“That’s impossible,” Donald murmured quietly. “Maybe there was a dead animal or something in the room.”
Jay shook his head. “No, man. It was him! I touched him and he was stiff. I almost freaked out then. I thought maybe he’d died during the night, so I slapped his face and there was nothing. And then...then I felt this...I don’t know how else to describe it, but it was this...presence...as if there was something else in the room that was aware of me and that...it was trying to wake Dennis up.”
Jay took a drag on his cigarette. His fingers shook slightly. “So I got the hell out of there. I didn’t even close the door, I just ran out of the hotel and went home. When I got home I logged into Building Product’s corporate portal on my Macintosh and spent the rest of the afternoon poking around the secured network we’d made for Corporate Financial. At one point I called the office and Mark answered. I told him I was feeling a little better and was doing a little bit of work and asked to speak to Michelle. He told me Michelle was in a meeting with Accounting and the rest of the Corporate Financial people, and I asked him if Dennis was there too and he said yes.” Jay dragged on the butt of his cigarette and dropped it on the ground, stubbing it out with his booted foot. “That’s when I knew shit wasn’t right.”
Donald was trying to make sense of what Jay was telling him. While he didn’t doubt Jay’s insistence that he smelled decaying flesh in Dennis Harrington’s room, he believed Jay’s imagination had formulated the rest of it. Dennis Harrington had been in a deep sleep; that was all. Jay had freaked out, thought the guy was dead and come back from the grave. As for what he’d smelled...well, maybe Dennis was bad at maintaining his personal hygiene. He wouldn’t be the first. Donald didn’t voice any of this—he wanted to hear the rest of Jay’s story before he had all the evidence—so he let Jay finish.
“I came across a folder in the Corporate Financial tree that wouldn’t let me in,” Jay continued. “This freaked me out. I’m the System Admin of the entire network and I have complete access. I checked the security settings on the server and everything looked fine, but I couldn’t get into that one folder. So I moved to my Mac at home and transferred a code-breaker program to the Building Products Server. I ran it and it spit back the password. I modified the settings, got in, and spent the better part of an hour transferring all the files over the network to my PC at home. When I was done, I reset the NT settings and got out and read the files on my laptop.” He extracted another cigarette from his pack and lit it. “That’s when I knew I was in deep shit.”
“It’s some kind of corporate scandal, isn’t it?” Donald said softly. “Corporate Financial is helping the executives at Building Products cook the books or something and Michelle doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s being led to commit crimes she isn’t aware of, isn’t she?”
“No, it isn’t that,” Jay said. He took a drag on the cigarette. “Let me finish. When I saw this shit on our network I was freaked out. I didn’t understand all of it, but I knew it wasn’t right. I made backup copies on CD ROM and packed up my shit. When Julie and Danny came home I already had their shit packed, and I told them they were going to Wyoming where Julie’s parents live. Julie was freaked out, she was wondering what the hell was going on and I couldn’t tell her everything. I still didn’t know how much I was being watched, even though I’d destroyed as many of the bugs in the house as possible. I just told her that I thought Corporate Financial and Building Products were conspiring to commit some serious white-collar crimes and that I’d just found out about it and wanted to get them somewhere safe. She understood what I was talking about, and I helped her pack up the car and followed her to the airport. I had all my shit in my car, including the laptop and all my files, and I grabbed my nine and as much ammo and clips as I could carry. I saw them off at the airport and then took off myself. For awhile I didn’t know where I was going to go, but then I remembered Michelle told me she lived out here and I felt I could trust her.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “So here I am.”
“How did you find out where I lived?”
“You can find out all kinds of shit on the internet,” Jay said, taking another casual drag on his cigarette. “Especially if you’re a computer hacker like me.”
“Why do you feel you could trust Michelle?” Donald asked.
“Because she’s new,” Jay said. “I could tell. She had this...I don’t want to say deer-caught-in-the-headlights trip, but there was just something about her that was genuine and real. No sense of falsehood about her. Not like the other Financial Consultant people. Or like a lot of the people at Building Products.”
“And it took you three days to drive out here?” Donald asked.
Jay took a drag on his cigarette. “I drove to St. Louis and I was halfway there, near Oklahoma City, when I could tell I was being tailed. I did some maneuvering, got off some exits and got back on the Interstate again just to prove to myself I wasn’t being tailed, but I could tell somebody was following me. I was casual about getting off, though; I always stopped for gas or food or something. The tail hung back and I pretended not to notice. When I got back on the Interstate again, I watched him in my rearview. He stayed a good ten cars behind me. Finally I got off at a rest stop that was deserted. It was three in the morning and I was somewhere in Oklahoma. I pulled the car around the back and entered the men’s room and waited.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “A minute later I heard a car pull up. The bathroom had a window that was frosted and hard to see out of, but a chunk had been broken out of it, so I could tell that it was the car following me. I waited until the guy came in the bathroom and I plugged him.”
“You shot him?” Donald felt aghast; was he talking to a murderer?
“Yeah.” Jay took another drag of his cigarette. “Not like I wanted to. I didn’t have a choice. It was him, the guy that was following me, and I knew he was coming in to the bathroom to kill me, so I didn’t hesitate. I plugged that motherfucker, two in the chest and one in the head. He didn’t even see it coming.” Jay took another drag of his cigarette. Donald could tell that reliving this episode had affected him; his hands were shaking and his voice trembled. Donald felt his fear flare up again briefly and then it subsided. “For just a split second I thought I’d really fucked up. I was thinking, ‘fuck, dude, you just plugged a guy who wanted to take a leak; you just plugged a guy who was just taking the same route you’re taking, that’s all’. But I didn’t have to think those thoughts for very long because I saw it. He had a pistol clutched in his right hand.” Another drag of the cigarette. “Dude was holding a nine-millimeter Bulldog with a twelve round magazine. There’s only one thing you use those for, dig?”
Donald nodded.
“Once I realized the shit was real, that my mind wasn’t just fucking with me, I took his gun and got the hell out of there. I took off in my car and had to force myself to drive the speed limit, I was so nervous. But I made it. I drove the rest of the night and made it to a little town in Missouri, I don’t remember the name now, and pulled over at a truck stop and got something to eat. I bought a newspaper and tried to chill out. There was a TV on in the diner and the news was on, but there wasn’t anything about the guy I’d shot in Oklahoma.
“So when I was done, I felt better. I picked up a Rand McNally map and got back on the road. I got to St. Louis that afternoon and headed straight to the east side and left the car unlocked in a parking lot, got my shit, and checked into the cheapest motel I could find. Before I split El Paso I took out as much cash as I could out of my checking account and I made sure I had it all in one place, then I checked all my other shit. I needed another set of wheels but I didn’t want to spend the money on ’em, dig? So I hung out a little bit at the motel and waited until dark, got a little sleep, then about midnight I set out and found a new set of wheels real easy. Then I packed up all my shit, threw my nine in a trashbin and tried to bury it beneath the junk, and got the hell out of the city. I crossed the river and got to Springfield
the next morning, checked into another motel under a false name and paid cash, crashed and slept till about four. Then I got up, found a gun store in town and bought some rounds for the Bulldog. I came back to the motel and there was still nothing on the news about the guy I’d plugged in Oklahoma. And the motel was one of those low rent things, no broadband internet connection, so I had to use dialup and that was slower than snail shit. I checked the Oklahoma news and saw a little story about some guy whose identity the cops were withholding who’d been killed in a rest stop bathroom off Interstate Forty. No witnesses.” Jay took a drag of his cigarette. “I was pretty confident there were no witnesses either, but I still didn’t want to chance it. Ballistics will still point to me, and I figure the law is on to me now.”
Jay took another drag of his cigarette. “I threw my cell phone away for obvious reasons. Then I called my in-laws in Wyoming from a phone booth. Julie was frantic, but she was safe. As far as I could tell, the cops hadn’t come poking around up there yet. She said she’d called our voice mail and there were messages from the police, that they were looking for me. I told her that if the cops showed up to not believe anything they told her, that I didn’t do anything wrong. I couldn’t tell her where I was, just that I was safe. Then I hung up before any kind of trace could be established. I felt good she and Danny were safe. Her parents live in a rather rugged area and her dad has an arsenal like you wouldn’t believe. The minute you get on their property you trigger their security system.”
“Nice,” Donald said. Now he wished for a cigarette. He used to smoke when he was in college and gave it up during his first year of practice.
“So anyway, here I am.” Jay took another drag on his cigarette. “We need to make sure Michelle’s safe. First thing we should do is if she doesn’t call by nine or so, call her cell.”
“Then what?” Donald asked, his voice low. “If what you said is true and you think they—whoever they are—are on to her, they could be listening in to our communications.”
“True. We just need to find out where she’s staying. We can take it from there.”
Donald didn’t know what to think. If Michelle hadn’t spoken so highly of Jay the other night he would still be fearing for his safety; Jay exhibited all the signs of paranoia. He had severe doubts on the validity of his story about Dennis Harrington. Most likely Jay had spooked himself when he broke into the hotel room and his imagination got the best of him. He found it highly unlikely that Michelle would have been suckered in by any form of delusions Jay may harbor. Jay was right about their next step in this sense; he had to talk to Michelle, had to make sure she was okay, then he had to somehow get her to convey to him that Jay O’Rourke wasn’t entirely insane. This was going to be a tall order, but one he’d have to undertake if he was to completely trust Jay because right now he didn’t completely trust him. Not by a long shot.
“Well, let’s see if we can reach her,” Donald said, glancing at his watch. “It’s quarter past nine now.”
Jay nodded, took a final drag on the cigarette and crushed it beneath the toe of his boot. Then he followed Donald back into the house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS SIX p.m. on Friday and Jennifer Faus was still chained to her desk on the tenth floor of 156 Broadway in San Francisco, California where the offices of PeopleReady, Incorporated were located.
Jennifer had been coasting along in a mindless haze since two p.m., fruitlessly faking her job duties. She was ragged emotionally and physically. As one of twenty staff accountants for a mid-sized company that provided desktop IT and telecom support to various small and mid-size companies throughout the country, Jennifer’s job was rather mundane and run-of-the-mill. She was in Accounts Receivable, which meant she processed daily incoming EDI transactions, matched them with scanned paper invoices, updated the aging files, and ran various reports for a wide range of company personnel. She liked numbers and she liked her job. She was cheerful, always looked forward to starting the day with a smile and a positive attitude, and it showed in how her co-workers reacted to her; she felt she was very well liked in the company. It also helped that she was knowledgeable, competent at her job, and had a good attitude. Like every job, she had to deal with her share of difficult people, but those were skills one learned from life experience and a little bit of Psych 101 in college. Office Behavior workshops helped, too. As a result, out of most of the people she worked with, she had a good life/work balance. She took her job seriously and worked hard when she was at her desk from eight to five—after that she was her own person and the trivial matters of the day were forgotten.
But today...this week...had been hell.
On Monday morning Jennifer and the rest of the accounting staff were informed by the Controller and Vice President that a new corporate policy had been levied—all projects must be completed as quickly as possible on the day they were started. This brought protests from half of the accounting staff. The Vice President, a sullen, mousy-looking woman named Shannon Albright, informed them the decision was final and that they were free to tender their resignations if they no longer wanted to be part of this new team effort. She further explained that management was initiating this new policy due to increased competition from rival firms. “We need all daily accounts closed by five p.m. and we need preliminary work on the next day’s business in place before the start of business.” That meant two to three hours of prep work in some cases. Jennifer asked the inevitable question that was on everybody’s mind: what if they were physically unable to finish with closing due to circumstances beyond their control? Network or hardware failures, scheduling conflicts, that sort of thing. When Shannon asked, “What kind of scheduling conflicts?” Peggy Brenner, one of the accountants who had been at the company for thirty years answered. “I baby-sit my grandson from five-thirty to eight every night for my daughter while she attends UCSF. There’s no way I can work beyond five.”
“Then you’re dismissed,” Shannon had said curtly, without batting an eye.
A shocked hush rose up and there had been dead silence. Peggy had looked at Shannon as if she were waiting for the younger woman to grin and laugh, saying it was all a joke. Shannon’s features were sullen and stoical. She wasn’t joking; she was dead serious. This hit home to Jennifer when Shannon said, “Get your things and leave. I’ll have payroll process your final check.”
“But—” Peggy had said, her features suddenly growing white with the shock and confusion over what was happening.
“Does anybody want to join Peggy?” Shannon had asked the group. Jennifer couldn’t believe this was happening. She and the Controller were like different people; they were sullen, unemotional, their features not registering the sounds of Peggy’s cries as the older woman left the conference room in tears. “If not, I suggest you remain team players. This is all for the good of the company. Without the company, we are nobody. You are accountants because it is what you do. Right now the company needs you and your skills to help for the betterment of the company, and all of us. If the company succeeds, you succeed. That’s it in a nutshell, gang. If you want to remain a team player, you must trust each other and work together. The harder you work, the more you cooperate with each other to meet the company goals, the sooner you will be able to finish. That’s all we’re asking.”
So that was how Jennifer Faus came to work the first seventy-hour week in almost ten years. The first few days weren’t so bad. She assisted in the daily transactions and data entry and journal ledger entries; she ran reports for Shannon; she worked on preparing to close out the week’s business. But as the week wore on, Jennifer’s fatigue grew, and when Shannon gave her an icy glare Thursday afternoon after telling her she had to leave at five-thirty to make a six o’clock hair appointment, Jennifer realized there was something wrong. Something was just not right. She’d told Shannon she was going to be back—it was just a forty-minute appointment, if that, then she’d be right back to finish. In fact, she was getting into a routine, a certain
rhythm to the new schedule, and she felt that by next week she’d have it down to where she’d be able to finish all the extra stuff before five p.m. just in time to go home at a normal hour. The look Shannon gave her told Jennifer that if she left the team to conduct personal business while the team was working towards its goals, she must not be serious about being a team player and, therefore, not a good worker. And if she wasn’t a good worker, she could find employment elsewhere.
So she stayed.
And now she was miserable and dog-tired.
Jennifer glanced at the time on the bottom right hand portion of her computer screen. On any normal Friday evening she’d be out having dinner with her husband, Jack. Then they’d stop by a bookstore and browse, maybe take in a movie and drinks at a pub in town, then come home. Not tonight. Even if she were to leave the office in the next fifteen minutes, she was too tired to do anything except plop her butt on the sofa and veg out in front of the TV. Jack had called an hour ago and Jennifer caught Shannon glance her way, disapproval in her eyes. Jennifer had told Jack that she was still at the office but she should be finished soon—sorry. When she got off the phone, Shannon had strolled by. “What are you doing?”
“Working on the spreadsheet,” Jennifer had said.
“It didn’t sound like you were,” Shannon said and left it at that. The subliminal message was obvious: take a personal phone call while you’re working again and you can find another job.
Jennifer inserted data into the spreadsheet she was working on, her mind elsewhere. Her co-workers continued their duties normally. Jennifer paused for a moment, listening to the sounds in the office. It was quiet except for the sounds of computer keyboards clacking and people on the phone. It was as if things had settled back to normal, as if her co-workers had resigned themselves to the fact that these long hours were now a normal part of the workday. There were no mutters of complaint, no idle chatter or slouching on the job. Jennifer’s mind had been wandering for the past two days while she went about her tasks like an automaton; many times she just pretended to work, since there really wasn’t much to her duties anyway. There was no justification in staying late, really. Yet she stayed at the office with the rest of her co-workers not out of a sense of loyalty to them, but because she needed this job or she would be unable to pay her rent and bills. It was as simple as that. And if things were going to continue this way at PeopleReady, then she supposed it was time to start looking for a new job.
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