The little black book

“I DON’T FUCKING CARE…” screamed an angry man in a cream-colored shirt, the red tie already disheveled and dangling from his neck, as if it were a mountain climber desperately postponing his fall.

“BUT, BUT…” a timid exasperation from the other man in the room, his eyes filled with a mixture of hopelessness and pleading forgiveness. “I know I messed up, but this will be the last time. I swear.”

“It’s been mistake, after mistake with you. You cost the company much more than you bring in at this point.” The angry man from earlier started to shuffle papers on his desk furiously. “The Mahta project. FAILED. The ‘Consin project. DOWN THE DRAIN. The Zuber contract. In the toilet.” He picked up a bunch of the paper and threw them in the air with fevered temper.

Loose paper began to fall down the room, much alike to the tears that slowly trickled down the eyes of the young executive. Broken in spirit, and seeing his world cave in, he offered a last plea. “I can fix it, it won’t happen again.”

“DAMN right it won’t happen again.” The man with the red tie took a seat by his desk, and cupped his forehead with his hand in a sincere show frustration. “I know you’re going through stuff, but this is business, and your personal troubles are starting to seriously damage our operations. The best I can do is give you a months full pay, as it stands, you are officially off our books.” The older man finally said, a weight of his chest, as this had been a suppressed desire for some time coming.

The younger man had not even the energy to argue further, deep within he knew, this was like waiting for night to come on a sunny day, sure to happen. But why couldn’t his boss see his position. He knew what he was facing, then again, probably why he gave him so many chances. His mind wasn’t even on the job, his troubles at home were swallowing him like a whale.

“I hope things work out for you Johnny.” The older man said with little expression.

Johnny took a good final look at his boss’s office, then like an admittance of defeat, turned around and dragged himself down the corridor like dead weight.

As he made it down the aisle, his boss simply said under his breath. “I hope she makes it.”

With his packed belongings in a box, he walked down the business district like a plastic bag, led by the wind. His navy-blue business suit, unkept, his baby blue dress shirt unbuttoned halfway, darkened patches from sweet. He stopped by a retailer’s window, and had a look at his reflection, ‘desperation at its finest,’ he captioned the image.

He had to no plans to go home and face reality, not yet. He walked for hours, the sun steady setting. He ended up in a tiny little suburb and sat by a park, watching the birds being feed by some seniors in the distance. That brought to mind how would he sustain himself. All of his pay went into rent and medical bills, he barely had enough to get by on some days. He needed to find a new job quickly. He was lucky to get the one he had, it was simply by his late father’s reputation and an incident far far in the past involving his father and his now ‘previous’ boss, that he landed the position. But no reputation or past favors could save him now. He’d be lucky to find something that paid even half of what he was getting.

There was a loud BANG in the distance, the birds took flight from a nearby block. Followed by what sounded like argument. Johnny was curious, he left his box by the park bench and cautiously ran towards the commotion.

“The coppers will be here soon,” a rough looking man scrambled into the distance.

Suddenly the sound of sirens began to sound, growing nearer with each second. A second man ran out of a building, clutching a big black sports bag.

“I told you not to shoot,” the second man raced down the steps, and took of in the same direction as his acquaintance. Before long a cop car was already in the same block. As the two raced into the distance, the police vehicle took note of them and gave pursuit.

The two man ran and jumped fences in an attempt to illude their pursuers. By now the cops had to give chase by foot, as the fugitives dotted through backyards. Johnny was keeping close to the action, close enough to see everything, but far enough to remain inconspicuous.

The man who freighted the big heavy bag, suddenly lost his luggage as he jumped over yet another fence. The bag landed in a thick shrub.

“FREEZE,” an officer yelled from the distance, pistol pointed already.

The second man juggled the idea of racing back and colleting his parcel, or continue in his run for freedom.

His rough looking accomplice quick to make a decision for him, “Leave it, we can come get it back later. But that won’t happen if we are locked up.”

With that morsel of wisdom, the second fugitive took off in the distance as the police officers attempted to gain on them.

After a while, the officers and the fugitives were long gone. It was dark now, Johnny neared the bush where he saw the bag become lodged. He looked around, feeling as if he himself was committing a crime. The yard appeared to be abandoned, the unkept bushes and wild growing plants, signaling to the vacancy of any occupants. The street lamps providing little visibility as he kneeled and clutched the bag. Before even opening it, he could feel the bag was filled with paper, almost bursting.

He unzipped it slowly, and as soon as his eyes processed what he saw, he fell back in astonishment. The bag was filled with money, $100 dollar notes, this was a vast sum, much more than he had ever seen in his entire life. He shovelled his hand into the bag and gripped large bundles, bringing it rapidly to his face, where he took an engrossed sniff, it smelled like sweet cold hard cash, sniffs to the effect of a powerful drug, he became giddy and delirious. He rationalized for a moment, this surely was dirty money, he could feel the blood spilled as if it haunted every note. The right thing to do would be to return it to the authorities, but then what about his mother? She was suffering in a hospital bed, in and induced coma, with a life-threatening brain tumor, surely the gods were looking over gracefully at him, why else would he encounter such an amount on this faithful day.

Johnny looked around surreptitiously as he made it out of that neighborhood, feeling paranoid at every harmless stare that positioned itself on him. Maybe it was in fact true what he had once heard, ‘no large amount of cash comes without an equal amount of stress attached.’ Holding the large bag ever so tightly to his person, he jumped on the next available bus and headed home. While he sat at the back of the bus, a shabby dressed homeless took notice of him.

“Hey man, what you hiding in that big old bag ae?” the homeless slurred as he battled his intoxication, his foul scent enough to induce vomit in someone. “You stole some money and you don’t want to share with me?” He inched his face closer and positioned one eye on the bag like a hawk.

Johnny was more than uncomfortable now, surely this homeless was just exercising some drunken banter, but his allegations, even thou just lunatic words, were too accurate for comfort.

“Let me have a look,” the homeless jumped at the bag, from this proximity his odor, a mixture of sweat, cheap alcohol and piss hit Johnny like a punch to the nose. He wrestled the man away from the bag, and being at the next stop decided to just all together leave the bus. “HEY! HEY! that guy stole my money.” The homeless belched as Johnny made it out the door.

He wasn’t far off from his home. He looked both directions before opening the door and sliding into the refuge of his apartment. The door closed gently. He turned on the lights, and closed all the curtains. He emptied the contents of the bag on the table, loose bits of papers covering the round table and floor like confetti at an opening ceremony. Then a black little book fell out, juxtaposed by all the green around it, also to his shock, a pistol became self-evident. He picked it up the book and examined it. Leather bound, the size of a notebook. He opened it, there were 4 columns in each page. The first had what appeared to be names. Richard, M. , Mark, J. Benson, H… Next to the names where addresses, 3 Berkinshire Rd, 4 Pollot Ave. Then on the third row, numbers, 15,564, 22,000, and so on. And on the final column, ticks.

Instinct told him this was like a hit book or some kind of debt collection, the presence of a pistol making it all the more plausible. He looked at the firearm, but did not dare to touch it. He quickly made sense that each name had a hit in the number amount present, and those that were ‘ticked’ had been ‘fulfilled.’ On the final pages there were still some hits not fulfilled. As he was shuffling through the book, a single loose leaf fell out, it was carried by a draft from the problematic air conditioning in the apartment and flew through the room till it became attached to the fish tank in the corner due to the condensation. Johnny walked over and noticed that the U.V. light in the fish tank was playing abracadabra with the page, what appeared to be empty now had some visible writing on it. Curious Johnny bent down and focused his stare, in invisible ink someone had written an address and date. The date was tonight.

What to do? He was unemployed, faced with the potential of making some quick cash, a lot of it. The money he presently had would go to his mother’s medical bills, yet he would still need some more. But if he took a chance, maybe, he could make even more. But did he have what it takes? And was he ready to dive into a potentially dangerous and unknown world? Surely someone would come looking for this kind of cash, and money like that had deadly written all over it. He looked over at the pistol. He wasn’t sure, but he had to try it, the slow but all-consuming influence of greed had already started to germinate. With restraint cast aside, he made his decision. May fortune be on his side.