Friday Night Jamie

by Bren Christopher

  He put his arms around me and buried his face in my hair. “It’s okay,” I repeated. “Everything is okay.”

  He mumbled something into my hair. I frowned. “What, baby? I couldn’t understand you.”

  He pulled back a little. “It’s not okay. I’m such an idiot, and I’m so sorry for what I thought about you when we first met.”

  I looked at him like he wasn’t making any sense, because he wasn’t. “What?”

  “You really weren’t looking for a sugar daddy, were you?”

  “I told you I wasn’t.”

  “I know, but when you wouldn’t go out with me, I thought it was just because I wasn’t rich. I was angry about that, thinking that you were really looking for someone with money after all, even though you said you weren’t.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I know it wasn’t money you were looking for. It was”—he seemed to search for the right words—“stability. Somebody reliable, a normal guy with a decent, regular job, someone you can depend on.”

  I let out a breath. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He stroked my back gently. I leaned against him. “We moved around so much, my dad never kept a job for more than a few months. He’d lose it over something stupid, drinking at work or arguing with someone. Then they’d get desperate and knock over a gas station or whatever, and we would be on to the next town, staying in abandoned buildings and homeless shelters. Or he’d get caught, and my mother would leave me so she could go do—I don’t know what—and I’d be in a foster home for a while.”

  He chewed his lip thoughtfully, and I could see he wanted to ask me something else but didn’t know how to phrase it. I could guess; it was a pretty natural assumption, given my childhood environment.

  So I saved him the effort of trying to figure out how to ask it. “He never beat me, you know.” Matt looked relieved. I went on. “Well, only that one time, in the barn. Mostly he just ignored me. I think I was an inconvenience, a disruption in his lifestyle. I even heard him say one time to my mother that she should have gone ahead with the abortion.”

  He looked horrified at that thought, and I wondered if it was his Catholic upbringing or the thought of me, specifically, never being born. “So why wouldn’t he let your grandmother take you?”

  “I know. It’s strange isn’t it? Even though he never wanted me at all, he was still proud of having a son, as if that made him a man or something. He would introduce me when his buddies came over. That was about the only time he acknowledged I was around. I guess that was why he was so mad when he found out I was gay. Somehow that reflected poorly on him.”

  “But your mother is still with him.”

  “They’ve been married almost thirty years. That must mean something, right?” But I didn’t know what. Even after all that time, I wasn’t sure why she stayed with him. Love? Fear? Inertia? It was as much a mystery to me as to Matt.

  His arms went around me. “Oh, Jamie…”

  I sighed. “I’m sure you saw a lot worse when you were a cop. Anyway, like my grandmother said, I turned out fairly normal, just—like you said—a few little quirks here and there. At least I can keep a job.” Until the FBI comes and shuts it all down, anyway.

  But Matt looked hurt, and I realized he had misunderstood my comments. I reached for him, cupped his face. “Oh no, I’m sorry. I wasn’t talking about you, I swear. I meant my dad.” I kissed him reassuringly and felt him relax.

  “Listen.” He took my hand again. “I’m not some deadbeat.” I started to protest that I knew that, but he put a finger over my lips. “I didn’t get fired from my job at the department. I just decided it was time to quit.” He took my chin so I would look at him and stared earnestly into my eyes. “I’ll get another job, babe. I’ve had offers, several of them. But I want to take my time and decide what I want to do next, not just jump at the first thing that comes along. I’ve got a little money saved, so I can afford to wait awhile.”

  I had a feeling there was a lot more to the story. But I kissed him to let him know that was okay. His hands cradled my face. “What about next weekend? I hate to wait that long, but I don’t want to bother you during the week. I know you’ve got things you do on weeknights. What about dinner Friday? Or…or…do we need to go to the club? We can do that if you want.”

  I looked at him, amused and a little exasperated at the same time.

  He looked anxious. “Please, baby, don’t tell me you don’t want to see me again.”

  “Of course I do. It’s not that. Listen, it’s true that I like my routine, and I like to know what to expect. But I’m not all OCD about it, you know. It’s a preference, not a requirement. I’m not going to get super stressed if we do something different. I’ve gone to parties and done other things on Saturdays. I just like to know ahead of time, so I can plan for it.”

  “Oh.” He looked relieved. “Well, in that case, I have something I want to ask you. I’ll ask you now, so you can think about it.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “Next Saturday, we’re having an exhibition at the dojo.” I’m sure I looked puzzled. “It’s not a tournament or anything like that. It’s just a series of demonstrations. It’s a fundraiser for one of the boys’ clubs. People buy tickets, there’s a raffle and food, all kinds of stuff going on.”

  “So you want to go?”

  “Well, I’ll be in it, doing some of the demos. I just thought maybe you would want to go?” He sounded tentative, not his usual overly confident self, and I realized this was important to him. He spent a lot of time at the dojo, and with the people there.

  I widened my eyes. “Ohhhh, I get to see you in your cute little outfit, running around, sweating, and doing all kinds of manly fighting stuff? Oh, baby!”

  He shoved me in the chest, laying me flat on the couch. “You little shit, keep that up and you’re going to get more of what you got this morning.” But he was laughing so much he couldn’t hold himself up and collapsed on top of me. His hands moved down my sides, and then he stopped himself and broke away. “If I stay much longer, you’ll never make it to work.” He kissed me hard and then got up. “I’d better get going. It’s probably already past Jamie’s bedtime.” He flashed me that familiar, teasing smile.

  It was my turn to feel rather subdued as I watched him go.

  Chapter Eight

  The harsh ringing sent a shock wave through my body, and I grabbed for the phone on the bedside table, fumbling and almost dropping it in the dark. It wasn’t the first early morning phone call I’d ever gotten, and it had never been good news.

  Half-asleep and panicky, I said, “Mom, what is it, what’s wrong? Is it Dad again?”

  “Sorry to wake you. It’s Nash.”

  “Oh, shit.” I collapsed back on the pillow, catching my breath. “Jesus, I thought—”

  “I’m sure your parents are fine.” His voice sounded sympathetic. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  My breathing gradually returned to normal. “What’s happened? Something must have happened.”

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up. Your offices were burglarized during the night. We don’t know yet what’s been taken and what’s been destroyed.”

  “Oh my God. They don’t know who?”

  “No clues yet. Anyway, you’ll come to work and be surprised like everyone else. I just wanted to warn you because Swenson and I will be there along with police. They will be taking the lead in the investigation, but it’s not unusual for various agencies to show up at a place like your accounting firm after an incident like this, when there could be a lot of sensitive data at risk.”

  “So what do you want me to do? Just pretend I don’t know you?”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  “Crap. You know, I’m not very good at this kind of stuff.”

  “I know. But all you have to do is ignore us. Believe me, once you see this mess, you won’t be thinking about us at all.”

  After ending the call, I sat on the edge of the
bed, thinking. I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep. A random act of burglary or somehow related to Nash’s case? He hadn’t said so, but would he be there if he didn’t think that was at least a possibility?

  It wasn’t difficult, after all, to appear surprised, even shocked. After walking past the police cars parked in front of the building, I showed my ID to the uniformed police officer as I entered the front door, and he directed me to wait in the lobby with the other employees.

  I found Ed. He looked upset. “Can you believe this? They just smashed right in, not worried about the alarms at all, but they still had time to do a lot of damage to the second floor. Our offices, of course!”

  “What about the security guard?”

  “I heard he tried to stop them, but he got Tasered before he could even get his gun out. He’ll be okay, though.”

  The rumors about the extent of the damage and the breach in security were flying fast. I spotted Nash and Swenson on the other side of the room. A detective gathered us together and asked that anyone with an office on the second floor step forward. We were going to have to help identify any missing items.

  I leaned in the doorway of my little office and stared with a sinking feeling at the mess. Papers from the overturned file cabinet were strewn everywhere. My computer was missing, and the monitor had been dropped in the hallway, the screen shattered. Most of the offices on the second floor had suffered the same damage, although not all the monitors were smashed; some were just missing. The equipment room, where the extra laptops were stored, had been cleaned out. Made sense. They were easily portable. Apparently the thieves hadn’t made it to the upper floors or to the server room.

  I spent the afternoon cleaning up the office and giving the police a list of my missing items. It had looked worse than it was, with the monitor being the biggest mess to be cleaned up by the service that had been called in to deal with some of the more hazardous materials. But by the end of the day, my office seemed pretty much back to normal, except that I would have to wait until the next morning to get my new computer.

  When I had finished, I sat at my desk for a moment, trying to think. I wondered what Nash would have to say about this break-in. First my apartment, then my offices. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. But if not, then what had the thieves been looking for?

  Unfortunately, I could only think of one thing. Keeping a tight grip on my rising panic, I walked down to Sanderson’s office and knocked on his door. He stood surveying the chaos that was the papers on his floor.

  “Hi, Carl. My office is done. Can I help you pick up?”

  He looked a little surprised. “Sure, thanks. Not as easy for me to bend over as it used to be.”

  I picked up the papers and helped him arrange them into piles on his desk so he could go through them more easily. “Anything missing?”

  “Hard to tell yet. Maybe a few files and those printouts you made, but they might just be buried under something else.”

  I finished helping him and then went to the bathroom. I stood in the stall, feeling my heart pounding hard in my chest as I reached a trembling hand into my pocket to clutch the little flash drive I had been carrying around with me. The data was supposed to be useless. That was what everyone thought. Suddenly, it was burning a hole in my pocket.

  I felt torn in half. I had taken another look at it and hadn’t discovered anything new. But it seemed to me that it must be one small piece of the puzzle that the FBI accountants could use to fit together with other pieces to make a whole picture. I just didn’t want to be the one to hand it over. I didn’t want the responsibility of putting everybody out of work.

  It was obvious now that they knew, or at least suspected, that some information existed that might incriminate them, and that somehow I was involved. But it also seemed that they only had suspicions, and perhaps those suspicions had been allayed after they had stolen my computer and found nothing useful on it.

  Maybe now they would think the printouts were the only evidence. Would they be content with that, or would they come after me more directly? Or was I wrong about the entire situation, and it had nothing to do with the data from the Tapman account?

  Reluctantly I decided I could no longer ignore Nash’s messages. Anyway, his tone had moved beyond annoyed and into seriously irate, and I had started to think he was going to send someone to get me out of bed in the middle of the night. But now…with the printouts missing, it seemed that the Tapman data might well be important. I had to get rid of that damn flash drive, get it to Nash as soon as I could.

  * * *

  I spent that long afternoon looking over my shoulder. I stuck with Sheila and Ed as much as possible. When I wore out my welcome with them, I made excuses to visit other people in their offices. I didn’t want to be alone. Finally the day ended, and I took a cab down to Federal Plaza to meet with Nash and Swenson at the FBI building.

  Settling into a small conference room, they brought out a stack of pictures. But instead of handing them over to me, Nash sat back and crossed his arms. Swenson just stared at me with those piercing eyes of hers. They seemed to be waiting for something. I looked away, uncomfortable.

  Eventually Nash spoke. “Anything you want to tell us?”

  Swenson added, “Like why you’re suddenly Mr. Cooperative, after ignoring our calls?” She leaned forward. “Something’s got you scared.”

  I glared at her, then sighed in resignation. “The office break-in… Do you think it was related to this case? Could they have been looking for something?”

  Nash answered, “It’s hard to believe it was just a coincidence. But I don’t know what it was. I was told you don’t work off your own computers. You connect to a main server, and security for those servers was not breached.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” I bit my lip, then reached reluctantly into my pocket and pulled out the little flash drive. I held it out to Nash and dropped it into his hand. “I don’t think there’s anything there that will help you. I’m sure your accountants already have all that information.”

  Nash waited.

  “It’s the research I did on the Tapman account. Data, documentation. I’m sure your guys have more access to all the related account information than I do, but, you know, just in case.” I looked away and shrugged.

  Nash said quietly, “Thank you.”

  But Swenson glared at me. “What the hell? You’ve had this the whole time…”

  “I didn’t think it was important. But…I had made a few printouts from it. They were in Sanderson’s office, and now they’re gone. Anyway, I didn’t want to…” I hesitated.

  Nash finished it for me. “You didn’t want to be the one to turn over data that might destroy your firm. I guess I can’t blame you too much for that, even if I can’t agree with it.”

  “Do you think whoever broke into our offices could have been looking for that? Or even earlier, at my apartment? I didn’t tell anyone I took it home to look at over the weekend, when I first noticed the problem in the account, and I really should have deleted it by now. I don’t understand how anyone could know about it.”

  “Maybe, or maybe just for any kind of proof that the skimming was going on. Or someone could be trying to cover his tracks.”

  Nash frowned down at the flash drive. “I’ll hand this over to our accountants and see if they can come up with anything. There just isn’t any concrete evidence yet. If there were, I’d have you in protective custody.”

  I opened my mouth to protest no way, but he held up his hand. “Don’t worry; we’re not there yet. If anyone really thought you had something incriminating, they would have come after you by now.”

  Somehow, that didn’t make me feel much better. But I knew that whether it was important or not, I had made the right decision, giving them the data.

  I pointed out—to myself as much as to them—“Well, even if anyone did realize I had it, now that I’ve turned it over to you, there’s no point in coming after me, right? It wouldn’t do them any g
ood. So I’m actually safer now that you have it.”

  Relieved that I was finally rid of that drive, I started looking through the stack of pictures. After sorting through a couple of dozen, I identified the big black-haired man as George Martinez. I also confirmed what the agents had suspected, that the man with the mustache was named Rastin. No one seemed to know his first name; it wasn’t on record. Apparently he was a rather elusive figure, and they seemed very pleased about the positive identification.

  But I found no picture of the big blond man. Nash went to the door and yelled, “McAlister! Get in here, will you?”

  A young, red-haired agent showed up at the door. “What’s up, Nash?” Then he looked at me and grinned, freckles dancing across his nose. “Oh, you’ve got my buddy in for a talk. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I looked at him, puzzled. “Have we met?”

  Nash interjected, “Toby here is a rookie although sometimes he forgets it. We had him following you around for a while on the weekends.”

  “Oh.” Well, that was a little embarrassing.

  “So,” McAlister said. “What’s the story about last weekend? You show up at the club with a blond guy, and you leave with a dark-haired guy? Don’t you know you’re supposed to leave with the one that brought you?”

  Swenson looked at me curiously, her eyebrows disappearing into her black bangs. “James? The date with Keith Brooks didn’t go so well?”

  Irritably I said, “No, it didn’t. But that’s got nothing to do with any of this. Are we done here?”

  “I was just going to ask Toby to see if the sketch artist is available,” Nash told me. “And to get us some coffee. That’s what rookies are for, right?”

  McAlister rolled his eyes. “Yes, boss.”

  He left, and we sat down again. But I should have known Swenson wouldn’t let it go.

  She leaned forward. “Tell us what happened at the club. What did Brooks do to make you leave with someone else?”