The Squeeze

by Paul Schueller

  “What might that be?” Jenny asked with anticipation.

  “A walk on the beach with a picnic lunch. Then some shopping and a movie, followed by dinner. Are you interested in the entire package?” Tommy asked.

  “Let’s take it a step at a time, but most likely I am. Thank you,” Jenny replied.

  As the day progressed, everywhere they went, they ran into people Jenny knew. Parents, students, friends, and acquaintances of all sorts.

  Each person looked sincerely happy to see her. It astounded and slightly unnerved Tommy.

  After Jenny hugged the hostess at the restaurant, Tommy and Jenny were seated in the back corner. Exposed 150-year-old brick walls served as the backdrop for the rugged hewn, two-person table that contrasted pleasantly with trendy modern place settings. Tommy asked, “Do you know everyone in town? You couldn’t have swung a dead cat today without hitting someone you knew.”

  “Good thing I’m not a cat person, and no, I obviously don’t know everyone,” Jenny said.

  “Well, you know more people here than I do in all of Chicago.”

  “This is my hometown. I’m part of the fabric of the place and I like it.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that there’s always someone, I don’t know, watching you?” Tommy raised an eyebrow disbelievingly.

  “It doesn’t feel that way. It’s a support structure. The people you know…they are all there for each other. You don’t get that, do you?”

  “Not completely, no.”

  “Well, let’s say someone you love dies.”

  “OK, I guess.”

  “What would happen to you? How would you feel?” Jenny knew that this was dangerous territory, but she needed to know the answers.

  “I would be sad and deal with it, and I can tell you that I wouldn’t go to the funeral. George’s was my first and, other than mine, my last.”

  “That just seems so . . . alone. Here, you would be sad and supported and consoled and people would follow-up with you and you would get over it together. You have a community to share things with, good and bad. Plus, a good funeral every once in a while, helps one appreciate life. A reminder that it is fleeting.”

  “Well, I could have that in a big city.” Tommy was feeling a bit defensive.

  “Absolutely. People build their community of friends and family all the time, no matter how big or small their circles may be.”

  “Then, you’re saying it’s me? My problem?”

  “It’s you, yes, but it’s only a problem if you think it is.”

  “Well, it hasn’t been. I don’t need all this,” Tommy said. “It’s just that what you have; what you do here is more noticeable than in the big city.”

  “I guess,” said Jenny. “I’m also guessing some people think that doing this in their own hometown is sort of a cop-out or failure.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Tommy, not wanting to ruin what had thus far been an exceptional day. “But you thought it, didn’t you?” Jenny asked.

  Sensing from her body language that it was OK, Tommy said, “Yes, I guess at times.”

  Jenny asked, “Do you think I’m a failure? Or that I gave up or could have done more?”

  “No. I believe you are part of this place and you are making a difference here.”

  “Are you just being nice because you want things to go somewhere tonight?” Jenny asked.

  “Surprisingly, no. I may not be overly-perceptive, but somehow it was very clear that we weren’t going to be sleeping together tonight,” Tommy said.

  “Glad you picked up on that,” Jenny said. “My guess is that what I have here, this life, isn’t what you want.”

  “It certainly hasn’t been what I want, but I need to rethink everything.”

  “Don’t think too much. Feel it,” Jenny said.

  “Easier said than done.” They finished dinner and Tommy drove Jenny home, walked her to the door, kissed her softly on the lips, turned and left.

  The next day Tommy called Jenny, but only asked her to dinner, which she accepted. He knew she had a life, unlike him, and that he

  needed to respect that. It couldn’t be all about what he wanted, even though to him, it still was.

  It was a cool, brilliantly sunny and viciously windy day and Tommy was once again walking, thinking, and biding his time until dinner with Jenny. He had just bought a coffee and wanted to get out of the wind, so he ventured out onto the random looking but strategically placed yellowish boulders that made up the inner harbor. He knew the wind from the northwest would be blocked and the sun would be in his face.

  As Tommy navigated the boulders, he thought maybe he could find his favorite quiet spot. In high school and college, he would walk out to a sofa-sized and shaped rock, sitting for hours looking at the waves slapping up against the lighthouse.

  As he navigated from one boulder to the next, the head of a young man popped up from about twenty feet farther down the breakwater.

  It was a boy that Tommy had seen with Pat’s kids. He was wispy thin with elbow joints bigger than his biceps, puffy black hair that blew in the wind and baggy pants that defied gravity. The boy slouched and shuffled forward a couple of steps under the weight of acne and self-doubt. But as Tommy got closer he could see the intensity in his eyes that clearly indicated he would outlast awkward and emerge stronger for it. He looked half-startled by someone being out there and half like he was caught doing something wrong. Tommy was equally startled, minus the guilty look. It was Sunday morning, and perhaps he was supposed to be at church. Tommy had remembered this spot was his church at the time.

  It was as close as he ever got to God.

  Tommy considered talking to him, but instead, nodded a hello and continued past the boy who nodded in return. The boy, coincidently, was occupying the spot Tommy had remembered, so he continued past him another 100 yards to create enough separation and found an equally pleasing view of the lighthouse. He leaned back, enjoying the view and his coffee, thinking about Jenny and trying to let thoughts of Pat, John, and the rest of his troubles go, but that didn’t work out as he hoped.

  Tommy not only wrestled with the utter destruction of his finances at his own hand but now he was starting to replay the ‘what-ifs’ of a life with Jenny that could have, and maybe should have happened. He started to rock gently back and forth with his legs pulled into his chest and his knees near his face. This position was all too familiar to Tommy, and he knew that it often led to escalating rage that would not subside until he hit or pounded on something or took a pill. Given there were only very hard surfaces available and no pills, he pulled himself out of it and onto his feet.

  As he walked back past the young man, Tommy regained his composure enough for a second nod. He knew that he had to be careful as he was fully off of antidepressants and mood enhancers for the first time in years. He was down to only using alcohol to manage and control his emotions. He worried that Jenny might not like this version of him.

  But it was a tradeoff he felt a need to make since he would be sharper and more focused on providing good trade advice to Pat.

  Tommy walked the mile and a half along a bike path back to his hotel. The trees had filled in since his spring walks in the same area and now blocked the view but not the sound from a creek that led back down to the lake. He passed several people he didn’t know, or only vaguely recognized from many years before. He enjoyed the relative solitude and thought about how much different it would be for Jenny, who would have to stop at least a few times to exchange meaningless pleasantries.

  He figured maybe he could get used to it. Maybe it would be okay being Mr. Jenny Landimere. He was embarrassed to even think it was possible, given how he had left things after college.

  Tommy realized that whenever he spent time with Jenny, his senses seemed to heighten. It must have been a combination of being with her and the clarity of being prescription-drug free. He recalled the previous night’s dinner and he could re-experience her perfume and wine mixing ne
ar her face, the combination of French fries and stale beer rolling out onto the sidewalk from the bar that they strolled by and the odd mix of other scents along the way including wet grass, roasting lamb, burgers, and newly poured asphalt. For some reason, with this particular encounter, every scent came to mind more than the things he saw. He couldn’t wait until the evening to see what he experienced next with Jenny.

  As Tommy got out of the car he noticed Jenny approach through a sullen, rain soaked evening. As she got closer, he wondered how much information she could handle without being scared away. The drugs, the drinking, his dark sometimes unrelenting thoughts . . . and there was something deeper, too. Something between them that needed to be said, but he didn’t know what it was. It was a haunting, sick, and remorseful ache stirring in his mind. A buried fact that needed to be discovered.

  It was screaming at his conscious brain but only his gut was listening.

  He felt like the ache would stay until the inner scream was heard, until whatever was unsaid between him and Jenny finally got out.

  Jenny reached Tommy, kissed him on the cheek, and asked where they were headed. He was startled by the greeting, but still, it felt comfortable.

  “We are headed to The Shores, if that’s okay with you,” Tommy said.

  “I didn’t picture you as a supper club guy,” Jenny’s expression completely lightened.

  “Come on! They are in! Everything comes around. I think mullets are going to be cool again someday,” Tommy joked.

  “Hey, there are still a few around town. They have always been cool,” Jenny said, playing along.

  When they arrived at the restaurant, the hostess told Tommy that the table would be ready in fifteen minutes, but when she saw Jenny, a table suddenly became available.

  They placed a drink order and when the waitress left, Tommy said, “You have a lot of pull in this town for a guidance counselor.”

  “Oh, that. I helped her kids when they were still in high school when she lost her husband, their father.”

  “To divorce?” Tommy asked.

  “No, to cancer,” Jenny replied. They sat in silence for a minute, both staring at their menus. Finally, Jenny looked over at Tommy and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

  Tommy was thinking about what Pat had told him the first time he was in town; that Jenny had actually loved him all those years ago.

  Tommy responded. “Nothing. Uh, just thinking about you and whether this, us, can go anywhere.”

  “What do you mean?” Jenny prodded.

  “Well, I kind of hurt you when I left,” Tommy admitted.

  “My God, don’t flatter yourself. Do you really think I’ve been waiting around for you? Sitting here pining away for my one lost true love?”

  she gasped. Then continued, even more defensively than before, “Sure, it hurt for a while, but I haven’t given it a moment’s thought until you dragged your sorry ass back into town.”

  “Fine. Then we are starting over, no baggage. That’s great,” he said.

  “Works for me,” Jenny said.

  That little exchange created a guarded awkwardness to the rest of the evening unlike the comfortable and natural nature of the previous day, when they had talked and laughed like old friends should. They ended again at Jenny’s front door. Their lips met for a brief and slightly uncomfortable kiss.

  Tommy had to head back to Chicago and Jenny was going to be there with friends in two weeks. They decided to meet on a Saturday at the ground-floor restaurant of the Intercontinental, where Jenny would be staying. Tommy dropped off the rental car in the morning and took the train back into Chicago wondering if their relationship might be headed in the wrong direction.

  26

  As Tommy and Pat continued to make millions more over the weeks, Doug struggled to put any reasonable case together against Tommy.

  He had been forced to spend some time looking into John and some of the top guys at McKinstry as suspects, but it was more to appease his boss than actually believing that they did anything wrong. It was hard for Doug to look past the first “accidental” death that Tommy benefitted from. How could the two be a coincidence? And there was the voicemail message from George and the three short calls to Tommy from Whitefish . . . it had been enough for his boss to keep Doug on the case.

  So, Doug knew that Tommy had a motive for murder but no clear opportunity to have pulled off such a thing in Montana. Meanwhile, John had an opportunity, since he lived almost within view of the crime scene, but didn’t appear to have a motive. Then there was Mark at McKinstry who had the means and opportunity but no direct motive, although his company had benefited greatly from what had happened. Lastly, Doug needed to find out who RD Partners was that had made millions as John’s partner in Big Mountain Traders. Doug knew sorting through a labyrinth of shell companies and dead ends was beyond his capabilities.

  He needed to get the federal commodities people interested enough to help. The case was going nowhere fast, and his boss told him he had two more weeks to make progress, or he would be reassigned.

  Doug decided he would sit on Tommy and try to pressure him into a mistake. Doug still had access to Tommy’s credit card information from the subpoena and checked his transactions to see that he had bought a round trip Chicago to Milwaukee Amtrak ticket on Friday. Doug thought he’d take a chance that he could catch him coming back to Chicago on the late morning Monday train.

  How fortunate for Doug if they again could run into each other. He hurried out of the precinct and positioned himself at the entrance to the Brown Line stop a short walk from Union Station that Tommy would likely take home. Doug was smart enough to know by now that Tommy would be using different exits out of Union Station to avoid the possibility of seeing him. As Tommy walked into the Brown Line stop, he made eye contact with Doug, was stunned a bit, but kept walking.

  Doug ran after him as if desperately sprinting after much needed answers. “Hold on there,” Doug panted. “You just going to ignore me? I made a lot of effort to run into you today.”

  “You spend a lot of your time doing that,” Tommy said.

  “Well, remember I have access to a great deal of information on you, including credit card transactions. Maybe I’ll even get a warrant to search your place. Lots of ways I can make your life difficult,” Doug warned.

  “Is that what you’re here to do? Threaten me?”

  “No. Just letting you know I’ll be watching. Waiting for you to make a mistake.”

  “At least until you lose your job, right?” Tommy smirked.

  “Don’t worry about my job. I’ll be fine,” Doug said.

  “So will I. Now leave me alone, or I’ll get a restraining order,” Tommy yelled.

  “You’re a goddamn suspect. You ain't gettin' no restraining order. You watch too much TV.” Doug was starting to show signs of worry and seemed to be losing his cool. “Well, if you don’t have anything else, I’ll be going,” Tommy said.

  “Go on your way, but I’ll be around,” Doug said. That was the last thing Tommy needed. He had to be more careful than ever when communicating with Pat. Since he figured it would only get worse, he called Pat right away from yet another cell phone.

  Pat answered on the first ring. “Hey, it’s Pat.”

  “What, no company name, or ‘how can I help you?’ You’re slipping,” Tommy said.

  “Hey, I’m not slipping. In fact, I think I’m kind of getting the hang of this business. If you really think about it, buying low and selling high is all you really need to know.”

  “Well, there’s a bit more to it than that.”

  “Oh, I get it. All I’m trying to say is that all these guys I thought were so smart probably aren’t really all that smart, and some of them make stupid money.”

  “You’re making stupid money,” Tommy reminded him.

  “Well someday if we get out I will have. Until then, it’s pretend money,” Pat replied.

  “Who’s making real money?” Tommy asked
.

  “Well, I heard a rumor that Mark cut a deal to own ten percent of all of McKinstry if he hits certain profit targets in carbon commodities.”

  “That can’t be. First of all, he’d be worth like close to a billion dollars, and they aren’t just going to give him that kind of ownership,” Tommy rationalized.

  “Heard he’s running some other business unit too that is making big dollars and he cut this deal right before your business imploded.

  He told me himself that it might make him very rich if things fell into place. He was particularly excited that it might make his CEO, Barbara something or other, look bad with the board for recommending they agree to the deal. Refers to her as his CEB and you can guess what that stands for. Dude has some woman issues. The McKinstry board knew that he would have to get the carbon business up to nine figures in profits for the ownership deal to go through, so they figured it would never happen but be good for everyone if it did. It’s almost like he knew that he would get a break like this.”

  “I hope that’s not true,” Tommy said incredulously, but he had an uneasy feeling it was true. It would mean that Mark had somehow set him and John up to steal their imploding business before the day Tommy walked into Mark’s office looking for help. It would mean he was somehow connected to the fraudulent trades. Tommy felt sick and abused.

  “Well, I’ve got my sources, and I’ve heard it more than once,” Pat informed him.

  “I can’t see that happening, but now with their market share? Who knows.”

  “Regardless, I’m sure he makes lots of money now,” commented Pat.

  “True, and hopefully you do, too.”

  “Fingers crossed. What’s up today?” Pat asked. “We need to move this conversation along. It always feels like when we talk we have ten pounds of shit to shovel through a five- minute window of opportunity.”

  “Ah . . . you know you’re mixing weight and time measurements there, right?” corrected Tommy.