, contemplating his life.
Their last vacation happened almost a year earlier when he and Adrianna visited her parents in upstate New York. Not really a vacation at all, since he spent most of the time tilling flower beds and making excuses when the office called him every hour with some new problem. They spent the entire car ride home in silence.
Quiet dominated their lives. He snuck out of bed in the morning and changed in the living room so as not to disrupt her. At night he came home to an empty house. Adrianna belonged to social clubs and fancied getting drinks with the girls after work. On their nights together, they watched television and ate delivery pizza before mustering the energy to shower and collapse into bed.
Now that she didn't go to church with him, he snuck out on Sunday mornings as well. She said she could either sleep at home or in the pews. She inevitably disappeared again by the time he got home from the second service.
Not much of a life, but what could he do? He couldn't quit a job in a bad economy or give up on his wife because she was never home.
Tears obscured his view of the parking lot. Could he face another year of angry, wordless huffing when she entered a room? She didn’t touch him like she used to. They didn't talk. They simply occupied the same space. Aaron prayed for God to fix his broken marriage. He did not want another battle, he wanted his wife back.
“Lord, help me,” he said out loud, surprised by the sound of his own voice.
The computer whirred and beeped again from the adjoining room. Another error message. Aaron rubbed his face and yawned, eyes glassy with sleep. The computer could wait until morning.
The couch it is.
# # #
Aaron's shoulder moved. He pushed away Toby's hand and shifted his weight on the couch in hope of another fifteen minutes of
sleep.
Another shove.
The hum of the office refrigerator penetrated his thick blanket of sleep. Someone rolled off a dozen photocopies a few feet from his head. Fluorescent light dazzled his eyes. Toby's voice grew louder in his ear.
“C'mon, Mr. Dublin. It's almost seven.”
Aaron sat up, tipsy with slumber. The room swirled into focus. His right arm seemed to weigh fifty pounds and it tingled. Must have slept on it wrong. Another night on the office couch.
“You're supposed to punch in five minutes from now. Do you want to wash up first?”
Cradle Robber Page 5