Dave Zeltserman

1

The bar was mostly empty, which was typical for a Wednesday at two in the afternoon. Dan Wilson had the bartender pour him a Guinness Draft and a Harpoon IPA, and brought the beers back to a table in the corner where his companion, Shrinivas Kumar, sat waiting.

Dan, a large affable man with close-cropped hair that was far grayer than it should’ve been given his forty-eight years, handed the Harpoon IPA to Shrinivas – or Shrini, as he liked to be called – and took a seat across from him. As usual, Dan’s mouth was twisted into a slight grin. Dark circles under his eyes betrayed his typical good humor, however.

Shrini was fourteen years younger than Dan. He had a medium build, olive-color skin, and a serious demeanor. He dressed neatly and wore a musk-scented cologne. Shrini grew up in a northern region of India, near New Delhi, before moving to the States to attend college at the University of Florida. Majoring in computer science, he had moved to Massachusetts after graduation where he worked steadily as a software engineer until a year and a half ago. That was when the small software company he and Dan worked for had shut its doors. Since then he’d had one short-term contract job lasting four months, but nothing else. He took his wallet out.

“How much do I owe you for the beer?”

“Shrini, come on, buddy, put your wallet away. You get the next round, okay?”

“In that case, cheers,” Shrini offered, lifting his glass.

“Just like old times, huh?” Dan said, a sadness in his eyes countering his grin.

Both men drank quietly, both deep in their own thoughts. Shrini started to say something then closed his mouth, his body tensing as he looked around to make sure no one was within earshot.

“You are meeting your friend, Joel, this afternoon?” Shrini asked, his voice low.

“That’s right. I got a two-hour drive up to the boondocks of New Hampshire. Goddamn redneck bastard. His house is in the middle of nowhere. The damn place is like a military compound.”

“You are sure you can trust him?”

“We worked together for eleven years. I can trust him.” Dan paused to sip his beer. “Joel and I have kept in touch the last seven. He’s a good guy, good heart. A little abrasive maybe, but a good guy.”

“And you think he will want to do this?”

“I’d have to think so. He was laid off two years ago and hasn’t worked since. I know he never made any big money and with three divorces I’m sure he didn’t save shit. At this point, he’s probably spending down his 401K like the rest of us.”

“That is still a big leap to being willing to do this.”

“I know the guy. He’ll want to come onboard. And what the fuck else is he going to do? A fifty-five-year-old software engineer out of work for two years? Maybe go back to school for bioengineering? At his age? Or how about becoming a real-estate agent? How many real-estate agents do we need?”

Dan had worked himself up with his speech. He drank the little Guinness he had left and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. When he looked up, he noticed his companion frowning deeply.

“Shrini, buddy, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t like this. This is very big what we’re doing, and I don’t know your friend. I know people in India I could bring here-”

“You got to be kidding me,” Dan said, raising an eyebrow. Then, muttering under his breath so it was barely audible, “I’m not bringing in people from overseas. With the way things are today, the FBI would be on us in a heartbeat.”

“Please, hear me out-”

“Shrini, you’ve got to trust me on this. Joel is exactly what we need. Politically, the guy is far right to the point of being nuts and his religion now is the goddamn second amendment. He’s got all the guns we need, and I guarantee you none of them are traceable.”

Shrini, very low, “There are other places we can get guns.”

“Yeah, there are. But not without putting us at risk. And there’s more to it than that. When you meet Joel, you’ll think he looks like nothing. Five foot six, a hundred and fifty pounds maybe. But he works out every day, and bumping into him is like bumping into a brick wall. And he’s definitely got the balls for this, maybe more than the two of us.”

“Dude, I got the balls to do this.”

“I know you do, buddy, and I trust you. I wouldn’t be here talking with you if I didn’t. Let me tell you more about Joel. He was kind of a fuck-up in college, dropped out in the middle of his freshman year so he could go to Israel and enlist in their army. This was nineteen seventy-three. He ended up fighting in the Yom Kippur War. You could never tell by looking at him, but this guy is as hard as nails.”

Shrini was frowning again. “How did he end up back in the United States working as a software engineer?”

“After his army service, he married an Israeli woman and then moved back to the States. For a number of years he sold bathroom accessories to department stores. I guess he got sick of that and went to school at night and got a degree in computer science. His first job as an engineer was in my group at Vixox Systems. We drank a shitload of beers together when he went through his first divorce.”

Dan lowered his gaze to his empty beer mug, and started pushing it back and forth between his hands. Shrini chewed on his lower lip as he sat silently.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you, Shrini?” Dan asked after a while. “Because if you are, that’s okay. We can walk away from this anytime.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m very serious. I’m doing this.”

“You look so damn worried. We’ve worked out all the details. This is going to work fine. And don’t worry about Joel.”

“I won’t worry about your friend. I’ve been working with you long enough to trust your judgment.”

“Then why do you look so constipated?”

“Fuck you.”

“Come on, talk to me.”

“I keep thinking about Gordon. Whether we are making a mistake.”

“We’ve talked about this.”

“But he is so strange.”

“I’ve known Gordon almost twenty years. Yeah, he’s a little different, but he’s more eccentric than strange. But, you know, we need him. This won’t work without him.”

Shrini showed a slight smile. “I think you worked out the plan so we would have to need him. So you could help Gordon out one more time.”

“Yeah, that’s my mission in life, to help out my misfit friends. Gordon, Joel… you.”

Shrini responded by flipping Dan the bird, a good-natured smile breaking over his face. The smile faded as the moment passed. “You are sure we can trust him?”

“No question. I’m willing to bet my life on it, aren’t I?”

“You mean both our lives.”

Dan looked back at his empty mug. “We can trust him.”

“So we are really doing this,” Shrini said.

“Yep, we’re really doing this.” Then very low, barely loud enough for Shrini to hear, “We’re going to be robbing a fucking bank.”

Shrini finished his Harpoon. “I’ll buy us another round.”

“I better not.” Dan sighed. “I’ve got to head off to the boondocks of New Hampshire.”

Dan wore dark shades as he drove, and even so, had to squint against the glare from the sun. It was a struggle keeping his eyes open. Seven months earlier an ophthalmologist had told him that he had retinitis pigmentosa. According to the doctor, he’d probably had it since his mid-thirties. At least it explained the problems he was having with bright sunlight and driving at night. He knew things were getting worse. Over the past couple of years he felt as if he’d been losing a portion of his peripheral vision and recently he’d been having trouble focusing on small print. He hadn’t told anyone yet about his condition, especially his wife, Carol. That was the last thing she needed to hear now.

He thought about Carol. His being out of work had been especially rough on her. This morning, though, she surprised him. It was as if the clock had been set back and nothing in the world was wrong. Before Carol left for work, she came over to him and sat in his lap and gave him a long passionate kiss. It had been months since she had done that, and the tenderness in her eyes nearly floored him. She was so damned beautiful at that moment that he felt himself physically aching.

Whatever he had to do for Carol, for his children, he was going to do. Even if it meant robbing a bank…

Although he had been able to put up a good front for Shrini, the idea of the bank robbery terrified him. Except for pocketing a candy bar from a drug store when he was a kid, he had never stolen anything – never broken the law, never resorted to violence, never really even been in much of a fight since eighth grade, and here he was planning a bank robbery. Actually, he had planned a bank robbery. He and Shrini had already worked out the details. Now it was simply a matter of putting it all in motion.

The plan seemed to have taken on a life of its own, carrying Dan and Shrini along with it. Neither of them were capable of backing down. Both probably wanted to, at least Dan did. At least he would have if it weren’t for the fact that his retinas were deteriorating. When he lost his job, he also lost his long-term disability insurance. Without that insurance he was screwed. Unless he followed through with the robbery, he would be sentencing his family to a life on welfare. Robbing that bank was going to require nerve and somehow he was going to have to find a way to muster that nerve within himself.

In the meantime he would have to keep from getting overwhelmed by the whole thing. Focus on one step at a time. He tried telling himself that. He broke out laughing. The problem was he was a damned good software engineer and was always searching for mistakes in his logic. Now he was doing the same, playing out the worst-case scenarios in his mind. He tried to slow down his thoughts, tried to simply concentrate on the road. A knotting in his stomach almost doubled him over. His hands ached as he gripped the wheel. He had to get himself under control before he arrived at Joel’s house, otherwise the plan was dead. Joel had the uncanny ability to smell fear on people.

God, he wished he had brought an extra shirt with him. The one he was wearing was already wet with perspiration. He was going to have to stop off at a mall along the way. He couldn’t meet Joel feeling the way he did, especially with a shirt drenched in sweat. Somehow he was going to have to muster up some sort of confidence, some nerve.

2

Gordon Carmichael sucked in his gut as he studied himself in the bathroom mirror. At fifty-eight he still had a full head of thick blond hair, and as far as he could tell, not a single gray hair in the mix. He moved his face from side to side as he examined his skin for wrinkles. Satisfied, he took a step back. He pushed his bottom lip out, raised his chin, and patted the flesh under his jaw. If it weren’t for those damned jowls he could pass for his early forties. He pushed the flesh back with his hand, seeing what he would look like without them. Mid-thirties, maybe. If he could only afford the surgery to take care of them there was no reason why he wouldn’t be able to pass for a much younger man.

He gave himself one more look in the mirror before turning away. He had already shaved five years off his resume and was going to need to shave a few more off to get his age under fifty. Forty-seven seemed as good a target as any, jowls or not!

Gordon sighed. He made his way out of the bathroom, through a cramped bedroom, and to a third room that served as a combination dining room, living room and computer room. There wasn’t much to his condo – only four hundred and twenty square feet. At one point he had it paid off. During his three years of being out of work he had taken all the equity he could out of the place. He had tried making his monthly living expenses by trading stock put and call options, but a bad few months had cut his savings down to under five thousand dollars. Now he had a stack of home equity loan bills that were past due and last week received his first foreclosure notice. If things didn’t turn around soon he was in deep shit. He sat down in front of his computer, brought his resume up and gave it a facelift by changing some of the dates while slicing four more years off his tenure at Vixox Systems. He felt a twinge of regret as he looked over his cosmetically updated resume. One of the few accomplishments that meant anything to him was his twenty-one years at Vixox. Now, after two adjustments, those twenty-one years had been reduced to ten. For some reason, the thought of that made him feel a bit empty inside.

He posted his updated resume on several high-tech job sites. Before turning off the computer, he checked his email and saw he had something new from Elena. The letter simply stated that she could no longer contact him because she was marrying someone from Oregon. Even though the letter was only two short sentences he had to read it several times before it registered. When its meaning finally hit home, he sat frozen for a long moment, wanting nothing more than to put his fist through the computer screen.

“That’s it!” he yelled to his empty condo. “I’m out of here!”

He grabbed his car keys and made it to his front door before stopping. What he wanted to do was get in his car and drive until he hit the Jersey shore. Not that he knew anyone there or even liked being in Jersey, but it was far enough away that he could distance himself from his problems. As he was about to head out he remembered he had agreed to meet Dan the next day for a few beers. He thought about blowing Dan off but decided it wasn’t in his best interest. So the Jersey shore was out, at least for the time being.

Still, he had to get out of there. For the hell of it he decided to visit Peyton. The two of them had been friends for over twenty years, even longer than he had been friends with Dan. At the peak of the tech market craziness – right before the tech crash of ’01 – Peyton had struck it rich. The startup where he was working had been bought for a ridiculous amount of money and Peyton had cashed out at the top, clearing almost eight million dollars.

Gordon drove to Peyton’s house, if you could call it a house. To Gordon it seemed more like a collection of ill-fitting structures. Like some sort of three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle gone awry. Peyton had owned what was for the most part a small shack before becoming a multi-millionaire and, instead of moving into a larger home, had instead added one extension after the next. The original dwelling was no longer recognizable and the monstrosity that was left in its place didn’t fit in with the simple farmhouses making up the rest of the street.

Gordon felt somewhat uneasy as he pulled up to the house. The last couple of years he had been seeing Peyton less and less. No real reason, other than that he was beginning to feel like a leech when around his old friend. He parked in the driveway and, after ringing the buzzer a few times, Peyton answered the door wearing a robe.

“Hey, hey, what’s up, man?” Peyton asked.

“Not much. I was driving by and thought maybe we could go out for a couple of beers?”

“Hey, you know I’d like to, but, well…” Peyton hesitated, flashing a sheepish grin. “The kids are out of the house and I’m entertaining my wife right now, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh jeez, sorry I interrupted you.”

“No sweat, man. Maybe next week I’ll get us tickets for a Sox game. Maybe I’ll even be able to pick up a couple of Green Monster seats. Sound cool?”

“Sure, sounds like fun. Uh, I wanted to tell you about an email I got from Elena.”

“Now’s not really a great time, but next week, okay, Gordon?”

“Uh, sure, next week. Um, I’ve been thinking more about that restaurant idea.”

“Yeah, man, so have I. Probably not the best idea to mix business with friendship, you know what I mean? But we’ll talk about that next week. Cool, man?”

“Sure, uh, cool. And give my best to Wendy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do that and in a few minutes I’ll also be giving her my best.”

“Oh, uh, just one more thing, Pey-”

“I got to go, man. Next week, okay?” Peyton said as he closed the door.

Gordon stood frozen for a moment, feeling red-faced, his hands shaking. “Stupid idiot,” he whispered to himself. “Why’d you have to bring up that restaurant now? Stupid!”

Even though there were no neighbors around, Gordon couldn’t help feeling self-conscious, as if people were watching him and seeing how much of a fool he had made of himself. With a sick grin stuck on his face, he lumbered back to his car. Once inside, he smacked himself on the side of his head with an open palm.

“Stupid!” he swore to himself. “Well, that’s it. I’m not going home now!”

It was only three in the afternoon. Too early for dinner, but he could drive to Lowell and pick up some takeout Cambodian that he could eat later. For him Lowell was an oasis, one of the few places nearby where he could get good ethnic food. When high tech was booming, most of the companies settled within a rural area about thirty miles northwest of Boston. Not a bad area if you were into horseback riding, or maybe raising a family, but it sucked as far as eating out went. Lowell, though, was only a twenty-minute ride.

Traffic was light, and Gordon got to Lowell in less than fifteen minutes. He decided to bypass his usual Cambodian restaurant. The last few times they had skimped on the portions, and besides, he didn’t like the vibes he was picking up there. Instead he pulled up to a newer restaurant that he had noticed a few months back.

A young Asian girl sat bored behind the cash register. As Gordon approached, she glanced up and gave him a slight smile.

“Very hot weather we’ve been having,” Gordon said.

“Yes it is,” she said softly. “Very hot, muggy.”

“No air conditioning in here?” Gordon asked.

“No, not now. Later we’ll turn it on.”

“I guess it’s too early for dinner and too late for lunch. Normally I get takeout at a Cambodian restaurant a few blocks from here, but I noticed that you had opened last time I drove by.”

“Thank you. I am sure you will like our food.”

“I certainly hope so. What do you recommend?”

“Everything is good here. The shrimp is very good.”

Gordon looked at the menu. “I notice your shrimp dishes are your most expensive,” he said.

“They’re very good,” she said, her slight smile weakening.

“Well, in that case, why don’t I order this shrimp dish, the one with peanuts and spicy lemon grass sauce.”

“I will have the kitchen rush your order,” she said. “No more than five minutes.”

Gordon watched as she walked towards the kitchen. The girl was tiny, slender, with long black hair reaching almost all the way down her back. The tight green skirt she wore outlined her hips and legs. He felt a drying in his mouth as he watched her walk away. When she came back, she smiled politely at him before turning to the magazine in front of her.

“Are you Cambodian?” Gordon asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, it’s not so obvious. You could be Vietnamese. I do know Vietnamese who work in Cambodian restaurants.”

“I am Cambodian.”

“What happened in Cambodia under Pol Pot was simply awful,” Gordon said. “People wearing eyeglasses shot for being intellectuals. Can you imagine that?”

“I only know what I have read. That was well before my time.”

“I’m sorry, of course. I have to say your English is very good. How long have you been in this country?”

“I was born here.”

“Really? I wasn’t trying to imply anything. Only that your English is really quite good. Much better than what I hear at other Cambodian restaurants that I go to.”

“I guess I should thank you.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Gordon said. She looked a bit flustered as she turned towards him, her smile now completely gone.

Gordon put his hands on his hips and stuck his chin out as he posed for her. “How old would you guess I am?” he asked.

“I – I don’t know. I will be right back.”

She turned and hurried away. Gordon dropped his pose. He felt like getting the hell out of there, but he had already ordered his food. A couple of minutes later a Cambodian man wearing a suit came out of the kitchen. He headed straight towards Gordon. When he got to him, he handed Gordon a takeout bag.

“Food today is free,” he said. “I am the owner. Please do not come back here.”

“Why not?”

“You were making the girl working here very uncomfortable.”

“How was I doing that?” Gordon asked. “Jeez, all I was trying to do was be friendly.”

“That is not what she said.”

“What did she say? That I was hitting on her? Come on, I was only trying to make conversation while waiting for my food.”

“Please leave here.”

“Because I asked her to guess my age? Jeez almighty. I only asked her that because I wanted to know if she thought I could pass for under fifty.”

“Your age? I will guess your age. You are dirty old man. That is my guess for your age. Now please do not come back here.”

Gordon stared into the other man’s eyes. He resisted his initial impulse to punch the man in the face. Instead, he dropped the bag, stepped on it, then turned and left the restaurant.

3

Carol Wilson felt like crying. The firm’s senior law partner, Tom Harrold, had scheduled a meeting with the paralegal group for three thirty, and she couldn’t stop worrying that she was going to lose her job. The lawyers weren’t that friendly to begin with, and the last week they had been more brusque than usual. One of them, Bob Thorton, couldn’t even look her in the eye when he gave her her last assignment. And then there was Charlie Bishop. He did all the computer work for the law firm, and the last few days he had been giving Carol and the rest of the paralegals an almost apologetic smile.

She picked up one of the liability cases that she needed to read, but she couldn’t concentrate on it and after a while the words just started blurring together. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Nancy Goldberg standing next to her.

“We’ve got that meeting in a few minutes,” Nancy said. “Let’s go get some coffee.”

“I don’t think that would look good. Why don’t we wait until three-thirty and get some on the way?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Have you heard anything?”

“Why don’t we get some coffee?”

Carol felt light-headed as she stood up. She had to lean against her chair for a moment before she trusted herself to move. At forty-four, she was still very attractive. Slender and petite, with shoulder-length blond hair, and girl-next-door type features. The stress of the last year, though, had started showing around her eyes and mouth, making her look somewhat worn out. When Dan lost his job a year and a half ago, she had started looking for work. Before having kids she had been a paralegal for seven years. Finding a job was harder for her than she’d expected, with firms clearly wanting younger paralegals, and it took her five months to find this position. Nancy, while only twenty-six, was a five-year veteran, having worked at the law firm since college.

The light-headedness passed. She caught up with Nancy, and the two of them walked silently to the break room. Nancy poured two cups of coffee and handed one of them to Carol.

“What did you hear?” Carol asked.

Nancy took a sip of her coffee. The muscles along her jaw hardened as she faced her co-worker. “That they’ve added a bunch of new email accounts,” she said. “Charlie Bishop told me an hour ago.”

“What do you think that means?”

“It’s not good.”

“Oh, God.” Carol had to sit down. “I can’t lose this job now.”

“Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find another one if you need to. Me, I’ve decided to join the bastards and go to law school.”

“Why would adding new email accounts mean they’re going to get rid of us?”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Nancy said without much conviction.

Carol had to bite her tongue to keep from crying.

“I’m sorry, Carol. I didn’t want to upset you, I guess I wanted to give you some advance warning. Or maybe I’m just in a lousy mood. Anyway, I’m probably reading stuff into things.”

The two of them sipped their coffee. To Carol it was tasteless.

“We’d better get to that meeting,” Nancy said.

The rest of the paralegal staff were already waiting in the conference room. Most of them looked concerned, a couple of them bored. Tom Harrold, short, balding, sixtyish, with a round head and small, almost baby-like ears, stood by his chair at the head of the table with his hands clasped behind his back. He peered through thick glasses at Nancy and Carol as they made their way to their seats. Tapping his foot impatiently, he waited for them both to sit down before checking his watch. Then he looked back up at his audience and cleared his throat.

“I called this meeting to dispel any rumors that we are planning a layoff,” he said. “Nobody here is going to lose their job.”

He waited for a reaction. There were a couple of sighs. Another paralegal a few years younger than Carol, Charlotte Henry, clapped her hands. Carol found herself breaking into a smile. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Nancy smirking.

“We are, however, going to take advantage of a unique opportunity,” Harrold continued. “Many of you may or may not know this, but India has a similar jurisprudence to us. We are in the process of hiring legal assistants in that country-”

“At one fifth of the cost,” Nancy whispered to Carol.

“…who can research issues for us at night. What this means-”

“We will be your cutting your hours so we can pay ourselves bigger bonuses,” Nancy said under her breath.

“…is that all of the lawyers here at this firm, including myself, will be able to work more effectively. Issues raised late in the day will be able to be researched and resolved by morning. This will result, initially anyway, in a smaller workload for all of you and, unfortunately, we will have to ask for a reduction in hours.”

Nancy burst out with a short laugh.

“Excuse me, miss, do you have a question?” Harrold asked, glaring.

“No, sorry, just choked on something.”

“Drink some water then,” Harrold said. He glared at Nancy for another few moments before turning his attention back to the rest of the paralegals.

“As I was saying,” he said. “This may result in a hardship for some of you. We apologize for that, but our hope is that this will increase our productivity and, most likely, this reduction will only be temporary. I will have my secretary notify each of you by the end of the week as to your new hours. That is all.”

Carol looked around the room and saw a mix of different emotions on her colleagues’ faces. Some were relieved, some crestfallen. She felt a little of both. With Dan out of work they weren’t making ends meet as it was. She didn’t know how they could possibly manage with less money. As she was getting out of her chair, Nancy leaned over and whispered, “Temporary is right. If their outsourcing experiment works out, we’re all out on the street.”

Harrold had walked up to them. He stood staring at Nancy, his small mouth working as if he were chewing gum.

“Miss, what is your name?” he demanded.

She turned to face him, somewhat taken aback. “Nancy Goldberg. I’ve been here five years.”

“Well, Miss Goldberg, do you have any expectation of being here another five years?”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

“This is a law office, Miss Goldberg. We expect a more professional attitude. Understood?”

She stood blankly for a moment, then a funny look came over her face. “I’m sorry. I guess you want me to smile while I’m being screwed. But you know, if I’m going to do that I might as well work in a whorehouse – at least I’ll be in a more professional environment. Don’t even bother saying it, I quit.”

She gave Carol a weak smile as she walked away. Harrold watched her for a moment, his body stiff, his small ears turning a bright pink. He noticed Carol and shifted to face her. “Do you have anything you’d like to add?” he asked, his voice strained.

Carol shook her head.

“And we expect you to be punctual for all meetings. Three minutes late is as bad as thirty. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

When Carol got back to her desk she started to cry. She couldn’t help herself. Still sobbing, she picked up one of the liability cases and forced herself to read through it, being careful to keep the paperwork from getting wet.

4

Dan arrived at Br...