She could tell Humberto was gripped by her story, so she continued although his looks were distracting her.
She convinced Jerome to back her and she left for California right away. It was weird for her to be back in Northern California. She had lived in San Jose for eight years while growing up with J.P., but the circumstances had driven them apart and they didn’t talk any longer. She’d tried, but he didn’t return her calls. So she was alone, back in a place she had been just starting to get to know when she was young.
The first order of business was to investigate Conceptual Labs; of course, not from the inside, the place was like Fort Knox, but from the outside. Her first success came when she got a shot at Bill Westinghouse. Westinghouse was the CEO and owner of Conceptual Labs and had been shot during Chavez’s escape. She knew that he would have a treasure trove of info, but she knew he wouldn’t talk to a reporter. Fortunately, he didn’t know her face, as she was new in town. It didn’t take long scanning the faces of the drivers who came and went from the Lab to find Westinghouse. He was driving a new Dodge Charger with all the extras.
By the second week she noted that Westinghouse went out to lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays. Both Fridays he had gone up to a dive in the foothills above Menlo Park called Bucks. She had lunch at a booth on the other side of the restaurant and was partly shielded by a support beam, so Westinghouse was completely oblivious to her.
His waitress was blonde and in her twenties, very fit and tight, with straight blonde hair, and the right size boobs. One noticed she had them, but they weren’t the main attraction. She had a very nice posterior and Lauren watched him track her with the most lust she’d ever seen.
She looked in the mirror and her green eyes stared back. She had straight hair too, but hers was red; not fire red, but this dull brick red that men loved. She had freckles, not massive freckles, but freckles nonetheless, and they ran into her cleavage. She had a little more than her competition there did, not too much more, and she always covered her looks at work. At five eight and a hundred and twenty pounds, she was fit, but had curves, too. She beat the competition by a hair in the boobs, but lost by a hair in the ass department. Both of their faces could be those of models.
So now she knew his weakness and she was going to have to step out of frumpy next Friday and see if she couldn’t do the old “drop he hanky” bit on this obviously horny man.
Humberto was so into the story she was telling he jumped when the waiter arrived with dinner. She had chosen the pescado as Humberto had recommended it. Her story broke off for a minute for him to tell his. He was divorced. No big drama tale, no kids, marriage just wasn’t for him. His ex was now a happily married woman with three kids at last count. He was a Veterinarian and had taken the practice over from his father.
Humberto insisted she continue her tale and she kept forgetting this was a lead she was following. It felt more like a date.
Acting on her “damsel in distress” plan she had come up with the week before, she waited for Westinghouse to arrive in the parking lot. She had a front spot and as he was approaching she got out of the car just in front of him, wearing a very flattering from behind pair of pants and a very cute and flattering top to show off the girls, just in case he like both floors, not just the basement. As she was about to enter, she wobbled her three-inch heels and went down.
She actually turned her ankle for real in the process and it really did turn out to be a rescue operation. He even carried her to the bench and set her down, but he limped and when he did, she could tell it hurt him even though he tried to hide it. She knew his right knee had had to be replaced as she saw him talk about it on Meet the Press.
She could tell he was smitten and when he insisted that she join him for lunch, she reluctantly agreed. She could see the confusion on her competition’s face as she was taking their order. It looked like she hit the jackpot because it appeared he really liked freckles. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of them.
Humberto gave a knowing smile at this that she didn’t like. She looked at Humberto with non-approval and side barred. “Of course I knew he was married, I had his bio in my car. His wife’s name is Candace, so he wasn’t getting anything, but we hit it off and he wanted my number, you know, to join him the next week for lunch. I told him I don’t give out my number, but lunch would be okay. I saw him for two months. In those two months, I softly got out of him all I could. The weekend before we had planned to sleep together on a getaway, I told him that I found out about his wife and dumped him.”
Lauren took a bite off her plate, the fish was delicious, and she paused to ask Humberto some more questions about himself. She had already decided she was going to take him back to her room tonight. It had been a long time since a man made her feel this good on a date and technically this wasn’t even a date! She was horny after her second glass of wine and could have finished now.
He wanted more, though; he wanted to know the reason she was here. Well, she decided a part truth was better than no truth. She continued, “After Westinghouse, I went on to the shopping center where the agents died and Hurst worked. It was at this point, Humberto, that this became more than a story; it became the story. This guy Hurst is the only one who really knows what happened, he’s the only one that can say who was really involved.
“As I investigated those following weeks it became more clear to me that being as seasoned as Hurst was, he should have recognized it for an arrest. It got me to thinking. It would have been a great plan for them to be partners; and I wasn’t the only one. Bill Westinghouse was still of the mindset that Hurst was a partner in this. So I became convinced that Hurst was the key to the whole thing and maybe not as small a player as everyone first thought.
“Then when it all unraveled and Pablo Manuel became the real villain, everyone forgot about Hurst or what role he played. Not me, though, because he is who I was following from the start and I like to finish what I start.”
A couple of shots of tequila showed up and she wasn’t shy about drinking one, making telling eye contact with this sexy man while she did it. He then gave her the lowdown on Hurst, how he brought in a dog with a bad leg infection from a fight. The dog stayed many days and Hurst was very concerned about him. Humberto also knew something else of huge value. Hurst had a friend.
Later, she laid back and looked at the ceiling fan spinning in her hotel room, exhausted from the kind of love making that Latin men were famous for. As she was going down that night she remembered how sometimes shit just falls right in your lap and how she felt now that she had finally taken a big step forward.
That was two weeks ago and now nothing; nothing but baking in her fucking van every day and peeing in a coffee can, which was okay the first couple of times, but the last one nearly made her lose it as it stunk so bad. It was time for a change of tactic; maybe she could reconnoiter a little.
* * *
He logged out of the chat site and looked around the remodeled library, so new and expansive. The old two-story building had literally been gutted to give the new library an open-floored design. It had crossbeam planters that ran across the ceiling of the second floor, the tendrils of the varied plants hanging down with beauty. The second floor had a railing that ran around the balcony and as you looked down to the first floor, you could see a statue of the Liberty bell with a wonderful ornate information plaque of gold lettering over the black marble.
The first floor had a cafe, a multimedia center for kids, and lots of books, both in print and audio. The second floor had private study rooms, but they were all glass and didn’t appeal to him. Next to them were the public computers and periodical shelves. On the far side of the room there was a research and study area. He loved the modern library, but he missed the old one too—with its secluded nooks and long shelves that didn’t quite go all the way to the end of the aisle to allow one to round the corner to the next aisle, and shelves that allowed one to hide there on the end cap. It was a quiet and calm place where he could hid
e from the outside world that came looking to bring its cruelty.
He would always hear them coming. They hadn’t the ability to concentrate long enough to remember to be quiet. They knew he would be here because he wasn’t out there. Then they would make too much noise and Mrs. Utley would chase them off. She was his biggest protector and the world’s best librarian.
He went downstairs and bought a coke and thought about the stuff Tom Holsinger had been saying online as he opened his backpack and pulled out his brown paper bag and started to eat his peanut butter and jelly sandwich to which he had added a few chips. He had also added slices of banana today and it was a good move as the sandwich was awesome.
To do what Tom was suggesting would require a great cooperation from many people, but oh boy would that set things off. He imagined a movement like the one the Jesuit Sheep started. The Jesuit Sheep was his absolute favorite character in all of history and the fact that they named Pablo Manuel as the Avatar angered him greatly. By exposing him like that they removed the illusion that he could have been anybody. No one knew if he was a ten-foot giant or a five foot six, greasy-complected man with an inferiority complex.
Part of his problem growing up in a tough place like South Philadelphia was that he wasn’t anything other than a nerd. He was German, Irish, Italian, and French, so he couldn’t just blend into an ethnic group and be protected as, “their little friend.” He was all alone and had always been all alone as both his parents were introverts and not very good parents at all. Once they came home from work, they would never leave the house. So he never had any kind of backup even from them.
He washed down the last bite of his sandwich with his coke and chucked the garbage into the trash. While he was thinking about trying Tom’s idea, he realized that he would run into a lot of mean people who would disparage the idea until it seemed stupid. They would try to bully him right out of the picture—and he knew a thing or two about bullies.
His tormentors had come in every shape and color, for he was from one ethnic background that was bullied internationally—he was a nerd. He was only five-six and his skin had always had blemishes from the time he was twelve. His hair was oily by nature, so no matter how much shampoo or how many times he washed it, by that evening, it would be oily, and that was the best-case scenario. In the worst case, like in the summer time, just one hour after he showered he was a mess.
Robert had found out very quickly in high school that girls really don’t like short greasy boys. Even the short greasy girls had standards. His face started at twelve, but his hair had always been the same.
He looked at his reflection in the cafeteria window; plain grey sweatshirt, grey sweats, and converse sneakers. No wedding ring. At thirty-nine he now added glasses to the greasy black hair and pimples that persisted to this day. He looked at his cap on the table. You couldn’t wear a cap in school growing up, but he was an adult now and seeing as he didn’t really have a job, the cap was a permanent fixture. He looked around again at his changed sanctuary. This place had been his only haven.
Although his parents never went out, they insisted he play outside. For a few years he’d hung with the neighborhood boys, enduring being different and always the butt of the joke. But then in the fifth grade Gerry Runnals moved in. Starting from that day, his life became a giant toilet bowl. First of all, Gerry was the biggest, meanest kid on the whole block and he gave the Irish kids someone to hide behind and find their own bravery, which was an irony since Gerry’s brother was physically bigger than him. On Runnals’ first day on the block, he’d beat up the biggest black kid there was in the whole neighborhood, a real bully himself, so Gerry’s legend was built.
Robert remembered the first time he laid eyes on him. The gang was playing a spirited game of street “over the line” when he came out of the house into the baking summer sun. Well, he was pushed out actually, and as he came down the stairs in his thrice rolled-up jeans and white t-shirt, Gerry stopped the game to question loudly, “Who’s this puke?”
His next-door neighbor, Andy Rusca said, “It’s Robert Leme” and from that day on he was known as Robert Phlegmy. Runnals was merciless and mugged Robert whenever he’d come across him. There was no escape from this constant brutal nemesis who even seemed to have his school schedule down.
Robert grabbed a magazine and went to read it, but couldn’t concentrate. He could never settle down when he thought about Gerry Runnals until he did it. He finally set the magazine down and brought out the folder from his backpack that he always carried.
He opened it and thumbed to the article. “Man killed in bar fight” was the headline. The story read that a man was shot and killed outside a South Philly Bar the night of August 6, 1999. Apparently there was a fight over a girl and the victim had punched a man in the face earlier in the night. Several hours later as he was leaving the bar an unknown assailant shot him several times before getting into a car and fleeing. The victim had been identified as Gerry Anthony Runnals of South Philadelphia. No arrests had been made.
Robert calmed down inside a little. Even after they turned eighteen the torture had continued as this guy never went off to any college and he’d certainly never kept a job. So every time Robert left his house, up until August 6, 1999, he’d heard the epithet “Hey Phlegmy” thrown his way.
He’d learned better than to disrespect him by ignoring him. If he did so, Gerry would burst off the stoop and start with the threats, “What, you think you’re too good for me?” And the punching . . . there was always the punching.
Robert fantasized all the time about hiring a thug to beat him to death back then, and it had been such a comforting thought. In his daydreams he would watch from a safe distance and see Mr. Runnals teeth getting knocked from his mouth with brass knuckles.
Then came that wonderful day he opened the paper. He walked outside right away just to make sure. It was eleven thirty on a Saturday morning and Gerry would already have been out smoking, wearing his white wife-beater shirt and his Steelers cap. No Gerry. Wow, it must have been a wild night out in front, what with cops coming to notify and whatnot.
The way the neighborhood was built, everyone’s bedrooms were in the back of the buildings so someone could get killed right in front and they wouldn’t hear a thing, Robert could only imagine the horror felt by his mom and dad.
He looked at two kids playing in the library.
Maybe if someone would have reached out to him, maybe if he could have garnered even a single friend, then his life wouldn’t be so unbalanced and lonely now. That’s why he was so mean online, and he knew it. It was the only place where he could be the Alpha Male.
What confused him was the fact that it appeared that even though he was an asshole to his core group, that they still included him in talks. They still liked him in their own way. Why would they bother to like me? And Tom. Tom seemed so real. He even doubted that Tom would care about his greasy skin and hair. What kind of life was it when a man’s only friends are people who think, “He’s a bully?”
Robert looked around nervously because he was lost in thought. When he was younger, being lost in thought cost him a couple of times. His tormentors would sneak up on him, in school mostly, and that’s why he hid here. Here it was they who stuck out, which is why he loved the place so much.
He was still safe in this library, but it wasn’t the same. He could still hear the ghosts of Runnals and Rusca looking for him so they could continue the torture everywhere he went. But he also heard the voice of his savior in his thoughts.
She somehow sensed the trouble he was in, but never got the real story. Regardless, Mrs. Utley was his greatest childhood friend. He looked down at the refurbished front desk through the bars of the railing. It was there that he got the devastating news when he was twenty-three. Mrs. Utley had died in her sleep. He was so forlorn that literally a month later when the letter came he was not even excited at its prospects. She named him as her heir.
Apparently her husband was a man o
f means and left her no debt and with them having no children, he was the sole heir. After taxes, he received two hundred and eighteen thousand and a Victorian Home worth three hundred and fifty thousand. Having only been able to get small menial jobs, as no one ever seemed to like him for long, it was like God had shone a small ray of sunshine just for him, just to let him know he wasn’t alone after all.
After all these years, he still came here every day he was able to. He came here every day so he could be where both of them were the happiest, and that was in the library. He thought about her at least once a day, as she’d saved him more times than he could count; and then she set him free, that sweet old woman. He grabbed his backpack and headed home.
As he exited the library he looked back, the remodel of the outside was done as an exoskeleton of steel framing. It was done by the remodel team as a means to leave the original building as intact as possible, giving it the look of having steel braces. Fitting for Pennsylvania, Robert thought. It looked a little awkward, but it did preserve the building just the way it was, as much as possible anyway.
He started down the street and there was a chauffeur standing at attention to the left. As Robert approached, the chauffeur swung the door of the limousine open and greeted him.
“Home, Sir?”
“No, Melvin, I need to stop by the office for something first.”
“Very well, Sir, to the office it is.” As the limo was pulling off he looked out and saw a plaque inscribed on the building. It read, “This building restoration was donated by Robert William Leme in memory of Librarian Eutice Utley.” He sat back and put his mind to his new task, one that could bring sweeping change to an ailing nation.
Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3) Page 5