“Can I speak with you privately, Mr. Rogers?”
I clambered out of the vat and stripped off the bright yellow waterproof pants. The man was alone and he didn’t have an overcoat, which pegged him as an out-of-towner. February in Minnesota is cold.
“My name is Smith,” he said, offering a weak handshake. He had short brown hair, neatly parted on one side, and the pasty features of someone who spends his time in front of a computer screen in a dark room. I have to say, not what I expected from a bill collector.
In my office, I cleared a stack of books off a chair for him to sit down. After refusing coffee, he perched himself on the edge of his seat with a neutral smile. I settled down behind the desk.
“What company are you from?” I said.
“Pardon?”
“The bank? The leasing company? Who do you work for?”
“I’m here to offer you a job, Mr. Rogers.”
I chuckled and waved my hand around. “And leave all this? I don’t think so, my friend.”
I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice, but even I could hear how it edged my words. My office was a windowless closet in a crappy storefront in an even crappier strip mall in the middle of mind-numbingly cold Nowhere, Minnesota. I’d sunk everything I had into this place, and I was watching it go down the tubes.
Mr. Smith didn’t even blink at my sarcastic tone. “You don’t understand. The job would require you to retain and operate this establishment.” A long pause ensued while he searched my face for a reaction. “It pays very well.”
I hitched my chair forward. “How well?”
He named a number. A big number.
“I’m listening,” I said.
“We are looking for an independent contractor who can persuade people to join our project.”
I gave him a blank look.
“The agency I work for searches out people with singular abilities. We collect these people as part of a think tank—a secret think tank.”
“You collect them?” I asked, resting my elbows on the desk. “What does that mean, exactly?”
Smith’s expression remained fixed. “We offer them a job and a place to live. Here in Minnesota. As part of a community.”
“That sounds like a pretty good deal. Why do you need me?”
“Our project requires full participation,” he said. “Anyone who cannot be enticed using conventional methods needs to be persuaded. I understand you have experience with recruiting unwilling volunteers.”
I sighed. I’d done everything possible to start a new life, but still my past managed to catch up with me. I looked around my crappy office. If I was being honest, the new life wasn’t working out so well.
“How did you find me?”
“Mr. Rogers, I just told you my agency finds people with special abilities. People like you.”
“Is it legal?” I asked.
“You will be very well compensated.”
“And what sort of leeway do I have to bring these people to lovely Minnesota?”
“Any means necessary.”
I stared at Smith for a long time. Nothing is free and the path Smith was offering was a dark one. There would be a price to pay. The walls of my tiny office seemed to close in around me.
I heard myself asking Smith if I could get the first year’s salary in a lump sum.
Keeping the same bland smile, he reached into a satchel at his feet and pulled out an iPhone and iPad. At least that’s what they looked like, but when he booted them up, it was clear these were not Apple products. He went on to tell me they were genetically keyed to me; unless I was physically touching them, they would not work.
“Keep this phone with you at all times,” he said. “This afternoon, a wire transfer will be made to your bank account. Tomorrow, your brewery will receive a very large recurring order for your product at an excellent price.”
He stood and offered me another limp handshake. “We’ll be in touch.”
• • •
The money arrived in my account just like Smith promised. The next day we received a large standing order from a distributor in Chicago, paid in full.
The weeks turned into months and thoughts of my bargain with Smith faded. I kept the phone with me, but I left the iPad-ish device locked in my office safe. The phone itself was cool: it never needed to be charged, was completely waterproof, and never ever lost a signal.
It was spring when I got my first call. I had just gotten into bed when the phone on my nightstand started to ring, which was odd, because I had it set on vibrate. The caller ID said SMITH.
“Hello,” I answered.
Smith’s bland voice came through the receiver. “Mr. Rogers, I have your first assignment. Please turn on the tablet I gave you.”
“Umm, I’m sorry, I don’t have the tablet with me—”
“Stand by,” he cut in. “There is a package on your doorstep. Go get it.”
I stumbled down the stairs in the dark with the phone still pressed to my ear. A FedEx package sat on my front step. No return address. I peered into the dark, then snatched up the package and slammed the door shut.
Inside the package was a new tablet. It turned on when I touched it.
“I have it,” I said into the phone.
“Good,” Smith said. “File is transmitting now. I’ll call back in an hour to hear your plan.”
The phone went dead and a single icon, a silhouette of a woman’s head, began blinking in the center of the screen. I touched the icon.
Her name was Ellen Mayberry, ninth-grade algebra teacher from small-town Iowa, fifty-one years old, retired early on full disability from a recurring leg infection. Ellen was single, no children, both parents deceased. Her financial summary showed a life on the knife-edge of poverty, her pension payments and savings barely made ends meet.
As I began to form a plan of how to convince Ellen to move to Minnesota, I felt a little rise of satisfaction in my chest.
The phone rang. I checked the switch on the side of the phone; it was still set to vibrate. The phone rang again.
“Hello, Mr. Smith.”
“You’ve studied the material. What is your plan, Mr. Rogers?”
“I say we do an Ed McMahon on her,” I replied. “Send a stretch limo, big check, balloons, cameras, the works. Tell her she’s won the big prize. She needs to come to Minnesota for a ceremony immediately.”
There was a long pause on the other end.
“Good,” Smith said. “Be ready to go at nine a.m. There’s a new suit in the closet of your spare bedroom. Wear it.”
• • •
At nine o’clock sharp, a stretch limo pulled into my driveway. The new suit—dark blue with faint gray and red pinstripes—fit perfectly and paired well with the accompanying crisp white shirt and handsome burgundy tie. The driver held the door open for me and introduced himself as Manny. The back of the limo was stocked with the necessities: balloons, a big check, full-color photos of the new house, flowers. There was a note from Smith telling me the rest of the team would meet me at the address.
I’ve always liked Iowa in the spring, with its smell of freshly plowed fields under a warming sun and a sense of rebirth in the air. The feeling that you’ve made it through another harsh winter and the best is yet to come.
I looked at the big check and I made myself believe the lie.
Ellen Mayberry’s house was a small bungalow with a cracked cement sidewalk leading up to an Arts and Crafts–style porch. A van was parked across the street from the house, and a man and a woman emerged when we pulled up. The man, wearing jeans and a faded sweatshirt, carried a camera. The woman was a leggy blonde in a business suit with a stunning smile. The three of us mounted the sagging steps of the porch, carrying the prize accessories. Up close, it was clear the house needed a serious paint job. I rapped on the door.
The white curtain on the window stirred and there was a slight whooshing sound as the front door opened. Ellen Mayberry wore a washed-out blue hou
secoat and matching fuzzy slippers. One of her legs was clad in a compression bandage that ran down over her ankle. Her round face was alight with joy and surprise.
“Ellen Mayberry?” I said, using my best announcer voice. She nodded and pressed her hands to her cheeks.
“You’ve won our grand prize!”
The blonde moved forward and handed Ellen the flowers, along with a kiss on both cheeks. The cameraman danced back and forth behind us getting the whole thing on tape.
Ellen waved us in, overcome with emotion. We followed her into a tiny sitting room that held a sofa, an easy chair, a very small TV, and a very large cat. She sat down in the easy chair with the flowers in her lap. The cat jumped up beside her, watching the three of us lined up on the couch. I explained the contest and how we needed to be back in Minneapolis for the awards ceremony that very night.
The thought of traveling clearly flustered the woman, but the blonde moved in with an easy grace. “Oh, I can help you get ready, Mrs. Mayberry. It’s only an overnight. . .” She pulled the older woman out of the chair and urged her toward the steps.
They returned a few minutes later, Ellen in a pantsuit circa 1980 and my accomplice lugging a calico-patterned overnight bag. As the cameraman and I headed toward the door, Ellen stopped. “Oh, goodness! What about Pickwick?”
The blonde and I looked at each other for a moment until I realized she meant the cat. “No problem, Mrs. M,” I said. “Why don’t we bring him with us?” I scooped up Pickwick, keeping the smile plastered on my face even as the cat dug his claws through my new suit and into the flesh of my forearm.
I kept up my charm offensive for the entire ride back to Minneapolis. The bar was stocked with soft drinks, champagne, and sandwiches, which I broke out as soon as we hit the highway. By the time we crossed the Iowa–Minnesota border, the two of us had downed two glasses of champagne each and I was running out of things to talk about.
“How was it teaching freshman algebra, Ellen?” I asked. “Pretty tough?”
She laughed and began to answer, then her face clouded over. “I never told you I taught ninth-grade algebra.”
“Sure you did!” I bluffed, trying not to look guilty.
She shook her head slowly as if trying to remember. “Maybe I did,” she said finally.
I topped off her glass of champagne and set the bottle back into the bucket of ice. I was done drinking for the day.
By the time we reached the outskirts of Minneapolis, it was dusk. The sky was clear and the first stars were just beginning to show in the darkening sky. Ellen asked to open the skylight, and warm spring air filled the limo. She tilted her face upwards.
“Astronomy is my hobby,” she said. “I spend most of my time looking at star clusters on the computer. I’m very good at it.”
I nodded in the dimness.
“A man came to see me once and told me I saw patterns that no one else could see.” She giggled. “He told me I was a genius.”
Manny left the highway and we passed directly under a street lamp as the car rolled down the ramp. Her upturned smiling face glowed for a moment. The limo made a sharp right turn toward a warehouse with a faded sign. As the vehicle approached, a rolling door began to rise. Manny pulled into the brightly lit garage and shut off the engine.
The overhead door rattled closed behind us. In the ensuing silence, every noise we made sounded extra loud—the slam of Manny closing the car door, our heels on the cement floor, even our breathing. The space smelled like fresh paint, and little gray domes, which I took to be cameras, occupied all four corners of the ceiling. Apart from the garage door we had come through, the only exit was a steel passenger door directly in front of the limo. The door opened and a woman stepped out.
She was a tall redhead, maybe mid-thirties. No makeup, no perfume—a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of gal if I ever saw one. Over her business suit, she wore a white lab coat with an ID badge tucked into the breast pocket. The tablet she had cradled in her arm looked like a duplicate of the one I had in the limo.
She stretched out her hand as she approached Ellen. “Mrs. Mayberry, what a pleasure to meet you at last.” Her voice was warm and pleasant, soothing in a professional way. “I’m Renee.”
I could see she had hazel eyes when she turned to me. “And you must be Matt.” As her gaze locked with mine, I felt a spark. Then she turned back to our target.
“Now, Ellen—may I call you Ellen?” She placed one hand on the older woman’s plump back and urged her toward the door. “We need to get you started. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
Ellen planted her feet. “Renee, why are you dressed like a doctor?” She fingered the lapel of Renee’s lab coat.
Renee opened her mouth and froze, fixing the older woman with a blank stare. Behind me, I heard Manny moving.
“Ellen,” I said, taking her arm. “It’s for the makeup. That stuff can ruin a nice suit like hers in a heartbeat. Renee will get you situated and I’ll see you in a little while.”
The light of understanding dawned on Ellen’s face and she moved forward. Renee’s warmth flooded back, and she laughed as she keyed in the security code on the door. There was a clacking sound as the lock disengaged.
“Oh, Matthew!” Ellen turned around, flustered again, and headed back toward the car. Manny moved closer. “Pickwick! What about Pickwick?”
“No problem, Mrs. M. I’ll watch him for you. We’re old friends now.” I looked down at the pulls in the fabric of my brand-new suit and smiled harder. “No problem.”
Ellen clasped her hands together and gave them a little shake in my direction. Then she turned on her heel and walked through the door. Renee locked eyes with me and mouthed Thank you. The door closed with a loud clunk that echoed in the space.
And that’s how I started my new collection. With a cat.
• • •
It’s amazing how well I was able to integrate my collection job with the rest of my life. There was no schedule. Sometimes I would go months without a call from Smith, and then I would have two calls in as many weeks.
We used the same process with each target. Smith would alert me by phone, then I would download a file. He would give me a set amount of time to review the material, then he’d call me back and I would tell him how to prosecute the target. The job was done when we delivered the mark to Renee.
I never saw what was behind the door and I never asked, but I did enjoy seeing Renee each time.
My team varied, but usually it was Manny, who seemed to be able to drive or fly anything; Jerry, the cameraman; and the blonde, whose name was Diana. Despite her brilliant smile and acting talent, her sense of humor was limited.
The collection plans changed all the time. The sweepstakes thing was only effective on a narrow demographic. If we needed any rough stuff, Manny and Jerry usually handled it. But as we started to rack up the successful takes, I got more comfortable with using violence—whatever it took to get the job done.
I probably should have seen that as a warning sign, that I was depersonalizing people again. There were other signs, too.
With each job, I kept one personal item from each target: a hair clip from the housewife in Glens Falls, a silver “Don’t Mess with Texas” belt buckle from the unemployed mechanic in Laredo.
I kept them all in the bottom drawer of my desk at home. I didn’t look at them. Much.
• • •
That’s how it went for nearly three more years. Pickwick and I were living the bachelor life and my brewery business was booming.
Then came Emma Worthy.
Smith called me a few days before Thanksgiving and her file was waiting for me on the tablet when I got home.
Emma Worthy was a walking cliché of white trash characteristics: thirty-one years old, lived in a trailer park, heavy smoker, dabbled in drugs with a string of abusive boyfriends. Her son was twelve years old and his name was Cash. I snickered to myself at the name. Cash Worthy. He stared out at me from a school pic
ture that looked like a mug shot. A pair of filmy eyes mostly hidden behind a cascade of dirty blond hair made me suspicious. It took me a minute to find it in the file: the boy was blind.
On every file Smith sent me, there was a special skills section. I’d started to pay attention to that box, to see if I could figure out why Smith wanted all these people. In Emma Worthy’s case, the space was blank.
The phone rang. Smith.
I had already figured out that the best way to pick up Emma Worthy was to stake out her trailer and run a sweepstakes scam, but I was curious about the blank line in the file. When I asked Smith, the line grew silent.
“I can’t disclose that information,” he said finally.
I shrugged. It didn’t matter.
• • •
By dinnertime the next day, I was cruising through a North Carolina trailer park with my team. Manny cursed softly as he navigated the rutted main drag of the park. These were old, broken-down trailers, the kind that had settled into the dirt so completely it was unclear where the trailer left off and the ground began. Trees crowded overhead, shading the area in moist dimness. There wasn’t a decent paint job in the place and thick moss grew on the roofs of most of the structures.
The Worthy home was all the way in the back of the park. We rolled up into their parking space, the stretch limo barely making the turn, and piled out. From the corner of my eye, I could see neighbors peeking out of their windows. A gaggle of dirty-faced kids gathered around the car.
I put on my best smile and mounted the steps to the trailer door. The steps swayed under my feet as I rapped on the aluminum frame.
No answer.
I knocked again, louder this time, and called out, “Mrs. Worthy, are you home?” The kids buzzed behind me and I flashed a thumbs-up sign to them.
No answer.
I turned the knob. The door was unlocked, so I stuck my head inside. I called out her name again.
Nothing.
This was not right. There was no way she couldn’t hear me in a trailer that small.
I stepped inside and the smell of burning meat assailed my nostrils. On the stove, a frying pan filled with ground beef was smoking. I turned off the burner and flipped on the overhead vent. It didn’t work.
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