by Trixie More
Sophia felt her ass turn to concrete. Her spine was a steel rod. Her face must have looked stunned. She tried to force her mouth to soften but failed. Manipulative? Was that how Jack saw her? Her brain gave her nothing for a moment and then it finally came up with something to say. Say you’ll think about it.
“Well, I’ll have to get all the details, go home, discuss it with my partner,” she stalled.
“Sophia, there’s no choice here,” Jack said.
She blinked at him. No choice? Her stomach tightened in on itself. Manhattan? Cybercrime? How in the world would she catch the people who beat George Connelly, forced him into hiding and burned Ben and Derrick’s home? Whoever was responsible might return any time asking for more money. Worse yet, If she didn’t put them behind bars, George Connelly would never come home. If he was even alive. Inside a teeny, supremely annoying voice added, and if you don’t catch them, what good are you?
“I’ve already hired your replacement, he starts next week.”
Her game face must have slipped a bit further because Jack started explaining. “We knew you wouldn’t be refusing this, it’s a career making opportunity. It would be inexcusable of me to let you stay here and turn it down.”
“Well,” she cleared her throat. “I’m, hmm, I’m...”
“I’m flattered. I’m...,” she tried on a smile.
Fucked.
New York Prison
Doug Lloyd was dreaming, and some part of him knew it. That didn’t change the fact that it felt good to have a surprise visitor. The only people who came to visit him were his attorney, William, and his best friend, Tommy. Six hundred and ninety-two days in this hell, and those two men were the only faces that were ever waiting for him in the visitors’ area.
Today, neither one was expected, and yet, the guards had come to get him. That alone told Doug he was dreaming. On his thin mattress, he turned onto his side. In his mind, the big open space of the visiting area beckoned. He was let in through a door on the back wall. The space was open, like always, high windows allowing plenty of light, chairs and benches bolted to the linoleum floor. Music was playing, and the guards weren’t watching anyone, so, of course, this wasn’t real. It just felt real. On the opposite wall was the doorway that the visitors came through after being searched. Usually, Tommy or William came through, stopped and looked around trying to find him. Doug moved into the room, standing on the right side, near the same grouping of plastic chairs where he always sat. The door with its wire reinforced glass started to open. The sight triggered a memory, himself in high school, caught trying to sneak out of school. He remembered the coach calling to him like it was yesterday. On his mattress, he tossed and turned to the other side.
“Mister Lloyd!”
Shit. It was May 2007, and the puke-green double doors with the blue Pennsylvania sky glowing beyond their wire-hashed safety glass were so close.
“The door to the locker room is behind you.”
Doug Lloyd pulled his shoulders back and turned just enough to see Abe Johnson, standing in the hall, legs spread, beefy arms crossed over his broad chest. Doug actually liked Johnson. He was the high school wrestling coach and, when Doug had the time, he enjoyed showing up to practice, working out in the weight room, and just being one of the team. Today, though, Doug did not have the time. It was two in the afternoon and if he stayed here and went to his sixth period gym class like Johnson wanted, he’d miss his chance to get some trades in before the closing bell. He tipped his head to the side, shrugged a bit while raising his hands, gave Abe a big grin and bolted for the doors.
“Doug!” The coach’s shout echoed, but Doug was already pushing through the doors and heading for his car. It was a dusty and dented navy blue Honda Civic, but it was his car and it started when he turned the key. Johnson wouldn’t come after him now. For his part, Doug wanted to sell his holdings, at least these five, and then, if the market dropped Monday like he thought it would, he’d repurchase them all and keep the difference, thank you very much.
The town’s commercial area sped by the driver’s side window. Sparkling green lawns and tidy landscaping signaled the changes the last five years had brought to his family. Turning into the neighborhood where they now lived, Doug experienced the familiar pride, followed hard by eager fury.
I did this, was his first thought, and he had. A thirteen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania had little hope of being hired to work anywhere, and yet, he’d needed to get money. Alice had been the one to find the article on day trading, she’d been the one to talk Mary into opening the bank account for Doug. For years, he’d traded as Mary Lloyd and it had annoyed him to no end that the earnings reports would arrive at the house in her name, the taxes filed were in her name. The minute he’d turned eighteen, he’d moved it all to his own account.
I shouldn’t have had to, was his second thought and with it, the bitter fury, the flailing anger directed at his father and his pathetic sham of a life.
Imagine, letting your family starve while you were off feeding the hungry, playing missionary. The hypocrisy of it raised a fury in Doug. Anger at his father for being so enamored of his own piousness and rage at the congregation that gave him heaping doses of adulation every time he returned from God knew where. Fucker.
Doug parked behind their double-wide, built on a quarter acre of land his mother had bought with the money Doug had earned, in a neighborhood with real stick built houses. Taking care to lock the car, Doug let himself in. The place gleamed, new laminate flooring shone, the furniture was inexpensive but new. Nothing was out of place. He took his jacket off and hung it behind the door to his bedroom. Their new-to-them trailer had four bedrooms, so he finally had a door of his own. More importantly, they now had two bathrooms, which made living with females much easier for him. Mary and his mom still shared the master bedroom, but for now, none of the women were home. He booted up his computer and worked quickly in the last hour of the day. When the closing bell rang, his focus turned to international stocks. The S&P had been climbing since the crash in March and since Doug was the family’s primary bread-winner, he needed to be here, day trading, more than he needed to graduate high school.
From his seat at his tiny desk, Doug could hear Tommy’s 1997 Mustang rumbling and then shutting down. A minute later, the front door opened.
“Yo,” Tommy called.
“In here,” Doug said.
The door to his room swung wider, his friend’s body throwing a shadow. The living room in the house was full of sunlight, and Doug’s computer screen reflected the glare.
“I can’t see,” he said.
Doug glanced over as Tommy toed the door shut. His friend came and stood behind him for a moment, but Doug wanted to get finished, so he stayed silent. After a minute, Tommy slung himself on the bed. He was wearing his red and cream varsity jacket open, white T-shirt and blue jeans that slunk into the tops of his tan unlaced work boots. Tommy already had his cell phone open and was texting intently, his head occasionally twisting in an unconscious move that got his hair out of his eyes. After a few minutes, Tommy was back on his feet. The guy was always fidgety.
“Isn’t the market closed?”
Doug didn’t look up. “In the US.”
“Come on, then.” Tommy punched Doug in the shoulder.
“Watch it,” Doug said. “You could make me click on something serious. I want to check my internationals.” Doug didn’t bother looking at Tommy. Taking careful notes in a fifty-cent spiral book, he quickly updated his positions. He knew he could do it in a spreadsheet, but the carefully penciled numbers in neat rows on the paper calmed him, made him feel confident, like the money was actually there.
He, of all people, knew that money in the market was ephemeral. He’d bought this home for his mother and sisters one pencil stroke at a time, one dollar at a time, one day trade, one market rush, one collapse at a time.
March had been the scariest for him. He hadn’t seen the dip coming, and it had sent him rese
arching and reading, tracking the Motley Fool website like it was an oracle. Losing everything, pulling Alice out of school, going backwards, had him beside himself. But what that crash did was make him start to hedge better, to learn to protect the positions he held. He went at learning with ferocity, like he did everything now. He closed the book and tucked it into the large shallow pencil drawer and shut down his computer. He was never going let his family go without again.
“Done,” said Doug.
The sound of a car out front caught his attention. This neighborhood was quiet. His mother and Mary were both at work, Alice was attending class at the local junior college, and Elizabeth wasn’t due home for thirty minutes. Doug pushed his chair back, crossed the shining dark wood-like floor, sun motes drifting in the May daylight, and opened the front door. On the walkway, stood Saul Lloyd, his dark hair lank and long, his skin brown and seamed, white jute tunic hanging on his lean frame. He looked like a modern day fuckin’ Jesus. Doug looked his father straight in the eye, shut the door and locked it.
“You locked him out?” Tommy was leaning against the wall. “Phat.”
Doug shouldered past Tommy, something that he never would have done in the past when Tommy had been the decided alpha between them. Lately, Doug’s nasty streak had him jockeying for power everywhere, with his teachers, with his father and now, with Tommy. The doorknob turned and rattled. Knocking began. As Doug turned, Tommy’s shove to his shoulder caught him off guard and he side-stepped. The pupils in his friend’s eyes were wide, the hazel irises shrinking rapidly despite the sun. They stood there for a minute, staring. For a hot second, Doug thought Tommy might kiss him. Doug stepped back and shrugged his shoulders.
“Sorry,” Doug said. “It’s him.” As if his father standing on the walkway that Doug had laid by hand explained it all.
Tommy shrugged and walked to the front hall. “He’s looking around. When he comes to the back sliders, are you gonna open the door?”
The thought of his father, hands pressed to his face, peering through the glass made Doug sick. No matter what he did, his mother would still come home and let her wandering husband in. Doug went to the kitchen and got himself a beer. He tossed one to Tommy and, with a resentful scowl, went to open the door to his prodigal father. Fuck him.
The memory was accurate, even in his dream, but that day had been over fifteen years ago, and here, in the present, Doug Lloyd lay restless in sleep on a prison bunk, a guest of the state of New York. He turned again, shifting back to his previous position, and the dream moved back into the prison visiting area. On the other side of the visiting area, the size of a high school gym, the door with its wire reinforced glass, opened fully and a woman came in. Her long, dark hair covered her face, but she didn’t look up. Instead, she walked with her head down, keeping to the wall, working her way around to Doug. At first, he kept his eyes on the door, after all, there was no woman who would visit him. He’d only had one lover in his life who’d lasted more than a week.
Janice.
Doug jerked as he twisted to see the faceless woman. Was it Janice? The part of him that knew he was dreaming wished that it might be the woman he thought of as Athena. They’d only seen each other once, yet he foolishly looked for her. He narrowed his eyes. In the way dreams have of proving guesses correct, her movements changed a bit, became more like the woman who’d betrayed him, hair growing more black than brown. She came closer, never looking up, turned and cut between the chairs to stop directly before him. She kept her head bent.
Doug reached out his hand and brushed the black hair aside. Janice’s face had been a thing of beauty, with high, round cheeks and full, soft lips. Now she was pinched and thin, her eyes too large in her head, mascara running down her hollowed cheeks.
“Janice,” he whispered as coldness gripped his guts. “What happened?”
When she opened her mouth, he could see her shrunken gums, her teeth looking long and loose.
“You did.” She sighed, and then she sunk to her knees before him, reaching inside his pants with her bony hand as she opened her jaws wide.
“Gah.” Doug grabbed the sides of his mattress and flung himself upright in the bed. “God.” His heart was hammering, and his sheets were soaked in sweat; he could still feel the skeletal fingers tugging on his dick. He scrubbed his face while his balls tried to crawl inside his scrotum. Her face, those teeth…he walked to the sink and splashed some water over his cheeks and eyes, careful not to press on the bruising around his left eye.
Janice. He’d tossed her lying ass out of his apartment and his life, but he couldn’t shove her out of his dreams. He was afraid to ask what had become of her.
“God.” He shivered, preferring to pace for a minute, unable to return to the bunk.
From the sounds of the prison, he guessed there was at least an hour before it was time to get up. He sat on the bunk with his back to the wall, drew up his knees, and shut his eyes. Six hundred and ninety-two days done. Thirty-eight to go if you believed that a two-year sentence would end precisely on time. If you believed his lawyer. If you believed.
His mind tried to drag him to thoughts of what his future would look like when those doors opened, and he walked the familiar hallway and finally, passed through the doors he had never been through, to collect his tailored suit and his wallet, his expensive English shoes and thin socks, his big, square ring and his watch. What would happen then? He swallowed. Before he’d entered this place, fear had been a distant bird call to him. A faint sound off in the distance, hard to hear through the buzz of plans and ideas that roared ceaselessly in his brain. Now? He knew the language of fear, could call it by name and understand its broad cadences. Now? He could beat fear back with his fists but not today. Not on the days after dreams of Janice or the boy from Long Island. It was a kind of madness, he guessed, but today, if the other men came at him, he’d fight, but not well.
Doug used the urinal in his cell and put the space to rights, waiting on his bunk for the door to open. He’d come into this hell hole a multimillionaire. Starting as a day-trader, it didn’t take long for him to specialize. He invested in environmentally progressive companies, became well known among conscientious investors, populated his staff with millennials, do-gooders and tree-huggers. They’d loved him and the company’s mission. And then? He’d tried to kidnap Carl Johansen’s daughter. He shook his head. If what his attorney, William, said was correct, the girl’s father, Carl Johansen, was getting ready to deliver the real killing blow with exquisite timing. From all appearances, the real estate magnate would file the inevitable civil suit against Doug on the day he was released from jail. Doug was sure he deserved everything Carl planned to dish out, but he wouldn’t just handover whatever was left of his wealth.
At one point, he’d had everything. A beautiful woman, an admired company, and the friendship of Carl and Helen Johansen. The summer it all fell apart, he’d been named to the board of directors of Carl’s real estate company. He’d been enormously proud of that, bought a car just so he could drive to Long Island, visit them and attend the meetings. He had dinners at their home, had enjoyed Helen’s hospitality, had looked at Carl as a mentor. Dorothy had threatened it all.
Fuck it. There were no surrogate parents coming to make him their own. He was on his own. He’d been an idiot. A dream-struck fool. There was one law, he reminded himself. One law. Protect your own. Carl and Helen were not his own. Right or wrong, Doug would fight them. He had Alice to think of. Alice and Mary, Elizabeth and his mother, and Tommy. Always Tommy. They all depended on him. So criminal or no, record or not, he’d have to find a way to make back the losses the company had suffered. He’d have to find a way to win the civil suit.
The thoughts followed him, circling in his brain, cycling around and around like they did every day, as he brushed his teeth, cleaned his body, ate his meals, did his assigned work, and took his hour or so of exercise. They chased after him until the real-life visiting hour when finally, Tommy came to se
e him.
The visiting area was normal in the light of day. No music played; the guards were watchful from their positions along the walls. The visits were communal, long rows of plastic chairs let them sit across from each other. Doug waited, sitting on the edge of his chair. Finally, Tommy was brought in through the door at the end. The fact that his friend would never see any more of the inside of the prison, wouldn’t see where Doug spent most of his time, eased his nerves. Here, you could almost imagine you were in a school cafeteria or gym. The industrial space and the light made it almost seem normal in here, at least if you didn’t have nightmares about it. Tommy spotted him immediately and came directly over. His friend had been his only reliable lifeline. Doug had to remember that. This place didn’t encourage gratitude.
“Hey,” Tommy said, then his expression changed as he noticed the black eye. “Jesus, Doug, again?”
Doug watched Tommy; the stress of the last two years showed on his friend’s face. There were lines that weren’t there before, a thinness and severity around the mouth. He gestured to a chair. “Have a seat, Tommy.”
When his friend was settled, Doug answered the question, “It’s minor.”
“Your face looks like someone stomped on it.”
Was that disgust he saw in his friend’s eyes? It wasn’t what he expected. For years, the only thing he ever saw in Tommy’s eyes had been compassion, forgiveness, affection. Everything was slipping away.
“You’re letting them beat on you, and you expect me to keep fighting for the business, while you give up in here?” Tommy’s voice was incredulous. “What’s happening to you, Doug?”
Shame crept up his spine, but like fear, it was a familiar experience now. Doug sat up straighter. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah? Then what’s it like, Doug?”
His name came from Tommy’s mouth with a particular disdain that Doug had never heard from him before. He narrowed his eyes at his friend. He needed Tommy, but the days when he was dependent on anyone were over. By six hundred and ninety-two.
