Joshua Patterson

 

“I’m having a crisis of faith,” said Lester Mann.

“Why, whatever do you mean, dear?” asked Thelma, his wife.

“Who wrote the book on morality and what gave him the right?”

“God, I suppose.”

“Bosh! How do you know that?”

“I don’t know,” said Thelma, looking perplexed. “Because that’s what everyone says.”

“I wonder what makes everyone so damned smart and me so unconvinced.” Lester pulled at an eyebrow restlessly.

“Oh, Les,” sighed Thelma. “You’re being foolish again.”

Lester’s grunt was a single eloquent staccato syllable of disdain.

Lester’s boyhood chums sat around their regular table drinking their usual Wednesday morning coffee.

Joe flicked two pink packets of Sweeten with a forefinger to settle their contents before tearing them open.

“Nothin’ like synthetic sugar for a healthy lifestyle,” said Norm from across the table.

Joe snorted. “Look who’s talking.” He directed a meaningful look at Norm’s paunch that even the table could not completely conceal. “Surprised you don’t put butter in your coffee.” He was in his usual good mood.

Lester slouched in his chair, sipping at his black coffee listening to their grumpy banter. “Why morality?” he suddenly blurted, unable to contain himself.

Joe and Norm fell silent; both regarded him with bland expressions, which usually meant trouble.

“Why cream substitute?” asked Norm. He and Joe exchanged sly looks, united now on a mutual target.

“Why income tax?” said Joe. “We all have to pay, and the wife takes the rest. Why work?”

Lester ignored them. “Yeah, but who says we have to treat each other a certain way?”

“Not me,” said Joe. “I love pissing people off.”

“C’mon. I’m serious. Who says I can’t walk up to you, punch you right in the nose and not be totally justified?”

“My fist connecting with your nose,” replied Joe with a smirk. “I always could hit harder.”

It was a good answer in its way. Cause and effect. But it didn’t hit the bottom of the well of Lester’s troubling thoughts. “But by what standard did you think it was unfair of me to hit you?”

“Huh?” said Norm. “Les, boy. You’re talkin’ loco. Time for a little R and R, you know? Maybe a little tequila.”

“I could go for some tequila right now,” said Joe mournfully.

Norm shook his head. “For God’s sake, Joe, it’s ten in the morning!”

“Yeah, you’re right. Wait an hour for brunch.” Joe turned to Lester. “But to answer your question, everyone knows what right and wrong is.”

“Did Hitler think it was wrong to kill off millions of Jews and Gypsies?”

“Sure. He just didn’t give a rat’s ass.”

“How do you go about getting a rat’s ass in the first place?” chimed Norm.

“Use your imagination,” growled Joe. “But, Les, what makes you want to go off popping your friends in the nose?”

“It’s not that—“ Lester trailed off, changed tack. “Do you believe in God?”

“Like in Sunday school and all that?”

“Sure.”

“Can’t say I do. No one’s ever proved it to me.”

“So what’s the point?”

“You’ve lost me,” Joe was getting irritated. “What’s the point of what?”

“Life!” cried Lester passionately. “If there isn’t any God, if there is no bottom line, who’s to say what’s right or wrong? Let’s go rob a bank, live off the fat of the land!”

“You are loco, Les.”

“No, I just really need to know!”

“Right’s right, wrong’s wrong. What’s the problem?”

“That is the problem! Who says?”
Norm made circles around one ear with his finger. “You really are the chief Froot Loop on Toucan Island, aren’t you?”

Joe glowered at him. “Who you calling crazy, crazy? You get that expression from your kid?”

Lester’s quandary nettled him and the paper-thin, spider web answers of wife and friends did nothing to alleviate the mounting pressure in his head. Their answers exacerbated his niggling doubts. Their very ambiguity drove him nearly mad. He felt the fabric of his universe fraying around him, filling his soul with a vast cold darkness, and resounding with the unanswered question, who said?

At last Lester came to a decision. He wasn’t going to live by the rules anymore, rules no one could enforce. It wasn’t logical! In a court of law if a defendant argued that he committed the crime because everyone else was doing it, the jury would laugh him out of the courtroom and into a cell. No court in the world would acquit such a ridiculous plea. Yet countless people got away with countless acts of morality every minute of every day. Where was the consistency? Who made these absurd rules?

Nope, morality was not his cup of tea. He was sick of clean hands, being kind to his neighbour, fair play. Things were going to change.

The next day he marched past the CEO’s stunned secretary and threw open the doors to the top man’s office.

“Mr. Koop,” he declared. “We need to talk.”

Edwin Koop said into his phone, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up. He eyed Lester calmly from his throne-like leather office chair. “What can I do for you, Mr.—?”

“Mann,” said Lester. “Lester Mann.”

“Mr. Mann.”

“I’ve come to discuss my promotion with you.”

Edwin Koop pursed his full lips. “Why should I give you a promotion?”

“Because I can help you. I will do anything you need me to do with utter lack of conscience.”

Something quickened behind Edwin Koop’s small, dark eyes. “Close the doors, Mr. Mann, and sit down. Would you like a drink?”

“Tequila.”

“It is ten in the morning, you know.”

“Even so.”

Edwin Koop poured Lester tequila and himself a spritzer. “Now,” he said settling back. “Tell me more about your utter lack of conscience.”

“Most days, Mr. Koop—may I call you Edwin? —Edwin, as I sit in my accountant’s cubicle, I feel like taking this letter opener and stabbing it into your arm, just to see the expression on your fat, rich face. But then I realized something. It was an epiphany, a revelation! A message from heaven, if you believe in that sort of thing. You had to do something to be in the position you’re in. And that something was a willingness to do what others were not.”

“Very perceptive, Mr. Mann.”

“Thank you,” said Lester. “So here I am,” he threw his arms open as though to embrace the CEO. “Presenting myself to you, a willing disciple, an apprentice. Tell me your secrets, Mr. Koop and in return I will perform any task you set me.”

CEO Koop sat back in his leather chair, fixed Lester with a calculating stare. He closed one eye, stared through his left, closed that one and opened his right.

Lester watched, fascinated, hanging on his every move. Both Edwin’s eyes popped open, startling Lester.

“Yes, yes,” said Edwin Koop. “I could use a man like you. Pack your things. I’ll have my secretary move them up to Nicolai’s old office.”

“You mean it? I mean, thank you, Mr. Koop!”

Edwin Koop spread his arms wide and smiled hungrily. “How could I not? You have entered the inner circle. You are now Vice President of Productivity with all the trappings of a powerful man. A large salary, company car, and as much Green Man Clothing as you need.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“My pleasure!” cried Koop with a toothy grin. He waved Lester out with gusto. “Now get out of here, pick up your car and go show that pretty wife of yours.”

Lester fled on winged feet. “Fetch my things!” he cried to the astounded secretary. “I’m moving up in the world. And don’t break my coffee cup!”

Lester burst through his front door shouting, “Thelma! Thelma! The winds are changing. Come look!”

She emerged from the kitchen, towel in one hand, plate in the other, and alarm all over her earnest face. “Lester, what’s wrong? It’s only eleven-thirty.” Her voice quavered suddenly. “You weren’t fired were you?”

Lester laughed and grabbed his wife, spun her around. The plate broke on the floor. “Oop! Don’t worry, dear!” crowed he. “I’ll buy you a hundred plates. Each one a different colour. “

Thelma’s hand fluttered at her face. “I—don’t understand.”

Lester caught both her hands in his. “He made me VP. Vice president, Thelma!”

“Oh!” she cried.

“You know what that means?” he asked, eyes shining. “We can visit your mother in Bellevue. We could send you down for two weeks. A month!”

“Oh my!” cried Thelma. Her voice dropped on a note of longing. “Mother. It’s been so hard for her since Father died.”

But Lester was oblivious. He pulled her outside to see his gleaming red company car. She oohed appreciatively over the leather seats, the automatic windows, stereo and convertible top, but something gave her pause. Worry splashed across her good-natured face. “But, Lester, how did this all happen?”

“Why, I walked into his office and spoke reason to the man. He’s very understanding. That’s how you get ahead in the world, Thelma. Initiative!” He waved a fist in the air.

“Easy things just don’t happen like this. Not to people like us.”

“Exactly, darling. Not to people like us. People with initiative, people willing to do what they must!”

Thelma smiled weakly at her husband, though worry still clouded her face. “I hope it turns out all right.”

“It already has!” he kissed her cheek and leapt into his new car. “Be back in a couple of hours.”

He sped off with a jaunty wave to max out his credit cards. He bought a new washer and dryer, a set of titanium golf clubs and a 200-piece china set for Thelma.

He returned to work the next day, his euphoria unabated and his moral dilemma all but forgotten. With delight he was informed by his new secretary, Mary, that his first appointment of the day was a ten o’clock tee time with Edwin Koop.

He rubbed his hands gleefully together as he took stock of his liquor cabinet, mahogany desk and his commanding view of downtown. Oh yes, he was in the big time now.

At the third hole—a par 5 shaped like a giant kidney bean—Koop brought him up to speed on his responsibilities.

“As veep of productivity you answer to me and to me only, Mr. Mann. Some of the tasks I will give you will be sensitive ones and talking to anyone could lose us our edge over the competition. You must be discrete. I do not tolerate failure. I do not accept excuses. But I have every confidence in you. You will not let me down, will you?”

Lester beamed. Koop smiled his hungry smile but Lester did not notice. Koop took a practice swing, sent a divot like a dirt rocket down slope. He poked at the exposed soil with his driver.

“Aren’t you supposed to replace that, sir?” asked Lester hesitantly. He’d never played much golf but he’d heard somewhere that you should replace your divots.

“Rules are made to be broken, Lester,” replied Koop. “That’s rule number 1. How do you think I made it to the top? Hmm? By toeing the line?” He chuckled. “I don’t think so. Only whimpering dolts—like you a week ago—do that. And where do they end up? A junior accountant in a tiny cubicle with pent up rage over lost dreams and a problem with alcohol.”

“But if rules are made to be broken, why give me any?” Lester’s problem leapt to the fore suddenly.

Koop looked at him shrewdly through narrowed eyes. “I expect you to use discretion, Lester. If you think you can outsmart me, by all means do so. In fact, I expect no less of you. But if I catch you at that game, or if you fail to do what I tell you to do…” He left it unfinished, but the threat was there in invisible letters too big to miss. They leaped out at Lester, threatening to overwhelm him.

But the notion made him think. Here was one possible solution. Maybe no one said what was right or wrong. Koop evidently wouldn’t spare a drop of saliva for morality. He was in the game for himself and damn anyone who stood in his way. If Koop were right, then he, Lester Mann, had the world at his feet. A thrill shot through him and his hands began to shake. Yet a shiver of doubt accompanied the rush up his spine; some small voice cautioned him to not follow this course of action, but it was his turn at the tee—he had no time for such distractions.

“We really need to work on that slice,” murmured Edwin Koop.

Edwin Koop gave him his first task the next day. Lester noticed the briefcase on Koop’s desk immediately. The CEO patted the smooth leather case; a red ring glittered on his little finger.

“Need you to take this to Mr. Leary down at McCain’s Cannery,” he said, all business. “Don’t stop anywhere, don’t give it to anyone else. This needs to be there at ten sharp. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lester. He nearly saluted; the mood in the office was that martial.

When Lester arrived at the cannery two large men greeted him. “Lookin’ for somethin’, bro?”

Lester clutched the briefcase to his chest and tried to think in the overwhelming stench of fish that pervaded the pier. Gulls fought over something some distance away, squawking and flapping, but the two men demanded his attention.

“Delivery for Mr. Leary,” said Lester, wondering what Koop had gotten him into.

“Yeah? From who?”

“Edwin Koop.”

“I’ll take it to him.”

Lester retreated a step. “I’m to give it to him personally if you don’t mind.”

The man on his left cracked his knuckles. “How do we know it’s not a bomb?”

“Why would I want to blow up a building full of fish? You can’t be serious!”

The men laughed at that. The one on his right, a big blond bouncer-type, shook his head. “Go on in, and mind the fish. Don’t hurt ‘em. Leary’s in the back.” They chuckled to each other as though what the blond one had said was somehow funny.

Shaking his head, Lester entered the dark, cool fishy interior. The roar of machinery was deafening and he had to shout to a man in a blue coat. “Leary! Where’s Leary?”

The man shook his head and pointed to the far recesses of the place with a greasy finger.

Lester wound his way among conveyors heaped with glassy-eyed, gaping fish until he found a door with a sign above it that said, “Office”.

He knocked but couldn’t hear through the racket to know if anyone had responded. He poked his head into the room. Green concrete walls, a chair with its cushion torn and stuffing pulled partially out and a big old metal desk that must have weighed more than a small truck were all the furnishings in the place.

Behind the desk a wiry man with faded tattoos poking out from his rolled-up shirt sleeves pulled on a robusto. He peered down at a pile of papers before him through bifocals, head thrust forward.

Pale, steely eyes rose to Lester. The man took his glasses off slowly and stared at him. His only movement was his thin lips as he exhaled a streamer of smoke. The reek of cigar and fish was overwhelming. “Who in hell are you?” he rasped.

“Ah, Lester Mann. Edwin Koop sent me down with this.” He held the briefcase out like an offering.

“What happened to Ramon?”

“Ramon?”

Leary shook his head, chewed on his cigar. He gestured with his glasses. “Bring it here.” Lester set the briefcase before the ashy tip of Leary’s cigar. The other man cracked it open. A quick glance elicited a grunt, though Lester could not see the contents. “All here,” Leary blew smoke in Lester’s face. “Tell Koop, thank you. As always.” Leary’s lip curled around his cigar in a sneer.

“I’ll do that,” said Lester, waving a hand to dispel the smoke.

“Alright,” drawled Leary. “You do that.” His hand curled around the case’s handle. “I got work to do.”

Joe and Norm whistled when Lester entered the coffee shop Saturday morning. “Nice rental. Going on a trip?” asked Joe.

Norm nudged Joe. “Maybe he’s dealing drugs. Hear there’s good money in crack.”

“The hell there is!” retorted Joe. “You produce that every time you bend over and you’re still poor!”

But at Lester’s knowing smile, Norm said, “What gives? You look like a cat that’s got into the cream.”

“That car out there?” Lester said. “It’s mine.” His friends gave him looks of bored disbelief.

Fran came up to the table. “The usual, Les?”

“No. I don’t think so, Fran. Get me a latte with whipped cream and cinnamon on it, would you?”

Fran pursed purple lips. “Serious?”

“Yes! Yes, of course I’m serious. When am I not serious?”

“Every day,” snorted Joe.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Get me my order, Fran!” She turned dubiously away and jumped as Lester slapped her ample backside.

Joe and Norm exchanged looks. “He’s drunk,” said Norm.

“High on crack, I say,” said Joe, taking a sip of his usual sugar substitute sweetened coffee.

“Gentlemen, you are looking at the new vice president of Green Man Clothing,” said Lester with a smug smile.

Norm reached across the table, nearly spilling his own coffee. “Why, hello, Mr. Rockefeller, so nice of you to join us! Tell me, how’s business? Could I borrow a billion dollars?”

“Ah, jealousy rears its ugly head,” said Lester, leaning back and viewing his friends with an air of superiority.

“You’re not really—?” asked Norm. Lester nodded.

“Who’d you kill?” said Joe.

Lester shook his head. “I didn’t have to kill, sleep with or bribe anyone to get it. My luck has changed.”

“Like lightning out of a clear blue sky, huh?” said Joe, clearly suspicious.

“What’s the matter with you guys? Aren’t you happy for me?”

“I dunno, Les,” Norm shook his head. “It’s a lot to swallow so quickly. How’d it happen?”

Lester sighed; Fran returned with his latte. “That’ll be four bucks, Les.”

Norm and Joe whistled. “That coffee or platinum?” said Joe.

“Ha ha.” Lester handed Fran a ten.

“I’ll get your change.”

“Don’t worry about it, Frannie.”

“You sure?”

Lester rolled his eyes. “Sure, I’m sure! Take the money.”

Fran shrugged and turned away. Lester raised his hand to slap her. “You do that again,” she said without looking back. “And I’ll break your arm. I don’t care how much you tip me.”

Lester laughed. “Got me.” He turned to his friends who waited with expectant looks. “What?”

“Spit it out,” said Joe. “How’d this happen and why are you acting like an idiot?”

So Lester told them what he’d told Thelma, omitting his utter lack of conscience speech to Edwin Koop. They gave him much the same look as Thelma had.

“You really think your boss just saw reason? Not using you?” asked Joe. “Not taking advantage of you?”

“Seems a little naïve to me,” chimed Norm.

“Not you too,” sighed Lester. “Look, I got us season baseball tickets. Right next to each other.” He laid them on the table.

Joe shook his head. “Something’s fishy here, Les.”

“I think you’re being naïve,” said Norm.

“You said that already.” Lester scowled. He tapped the tickets. “Well? Are you gonna take them?”

Joe eyed them longingly. “I don’t think so. Something doesn’t seem right, man.”

“Fine!” snapped Lester, rising. “I see what’s going on here! You can’t handle the fact that I’ve made something of myself while you haven’t. Some friends you’ve turned out to be!”

“It’s not like that,” objected Norm, but Joe stared up at Les.

“You’re reacting pretty strongly if everything’s okay,” he said.

“How am I supposed to act when my friends turn on me?”

“Who’s turning on who here? You’re looking at the wrong side of the coin, Les.”

Lester glared at him. “I expected more from you,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, me too.” Joe got up for a refill, turning his back.

“Fine,” said Lester. “Fine!” He stormed out.

Joe rejoined Norm; they exchanged looks. The season tickets remained where Lester thrown them. They both stared at them. Third row tickets behind first base.

A cop pulled Lester over for speeding as he drove home. He snapped at Thelma when he finally arrived. She retreated into herself and stared at the TV, a wounded lump of injured innocence.

Ashamed, and mad at himself for feeling that way, Lester moped around the house then went to bed, angry and resentful. That irritated him, too: caring what his friends thought. His new credo shouldn’t make allowances for anyone but himself. But he couldn’t shake his feelings of betrayal. He tossed and turned but couldn’t sleep, punched his pillow and finally kicked off his blankets and sat up. There could be no rest for him this night. He got up, wondering where Thelma was. He discovered her asleep on the couch, a late night show with canned laughter flickered on TV.

Lester covered her with the quilt from the back of the couch then slipped out onto the patio. The air was cooler outside and the stars twinkled brightly.

Yet rather than ceasing, his doubts had multiplied. From a niggling worm of doubt, they had grown into a hissing many-headed hydra. If self-interest was the abiding law, why did he feel so guilty for his treatment of Joe, Norm and Thelma? He fought for arguments—it’s just cultural, the result of 35 years of social conditioning. He had to be strong until this weakness passed. But something stung no matter how attempted to rationalize.

“Why?” he whispered to the stars. “Why?” He sank into a deck chair. But the stars did not answer, or did so in a fashion he did not comprehend. He laid his head back on the chair and gazed up at the sky. The churning in his soul dwindled from this perspective, compared to the vast spaces between the white stars.

Eventually his eyes drifted shut and he slept until the sun cast a red glow across the eastern sky.

The guards recognized him the next time and waved him through. Lester’s spirits revived; this wasn’t so hard. After all, what had he compromised? From a so-called “moral” point of view he’d done nothing objectionable. His resentment of his friends roused itself. How dare they undermine his success with jealousy! Some friends. Just when everything was beginning to go right for him.

He knocked on Leary’s door and opened it casually, feeling righteously indignant and confident. Leary turned from a man in the torn chair whose hands were held by a brawny man he did not recognize. Leary’s knuckles were flecked with blood, presumably from the man’s nose, which seemed to be flooding.

Leary pulled the cigar from his mouth. “If it isn’t Koop’s courier. Come to watch the show?”

Lester’s eyes darted everywhere but at the bloodied man. “No-no thanks.”

“Free country,” Leary shrugged. “Set it on the desk.”

Lester tried to avoid the blood spattered liberally around the chair and set the case down. Leary moved to it, flicked it open. “Good,” he said, and rummaged in a drawer. He pulled out an envelope and tossed it to Lester.

“For having to see this,” Leary said, smiling nastily. “Hope we didn’t upset your delicate constitution.” The man in the chair groaned.

Lester shook his head and fled, heart shrinking. Back in his car he opened the envelope. His hands began to shake violently. “My god,” he said faintly. The envelope was stuffed with hundreds.

He returned to work, his thoughts in a whirl. So much so that he couldn’t even gloat over his reserved parking spot. As he walked down the hallway to his office, Koop stepped out of his own.

“Agnes, get Harry on the phone for me. He’s in meetings. Might take a while.” Then, spotting Lester. “Come here. Come visit for a few minutes.”

Lester trudged into the office. Koop paused by the bar to pick up two glasses and a bottle of scotch. “Something bothering you? You look a little pale.” He held out one of the glasses.

“It’s only eleven,” said Lester weakly, but he took the glass. Peat burned through him as he sipped, galvanizing his nerve. “Yes, Koop, something’s wrong. Leary was beating some guy up when I went down there today.”

Koop’s brows furrowed. “Really? Well, obviously the man did something to get on his bad side. I’d advise against that.”

“So this doesn’t surprise you?”

“Nothing Leary does surprises me .” His frown grew heavy for a moment but he gave his head a shake and brightened. “Besides, beating someone up is good for the heart. Not theirs, maybe, but it does you a world of good. Gets rid of so many frustrations.” Koop punched at an invisible opponent several times, finishing him off with a vicious uppercut. “You should have offered to throw a couple yourself. Done you some good!”

“I don’t think so.”

Koop dropped his hands and his voice. “Listen, Mr. Mann. You signed up for this gig. As I recall you said you’d do anything for my instruction. To my knowledge I haven’t required you to do anything illegal, have I?” Lester shook his head. “No? Good. Now, what Leary does is Leary’s business. That’s rule number two: see no evil, hear no evil. You understand me? You’re in too deep to back out now.” Lester took a larger than average sip of scotch. Koop nodded with some satisfaction. “Now I take it you’ve figured out that Leary’s no one to piss off.”

“I got that impression. Don’t think he likes me much.”

Koop looked amused. “Leary doesn’t like anyone much. Don’t take it too hard. Long as you show up with the briefcase on time, he’ll leave you alone. But you mess up and you’ll be the one in the chair.”

A flicker of resentment took light at the condescension in Koop’s voice. Lester found himself wanting to get even suddenly, wanting to get some dignity back. At that moment he felt helpless. Still, he swallowed it down with the last of his scotch. He stood up. “Thanks for the drink and the advice. You have things for me today?”

Koop pushed a pile of papers at him. “Find out who’s skimming money from me.”

Lester simmered in a slow boil for the rest of the day, despite the fact that Edwin Koop had set him a task he enjoyed. He did not like being taken for granted. And it seemed Koop had not been entirely honest with him. He felt more a lackey than a vice president. Koop was still paying him well, but Lester felt cheapened without realizing the double standard he was living. What right did he have to hurt feelings when, from his own mouth, he’d declared autonomy from morality!

But that didn’t occur to him as he sat bathed in the sunlight steaming through his office windows. No, the foremost thought in his head was he wanted to get even with Koop and Leary. Show them that he, Lester Mann, was no slump, no pigeon, no mark!

He wondered just what was in that briefcase and whether he could use its contents to his advantage. If he could get a look inside it, he would know. His resolve hardened.

He pushed himself violently out of his chair and began to pace. A small voice, though, nibbled at his sandstone self-interest. He couldn’t tell if his private misgivings were the result of being told there was right and wrong or if there really was. On one hand he wanted to grab as much as he could get at any cost, on the other, he wanted people to respect him and treat him fairly. He leaned against the window, watched little ant people scurry far below him.

“I feel like a god up here,” he whispered. “But with his hands and feet all tied up.”

The next evening was the first game of the season. He implored Thelma to go with him, but she refused.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go alone. At least I’ll enjoy myself.”

All the good parking spots were taken by the time he arrived. In fact, all the bad ones were gone too. He ended up four blocks from the stadium. A little bad humour surfaced. “Should have reserved spaces for season ticket holders,” he grumbled.

He rushed to his seat, feverishly seeking it out. He dropped into it with a sigh of relief and looked to his left. There sat Joe, a hot dog frozen in mid-bite. Norm sat two seats down, flushing and staring fixedly out over the field.

“So.” Lester’s eyes narrowed.

Joe removed the hot dog without biting. “Uh, hi, Les.”

“Not principled enough to throw my tickets out, huh?” Lester pushed back into the hard seat. “Shit. Shit!”

“It wasn’t like that,” protested Joe.

Norm turned redder.

“Beer, sir?” asked a vendor

“Got a keg?” snarled Lester, getting up and pushing past him.

Joe half-rose but thought better of it. Norm was a burning red statue fixated on right field.

The only place Lester could think of going was the office. There was a good deal of liquor. Enough to forget. He stalked the dark hallways sullen and fuming. Joe and Norm had destroyed any respect he had for them. He could live with their ribbing, even their disapproval, but he could not endure their abandonment of principle.

He jabbed the forty-fifth floor button of the elevator and paced about its tiny confines clenching and unclenching his hands. Two-faced backstabbing jerks! He ground his teeth in rage, completely missing his ridiculousness. He had been hurt by the very lack of principles he himself professed to live by! Joe and Norm had done nothing but conform to his standards and he found he didn’t like it all. The door chimed open and he moved toward his office.

A light shone at the edges of Koop’s door. The CEO had stayed late—the last thing Lester needed. He slowed to a tiptoe and began to edge past but the heavy odor of cigar stopped him in his tracks. Koop’s raised voice cut through the scent. “… bleeding me dry! I can only afford so much before it shows on the books!”

“Cut the crap,” came Leary’s raspy voice. “It’s snowing cash in this office. You can afford the increase.”

“You’re not going to get it!”

Leary’s voice seemed to be nearing the door. Lester ducked behind a cubicle wall. “I will get it or you’re gonna find life gets real difficult when you don’t do as I say. I’ll take this place down around your ears! You and the closet will be headline news so fast your nose’ll bleed!”

The door opened in a blaze of light. Lester huddled down, suddenly afraid of what would happen if Leary caught him just then. The door shut, cutting off the light and the stream of profanity issuing from Koop’s mouth. Lester waited fearfully until he heard the elevator door open and shut. He found his fear had dissipated his thirst. The only thing he wanted now was to get out before either Koop or Leary realized he was there.

He moved silently to the elevator, expecting Koop to storm out of the office at any moment and catch him. But the door slid open and he bolted in with a flutter of last minute panic. As he descended he left his anger behind like smoke. He was too frightened and intrigued by what he’d just overheard. Opportunity was knocking and he’d be a fool to not open the door.

Koop looked at him strangely the next morning. “So!” he said with something more than his usual joviality. “Did you take your lovely wife out for dinner last night? It was the perfect evening for it.”

Lester quelled a flutter of panic. He shook his head. “No. I went to the game last night.”

“Excellent! Who won?”

Lester’s thoughts faded into white noise. Who won? Who won! He didn’t have the faintest idea! “We did.”

“Good for the home team!” Koop patted the briefcase. “Take this down as usual, if you don’t mind.”

“Got it.”

When Lester had gone Koop pushed his intercom button. “Agnes, did we win the game last night?”

A brief spurt of static. “No, sir. Martindale won.”

Koop cradled his chin in his hands, thinking. After a moment he sighed and picked up the phone. “He’s on his way down. Yeah, he was here last night like you said. Make sure he fully grasps the seriousness of his position.”

Leary’s toughs were uncharacteristically brusque when Lester arrived. They stared at him without speaking but did not move to block him. In the cannery everyone ignored him as usual but the guards’ strange behavior made it seem as though they were pointedly snubbing him.

There was a man in the office with Leary. His swarthy head turned as Lester opened the door. His crooked nose looked askance at the black mustache over his full lips. His spiky black hair reminded Lester of a hedgehog coated in oil. But his eyes were what Lester would recall afterward: chips of black ice.

Leary put down his pen. “Koop’s errand boy,” he sneered around his omnipresent cigar. He motioned for the briefcase. As soon as Lester set it down, the other man seized Lester by the arms. “This is Ramon,” said Leary with a nasty grin. “I don’t believe you’ve met.”

Ramon jerked his arms by way of greeting. Leary came around the desk. He stared at Lester unreadably then punched him in the stomach. Lester’s breath exploded out of him into the fishy, cigar-laden air. “We know you were there last night,” he said and hit him again. “We know you heard.” Lester shook his head, unable to speak. Leary hit him again. “If you lie you’ll just make things worse for yourself.” He hit him again.