Cradle Robber

by Staron, Chris

  Toby offered him a cup of coffee in a dirty mug. Aaron downed it as fast as he could and pushed himself to his feet, wiping a thin bead of drool from his cheek.

  “How many people saw me sleeping?”

  Toby handed him a stack of inter-office mail and looked out the door. “Not many. Nobody important.”

  Toby was a good intern, full of spunk and always willing to ask intelligent questions. That, and his willingness to cover for his boss, made him the perfect asset. Shy, red-headed, and nerdy, he fit in with the accountants and software people at the office. And he didn't flirt with the secretaries.

  “O'Malley will be here soon. Let's get you cleaned up.”

  Aaron stumbled to the sink and splashed cold water on his face while Toby left to pull a clean shirt from the bottom drawer of his desk. Some life. Nothing like working all day and waking to your twenty-year-old counterpart telling you to do it all over again.

  He fixed his hair in the mirror and downed a leftover slice of birthday cake from the refrigerator. Toby returned with the shirt.

  “How did it go last night?”

  “I got it running.” Aaron licked frosting from his fingers. How old was that cake? “It's full of error messages.”

  “I saw that.” Toby rinsed out the coffee mug and set it aside. “What's the problem?”

  “Government forms.”

  The kid's face went blank. He didn't get it. Aaron left the room, headed for his cubicle hoping to find a fresh tie. Toby followed like a puppy at his heels.

  The kid once again helped him avoid the wrath of his boss. He owed the lad a teachable moment. “We gathered warehouses full of government forms, all formatted in different ways. Our data entry people in Puerto Rico loaded them in the system, which created another chance for human error. So when we turn on our computer, not only are we dealing with programming issues, but the data itself might be inaccurate.”

  Toby pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Poor data makes for bad calculations.”

  “Exactly.”

  They reached Aaron's office. Dozens of other cubicles surrounded his. People trickled into them, preparing for another exciting day of accounting.

  Aaron switched on his computer monitor. A series of numbers scrolled by.

  “See that?” He pointed to a yellow line in the budget. Toby nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “All of our numbers are cross-referenced with other agencies, but we're only interested in the Department of Defense. What do you think that yellow highlight means?”

  A blank stare. The kid didn't have a clue. “I don't know.”

  “Neither do I.” Aaron sat in his desk chair and pulled off his socks. The stench from his feet could kill a pig. He fanned away the smell and removed a fresh pair of argyle socks from the bottom drawer.

  “That's part of the problem, Toby. The DOD wants us to uncover fraud, but we don't always know what we're looking at. That line item is probably classified. We might never know if that purchase was a missile or a dinner to entertain an ambassador. Maybe someone up the food chain entered the numbers wrong. The computer looks through the data and gives us clues. It doesn't guarantee any funny business, but it strongly hints at it.”

  Toby stared at the information and rubbed his hairless chin.

  “How does it know if a number is fraudulent if we aren’t sure what it means? It’s a few digits in an ocean of numbers.”

  Good boy. This kid might find himself useful here after all.

  “That,” said Aaron as he tied his shoelaces, “is why we have the new system. Looking at the raw data on a sheet of paper you could never guess, could you?”

  “Not unless it was highlighted in yellow.”

  Funny, the kid had a sense of humor. Aaron slid on his crisp white shirt and shoved his dirty clothes into his briefcase. Hopefully, he would remember not to open it during a meeting.

  “What is your major, Toby?”

  “Philosophy with a minor in French Literature.”

  His fingers danced quickly up the shirt, pushing buttons through holes. Almost done getting ready. Time to start a new day.

  “Not a Math major?”

  The kid shook his head.

  “Ever hear of Benford’s Law in one of your prerequisites?”

  Again, Toby shook his head. What did they teach kids these days?

  “It’s simple, really. It says that, in any given set of data, the number one occurs more frequently than two. Two occurs more often than three, and so on. It doesn’t matter what you’re looking at, if it's phone numbers or credit cards, this pattern emerges. One is statistically far more likely to occur than nine.”

  The poor kid’s eyes glazed over. Too early in the morning for math. Aaron wrote down a number on a piece of paper: 921,462.

  “See that?” he said, tapping his pen on the table. “The number nine is the first digit there, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, statistically speaking, how often do you think the number nine should occur as the first number in this series if you count zero?”

  Toby bit his lip. “One out of ten times?”

  “Good guess, about a tenth of the time. Most people would say that. But statistically, the number nine only occurs in the natural world less than five percent of the time.”

  Another blank stare.

  “On the other hand, the number one occurs about thirty percent of the time. One is more than six times more likely to occur in the natural world than nine. That’s Benford’s law.”

  An elevator load of people spilled into the office, chatting happily. Workers milled around, starting their day. Toby’s eyes wandered to them, probably looking for an escape from Aaron’s math riddle.

  “Does that make sense?” asked Aaron.

  “Sure. That first digit should be the number ‘one’ thirty percent of the time.”

  “Right.” Aaron patted the kid on the back. If the lad understood Plato, he could certainly handle Benford.

  “So what?”

  Aha. There was the question Aaron hoped for. The whole of his process was locked in that question. It was the reason he got money to build the new computer system.

  “Because, my dear intern, if someone is making up numbers in their expense reports, it won’t fit Benford’s mathematical model. There’ll be too many sevens, eights, and nines, and not enough ones and twos. The computer flags bad patterns and we investigate. In other words, even if we don’t know what this expense is for, we can tell that it’s fraudulent given only the numbers themselves. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  Oh, the boredom of youth. While Toby’s brain struggled to grasp these basic concepts, Aaron’s heart beat like he was in love. In a way, he was. Mathematics was his passion. It put order to the universe. So what if a college kid didn’t grasp the concepts? That’s why a college kid could never do his job. Forensic accountants were a special breed.

  Aaron’s cubicle neighbor walked past and nudged Toby with his elbow. “Get me a cup of coffee, one cream and no sugar.”

  The phone rang. The caller ID screen read “DUBLIN, ADRIANNA”. Toby searched his supervisor’s eyes for permission to leave.

  “Sure, go get him some coffee. I have to take this.”

  Toby walked down the aisle, shaking his head, probably happy to have an excuse to slip away. There was a good chance he’d never again wake Aaron from a nap.

  The phone rang a second time. She must have sensed his passion and wanted to quench it.

  He picked up. Sound positive. Negativity solves nothing.

  “Hello, Darling.”

  “Hi.” Adrianna’s voice was lower than usual, a little gravelly. “Wanted to let you know that I won’t make it home for dinner tonight.” She sniffled. When did she get sick?

  A knot tightened in his stomach. Another night when they wouldn’t see each other. What was the purpose of marriage if you only saw your wife when getting ready for work in the morning?

  Why was
she going out again? She hated being sick. Adrianna never went out in public with so much as a cough. Now she planned to hit the town with a bad cold. Not normal behavior for her.

  Armed with that knowledge, Aaron leaned back in his chair. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Fine. A little under the weather. Listen, I have to go. Is it okay if I cut this short? We got a big shipment of cars in and.…”

  She trailed off like she usually did when something other than their conversation occupied her mind.

  “Come home and I’ll take care of you tonight. I’m leaving on time today, I promise.”

  “That’s great, but I’m booked solid.” The tone of her voice rose, the way it did when she got irritated. “We’ll catch up later, okay? We’ll do that dinner.”

  A sharp clank rang out in the background of her phone line. “Oh. I’ll… I’ll see you later, okay? Okay. Goodbye.”

  The line went silent. Aaron hung up and stared at the number he jotted down for Toby, uninterested in the work ahead of him. He rubbed his face.

  His worst fears may indeed be true. Avoiding the subject, running around at late hours.… All signs pointed to another man taking the attention of his wife. Aaron’s face burned. Tears seeped from his eyes.

  Maybe he deserved this. He spent too many nights at the office instead of going home to be with her.

  A sob caught in the back of his throat. The team couldn’t see his emotion. One sign of weakness and he’d never hear the end of it. He was exposed in the middle of the cubicle grid. He needed fresh air.

  Aaron gathered his papers, shoved them into his briefcase on top of his dirty clothes, and headed for the nearest exit.

  # # #

  Aaron’s watch beeped at fifteen minutes before midnight as the taxi pulled up to Jokerz. The backseat stank of sweat. Grime caked the windows, blocking his vision. Thank goodness he didn’t often take these things.

  Almost midnight. Work started in seven hours. Instead of lying in bed reading the newspaper, he paid a cabbie to help him spy on his wife.

  Technology found her. Their auto insurance company offered a discount rate if they installed a GPS tracking device on their car. His computer showed a detailed map of where she’d gone and how fast she’d driven. It worked. Her Chevy sat in front of the bar exactly where the computer said.

  The driver put the car in park.

  “That’ll be thirty-five dollars.”

  Aaron pulled out his wallet and fed the money through the bulletproof glass. What a high-class operation.

  “Can you wait for me out here?”

  The driver leaned back and shot him a dirty look.

  Aaron waved his wallet in the air. “It’ll only take a minute. I promise.”

  The driver removed a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and beat it against the palm of his hand.

  “Fine. I’ll give you one smoke. Then I’m out of here.”

  Aaron’s patience waned. Maybe he should walk home.

  The driver lit up. “This ain’t a cop movie. I can’t wait forever.”

  “You won’t have to. Pull around to the entrance.”

  Aaron lifted his trendy new hat, smoothing his slicked hair. Dark glasses concealed his eyes. Adrianna could not recognize him. That was paramount. It would cause an all-out war if she discovered his spying.

  She’d nagged him for months to stop and get new shirts, so he obliged. During his lunch break he'd jogged a few blocks until he came to a store where guys in their twenties bought clothes. The stares he got were worth the trip. He was a man in his thirties surrounded by young punks who spent more money on one pair of jeans than he did on a month’s worth of food.

  The new pre-aged jeans itched. Probably should have washed them before wearing them. He resisted scratching his legs. No sense in getting a rash from a pair of tight pants.

  When the car stopped at the entrance to the club, Aaron hopped out and walked to the door in his new cowboy boots. The bottoms were slick and the sides squished his toes. How did people rustle cattle in these things?

  The pungent stink of alcohol tickled his nose. Four years since his last drink; even longer since he stepped into a place like this.

  Inside, visibility was down to a couple of feet in any direction as young people churned like fish swimming upstream. The music boomed, so intense his head hurt. But he didn’t dare put his hands to his ears. Instead, he embraced the noise and leaned against a barrier between the main entrance to the bar and the men's room. The walls were deep blue with highlights of blood red. Lights spun and changed colors on the dance floor.

  Twenty-somethings crowded the place, bumping into each other, spilling ten dollar drinks. Every bar stool was occupied by someone younger than him. An eastern European couple made out inches away, oblivious to his presence. Aaron sneered. Aha. So that’s why he never went to clubs like this.

  How disorienting. Everyone looked the same.

  The sea parted. In the opposite corner of the room, a man in his late twenties leaned against the bar, talking with Adrianna. The stranger played with his long black hair. He exemplified the desperate quality often found in these places, complete with a fitted black shirt and smarmy stance.

  This dude was trying too hard. Then again, so was she.

  Adrianna wore a tight red dress he’d never seen before and heels. Heels. She hated heels. Aaron’s body temperature rose as the stranger bought his wife a drink and they toasted. More drinks appeared and the pair downed two shots in ten seconds, laughing like old pals.

  Where were her buddies from work, Katrina and Mary? Adrianna and the girls went to lunch together at least once a week, but none of them were present. Neither were her normal shopping friends. Or the neighbors she sometimes chatted with.

  A lie. She told him she went out with friends. Aaron pushed through a huddle of guys, desperate for a better view. Nothing would block his way.

  The stranger reached out his hand and caressed Adrianna’s arm, running it up her shoulder to the back of her head. He leaned in and kissed her, mouth open. She wrapped her arms around the younger man, her fingers in his hair. Their embrace lasted an eternity. Aaron's world ended right in front of him and all he could do was stare. The throbbing of the music became the beating of his heart and the adrenaline in his veins. His knees nearly buckled. The couple separated, but she pulled on the stranger’s shirt and led him to the dance floor where the two of them moved to the music in slow motion.

  Aaron’s breathing halted. A waitress tried to take his order, but he couldn't respond. This was it––the end of the road. Without a plan of action, he froze like a child forced to deal with an emergency. Part of him wanted to crack a chair across the guy’s head and pull his wife away. Another part wanted to plead with her. But nothing moved. He stood in the entrance as another man seduced his wife.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wade sat on a park bench, eyes trained on a gaggle of pedestrians with phones pressed to their ears. The town square bustled with businessmen leaving work a few minutes before five. They passed by, paying him no attention. Good. Let it stay that way.

  Special sauce dripped down his fingers. He licked them, tilting his head at a ninety-degree angle. He’d overdone it again, a big burger and a whole bag of fries. But nerves dug at his gut. If he hadn’t done something to fill the void, he’d have gone crazy. So he stuffed his face.

  It did help. The carbs and cholesterol dampened the worry. He settled back with a satisfied grunt and cleaned his hands with a pre-moistened napkin.

  A loud group of chatty women passed. They’d wandered around for hours. They went in and out of the little bakeries and knick-knack stores that lined the square, laughing and teasing each other. Did he ever have friends as good as that?

  His bench sat half a block off of the main drag, close enough to the car lot that his camera picked up Carter’s shadow in the front window, and far enough away that the young man would never know he was there. Not a bad vantage point: slightly elevate
d, in a cool patch of shade. Old brick buildings surrounded him. Banks of blossoming flowers decorated the shops. If he wasn’t there for revenge he could really enjoy this.

  Three legal pads sat next to him filled with descriptions, statistics, phone numbers, and addresses. Two and a half weeks of spying garners a lot of information. A quick rifle through Carter’s trash gave him complete access to all of the financial data he needed, his correspondence, and Internet passwords. Wade assembled an accurate picture of the boy’s acquaintances, habits, and finances. Carter’s entire life. How important it is to know your opponent.