Shooting Stars

by C. A. Huggins

  “I thought you left the country,” I say.

  “I did. Went to Canada, but had to come back. The food sucks there.”

  “What?”

  “Actually, the woman I was staying with kicked me out when I ran out of money,” he says.

  “Who cares. You need to talk fast. There’s too much weird shit going on. And I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

  “Calm down, K-Dawg. Don’t be a player hater,” he says.

  I push my finger into his chest and repeatedly poke him. “Cut the K-Dawg, K-Deezy bullshit. My name is fucking Kevin. Talk fast or I’m calling the cops.” A cop car passes by, and Floyd tenses up. He wasn’t anticipating that reaction from me. “Why do you keep looking around, man? What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you on acid?”

  “It’s a long story,” he says. I grip him tighter around his collar and reach for my cellphone. “Okay, I got into some trouble. Your friend Jake came to me with this brilliant idea. We were taking Social Security numbers of retirees and stuff like that. Then, selling them to these contacts I had.”

  “You were in on that too?” I say.

  “You knew?”

  “This isn’t about what I know. It’s about what you’re gonna tell me,” I say.

  “Jake got greedy,” he continues. “I got suspicious about what he was doing. Then, I found out he tried to squeeze me out and go straight to my contacts. I called him on it. So he set me up. Tipped me off to the company’s ethics hotline. The Feds started looking for me, and I had to get out of town fast.”

  Not sure if I should believe him or not. And I think he detects I have my doubts. He keeps going on: “When he got rid of me, though, he didn’t have access to the highly compensated employees. Only managers have that. And those are the only SSNs the contacts wanted.”

  “Why should I believe you?” I say.

  “Do I look like someone in a position to lie?”

  I take a look at Floyd’s tattered clothes and dirt-smudged face. “Good point.”

  “Speaking of that, can I come upstairs and get cleaned up?”

  “Sorry, can’t help you with that. You’re wanted. I’m not harboring a fugitive,” I say.

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “Wrong. You are—were—my boss,” I say.

  “I need help clearing my name,” he pleads.

  “Nope, I can’t help with that either. I gotta clear my own name. The same Feds are now looking at me.” Right as I say that, another cop car passes by. They’re not even looking at us, but a paranoid Floyd gets alarmed.

  “Gotta go,” he says. A surprisingly nimble Floyd swiftly scurries to the back of the alley and jumps on a dumpster and scales a gate. He looks and moves like a scared squirrel that’s recognized an adolescent coming toward it with a BB gun.

  * * *

  I’ve worn down the hardwood floors of my place for hours, puzzled by tonight’s events. First, I was on a natural euphoric high from winning the promotion. Then, I get hauled in by the Feds, who’ve apparently been watching me for months. I trip over my air mattress. How’d they know about my air mattress, dammit? They’ve probably been in here. And then Floyd pops up out of nowhere. I can’t trust him. I bet the Feds planted him there.

  I know whom to call. I pick up my phone. But wait, it’s probably bugged. They might even have cameras in here too. I wonder if they’ve watched me masturbate. I still don’t buy it that those guys aren’t pervy, especially the one with the beard. Whom were they fooling with that van? I gotta get out of here. I wonder if I can find a pay phone. My cellphone has undoubtedly been tampered with as well. I rush out of the place without a plan.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The worst position to be in, besides being hung upside down while rats peck at your head, is having no one to turn to when you need help the most. But I guess when you’re in that rat scenario you, presumably, also have no one to turn to. So I guess they’re one in the same. My parents would be useless. And I tried to get in contact with Eddie, but he wouldn’t pick up the phone. I hope he didn’t do anything drastic when he got fired. This job meant the world to him. He’s probably sitting in his childhood bedroom, dressed up in his little suit, with his stuffed animals on his bed, doing pension calculations for retired Care Bears. Poor kid. Or worse, Jake might’ve sent him to jail. He wouldn’t last fifteen minutes.

  I’m not even sure help is going to show up. And I don’t really blame her. It’s eleven o’clock at night, and it might be a little dangerous for her to come out all alone this late. But I chose this brightly lit coffee shop so she wouldn’t think I was up to any funny business. That still hasn’t kept her for having me wait for her for forty-five minutes already; the three hazelnut lattes I’ve had aren’t helping my nerves any either. The caffeine has me jumpy, like I’m on PCP, but as I’m about to leave, Chloe walks in.

  “Didn’t think you’d show,” I say as she takes a seat.

  “What’d you think, I’d already be on my way to rehab?”

  “Well . . .”

  “On my way here I tried to figure out the correct words to say to you. And all I could come up with is . . . fuck you . . . fuck you, Kevin.” People turn around and look at our table.

  I knew she’d be upset, but didn’t anticipate this upset. “Okay, I deserve that.”

  “Don’t interrupt me. I’m not done yet. You couldn’t beat me for the job fair and square?” she says.

  How’d she know I was behind it?

  “Don’t give me that innocent face,” she says. “You set me up. I know you did it, and I know why.”

  Maybe she’ll sympathize with my plight if I come out and tell her. “I needed the job. Like, I really needed it.” She’s not buying it. “And you’re better than me. Happy now?”

  “No, I’m not happy. My boss thinks I’m a drug-using prostitute.”

  “It could be worse,” I say.

  “How? How could it be worse, exactly?”

  I have nothing. “You have your health.” She doesn’t laugh. “What do you want me to do now? I’m sorry—that’s not enough?”

  “No, it’s not,” she says.

  “I promise to make it up to you . . . somehow. But I need your help.”

  She gets up from the table. “I can’t believe you. You ruin my life, and now you want me to help you steal Social Security numbers? Or, better yet, why don’t we go out and steal deaf people’s hearing aids?”

  My mouth drops. “You know about that?”

  “Of course, I’m in the office all hours of the day and night. I see everything,” she says.

  “Well, if you did, then you’d know it was Jake and not me.”

  “Yeah, I’ve only seen him. But I would’ve thought he’d rope you in somehow, because you’re pretty much his bitch.”

  “Hey.”

  She shrugs her shoulders. “Okay, maybe that was harsh. But I knew it was all Jake. One night I saw him stealing documents straight from the security recycling bins. When I asked him what he was doing, he got all defensive and said he was disposing them for the janitors because they had a lot to do. But it was pretty obvious. He didn’t do a good job of being discreet, until he started getting the information straight from the databases. It looked like he was using removable USB flash drives. I don’t think I am the only one who’s caught him doing something suspicious either. I’ve heard a lot of talk around the office. Dontrelle, Ted, even old Aida had a story,” she says.

  How am I the only one that missed this for so long? I thought I was the closest to Jake. “It was his idea to get you fired too. I found out he even ran Floyd off.”

  “How do you know that?” she says.

  “Floyd told me outside of my condo about an hour ago.”

  She takes a second to process what I just told her. “It all makes sense. Of course he would want to get rid of anyone who could jeopardize his operation.”

  Dammit, he was using me for his fucking plan. And I didn’t even know it. I was blinded by
that promotion and raise. “I need your help. We need to clear my name.”

  “‘We’?” she replies.

  I correct myself. “I need your help. I can’t do it by myself. And I can trust you.”

  “But I can’t trust you,” she says.

  “Sure you can,” I say as I smile at her.

  * * *

  Chloe suggested I get concrete evidence to hand over to the feds. That’s why we’re both sitting in my car outside of Jake’s headquarters. She must feel really sorry for me, because I can’t come up with any other reason she’d be here with me.

  “What am I looking for again?” I say.

  “Anything you can get your hands on. Lists. Paperwork. Contracts. Computer disks. Files. . . . You sure you don’t want me to come in there with you?” she says as she looks at the building.

  I point outside to the grim surroundings. “It’s not safe. It’s better you stay in the car. If I don’t come back in fifteen minutes, leave, okay?”

  “Sure,” she swiftly replies.

  “Well, you didn’t have to agree so quickly.” She shrugs. “I mean, you could’ve resisted. Suggested maybe to come in after me. Something.”

  “No, if you don’t come out in fifteen minutes, I’m going to assume something bad has happened to you. And I’m going to leave and go home,” she says. “If it’s any help, you should know the farther I drive, the more horrific I’m going to imagine the acts that were performed on you. Beating, raping, waterboarding—”

  “How’s that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s how my mind works.”

  “But what if something like that is happening to me? You’ll just go home? You won’t even go to the police?”

  “That’s what I meant. I’ll go to the police,” she says.

  “That’s better. I guess. I don’t believe you, but at least you said it.”

  “You’re wasting time,” she says.

  “All right,” I say, as I get out of the car.

  “You’re taking the keys? What if I want to listen to the radio?”

  “No, that might draw attention to the car. Plus, if you’re going to flee, you should probably leave on foot. You never know, I might break out of whatever torturous imprisonment they have me in and would need my car to escape.”

  I walk toward the shady building. I appreciate her help and all, but she’s not leaving me stranded here. That’s how I ended up in this place. Trusting people. Who knows what motive she has for helping me. I’ll figure it out soon enough.

  When I get inside, I turn the lights on. The place looks like a barren shithole, as opposed to the cluttered shithole I’ve visited before. There are no file cabinets, computers, or diagrams on the walls. Nothing. “Hello. Jake? Anybody here?”

  I don’t know where to look, but I move around frantically. Trying to get out of here as fast as possible, but find something at the same time, even though I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. All I see are blank pieces of paper and empty cans of Spam. A stack of boxes in the corner looks promising. I open them up, but they’re filled with nothing but packing popcorn. The computer monitor and keyboard are over in the corner, but the hard drive is gone.

  “What are you doing?” Shifty says. He startles the shit out of me. He must’ve been lurking in the shadows, like he always is.

  “Have you seen Jake?” I ask as he staggers toward me.

  “What are you doing?” he repeats. He has a knack for asking the same question twice. “Why are you going through his stuff? Jake said you’d come for my Spam. That’s why I ate it all.”

  “Spam?” I shake his questions off. “Let me know where Jake is.”

  “No Spam for you, you lil’ bitch,” he says.

  “Fuck off, Boo Radley. This is important.” He keeps coming toward me, like a zombie with mismatched clothes.

  “I’m the guard dog of this place. I get a bag of Doritos and a sixty-four-ounce of Old English for every week there isn’t a break in, and I’m not letting you fuck that up.”

  “I’m not stealing . . . they make a sixty-four-ounce?” Shifty throws an empty liquor bottle at me and the bottle shatters. I guess they do make a sixty-four-ounce.

  “And it’s the big bag of Doritos too,” he roars like a T. rex, as he lunges at me with a maniacal look in his eyes.

  We lock arms. I’m a lot stronger than an old drunk man, so I’m able to subdue him a bit. Then, I begin to punch him repeatedly in the stomach. I know my blows are getting to him, because he’s frail and I can feel his ribs with my knuckles. When I think he’s had enough, I stop pummeling him.

  “Okay, ready to calm down?” I ask.

  As he stands bent over from the stomach punches, he looks up at me. And just when I think this vile man is about to surrender, he spits in my face. I can’t see where he is. Why does his saliva burn my eyes? He takes my temporary blindness as the perfect opportunity to start punching me in the face and side of the head. He then puts me into a headlock. I manage to gather myself and body-slam him into the desk. I’m lucky he weighs less than a buck twenty-five. It’s amazing what it took to defeat this man, but he’s probably hopped up on so much shit that he doesn’t feel pain. I find some rope and tie him to the radiator.

  “Now, let’s try this again. Where’s Jake?”

  “I don’t know. You think he’d tell a crackhead where he’s going?” Shifty says. “I work for Doritos and Spam, you shithead.” Then, he vomits on himself.

  As the smell of vomit wafts in the air, I realize Shifty does have a point. I head outside, hoping my car is still out there, and Chloe too, for that matter. They’re both there. She looks relieved to see me, from what I can tell.

  “I was seriously about to leave ten minutes ago, but I couldn’t get out. Some midget with a ponytail told me he was the perfect height to eat me like a pint of lo mein. Then, he jumped on the hood of your car and peed all over it,” she says. She takes a look at me and notices the scratches and bruises on my face. “Hey, what happened?”

  I take this as a chance to seem capable and manly. “Nothing, a punk jumped up to get beat down.”

  “Jake?”

  “No, he wasn’t in there. Nothing was in there, really. I couldn’t find a thing. He must’ve known people were on to him.” My phone rings. I look at the caller ID and see it’s Jake. I look at Chloe, pretending I knew he’d call. But it was all luck.

  “Answer the phone, fool,” she says.

  I compose myself and click the answer button. “Hello.”

  “Hey, what’s up, buddy? Sorry I haven’t returned any of your calls,” he says.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  He pauses, then says, “I’ve been cleaning up a few things. I can’t really get into it right now.”

  Good, he doesn’t know I’m on to him. “I’ve been looking for you for a reason. Got some stuff for you,” I say. I’m making this shit up as I go along. I probably should’ve thought out a plan before I answered the phone. “Numbers . . . numbers, man.”

  “Huh?”

  “Hunter asked me today if I could help him on this special project. He needed me test the company’s new friendly do-it-yourself website on a new client with highly compensated VIP employees,” I say.

  “So?”

  “So, he gave me a list of two thousand VIP executives. Never been touched. Complete, detailed information on each one. And there’s more new clients on the way with the same info.”

  There’s a silence. I think he might’ve dropped his phone. “Okay . . . okay. When can I get that?” he says. When he picked up the phone, the calm, collected Jake had left and had been replaced with a jumpy version that I’m unfamiliar with.

  “Hold on. We can get a lot for these.”

  “We sure can. I’m a call my people right now after I get off with you,” he says.

  “I want to meet them,” I say.

  “What?”

  “I want to meet them.”

  �
�No need for that. They don’t like new faces. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Sure,” I say. “But I still want to meet them. I got the numbers, this is my thing. Let’s meet your people together.”

  Another brief silence as he thinks it over and realizes he’s in no position to bargain with me. “Okay, I’ll see if I can get them tonight. It’s short notice, but I’ll do what I can do.”

  “We’ll meet at Fun-2-Sea Land,” I say.

  “Sure . . . whatever,” he says and hangs up.

  I smile at Chloe. She’s impressed at my performance. Shit, I’m impressed at my performance. I played that pretty well.

  “So what do you do now?” Chloe says.

  “I know a guy who’ll help me out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Fun-2-Sea Land can be quite the enchanting and lively place during the day, but at two o’clock in the morning it’s kinda scary. Dark and desolate. And there are all these stuffed animals and clowns just staring at you. Not to mention the ornate and weirdly colored horses on the merry-go-round, but I didn’t pick this place for the decor. It’s because I know the ins and outs of the whole park, in case Jake or his people try something.

  “You bring the stuff?” I hear Jake say. I turn around, and he’s standing alone, looking as normal as if he’s leaning over my cubicle and asking where we are going for lunch.

  “Right here.” I show him the USB drive. “Where’s your connects?”

  “They should be here any minute now,” he says. “They’re on time most of the time.”

  I look at my watch.

  “Were you nervous?” he says.

  “With what?” I say.

  “Lifting that file. You know you can’t steal. I bet your heart was beating a mile a minute,” he says.

  I laugh. “Not at all.” If this USB drive didn’t have porn on it and did have a file, I guess I would’ve been nervous stealing it. But I’m fucking petrified right now.