Bad Penny

by John D. Brown

  Ms. Mary pushed his resume to the side with one finger and looked up. “I don’t know,” she said. “Folks come here for celebration, not to see Ted Bundy standing behind the counter. Doughnuts are a happy product.”

  It was technically illegal for her to reject him for reasons based solely on his status as an ex-con. But Frank wasn’t one of those pissants who was going to push that. Besides, he tended to agree with her: who in their right mind wanted to hire somebody who had already proven they couldn’t be trusted?

  “Ted Bundy was a friendly good-looking guy,” Frank said. “He would have charmed your customers. Charmed you. Only then would he have taken you out back and slit your throat. People aren’t always what they seem.”

  “That’s right, but first impressions count. You look more like a bouncer than a baker. Some people are going to come in here and wonder if they took a wrong turn.” She motioned vaguely at his arms and the side of his head. “And those tattoos don’t help.”

  Frank decided he liked Ms. Mary and her direct approach. Most of the other employers beat around the bush, made vague excuses, offered drips of false sympathy. There was none of that here.

  “Your customers will probably just figure I’m the Pillsbury Dough Boy’s leaner, bigger brother.”

  “The one that went to prison?”

  “No, not that one. The one who grew up to cook pretty doughnuts.”

  “Pillsbury’s got a family now?”

  “Look,” Frank said, “big doesn’t need to be scary. You want happy and friendly? I can do that.” He turned on his best hundred-megawatt smile. “Who’s going to resist that?”

  Ms. Mary grunted.

  “Come on,” he said with a tease.

  She shook her head. “Why aren’t you applying at the oil rigs, a guy like you?”

  “That’s a good question. Oil rigs pay well. And they don’t seem to have too many problems with my big house fellows. But here’s the deal: I just spent a number of years living in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of stinky men. I’d kind of like to get away from that. Move on to better things.”

  “Like being a doughnut man.”

  Frank shrugged. “Exactly. You can call me Crème Brûlée.”

  “Do you even know what a crème brûlée is?”

  Frank pretended to think for a moment. “The distant relative of a doughnut?” he offered.

  “Lord,” she said, but she said it with a smile. A real one. He’d gotten that out of her, which was a start. Hope glimmered. Maybe this time he might be able to avert the inevitable flush.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll think about it. And I’m only doing that because, if this resume here isn’t a bunch of spam, you were once military. And that’s worth something. You give me a call next week.”

  Frank let out a little sigh of disappointment. It was the standard answer. The familiar flush. The rumble of the toilet water filled his ears. Ms. Mary, it appeared, was just like all the rest. He’d call, and she’d say they weren’t looking just at the moment, but they’d keep him on file.

  Frank nodded and put on a happy face. “I’ll call for sure,” he said, then pushed his chair back and stood.

  “You ever had one of our bear claws?” she asked.

  “No ma’am.”

  “Sally will give you one on the way out.”

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” she said. “Sally,” she called out to the door, “get Mr. Shaw one of the claws.”

  Frank walked to the door.

  “Don’t disappoint me,” she said. “You call next week.”

  He held up his hand like he was taking an oath. “Telemarketer’s honor,” he said and exited the office.

  Sally was wiping the gleaming counter. She stowed her wash cloth, then walked over to the display and retrieved one of the giant claws.

  In Frank’s wallet was a twenty, a five, and three ones. It was the extent of his bank account at the moment. And it had to cover this thing called food and another thing called gas and a third called cell service. It already wasn’t enough for all three. But he wasn’t going to take doughnut condolences. Frank didn’t believe in pity jobs. Folks either wanted his services and were willing to pay for them, or they didn’t. And if they didn’t, he didn’t want any part of it.

  The bear claws were monsters, each as big as his head. He forked over two ones, a nice seven percent of his net worth, thanked Sally, then stepped out into the hot afternoon sun, holding the massive thing in one hand.

  He’d never seen a doughnut like it in his life. It could probably feed an African village. He bit in and found it crunchy and sweet on the outside, light and soft with bits of strawberry and apple on the inside. He pulled the claw back and looked at the beast again with new eyes. That was better than good. It was spectacular. The Fourth of July in his mouth. He took another bite and realized he just might have underestimated the quality of Cowboy Donut.

  He looked up into the heavens. “Great doughnut, God. Of course, there’s this thing called rent.” Not that Frank held God responsible.

  He walked out to his ‘71 Nova, trying to live in the moment and savor each chew because he just might have to savor renting a dog kennel if his situation didn’t change. His nephew Tony sat on the passenger’s side with the windows down, hunched over his laptop, his fingers pattering over the keys.

  Tony was seventeen, still waiting for some real facial hair to grow. He dabbled in an assortment of odd non-school sports like parkour, which consisted of a lot of running around places most people left to the cats. Tony was spending a few weeks of summer here because he was like a little brother and begged his mother and promised to give her ground reports on Frank.

  Tony heard Frank and looked up. “So,” he asked, “was she convinced by your winning ways?”

  “She thought I looked like a serial killer.”

  Tony nodded. “Could have been worse.”

  “What? The creature from the black lagoon?” He pointed upward. “I was sure I was going to get some help.”

  “I heard there’s some tribe in India that believes God is a big snake. Maybe you need to do some mouse sacrifices or something.”

  “If God’s a snake, he’s a mighty big one. It would take more than mice.”

  “Annoying neighborhood dogs?” Tony offered.

  “I’m thinking bigger,” Frank said. “Something your size would be perfect.”

  Tony furtively pattered his fingers over his laptop keyboard. “You know, I do have other solutions.”

  Frank glanced through the windows of Cowboy Donut at the folks working on the wi-fi. He looked back at Tony. “You didn’t.”

  Tony smiled. “Me? I’m just checking email,” he said and folded down the laptop’s lid.

  Tony called himself a white hat. He’d explained that in the hacker world you had black hats, gray hats, and white hats. Black hats hacked maliciously—to steal and do damage. They included lots of dweebs and a lot of not so dweebish folks like the Russian mafia. They liked to steal identities and credit cards, wipe out bank accounts, destroy corporate computers. White hats, on the other hand, hacked you so you could improve your computer security against the black hats.

  Tony said, “Dude, Cowboy Donut is totally exposed. Their wireless is like fishnet. I’m parked on their root drive.”

  “You’re not going inside.”

  “It’s a quick three hundred dollars,” Tony said. “I take my laptop in, tell them I think they might be exposed. When they tell me to show my stuff, I get in, freak them out a bit. Then I secure their system. Hold a training session. Boom, a little cash for Yeti, Inc. Three hundred bucks, man. And then I can sport us some real food. No man should have to eat rocks.”

  They were down to the last jar of peanut butter, the last few tins of sardines, which were high in essential omega-3’s. They weren’t anywhere close to eating rocks.

  “Dude, Yeti is here for you.”

  Yeti Inc. was the name
of the company Tony had set up back home in Los Angeles. He even had a business card. Across the top it asked the question: Is your system secure enough to block a teenage hacker? Below that was the name of the company in big letters followed by Providing White Hat Audits & Cyber Security Training at the bottom.

  Kim, Frank’s sister, said Tony actually made money down in L.A. selling his services to mom and pop stores, although he’d almost gone to jail once before he figured out you don’t reveal to someone that you hacked into their system, even if you’re trying to do them a favor. It’s kind of like breaking and entering to peek on the Mrs. while she’s in the shower before trying to sell her some door locks. It’s both alarming and illegal. Not the best way to start off a hacker-client relationship.

  Frank opened the car door and got in. He worked part-time graveyard at Walmart, stocking shelves. “You’re not sporting us nothing,” he said. “My Wally check is coming this Friday. I’m good till then.” Which was a lie. The money wasn’t nearly enough. But he wasn’t taking charity from his nephew.

  “Dude, they’re fishnet.”

  “They’ll think it’s some kind of con.” He inserted the keys in the ignition.

  “They won’t.”

  “Ms. Mary will. I would. Big ugly guy just out of prison goes in first to case the place, posing as an interviewee. She’ll think I did something, pilfered a password or loaded something when she wasn’t looking.”

  Tony said, “Ms. Mary and the fine folks of Cowboy Donut are naked to anyone who comes along. They’re just waiting for someone to steal them blind. You going to do that to them?”

  Frank held out the bear claw to Tony. “Here,” he said. “Why don’t you work that mouth on this?”

  Tony took the bear claw. “Okay, Frankie,” he said. “A man’s gotta follow his conscience, or his lack thereof.”

  “Look,” Frank said, “whether I get the job or don’t get the job, we’ll come back and let you ride in on your white hat and save them. But not before. There is such a thing as timing.”

  “Dude, I can’t eat another peanut butter and sugar sandwich. Maybe you can borrow out of that jar you keep on the shelf in the kitchen. Just until Friday.”

  Tony knew he wouldn’t. That was blood money, sacred money, and nobody was going to touch that, which was another reason why the Wally check didn’t stretch as far as it might. “Man up, soldier. On Friday, we have steaks.” They would be old ones that were going to be thrown out by the meat guys, but they’d be steaks nevertheless.

  Tony sighed. “I think I’m getting rickets.”

  “You’re definitely getting something,” Frank said. He pumped the gas three times, then turned the ignition.

  The old Nova roared to life. It roared mostly because it lacked part of its exhaust pipe. There were other things missing as well: knobs, radio, an engine mount. A number of gaskets were leaking. There were dings and tears. But she ran, and that was a start. She’d get a new engine with aluminum heads. Some paint and body work, and she was going to shine up real nice. All she needed was honest work.

  Frank backed out of the parking stall and then rumbled onto Dewar Drive. His gas gauge said empty. He usually had about twelve more miles at that point—he knew because he’d run out twice and ended up having to push it. But the gauge had hit empty yesterday, which meant they has less than twelve. He’d need to stop and put in a few shekels’ worth soon. The problem was he really didn’t have money for gas, so he’d just have to hope they made it home and found something left in the can he used for the lawn mower.

  He sighed. “When we get back, I’m going running,” he said. He’d never really liked running as a kid. Never liked it when he was in the Army later. But he’d missed it in prison. Almost as much as he’d missed the shine and smell of a woman’s hair. Almost as much as fries, coleslaw, and ribs. Sometimes he missed it more than either of them. There were times when he’d wake in his cell, the dream of rucking a pack over hills and through woods still looping about him. There were a number of days where holding the remnants of that sweet dream of running free in the sunlight was all that had kept the blackness away.

  And it was running that now kept him focused on the future instead of the bright and happy moments like his excellent interview at Cowboy Donut. The exertion would also clear his mind. Let him think. There had to be a way out of his non-employment cage. Frank was a man with dreams. He was still in his thirties. He still had the possibility of a long, happy life ahead of him, but he was going to need a lot more cash than Uncle Wally provided for what he was planning.

  “I’ll run part of the way with you,” Tony said, “but you’re all crazy with that running crap.”

  “Fair enough,” Frank said.

  They cruised back toward the center of town, Frank’s worries bearing down on him. “We’re not in a nuclear war,” Frank said, trying to keep himself positive.

  Tony pointed at a police car coming the other way. “And that guy isn’t coming for you. That’s a positive.”

  Frank’s heart jumped a little at the sight of the patrol car. When it was closer, he saw that Sergeant Lee sat behind the wheel. Rock Springs liked to keep tabs on its felons, and Lee had paid him a friendly welcome visit not long after he’d moved in. Frank waved at Sergeant Lee. Sergeant Lee waved back. No reason not to be on waving terms.

  “That is indeed a positive,” Frank said. He hung his arm out the window to feel the wind. “And it’s a glorious sunny day. An amazing day to be out of a cement box.”

  “What else could a man want?” Tony asked.

  The car chugged. “Gas,” Frank said. But then the engine picked right back up where it left off, and they continued on to the house he was renting north of the cemetery in the old section of town. On the way, he and Tony finished off the bear claw and licked their fingers, which he supposed was another positive.

  They pulled up to the house. It wasn’t much. An old 1950s bungalow that hadn’t been updated since the 1970s. It was barely 900 square feet, if that. But Frank thanked the Lord every day for it, orange counter tops and all. Besides, it was only temporary. Frank had himself a five year plan. He’d work like a dog now, save up some cash. He’d get himself through technical school. And along the way he’d accumulate himself some assets. Five years from now Frank was going to be in a different situation entirely.

  There was a driveway and stand-alone garage on one end of the house; on the other end, an empty cement RV pad ran all the way into the backyard. Frank backed into the driveway and saw that someone had left something on the front door step. He parked and cut the engine. The car bucked and kicked, fighting to stay alive a bit longer, obviously much preferring to be out on the road. Actually, it dieseled because he couldn’t get the blasted timing right. But that too would be fixed. The car and Frank were on this journey together.

  He and Tony got out. Tony went for the mailbox at the curb. Frank walked over to the front door. A plate of homemade cookies wrapped up in blue cellophane sat on the stoop. Frank picked the plate up. A business card from Sam Cartwright, the local neighborhood nice guy, had been stapled to it. He tore off the business card, put it in his shirt pocket, and opened the cellophane. Chocolate chip cookies. Last time it had been homemade bread.

  “Food,” Frank called out to Tony. Another positive. A healthy addition to his cuisine of sardines on toast. “I think that Mormon’s trying to make me fat.”

  “He’s just buttering you up for their missionaries,” Tony said, crossing the lawn with a handful of what looked like junk mail. “It’s like that witch with Hansel and Gretel.”

  “I’ll be sure to look for indications of cannibalism.”

  “I’m telling you,” Tony said.

  Frank said, “That Mormon’s the one who greased the wheels for me at Walmart.”

  “And you don’t think that’s suspicious?” Tony asked. “Who goes making friends with ex-cons? I bet it’s all part of some racket.”

  “Maybe you can penetrate their networks
and find out the truth.”

  “Maybe,” Tony agreed.

  Frank put his key in the lock and turned, but the door was already unlocked, which was wrong. He always locked both doors to the house.

  He swung the door open, took two steps inside, and stopped. Tony pushed past and stopped as well.

  A man stood in the entry leading from the kitchen. He was a little under six feet, wearing a black leather vest over a denim shirt. He had a dark goatee and receding hair line, but the hair he did have was a bit long and mussed like he’d been riding in the wind, like he was Mister Born To Be Wild. He held a nine millimeter gun in his hand. A Springfield XD-9 subcompact.

  Frank knew the man. Knew him far too well. He also knew that he had the subcompact, not because it was easy to conceal carry. Ed Meese needed the small gun because of the size of his idiot baby girl hands. The Springfield wasn’t a bad gun, even the subcompact, but a gun was the last thing that man should be holding. Not with where he’d been.

  “Jockstrap,” the man said with a wide-mouthed grin. “We just about figured we’d come to the wrong place. You had us worried.”

  In the kitchen, someone scraped back a chair.

  Frank bristled all over. “What are you doing in my house, Ed?”

  Ed looked all surprised at Frank’s tone. “That’s no way to talk to a friend.”

  “You’re not my friend, Ed.”

  “No gratitude,” he sweetly reprimanded. “I saved your life.”

  “You did.”

  “Well, Frankie boy, now I’m coming to collect.”

  2

  White Hat

  FRANK WASN’T ON parole anymore, but he was on a journey, and the conditions he’d set for himself were similar. And they were clear. The first was that you did not have any contact with other convicted felons. Having contact with someone like Ed would get you a free ticket back to the big house.