by Dave Buschi
Paulson fantasized about it often. It was his one big regret. He’d left a few too many begging for it without closing the deal. But he hadn’t had enough time. Christ sakes, how many skirts could a man fuck anyway? Not enough, for damn sure.
All of that, of course, was soon to be rectified.
Paulson flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles. It was time to get this done, so he could move on to his new life.
Paradigms changed. He’d soon more than make up for lost time. This drudgery he’d signed up for was about to be old news. No longer would he be doing demeaning kiss-ass bullshit. Soon he would be free to do whatever the fuck he wanted for the rest of his fucking life.
“I want this person identified,” Portino said. “I don’t like loose ends.”
“No problem,” Paulson had said. “Consider it done.”
5
JAMES was in a rundown area. He gripped his leather satchel and tried to look as casual as he could muster. There was little chance he could be successful pulling that off with everything going on. He was a mess.
His car was blocks away. He’d locked the doors, checked them twice and hoped for the best. It wouldn’t surprise him if it was on concrete blocks by now. He’d taken everything of value out of it, which wasn’t much.
He looked at his Blackberry hoping that the battery would show some flicker of life. After being routed through the bank’s automated teller system three times, each time being dropped, he’d tried to call his wife again. Something was up with his reception; even connections to his home line were cut off before he could talk. His voice was hoarse from yelling in frustration.
All of this while having to go through the agony of finding the gas station closed. The same gas station he’d tried the first time. A random shooting had occurred, of all the crazy things. A policeman had been there. The gas attendant was answering a bunch of questions. James was told to move along; the gas station was closed.
James walked past some derelict buildings, keeping his eyes peeled for a pay phone. In the back of his mind he wondered if they even made pay phones anymore. With the exception of airports he never saw them. People relied on cell phones and PDAs nowadays.
Why, in hindsight, had he driven this direction? He only had himself to blame. After finding the gas station closed, he’d driven around trying to find another gas station, and this is where he ended up. In no-man’s land. It didn’t even look like the city of Raleigh he knew. He saw boarded-up businesses; peeling posters on rotting fences; garbage strewn on sidewalks.
His back had a sharp pain from having to push his car the last few feet, so that it would be against the curb. He hoped he hadn’t pulled his back out; just what he needed, to mess up his alignment. That would take weeks to fix with his chiropractor. He’d left his car next to the remnants of a parking meter. The meter itself had been shorn off and there was just a rusting metal post.
The curb at one time had been painted, indicating it might have been a no-parking zone, but the paint was peeled so badly that it was barely noticeable. There weren’t any signs to indicate whether it was a parking zone or not. He didn’t know which was worse: to be towed to some junkyard in this area where it’d be stripped clean for parts, or to have his car stolen outright—not that he had any choice in the matter.
He’d never run out of gas. Ever.
James could feel eyes on him. A fried chicken establishment called “B&Ls” with bars on the windows had several sketchy-looking gents loitering in front. The place wasn’t open, yet. What were those fellas doing? James walked by feeling like a big juicy drumstick holding a bag full of dough.
If only they knew he was broke. His entire savings was wiped out, probably, by this point. Pending. That word was seared into his brain. How long, he wondered, before those transactions were permanently debited from his and Sue’s joint account? Twenty-four hours? When had the clock started ticking? Last night? Some of those transactions were posted yesterday, which probably meant twenty-four hours were about to lapse.
His head was in a fog thinking of the ruin of it all. He grasped at the straw of an idea that their account was FDIC insured. But what did that mean? Did the bank cover losses like theirs? That seemed unlikely; FDIC was more to cover the prospect of a bank going under, not a customer who failed to notify them they were a victim of identity theft. And then there was the bigger question: was the theft isolated to just the bank? What about his and Sue’s 401(k)s? If they’d stolen his identity, could they have accessed their retirement accounts?
He almost felt like crying. All these questions, and he didn’t have one answer. And there was nothing he could do about it, at least not until he got some gas. He was powerless… robbed… destitute… no gas… no car… no transportation. He wallowed in self-pity. Up ahead, he saw some more folks. They were gathered in front of a mom and pop grocery. His eyes, glassy and wet, strayed to what was next to a telephone pole in front of the grocery.
It was a pay phone.
He felt a flicker of hope.
The pay phone was one of those old open ones with just a bikini cover to keep out the rain. As he got closer, he could see the metal cord hung limp without a receiver. A metal binder that at one time would have held a phone book was now bent and battered like it had been beaten with a brick. The black box that was the phone terminal was destroyed. Someone had tried to pry open the metal panel that gave access to the coin depository.
James gnashed his teeth and looked over at the grocery. Reluctant, but warming to the idea considering his limited options, he wondered if the store clerk would let him borrow the store’s phone? Or maybe one of its customers had a cell phone he could use? He looked for a likely prospect.
There were several people with bundles in their arms. Each was walking quickly away. A few were scampering to get inside, past the people coming out. They weren’t using the door to get in. They were going through what James realized was an opening where there once had been glass storefront.
James, feeling obtuse that he hadn’t noticed it till now, realized what was going on. These people were stealing.
A woman holding a little girl’s hand was scurrying away with a jumbo bag of diapers. Another man was trying to cradle what looked to be cans of food. He was bumped and the cans spilled from his arms and clattered on the sidewalk. A fight ensued. People grabbed the cans and ran.
James looked on in partial disbelief.
A man with nothing in his arms was staring at him; his eyes flicked to James’s satchel. Just great… as if he hadn’t been robbed enough.
James skirted the small mob scene and found a stretch of open sidewalk. He picked up his pace, and glanced back to see if anyone was following. People were running in all directions, carrying stuff they’d taken. The man that had been looking at him was nowhere to be seen.
James slowed his walk and went past dilapidated buildings, a weed covered parking lot, and a closed pawn shop. He heard the plaintive sound of sirens in the distance.
Finally, the sound of sane civilization. Police were coming to the scene to restore order. But the sirens faded until he couldn’t hear them anymore.
James wondered what was going on. First the shooting at the gas station and now looting in broad daylight? Crazy. What was the probability? A part of him wondered if these occurrences were common around here.
He passed an alleyway, and noticed halfway down it there was a girl and two men. The girl was clutching something in her arms. Her eyes, the size of saucers, looked at James. The men’s craven faces turned and looked at him.
James looked away. Whatever they were doing was none of his business; he had enough problems of his own. Keep walking.
“Please.”
It was the girl. She was either talking to the men or sending out a plea to James for help. James paused. Just keep walking. Don’t get involved, you don’t have time for this.
Please.
The woman’s voice tugged, grabbed and wouldn’t let go.
Please.
He looked back. Dammit. He stopped.
Don’t, he told himself. But his legs were already taking him back to the alley.
6
PAULSON had about wrapped it up, but there was something nagging him. He went over it again: The intruder had entered through a service entry at the rear of Building C. It was a low-tech entry. The keycard lock rendered a partial, which meant it had been offline all night. That sometimes occurred when some idiot propped the door open for deliveries, which in this situation didn’t seem to be the case—no blockage was discovered at the door.
From there the intruder appeared to have used one of the emergency stairwells to get to the fourth level. Again, no keycard was used. Cameras had picked up the intruder entering—it was only a partial back shot, but it was clear enough to determine the intruder appeared to be male and had dark hair. From the blue stripe on the wall of the stairwell Paulson was able to determine the person was just under six foot in height. The man was wearing a white collared business shirt.
Security had given their spiel, which was backed up by the camera footage. Coincidentally, all camera shots that would put this to bed and render a positive ID were either partially disabled or the images captured were of such poor resolution that they were worthless. Sixteen minutes after the stairwell entry, the intruder went past the Security station on the lower level. The station, of course, had not been manned. The intruder had then presumably used the front door to make his exit.
The fucking front door!
All in all, from what he could ascertain, there were seven perimeter protocol lapses by Security. Seven! Those worthless flesh bags were worse than the Keystone Cops.
Paulson had determined that no restricted areas were breached. Or at least no entries registered on the sensors. The intruder appeared to have taken nothing. A computer was turned on in a low security area, but no log-in was done, and no data appeared to have been taken.
All of which, seemed sketchy. Why would someone go to the fourth level? There was nothing there, but cubicles and staff offices.
Security had inventoried all the cars parked in the deck. There were only a few, and all the owners were accounted for. Paulson had pulled up his eye in the sky. His SUV Cadillac was outfitted with a LoJack. In his wallet was a card the dealership had given him. On it was his VIN, as well as his pass code.
It was pretty slick. He just went to the LoJack website; plugged in the numbers and in moments, wa-la, an aerial shot pulled up his car. It was Big Brother. Forget the stuff you saw in the movies, the technology available today totally kicked ass. Just with a couple clicks he could track exactly where he had been, the speed his vehicle had gone, and any other detail, including street names of where he’d parked.
The site didn’t pull up old aerial footage like Google or Flash Earth. No. The LoJack site pulled up live footage. Live. Every time he used the site, he got a hard on. The frames were refreshed every couple of seconds. He could count the cars next to his. There was a red and blue one parked to the left of his.
The technology was so damn effective; it seemed it had to be illegal. He’d showed it to Portino when he first bought his ride. The man hadn’t been impressed—which of course was annoying, until he’d found out that most Mercedes came with LoJack; it was standard on the premium models. Portino had checked out the site before. In fact, it was his idea when they were doing some of their work to tag LoJacks on all of Kolinsky’s team.
While that had taken some doing—having to get the VINs, register them under aliases, go through all the circuitous bullshit, including getting the RFIDs inserted—once it was done, it was an easy way to keep tabs on them. Particularly since all of his work had to occur after hours. What a pain in the ass that had been. Especially that stiff Kolinsky. The man was a workaholic Monday through Friday—some nights he didn’t leave till around nine or ten. For about three weeks Paulson felt like he was working the night shift.
Paulson chewed on his toothpick. This was getting ridiculous. He had uncovered nothing. Two hours wasted, and all he had to show was some lousy pixilated camera footage of some fuzzy person running. Damn that Kolinsky, if his team had fixed that interface problem with the digital stream like they were supposed to, he’d have ID’d the intruder by now.
Instead…
Paulson paused. Something clicked in his head. If not for the cameras…
A sinking feeling came over him. Paulson went back to the LoJack site. He pulled up the VINs and pass codes for Kolinsky’s team. One by one, he inputted the numbers.
Several minutes later, he walked into Portino’s office.
“Rex, we have a problem.”
7
IT was a boneheaded idea, but better than nothing. James held his Blackberry out in front of him. He’d plugged the earplug to the side of it, and the cord was trailing from his satchel. He pointed the Blackberry at the two men who were holding the girl.
“Step away from her.”
One man was holding her neck in a choke hold. The other was in front, in the process of lifting up her dress. The men turned. The simple action of them turning sent a frisson of electricity through James.
“You don’t want to do this,” James said. “Leave her alone.”
One of the men held a knife. It was a stub thing, just a few inches long. It almost looked like a paring knife that one would use to skin an apple or potato. “This ain’t none of your business.”
The other looked menacingly at James. “How ‘bout you cut him, see if ‘at make him wanna stick ‘round?”
James pushed the side button of his Blackberry several times.
“I’ve called the police. You should leave now,” James said. “Before you do something you regret.”
“What you talkin’ about?” the man with the knife said. “Give ‘at thing to me.”
“I’m recording you,” James said. “I’m sending these images real time in streaming format to the nearest police precinct. You don’t want to take this any further. It’ll just go bad for you.”
Both the men frowned. The man behind the woman let go of her neck. They stared at James’s Blackberry.
“Tha’s just a phone.”
“He’s got somethin’ in the bag,” the man with the knife said, his eyes narrowing. “See ‘at cord?”
James took a step back. “It’s not too late. You can stop now and just go. You don’t want to make this worse for you.”
“Get ‘at bag, James.”
For a second, James thought the guy was speaking to him—how in the world did he know his name? He then realized the man with the knife must also be named James. The man took a step forward and the other man screamed.
It was so discordant that James blinked. When his eyes opened, he saw the girl moving in a blur. She had something in her hand. Now it was the man with the knife’s turn to scream. He dropped the knife. The man clawed at his eyes.
It all happened so fast. Both men were screaming. The girl was spraying something. A sharp stench assaulted James’s nostrils.
The girl grabbed something from the ground and ran towards him. “Go!” she said.
It took a split-second to register. James watched her run by him. Then he was following, his cord trailing from his satchel, flopping like a whip, as they both raced down the sidewalk.
8
THEY ran for several blocks. The men they’d left with pepper spray in their eyes were probably still back in the alley, groping at their eyes or looking for water to douse the pain. James was sitting on what once had been a porch. Ivy had taken over and covered most of the boards and what remained of the windows.
The girl hadn’t said a word, not since the alley when she’d said “Go”.
“You okay?” James said.
The girl’s lips tightened. She looked young. James would have guessed she was eighteen or nineteen, but she could have been younger. Her cocoa skin was smooth and had a shiny sheen that looked wet. Her hair was unkempt and looked like it hadn�
�t been washed for days. The dress she was wearing was thin, almost threadbare. She’d pulled together where it had torn as best she could. Her arms were crossed and her body was bunched like a little girl’s.
The bag she’d been carrying was next to her. It was a shiny black tote that was full of various odd items. He made out a stick of deodorant, a phone, some bundled clothes and what looked to be a teddy bear buried in the middle.
The teddy bear surprised him. He suddenly felt very sad.
“How old are you?”
She looked at him sharply, those vacant eyes suddenly burnishing with life. “Old enough.” Her voice was like a lash.
“I’m sorry,” James said, “I didn’t mean…” He didn’t know what to say.
“My name is James. I don’t live around here. My car ran out of gas.” He felt like he needed to say more. “I’m married and have two daughters. I’m an engineer. I work at ComTek.”
“Good for you.” She took her eyes from him, as if suddenly judging him harmless.
His own words had sounded odd; irrelevant. The girl was looking at the street. He suddenly thought of his own daughters and wished he was home right now hugging both of them.
“Do you live around here?”
“Mmm,” she said.
“Was that a yes?”
She turned sharply. “I don’t owe you nothin’.”
“Of course not. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
The girl chewed on her lip.
“What was that you were holdin’?”
“My phone?”
“Yeah, you were fooling with that—right?”
James nodded. “It’s a good thing you had that spray.”