"I'll teach you to run from me, you damn little brat." The man towered over the child huddled in a corner of the backyard. He slipped off his belt and made an exhibition of doubling it over and raising it above his head. There was a sneer on his face. The child trembled and wet his pants. He would have cried for his mommy, but he didn't have one. He knew he shouldn't have gone into the basement while his father took a nap, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. His father spent most of the time he wasn't away at work at the university laboratory down in that mysterious place at the bottom of a steep flight of dark stairs. He usually locked the basement when he wasn't in it, but this afternoon his father had left the door open. It led to his home laboratory.
The child had sneaked through the door and down the loose, creaky steps into a large, dimly-lit room with an oppressively low ceiling. A stainless-steel table with a drain on one end and little gutters around its side dominated the center. A spotlight hung directly over it. The child pulled the chain that turned on the light, but uttered a little cry and immediately turned it off when the lamp ignited. The intense beam and the glare reflected off of the metal table had been like a silent explosion in the middle of a moonless night. He knew that light did not belong in this place. The child retreated into a damp corner and strained his ears to hear any sign of his father stirring from the couch upstairs. When all remained quiet, the child rubbed his eyes until they readjusted to the dim light and he continued his exploration.
He walked past scarred, wooden tables lining the walls that supported expensive-looking instruments. He saw bottles of unpronounceable chemicals, drawers of stained glass sides and boxes of notebooks everywhere. The child wandered around the ill-smelling room for a few minutes, picking up and examining strange objects at random, until he was attracted to a small refrigerator. He opened it to find a rack of sealed test tubes sitting all alone in its center. Each tube was labeled. On many, he recognized the name he shared with his father and grandfather: Stephen Johnson. The child picked up a tube and gazed into it. It was full of something that looked like blood.
When his father charged down the basement stairs screaming his name, the child dropped the tube. It broke on the stained concrete floor and a sticky, dark red substance oozed out from between the glass fragments. His father yelled a curse and the child fled the basement through the coal-scuttle. But the high, ivy-covered walls that surrounded the backyard of the old house prevented his escape and his father was on him before he could run for the gate.
As his father was about to strike him with the folded-over belt, another adult intervened and knocked him to the ground. The interloper began to kick his father in the side. The other did not stop even after his victim's screams tapered off and no longer covered up the sound of his breaking ribs. The child watched the scene from the farthest corner of the yard, hidden within the shadow of a bush. He was on all-fours and shook so much that his knees and hands dug holes into the ground.
* * *
"Take that, and that, and that!" Johnson whispered. He trembled as the full force of the fantasy overwhelmed him. It was as if he was the one who landed each kick against the bully. The brutal Good Samaritan also yelled the same insults that formed in his own mind. The experience didn't last long, but it left Johnson flushed and short of breath. He stumbled and slouched against a wall.
"Now we'll proceed to our in-house wind tunnel where I understand they're about to test a wing modification on our popular jumbo-jet, the. . .
Are you all right, sir?" the tour guide asked the young man with the prematurely gray hair and movie-star good looks leaning upon the wall. Johnson shook his head to clear it, stood up straight and tuned in on the uniformed girl. Why didn't that bitch mind her own business?
"Yes." He smiled in mock embarrassment. "I guess I'm just feeling the effects of missing my mid-morning cup of coffee. Vacations and caffeine withdrawal always seem to go together, don't they?" Several of the others in the tour group smiled and nodded. What a bunch of imbeciles! But that only provided him with an excellent cover, of course.
"Refreshments are available in the visitor's lounge, sir," the guide said. "I can have you escorted there now, if you wish." She picked a walkie-talkie off of her belt and raised it to her lips.
"Oh, no!" Johnson said and raised his hands. Why doesn't she take that radio and shove it up her ass? "Please continue. This is fascinating. I wouldn't miss it for anything."
"Very well, sir." The girl clipped her radio back on her belt. "As I was saying..." Johnson tuned her out again and tried to blend into the group. It wouldn't do to be remembered.
His penetration deep into the bowels of Brennan Aerospace had been easy, despite his momentary lapse; the company loved to show off their facility to tourists. All one had to do to stand only a few feet away from their computer room was to sign up for a visit. Johnson snickered; he knew one chief-of-security who would be looking for work the next day.
Johnson took a last look through the window of the small room that had been the fourth stop on the tour. If the glass hadn't been in his way, he could have spit on both of Brennan's two Kurn supercomputers. They were quite unimpressive to a tourist expecting high-tech wonders. The pair resembled a couple of bulky, outdoor power-transformers squatting placidly in the center of a walk-in closet. Bored functionaries manned two desks that lined the back wall and stared at their monitors. Johnson knew the workstations where all the cutting-edge projects were cooked up were in a section of the building off-limits to gawkers. Only an expert would know that this cubbyhole was the vital heart of Brennan Aerospace.
An old black-and-white picture was displayed near the door. The huge room in the photo was lined with rows of massive electronic cabinets that sported reel-to-reel tapes, banks of switches, stacks of dials and clusters of bright lights. Men with crew-cuts, chunky glasses and skinny ties sat in front of what appeared to be teletype machines peering intently at reams of paper.
The guide had pointed out that just one of the nondescript supercomputers before them could out perform a whole building of such rooms. The visitors oohed and awed at the comment, impressed by the idea, if not the visual impact. Johnson shook his head. He was amazed that Brennan hadn't at least separated their two Kurns. Well, they would learn.
As the group shuffled down the hallway to the next stop, Johnson noted that the people in the computer room suddenly became animated. He smiled. Surprise, surprise! And you used to be worried about Y2K, you clueless assholes. Standby to bend over and spread 'em.
Perhaps a few of his fellow tourists were knowledgeable of the intense competition between Brennan Aerospace and Loadmar Corporation to land the military contract for the B-3 Supersonic Stealth Bomber. The inside scoop in the industry was that Brennan's concept was undergoing a critical redesign. As so much of research and development was done by computer simulation, even a little glitch in their system could lose Brennan precious time, and ultimately, the contract. But from the reaction of those at the monitors, their Kurns had just experienced a major crash.
Johnson whistled to himself as he followed the tour to the wind tunnel. No one would suspect he or the other visitors of being the source of the problem, of course. They were not allowed to touch anything, and all their electronic devices had been impounded for the duration of the tour. A conspicuous metal detector, and various other inconspicuous sensors Johnson had been briefed on, enforced that policy. And even if suspicion did fall their way, Johnson could only be traced as far as a phony name, address and occupation would lead: nowhere. Johnson chuckled. He had just made a cool million in cash.
* * *
The old man in the large hospital bed had a coughing fit when he saw his son walk into his richly appointed bedroom. Johnson pulled up a seat near the bed and waved the nurse away. She went into the living room of the apartment, but left the door open. The light from the next room barely dented the gloom that surrounded the bed.
"How are they treating you here, Pops?" Johnson grinned when he saw the fear in the other's eyes. That meant his father was coherent today and not in one of his senile episodes. He liked to see that fear. It was the reaction of a man looking into a mirror and seeing himself a generation ago.
"Can't complain, aside from a few aches and pains." His father's voice was barely audible. He was still a handsome man, despite the crinkled skin of his face and the scattered patches of white hair across his mottled scalp. He shared the same broad chin, roman nose and high cheekbones of his son.
"At what I pay this place each month, I hope not. This is the best adult managed-care community in the country, not to mention the rep their on-site research facility has." Johnson reached over and squeezed a wizened hand. "It's only fitting that someone of your accomplishments spends their retirement years here. Where else would the great Dr. Johnson go? I know all the resident doctors and nurses worship you." Johnson wanted to squeeze the fragile hand until it broke. Let the old fart feel what real pain is like.
"You keep saying that." The old man jerked his hand away.
"Well, it's true; they do. And I'm glad, I only want the best for my Pops. Just the way you would want it for me." And how, you miserable bastard! Johnson tried not to roll his eyes.
"I don't want your damn charity."
"Charity." Johnson feigned surprise. "You're my dad. What kind of person would I be if I didn't look after my own father? My own kin? You and I are one." God, he loved to rub that in.
The old man cleared his throat and spat into a kidney-shaped bowl on his bed tray.
"After all," Johnson continued, "I never knew Mom, and being an only child, you're the only family I have. Quite literally, in fact." Didn't the bastard know he would end up like this someday, at the mercy of his own creation?
"Why are you here?" His father would not look at him.
Johnson stood up. "I just dropped in to tell you that I finished a big job out on the coast. Seven figures worth." Johnson put his hands on his hips and rocked back on his heels. "Look's like the kid is doing pretty good for himself, huh? And not busting his hump to do it, either. Contrary to the philosophy of some people in this room."
His father laughed. "You sound just like my. . . Never mind. He hated hard work, too. Always looking for an angle." The old man turned his filmy eyes on him. He wagged a crooked finger in Johnson's chest. "Remember, you pretentious little snot, somewhere there's a counterbalance to you. Nature compensates for everything. At least I learned that for all those years of wasted work."
Johnson brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles with a flourish. "Aren't I living proof of just the opposite? You and I sure don't cancel each other out, do we?"
His father covered his eyes to massage his temples. "Go away," he said.
"Now, Pops." Johnson patted his shoulder. "I know you've always been
disappointed that I chose computer programming and software development over the medical field, but it's time you accepted the fact. Haven't I done well enough to provide for you in your old age? The only thing your research ever brought you was mention in the textbooks. You never got paid crap for it. Too bad you didn't spend your time on something more useful, like inventing liposuction." That's giving it to the son-of-a-bitch.
"Don't insult my intelligence. Just leave."
Johnson laughed. "I could only do that by insulting mine. But I'll be back. I don't want you to think I've forgotten about you. You'll always get a first-hand report on each of my successes. I know how much it interests you, you being who you are, and me being who I am. The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. In fact, it doesn't fall at all, right Pops?"
"Why did I ever have you?" His father dropped the hand from his eyes and shook a fist at him. "Did I think I could really control nature and undue the past? All I did was let loose a monster in the world. I never imagined--"
"That's no way to talk about yourself."
"You're a blind idiot." His father hacked and spat on his son's leg.
"And you're a sick son-of-a bitch to hate yourself." Johnson yelled. "To have tormented yourself. To have tried to destroy yourself from the moment you were born. You devoted your whole life to that. What the hell for, you self-loathing piece of shit?" He regretted his outburst as soon as it occurred. Goddamn that rotting fossil to Hell! Johnson wiped the spittle from his trousers.
"You don't know what you're talking about, you bed-wetting runt. You never did." His father's breath was foul.
"And you never knew what you had, up here." Johnson put a finger to his forehead. 0r had the balls to use it, if you did.
The old man sighed. "You didn't get that from me. I never even knew about it. Attributes can skip generations."
Johnson smirked. "Now, who is insulting whose intelligence?"
His father massaged his temples again. "Revenge destroyed me, and now it's destroying you. Please, just get out of here." He rolled over in the bed, away from his son.
Johnson started to say something, but then spun around and stalked out of the bedroom and the apartment, leaving the startled nurse in his wake. The bastard had gotten to him again. But he would bide his time. One day the fear in the old man's eyes would take control and he would beg for forgiveness from the son he had tried to maim. On that day, Johnson would celebrate. After spitting in the ogre's eye! The brute that raised him would earn his reward; his son would stand before him confident and successful, and reject the attempt at reconciliation. That would leave the tyrant who had ruled his childhood alone and bitter during his last days. The old son-of-a-bitch would finally see what he could have had for himself: self-respect. Victory would be the son's, at last. The son who was not really a son. . .
Alarms from malfunctioning patient-monitoring units behind the line of apartment doors marked Johnson's passage down the halls of the retirement community. He had to pace the parking lot several minutes before his anger cooled enough for his car to start. Damn electronic ignitions!
* * *
His next job was on the level, at first. Johnson took legitimate work because he needed a source of legal income to preserve his cover. The busy-work frequently opened up whole new opportunities for him, though, and Johnson had high hopes for his latest excursion into gainful employment. He could likely turn the five-figure fee for the above board work into a six-figure fee for a covert job done on the side. His new employer was just asking to be turned into a target.
Johnson had spent a month selling his skills to the skeptical chairman of a major brokerage firm with a stubborn problem in its mainframe before the man finally gave him a contract. The catch was that Johnson had to underbid on another open contract to get the job. That required him to endure two long weeks creating a specialized internal audit program for the company with the chairman looking over his shoulder the entire time. Johnson spent the subsequent week installing the program in dozens of laptops and training the firm's accountants on how to run the software, again with the chairman butting in and making "suggestions." It was micro-managed rote work at its worst. Johnson vowed to make it pay off.
He was finally given access to the inner sanctum of the ancient building that housed the prestigious firm at the start of his fourth week. Their mainframe was kept in a musty boardroom haunted by the ghosts of previous chairmen of the board; their portraits lined the walls. The mainframe certainly wasn't a Kurn, but it was good enough for what the brokerage needed it for. Until he finished with it, of course.
Johnson put an offer in the appropriate place and drug out the task of correcting the mainframe's glitch. The chairman began to grumble and told him of rumors about a computer consultant who reportedly cleared any problem in a single day. The miracle-worker was a woman who nurtured computers back to health using some sort of New Age mumble-jumble. The chairman said he put credence in the stories because he had read an article in a magazine stating that one day the Human mind would be linked to computers through an empathic interface. Apparently this woman had already accomplished that; word was she had bailed out Brennan Aerospace from a catastrophic crash.
Johnson frowned at that, told the credulous chairman to get real and continued to stall. He didn't care if he lost the man as a reference in the mainstream market; Johnson had decided to never accept drudge work again, legit or otherwise. He couldn't stand to work for stuffed shirts. And he didn't like the work part very much, either.
It took a week for Johnson to get a bid to his liking. He cleared the mainframe's bug the very next morning. Then, just before lunch and while safely away from a keyboard, he did it.
* * *
"The hell you don't like lima beans." The child shook his head and pushed the plate away. His father had ignored him all through dinner in the dingy kitchen and only noticed his distaste for the vegetable after picking his own plate clean. All the food had come directly out of cans and was served cold upon dirty, chipped plates. They ate on a card table with a torn cover. His father grabbed a large serving-spoon and waved it in the air. "You damn well better learn to like them. It's not my fault my work doesn't leave me time to cook a five-star meal for a spoiled brat like you. Eat, I tell you."
The child crossed his arms and pinched his mouth shut. He jerked his head back and forth once more.
"My father made me eat my vegetables, and I'll goddamn well see to it that you eat yours, too." He grabbed the child by the hair and pulled his head over the table. Then he scooped up a large serving of beans with the spoon from the open can and forced them into the child's mouth. The over-sized spoon scraped against his teeth. "Now chew and swallow." His father let go of his hair, dropped the spoon and used both hands to manipulate his son's jaw.
"Goddamn ungrateful, snot-nosed kid." he said. "You'd like nothing better than for me make big bucks in a cushy practice so you could live the life of Riley, wouldn't you? Like that worthless old man of mine did, only to piss it all away in the end on women and booze. But what I'm doing is a hell of a lot more important than setting bones and yanking out tonsils, and you're living proof of it. I'm trying to make something out of your life, so why don't you try and help me, you little bastard? You and I are about as close to one another as we can get; I know how and why you'll go wrong if left to your own devices. But by God, if I can't mold you into what you should have been, I'll damn well break you into nothing." His father laughed. "Christ, that was reason enough to have you in the first place."
The child began to gag. The mass of crushed beans in his mouth felt like a wad of large, pulpy insects spewing their guts as they were ground under his teeth. Even his father's grip over his mouth could not stop the vomit. It poured out over the table in front of him and saturated his father's arms.
"Why you little shit!" His father jumped up and yelled at the same time.
He whipped his arms in the air to free them of clumps of vomit. The child was sick again. He tried to hold it in with his hands.
His father's voice broke as he screamed. "I'll get you good, you little bastard." He picked up the serving spoon and prepared to deliver a backstroke across his son's face.
An adult burst in from the hall. He blocked the blow and tore the serving spoon out of the other's hand. "You want a piece of me?" he yelled. "Well, here I am." He decked the child's father with his fist. "But it isn't so easy now, is it?"
The child's father had fallen over the card table. The adult dragged him to his feet by his collar and kneed him in the groin. As his victim bowed over in agony, too stunned to cry out, the adult whirled him around, and grabbing two hunks of hair, began to smash his face against the corner of the kitchen sink. Over and over again he pounded the other man's head up and down, up and down, until there was nothing left of his face except a mushy pulp, raining blood, scraps of flesh and bone chips. When he was done, the adult collapsed on the floor. He realized he had a clump of hair in each hand and screamed. The child hiding under the table screamed, too.
* * *
Johnson whimpered and drew a few ragged breaths as the image faded from his mind. He caught the chairman frowning at him from the coffee urn across the room. Johnson ignored him and pretended to take notes from a printout at a side table while he awaited developments. It did not take long.
"Oh, Hell." the accounts supervisor said. He was correlating data on the
mainframe from a terminal at his desk.
"What?" the chairman asked, drawing his cup of coffee.
"I think we're being hacked."
"Really?" The chairman came over and peeked at the monitor.
The supervisor began to type frantically. "No, no, no. I don't believe this; we're losing everything. I can't stop it."
"We have a backup tape, don't we?"
"We run the backup in the evening. We're going to lose all of today's
transactions at this rate."
"Shit, we're screwed, then." The chairman spilled his coffee.
Johnson got up and walked over to the two agitated men. He was unsteady on his feet and had to pause a moment to regain his balance. He caught the eye of the supervisor and nodded. "Punk kids," he said. "They ought to throw them in jail for life."
"You're telling me." The supervisor shook his head. "You look like I feel."
The chairman buried his face in his hands. "We're ruined," he said. Johnson chuckled under his breath. A certain rival firm would be very pleased to hear that. Perhaps there would even be a bonus involved. He heard the ghosts in the room weep in frustration. This is almost as good as doing a number on the old man.
* * *
"Exactly what is it you do, anyway?" The girl stroked his chest as they lay in bed.
Johnson stared at the ceiling, hands behind his head. "I told you already; I'm a free-lance computer consultant." He fidgeted. What the hell did that slut care?
The girl began to play with the hair on his belly. "I have a friend who's one of those. But she isn't like you." Her fingernails were sharp.
"So what? I'm the best. Everyone in the business knows that." Johnson drew the sheet up to ward her off.
The girl giggled. "Really? I don't think my friend has ever heard of you." She caressed the crystal hanging around her neck.
"Figures." Johnson shrugged. "I'm out of her league."
"Oh, listen to you." The girl punched him playfully on the nose. "So, what league do you play in, superstar?"
Johnson arched his back to straighten out a kink in his spine. The whore had almost broken his back when she went spastic as he slapped her around while they did it the first time. But despite her fit, he knew that she liked it; they all did.
Their second bout after a short nap had been tamer, though. Somehow she had calmed him down with her gentle words, her soft hands, and something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He had almost felt affection for the girl as she gazed up at him with an unfathomable depth in her eyes as he gently made love to her. The look had so unnerved him that he cut the session short.
"I can't talk about what I do," he said.
"I'm going out with a spy." The girl traced the outlines of his mouth with her finger. "How exciting. Tell me some secrets, Mr. Double-O. Like, who are you going to do in next?"
Johnson grabbed her hand and pushed it away. "All you need to know is that I do pretty good for myself." Why doesn't this tramp just shut up?
The girl sighed. "You must, to live here." She raised an arm to indicate the spacious bedroom of the penthouse apartment. Moonlight flooded in through the picture glass window opposite them and illuminated the large, custom-built bed. Any voyeur in the neighboring high-rise would have had a clear view of the couple. It had been the girl's idea to open the drapes. "If only you weren't so. . ." She didn't finish.
"Weren't so what?" Johnson took her chin between a thumb and forefinger and brought her face to his. What the Hell did this dumb-ass chick think she knew about him?
The girl hesitated; he pinched her harder. "Weren't so out of harmony," she finally said and knocked his hand down. She looked away and fondled her crystal again.
Johnson laughed. What an airhead! No reason to get bent out of shape over such a space case. "I guess it was just the way I was raised."
"No." The girl propped herself up on one elbow and leaned on her hand to look down upon him. "It comes from right here." She placed a finger in the middle of his forehead and pressed.
Johnson brushed her finger aside. "Get a grip." Christ, now she was giving him the creeps. He rolled over into a shadow. "Go back to sleep."
"Do you know that you cry in your sleep?" The girl said it matter-of-factly, without accusation or pity.
"You're dreaming." Damn her! Johnson stared into the darkness on his side of the bed.
"Well, you do." The girl settled down and draped an arm over him.
Johnson suddenly became dizzy. He felt an immediate and intense need to roll over, embrace the girl and hold on to her. He wanted to nuzzle his face into her fragrant hair and spend the long night purging the horrors from his memory and the sins from his conscience. The girl was his lover, his sister, his daughter; she was a cleansing goddess; she was his salvation. She was life itself.
She was a skinny dental assistant saving up for a boob job. Or so she said. If only she . . .
Johnson slid her arm off of him. "I want you out of here before breakfast," he said.
The girl shook her wrist. "Suits me. You'll have to wake me up, though. Your alarm just started blinking twelve." She rolled over and placed her back to his. Johnson felt, rather than saw, the shrug she had performed with her arms raised into the moonlight.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had to get out of this business.
* * *
The young doctor extended his hand. Johnson took it. "You must be Dr. Johnson's son."
"Yes." No!
"I'm afraid I've worn him out for you." The old man was asleep, snoring and moaning.
"That's okay." Johnson pulled up a chair. "I'll just sit by him for a while." And watch him suffer.
The doctor spoke to the nurse and then paused on his way out. He fingered his glasses. "You know," he said, "I had the most fascinating conversation with your father. I've studied all of his papers and we recreated many of his experiments in medical school. My favorite is the one where he--"
"Yes, I know." Johnson cut him off. That four-eyed, punk medico would never guess what kind of experiment his patient had managed to pull off in his spare time.
"It must have really been tough on you." The doctor's features went slack. "I know he put in some long hours when you were young, and with your mother leaving like that right after you were born. . ." The nurse nodded, she had a forlorn expression on her face.
Johnson scowled. Why was that shriveled-up bastard running his mouth off to some damn intern? It was time he let some of the pantywaist doctors and nurses around here in on a little of the truth.
"Doctor," he said, "would it shock you if I told you that my father's marriage to my mother was one of convenience? That she was simply a subject of one of his unpublished experiments? What the nature of it was, I'm not sure." The Hell he wasn't!
"With my birth, the experiment came to a conclusion and he dispensed with her. Never mind how. Then I became the subject of another unpublished experiment, so to speak. It continued throughout my childhood. I'll spare you the gory details."
"I see," the doctor said after a moment and then turned to go. "By the way," he added before he left, "I'm afraid that your father is deteriorating rapidly. He's becoming less and less lucid. What a shame his own work wasn't soon enough to spare him this. But he has given hope to countless others of our own age. Perhaps you can take comfort in that. We won't have to put our children through what you are going through, now."
"Yes," Johnson replied. "Indeed." While the nurse showed the doctor out of the apartment, he flipped them both off from behind their backs. The children he would never have should get down on their knees and thank the non-existent god that they didn't exist.
He waited an hour for his father to wake up, but finally had to leave. An important client waited.
* * *
Johnson wrung the mop out in the strainer and cursed when it splattered soapy water over the wall as he pulled it out. He couldn't get the hang of wringing a mop just enough to leave it soaking wet, but still short of dripping. He began to swab the hallway, moving his arms in jerky strokes from side to side that left large patches of floor un-cleaned. Halfway down the hall, he dunked the mop back in the bucket for a refill and another wringing, and continued his chore. He missed even more spots than before. Three months of similar work had failed to turn him into a good janitor. Johnson spat on the floor and wiped the glob of saliva away with a quick stab of the mop. What was it he had decided about taking drudgework? That cover job at the brokerage firm had been a skate compared to this.
Johnson groaned. Only the promise of a payoff that would set him up for life had kept him on such a lousy, deep-cover assignment. That and the advance anonymously deposited into a Pacific Rim bank account in his name. His client had been hyper-sensitive about security and Johnson had no idea who it was. His employer used intermediaries in all their meetings. The grim, soft-spoken Orientals who had dictated terms to him over meals in out-of-the-way restaurants had driven him nuts with their muted, polite behavior that only screamed of contempt for Westerners. Johnson would have turned down the job if they hadn't demonstrated the deep pockets of their boss by the advance. He wrung his mop out again.
He hadn't slept in a comfortable bed, eaten a decent meal or screwed a good-looking broad in months. Damned if he would ever do this again, for any price. Johnson tried to smile. But then, he wouldn't have to if this one came through. He slapped the mop on the floor and finished swabbing the hallway, not caring about the dry spots. When done, he steered the wheeled bucket to the next hall. He was resigned to weeks--if not months--of more drudgery.
"Krajeski!"
"Yeah?" Johnson couldn't stand the alias his client had selected for him. A damn Pollack, of all things.
The maintenance supervisor walked over, scribbling on a clipboard. "Both Turner and Clay called in sick, and Wilson just started vacation. That makes you the senior man. I'm giving Garza your floor and Clay's to Powell. You've got the basement tonight. I've okayed it with the guard." He took the mop out of his hand. "Get down there, now. And try not to screw it up like you do everything else."
Johnson swallowed. The basement included, "The Room." His heart began to pound. "What's the matter Ski, you sick, too?" The supervisor seemed annoyed that another one of his charges might be ill.
"No, not at all." Johnson tried not to shout. "I'll get right on it." He turned and ran for the elevator.
A minute later, the guard stationed on the basement landing examined the ID card hanging around Johnson's neck. After making a note in his log, he said, "Check with me when you want to go in there, I've got the key." The guard pointed to "The Room" down the center hall.
"Sure," Johnson replied. "But I guess it will be a few minutes, yet. Lot's of other stuff to do first. There's no rush; we've got all night. Sit tight and I'll--" The guard looked at him funny. Johnson took a deep breath and stepped back. "Right," he said. Calm down!
"Whatever," the guard replied. "Just give me a holler when you're ready." He slumped back in his seat and picked up a paperback. It was an espionage thriller.
Johnson located the janitorial closet and rolled out the cart filled with cleaning supplies. He needed time to prepare. He had not expected to be where he was until the next promotion came through. In the beginning, it had amused him that humble janitors existed in a hierarchy. Then the reality of the long wait necessary to put him where he wanted to be sunk in. Johnson had spent weeks in a funk. But now, he had short-circuited the whole process. Tonight is the night! He forced himself to relax and bring about the proper state of mind.
Johnson scrupulously cleaned all the offices along the hall anchored by the storage closet and then started on the next passageway. By the time he reached "The Room" thirty minutes later, he was ready. The image of his father simmered just below his consciousness. Show time!
"Excuse me." Johnson called to the guard down the hall. "This is next." He nodded at the security door across from him.
The guard waved from his seat, put down his book and got up. He took a moment to fumble with his key ring, and then walked towards Johnson. He eyed him up and down when he arrived at the door. Johnson avoided the guard's gaze. His sight fell upon the man's holstered gun, instead. The guard unlocked and opened the door. Then he reached in and turned on the lights.
"Don't mess with nuthin' on the desks," the guard said, "and don't do no dusting, either. Leave the burn-bag be. Just do the wastebaskets and the floor. Sweep it only. It doesn't get mopped until the weekend. You gotta use that special broom in the corner over there." He nodded at it. "And I'm required to watch you while you're in here."
"No problem." Johnson's voice was a squeak. He made quick work of the few wastebaskets, emptying them into the large sack strung on the back of his cart. Then he started on the floor. Unlike the other offices, it was tiled and not carpeted. He used the special anti-static broom to sweep it and took great care to avoid the Kurn supercomputer in the middle of the room. It was the same model as Brennan's pair. When he had an opportunity to turn his back on the guard for a few moments as he swept under a desk, Johnson did it.
* * *
His father stormed into the bathroom while the child stood in front of the toilet, urinating. "Too stupid to even pull your pants down when you piss, are you?" He jerked his son's trousers to his ankles. The child's aim was thrown off and he momentarily sprayed the floor.
"Jee-suz Kee-rist!" His father jumped out of the way. "You goddamn little shit!" He kicked down the toilet seat. "I'll teach you." He picked the child up by the armpits, turned him around and planted his rear-end on top of the toilet. "You damn sissy, piss like the girl you are!"
The child hid his nakedness with one hand and tried to pull up his pants with the other as he squirmed on the seat.
"No you don't." His father slapped him twice across the face and then punched him in the side. "It's about time you learn what you're going to look like down there when you grow up, anyway," he said. Then he laughed. "Just like my daddy did when I was your age." His hands moved to his fly.
An adult charged into the tiny bathroom and knocked his father into the tub. "It was easy to have your way with me when I was a kid, you twisted bastard, wasn't it?" the man yelled. "Well, just try it now, asshole!" He hauled the other up and knocked him senseless with a blow to his jaw. Then he upended him, grabbed him by the legs and plunged his head into the toilet bowl. He left it there until his victim regained consciousness, screaming and flailing his arms.
The man then began to plunge the other's head in and out of the toilet. He screamed even louder than the man he assaulted. The water turned red with blood. When the neck of the upside down man began to flop around like a rolled up sock, the intruder dropped him. He kicked the body once, as hard as he could, and started to laugh. He laughed so much that he had to sit on the edge of the tub to keep from falling. When his laughs turned to sobs, he collapsed onto the floor. The child peered in at him from the outside hall and shook his head and pounded his fist into the wall until his knuckles bled. Then he crept off into a closet and hid.
* * *
"All done." Johnson swept the last pile of dust into a pan and carried it out of the room past the guard. His hand shook so bad that some of the dirt fell out.
"You look kind of pale, fella," the guard said. "You all right?"
"Just a little dizzy, I guess," Johnson carefully dumped the pan of dust into the cart's sack and swept up the dirt that had fallen. "Nothing coffee won't help."
"I've got some in my thermos," the guard said. He turned off the lights and locked the door.
"Thanks." After inhaling two cups of coffee, Johnson felt well enough to go back to work. He made sure that he cleaned the remaining offices just as thoroughly as the others. It was the least he could do. In the morning, when it was learned that the central computer in the New York City Branch of the Federal Reserve was full of garbage, the bureaucratic financial elite would have tidy offices in which to slit their wrists. Global economic power had just been transferred to the east. His client would be ecstatic. And he would be swimming in "kiss my ass" money!
* * *
Johnson found his father asleep again. He shook him awake. It was time to finally wrench some satisfaction out of the bastard.
"What? Who?" His father jerked up in bed in response to the rough handling. The old man's eyes were large and round.
"It's me, Pops." Johnson crossed his arms. He hoped the fear he saw in those eyes meant that his father was coherent. "I've come to tell you I'm leaving, for good. I made a fortune on my last job and now I'm going overseas to retire. But I'll see to it that you're well looked after. You know you can count on me to do right by you, Pops." And to do it right now!
His father only stared at him. Johnson dropped his arms and balled his hands up into fists. Here came both barrels!
"Why did you do it, you miserable son-of-a-bitch?" Johnson yelled. "Why did you hate yourself so much? Why did you create me just to torture your own flesh and blood? What did you hope to prove?" He reached down and shook his father's shoulders. "Talk, damn you. What the holy-living-hell was it all about, anyway?"
There was no reaction from his father aside from those wide, staring eyes.
Johnson thrust a finger into the old man's face. "You've got a ton of apologizing to do; it's high-time you started." He slapped him hard on his grizzled cheek.
His father slithered to the opposite side of the bed. "Please, don't hit me!" he screamed. "Please, don't hit me!" He cowered and covered his face with his hands as Johnson leaned over the bed to slap him again.
"Please, daddy!" The old man's voice was an adolescent shriek. "Don't hit me, anymore. Please, daddy. I'll be good. Daddy, no!" His last cry was broken by a sob and he started to whimper for his mommy. Johnson held his blow; he couldn't believe what he had just heard. The nurse ran into the room and pushed him away from the bed.
Johnson stumbled into a corner. The light from the open door washed over him. He felt numb. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Was it possible? No, it couldn't be. The old bastard had gone senile, that was all. But what if it was true? What if he really wasn't him? What if he was actually his. . . Good God! Johnson slid into the darkness of the floor and began to weep.
* * *
The woman leaned against the supercomputer and embraced it with both arms. "Oh poor, baby, she said. "I'm so sorry that bad man hurt you. At least we were able to catch him. You didn't suffer for nothing. But you must be brave now, my little darling."
The government's best computer expert leaned back in his seat. "With all due respect, sir," he said in a hushed voice to the person next to him, "this is absurd."
The man he spoke to dismissed him with a sharp gesture. The expert had had his chance.
* * *
The child sat up in bed. He was in a dark room. He rubbed his eyes and winced; his face hurt all over. He ran his fingers over it; his cheeks and eyes were puffy. He moaned when he touched a tender spot, but noticed that somebody had put salve on it. That made him feel a little better. He checked the rest of his body; his side was a little sore, but everything else seemed to be all right. He tried to sit up straight, but when he heard a noise just outside his room, he flinched and a piercing cold flowed through him. The door opened and he trembled enough to rock the bed. He closed his eyes and knew nothing but the terror of falling into a dark pit.
"Hello, darling," he heard a woman say. "I'm so glad you're awake now. Do you feel any better? "Look what I made for you." The aroma of freshly baked, chocolate-chip cookies filled the room. The child opened his eyes and saw a pretty woman in an apron place a tray of milk and cookies on the bedside stand. He thought he knew her from someplace. She walked over to the window and drew the curtains to let the sun in. Then she sat on the bed and gently placed her hand across his forehead. Her hand was cool and light to the touch.
"Oh, my little baby, I promise this will never happen again. Daddy's gone away to get help and he won't be back until he's better."
The child felt a warmth grow within him that swept away the cold. Bathed in the sunlight streaming in from the window, he hugged the mother that he had never had as tightly as he could.
* * *
"Sir!" It was the expert. He studied his monitor and his fingers danced across the keyboard. "I'm getting something, now."
The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board let out his breath. "Thank God that every poison has an antidote!"
Bio:Mark Stanley is a forty-something avionics technician, dedicated bachelor, former Marine, heavy drinker, weekend plunger at the track and amateur writer. He lives in South Florida.
E-mail: markgriz@hotmail.com
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