The students, dressed in professional attire, were seated at a long table in the middle of the room. Along three of the walls were workstations, complete with software intended to simulate real customer transactions.
Martin loosened his tie—the converted conference room was always too warm—and wrote “credits” and “debits” on the whiteboard behind him.
Ethan leisurely cruised down Eighth Street until it connected with Norlake Avenue and took him to National’s main downtown building. He didn’t give a thought to his tardiness—he didn’t care. Nor did he care when he dinged the door of the new Ford he parked beside.
Martin stopped mid-sentence when Ethan came in. He watched the new student casually slip off his coat, fling it over a chair, and sit down.
“Please, proceed,” Ethan said, once he was settled.
Martin was surprised that those were the first words out of Ethan’s mouth. He had expected an apology. No new teller—even the worst—had ever shown up late without an apology.
He slid a packet on credits and debits down the table to Ethan. “Get the notes you missed from another student, and don’t be late again.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
NOW
MARTIN COULDN’T REMEMBER ever being somewhere that was as dark as where he was right now. His eyes strained to focus, but there was nothing to focus on. Even his hand held to his nose was as indiscernible as the rest of the cave. The only sounds: his heartbeat quickening, his own nervous breath, the pebbles crunching underneath the subtle shifting of his feet.
Then, in his head, he heard a voice so loud that he couldn’t ignore it.
“That’s for what you’ve done to him!”
And a flash of memory he couldn’t forget: The old man, now plump and mostly bald, fell to his knees while the back of a fist cut across his jaw.
“Learn to take responsibility!”
Another strike hit the opposite side of the man’s face.
Suddenly, Martin no longer felt like he was alone. The old man was there, too—slowly approaching.
He spun around in the darkness, shouted again for Cynthia and Ethan.
THEN
ETHAN RENTED A Geo Metro through Friday, not that having his own car got him to the class any sooner. Nor did his snide comments make him popular with the other trainees. But Martin still had hope for the student; despite Ethan’s attitude, Martin could tell by his efficiency with the computer-generated simulations that he had the potential to be good at the job.
“Still, you have to cut out the sarcasm,” Martin told him after class on Wednesday. “You won’t last long here at National, otherwise.”
“Boo-hoo.”
“I’m trying to help you out. You’re smart, but your mouth is going to get you in trouble, you hear me? Especially if you let those kinds of comments slip out around Mr. McDonald. He’ll fire you like that,” Martin said, snapping his fingers.
“He’s a little stiff, isn’t he? Bet he hasn’t gotten his rocks off in years.”
Martin threw his hands up in frustration, grabbed his briefcase from the corner of the room. “If you don’t want to listen to me, that’s fine. I’m just trying to warn you.”
But before he could leave, Ethan said, “Hey, was this what you really wanted to do with your life?”
“Excuse me?”
“Because it ain’t what I wanted to do with mine.”
Martin hesitated, feeling much the same way, and said a little more sympathetically: “What did you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Something more exciting.”
Everybody wanted to do something more exciting, Martin thought. But real life didn’t permit everybody that luxury. Someone had to run the teller windows. Dreaming was okay for people like Cynthia, who knew what they wanted, but at the end of a long day (and every day was long), Martin had no patience for lost dreamers. “Well, you better figure it out fast. Because if you don’t want to be here, stop wasting everyone’s time.”
NOW
WHEN YOU’RE DEAD, you’re dead. The old man was not coming out of either passageway Martin had seen before his headlamp had gone out. Martin knew this. But that didn’t stop his fear from compounding.
Moving carefully, hands held out in front of him, he found his way to the edge of the narrow cavern. Then he turned around, pressed his back against the cold rocks.
Nobody was coming for him. . . . But if somebody was, at least they couldn’t sneak up on him from behind.
“Cynthia! Ethan! I’m down here! Please help me!”
THEN
ON THURSDAY, ETHAN showed up on time for class and kept his comments to himself. Maybe, just maybe, Martin’s advice had been valuable, he’d decided, if for no other reason than losing his job—especially for behavioral problems—might draw into question his mental stability.
Now, with the plan to kill his mother still just out of reach, was not the time to make others doubt said stability.
But that wasn’t the only reason he’d decided to change his behavior at work. Atlanta could be a lonely place without a friend. The endless crowds of strangers, meaningless interchangeable faces, enhanced Ethan’s sense of isolation, and the concern Martin had shown for Ethan the day before had left him to wonder, Is he somebody worth knowing?
To find out, he asked Martin if he’d like to get a beer after work.
Ethan had spent the previous weekend in search of a fake ID. He thought if he could get his hands on a six-pack, or maybe a bottle of Smirnoff, he could quiet his mind.
He knew from previous conversations with his pop that Emory University was somewhere nearby. “It’s a good business school,” his father had said. “And close enough to visit.”
That was before the breakdown. Since he’d been committed to Ridgeview, nobody mentioned college.
Still, Emory’s campus would be crawling with underage students looking for a way to buy beer. All he had to do was find one that would take him into their confidence. That, he figured, would certainly be manageable.
Getting to it, though, without a car would be nearly impossible. So, he took the subway to Georgia State University—an urban sprawl of old brick buildings located right in the heart of downtown. He introduced himself to a small group of students gathered near the doors of the general classroom building.
They weren’t the first group he had spoken with, but they did prove the most helpful—which was good since the sun was setting, and the number of students hanging around was dwindling.
After several minutes of chitchat about classes he pretended to be taking and professors he didn’t know, he asked, “Hey, anyone having a party this weekend?” The question felt awkward, forced. He hoped he sounded like just another student looking for something to do.
Brad shrugged. “Sure.” He looked every inch a fraternity man—with parted blond hair that was so thick with hairspray it didn’t blow in the wind, khaki pants, and a Gap shirt with the company name printed across the front in big letters. Ethan only knew he wasn’t because he had already explained his distaste for fraternities, citing their objectification of women as his primary reason for not joining one.
“You mean Dale’s party?” asked the only girl in the group. Her name was Poppy. She had long, red hair and an oval face. The oversized T-shirt she was wearing obscured her physique.
“That’s the one.”
“Come with us,” Poppy said. “It’ll be fun.” Then she smiled in a way that suggested she wanted more than just his company.
Ethan awoke in Poppy’s apartment just after the sun had started to rise. The redhead was lying next to him, naked and snoring loudly. He kissed her on the forehead, quietly dressed, and left without waking her up.
His head throbbed from all the drinking the night before. But aside from that, he had nothing to complain about.
He’d gotten drunk. He’d gotten laid. And he knew where he could get a fake ID.
“There’s a shop in Little Five Points called Starlight,�
�� said Dale at the party. He was holding a plastic cup filled with beer, swaying slightly. “It’s a new-age crystal joint that I don’t much care for. But ask for a guy named Dallas—he should be able to help you out.”
Dallas was tattooed and pierced everywhere he could be. He led Ethan to the back of the store and patted him down.
“Never can be too careful,” he said, while he did it. “Just because you say Dale sent you doesn’t make it so.”
Ethan found the whole experience humiliating but tolerated it because Dale had already told him what to expect from Dallas.
After he was satisfied that Ethan was clean, Dallas asked for his social security number and last name and told him to wait out front.
“Won’t be but a minute,” he said, and then closed and locked the door behind him.
When Dallas returned, he said, “You spent some time at Ridgeview.”
“How did you—”
“No questions.” Then he took Ethan to an apartment two blocks away.
When they arrived, Dallas unlocked three deadbolts, turned off an alarm, and flipped on a light switch.
A small collection of high-powered computers had been squeezed into the living room. Surrounding them was a scanner, a printer, a fax machine, and other equipment Ethan couldn’t recognize.
From one computer, a wire snaked across the floor to a small bedroom and wound its way up the leg of a camera stand to an expensive digital camera. The camera faced a spotless white wall, which Ethan knew could be highlighted and colored on the computer to match whatever background would be appropriate for the picture of the day.
“You do more than just fake IDs, huh?” Ethan asked after they entered. He could have drawn that conclusion from the security measures alone, but the sophisticated hardware reaffirmed his suspicions.
“You lookin’ for anything else?”
“Not right now.”
“When you do, come ask. I’ll be around.” Then Dallas told him to stand in front of the camera and asked him what state he wanted to be from.
“Alabama.”
The camera snapped. Thirty minutes later, Ethan was holding his new license next to his old one, scrutinizing it for inconsistencies. “It’s perfect.”
“That’s what makes it worth the money.”
Ethan agreed.
NOW
A LIGHT FLICKERED in the tunnel to Martin’s right. His head jerked around, and he stared in terror at the shadowy figure behind it.
The stranger bobbed, moving quickly but awkwardly down a slope Martin didn’t know was there. He knew who it was—the old man, the one he couldn’t stop thinking about. He’d come back from the grave to seek his revenge.
Martin tried to calm down, told himself that was impossible. But who else could it be? He stared hard at the curve of the shoulders, the shape of the head. Then, a voice: “Martin? Is that you?” Cynthia’s voice, and relief immediately followed.
THEN
MARTIN DECLINED ETHAN’S offer to get a beer after class. But two months later, after a friendship began to form, Martin returned the question. He didn’t know Ethan was only nineteen. He assumed if Ethan wasn’t old enough to drink he wouldn’t have asked Martin to a bar.
The bar they selected was called the Tap House and was nothing like the dive they would come to visit regularly. This one catered primarily to the downtown suits. Now, like most any time of day, businessmen and women were huddled around small tables swapping office war stories.
Martin and Ethan caught fragments of conversations as they moved toward a table in the corner. “Did you hear? Bob got fired today,” and “Damn printer’s fizzled out on me again,” were the type of comments buzzing around the room.
After they were seated, Ethan ordered a pitcher of beer from their waitress, and Martin asked him why he had come to National.
“Pop owns a small bank in Alabama, and he thought this’d be a good way for me to start learning the trade,” Ethan said.
“Why didn’t he just have you start working at his bank?”
Because of a bitch named Norma, Ethan thought, and his eyelid twitched. But he knew better than to say that. Telling Martin about Norma would lead to Ridgeview, and he didn’t want to talk about Ridgeview. “Have you ever spent some time in a small town? Everybody knows everybody else’s business. I wanted to get away from that for a while.”
“You planning on going back?”
“You could bet the house on that. But not for a few years.”
The waitress arrived with the pitcher and two mugs, which Ethan then filled.
Martin took a sip. “By the way, thanks for shaping up.”
“Pop wouldn’t be happy if I got fired.”
“He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”
Ethan nodded. “But he’s weak. Weak like a child, you know? Lets Norma walk over him.”
“Who’s Norma?”
Ethan didn’t realize he’d said her name until Martin had repeated it back to him. Damn. Well, he had no choice now but to go with it. “She’s my ma.”
“You call her Norma?”
“That’s what she told me to call her. Ever since I was a tot. Wouldn’t hear of it being any other way.” Already having finished half his beer, Ethan refilled his mug. “How about you? What’s your pop like?”
“I never got to know him.”
“Why not?”
“He took off when I was a baby, just after my mom got pregnant with my sister. He said he wasn’t ready for children, and then he was gone.”
“He didn’t treat your ma real well, huh?”
“I don’t know how he was when he was around. But he left, so I guess you could say that.”
“Didn’t treat you right, either, because of that, wouldn’t you say? Or your sister. I bet you’re pissed off about that.”
Martin frowned. “I haven’t given it much thought.”
“I bet he was some stupid, Neanderthal-looking jackass, too, wasn’t he? The kind of guy who couldn’t think his way out of an unlocked room.”
Martin couldn’t say how smart his dad was since he never really knew him. But, as far as his looks went, he was about average. At least he was in the one photo Martin had of him. Then something stirred—deep underneath layers of denial that he didn’t know was there. Anger. Martin recognized it immediately.
“Do you know his name?”
“Frank. Why?”
“Have you ever thought about getting revenge?” Ethan said.
“What’s the point?”
“The point is that he treated you like shit. You and your sister and your ma. He stepped all over you. You can’t let people get away with that.” Ethan shifted in his seat. “I’ll tell you this: Nobody steps on me. Not anymore. You let ’em step on you one time, and they’ll step on you for the rest of your life. I should know, Ma stepped on me for years.”
“What’d you do?”
“I took care of it. I told her I wasn’t going to take her crap, and I didn’t.”
“Did she listen to you?”
“Damn straight she listened to me,” Ethan said, smacking the table with the palm of one hand.
Martin shook his head. “I don’t know if I could do that.”
“It just takes balls, Martin. It comes from right here,” he said, grabbing his crotch. “You got ’em, you just gotta learn to start using them.”
“Well, whatever it takes, I’m not sure your point applies for me. He took off, he didn’t really step on me. Besides, I couldn’t do anything about it now, even if I wanted to. He’s gone, been gone for years. And things aren’t so bad right now. I’m engaged to a nice girl. I’ve got a stable job.”
“Not so bad? That’s good enough for you? Maybe if he’d stuck around, things could have been great. Face it, you’ve been stepped on.”
“I don’t think—”
“Wake up! That sort of crap affects you here,” Ethan said, pointing to the side of his head. “It gets up there and rattles around and takes its toll
day after day for years. It’s probably even worse than what Ma did to me, because it’s happening and you don’t even know it’s happening.” Ethan gulped down more of his beer. He could tell from Martin’s expression that it was time to change the subject, let the matter go—at least for now. “Who’s the girl you’re getting hitched to?”
“Someone I knew from high school. Her name’s Diane.”
“Did you get her knocked up or something?”
Martin looked away. “I love her.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I?” Then he looked back at Ethan. “And it’s the good kind of love, the kind that’s grounded in friendship.” Martin spoke as if he’d said those exact words many, many times. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“All right, chill,” Ethan said. “Just seeing if you really love her.”
“I said I do. When you meet her, you’ll see why. She’s a wonderful girl.”
Absolutely wonderful, Martin repeated to himself. Despite their rocky beginning, despite the fact that he secretly pined for Cynthia and longed for the life she now had, he assured himself that he loved Diane.
It was a better kind of love than was his love for Cynthia anyway, he’d tell himself. Diane was dependable, predictable, safe. She was the kind of wife who would be around for the rest of his life, and because there had been no nervous excitement when he was around her—never had been—proposing had been easy.
“Meet her, huh?” Ethan said, pouring a third beer. “Does this mean you want to go out again sometime?”
Martin barely had to think about it before he said, “Why not?” Ethan really seemed to listen to him. He didn’t offer a pity nod like so many others when Martin spoke about his father. He didn’t merely say “That’s great” when he mentioned the wedding.
And not only did Ethan listen, but he made Martin think. He raised questions that had never been asked. How much damage had his father done by walking out? Would he ever know? Why did he do it? And why did Martin love Diane if life with her was so—how had he put it?—predictable?
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 51