Джеффри Дивер - Nothing Good Happens After Midnight - A Suspense Magazine Anthology

“A double?”

“A double shift. I was supposed to be off at eleven, but the guy who was supposed to relieve me booked off sick, so I’m here till six.”

“Nice guy.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Right now some girl’s rockin’ his world. So what kind of work did you do? What’d you get laid off from?”

“Retail,” he said. “A mall job. Laid off makes it sound like they were cutting back. It wasn’t exactly like that for me.”

“What happened?”

“I talked back to a rude customer. Got fired.”

“What’d you do, exactly?” Jeff asked.

“Someone was trying to return something without a receipt. I think they actually stole it from another store and brought it to us for a refund. Happens all the time. Sometimes right in the store. They find something on the rack, tear off the tags, come up asking for their money back. I told her to take a hike and she complained to the manager and I got fired.”

“Sounds like you were trying to do the right thing.”

“I don’t know. If I’d just given her the refund there wouldn’t have been all the fuss. Store doesn’t want bad publicity, customers bad-mouthing the place. But people are so dishonest. People are awful.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got a few subscribers call in and they’re not so nice, either. So... what store was this?”

“Just a store. Doesn’t matter.” He paused. “It’s nice talking to you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Jeff said. “You sound like a nice guy.”

“Thanks.” Another pause. “I guess they won’t be saying that, this time tomorrow. After I’ve done it.”

Their conversation became long and meandering. Small talk. Jeff telling him where he’d gone on his last vacation — it was a fishing trip and he’d caught a muskellunge that was nearly four feet — the first paper he worked for, a girl he once dated whose father was in a TV series. Anything to keep the guy on the line.

Back at his desk, Larry had been telling Durkin that the guy on the phone with Jeff just lost his job, and his wife, and he might be from Pennsylvania, although that was just a guess.

“That’s not a lot to work with,” Durkin said.

“I know. It’s all Jeff’s got right now. Can’t you just trace the line?”

“That’s not as simple to set up as they make it look on TV. Be a lot easier if your guy could just get us a name. Get Jeff to be his friend.”

“He’s doing that.”

“Yeah, well, tell him to stick with it. Really sympathize. His name’s Tim, right? Tell him to use his name a lot.”

So Larry wrote another note to Jeff that said COPS REALLY NEED NAME and CALL HIM TIM A LOT and BE LIKE A FRIEND. He knew that was only going to prompt Jeff to roll his eyes again, like he couldn’t figure out this shit on his own.

Larry looked back at the radio room, saw Jeff still on the phone. He ran back, tossed the note in front of Jeff, and shrugged, as if to say, “I know.”

To Tim, Jeff said, “I guess I don’t see how killing a bunch of people is going to make any difference, Tim.”

“It’ll make a difference,” Tim said.

“Yeah, but how? You walk in, start shooting all over the place, you’re probably going to hit some kids and moms and stuff. How’s that making your situation any better?”

“It makes an impact,” he said. “It makes a statement.”

“What if you end up shooting me ? I mean, here we are talking, we’re making a connection. We’re getting to be friends over the phone, and then tomorrow, I’ll go into some place to get a burger and fries and you’ll walk in and shoot me.”

“Where do you usually go?” Tim asked. “I’ll pick a different place so it won’t be you. Or maybe you should just stay home tomorrow.”

“You’re missing my point, Tim. If it’s not me, it could be someone else you know. Some acquaintance. Maybe some friend you had in school, you walk in and end up killing his mother or his sister or something. You don’t want to do that.”

Tim went quiet, as if considering what Jeff had to say. “That’s kind of what my psychiatrist says.”

“Well, there you go,” Jeff said. “I don’t even have a degree or anything in psychiatry and I’m as smart as your shrink.” He tried another laugh. “Pretty good, huh? Maybe I should be charging you for this call. That’s a joke.”

“I guess what you’re saying is common sense.”

“I mean, Tim, come on. Why’d you phone in? Why’d you call into the newsroom to tell me this?”

“I guess... I don’t know.”

“I think you do. Come on. Think harder. You called the newsroom, didn’t know who you’d get, but you got me, and we’re talking, and you know why you did this?”

“You tell me,” Tim said.

“You wanted me to talk you out of it. That’s why you called. You wanted whoever picked up the phone to talk you out of it.”

Jeff glanced at the row of clocks that hung high on the newsroom wall. There was half a dozen of them, showing the correct time in London and Munich and Jerusalem and Beijing and Los Angeles. The sixth one was local time, and it read 3:14 a.m. Jesus, Jeff thought. He’d been on the phone with this guy for more than two hours. And that coffee Larry’d bought him was already looking for a way to escape. What was it they said about coffee? You only rented it? Jeff really needed to take a piss, but there was no way he could end this call and go strolling off to the bathroom.

He eyed the trash can under the desk. If he had to, he’d take a piss in that.

Jeff wrote down more notes on his pad, then waved at Larry. This time, Larry was already looking in his direction. He sprinted across the newsroom.

Jeff’s note read: WORKED RETAIL. WONT SAY WHERE. SAYS HE’S STILL GOING TO DO IT. SEEING A SHRINK. SOUNDS LIKE MAYBE HE’LL DO IT AT LUNCH TIME WHEN PLACES BUSY.

Larry read the note, nodded, went back to his desk.

He placed another call to Durkin, read him Jeff’s note.

Durkin said, “What was that part about a shrink?”

“Just what I said. Seeing a shrink. So I guess Tim is seeing a psychiatrist. Sounds like the kind of guy who should be seeing a psychiatrist.”

“We need that shrink’s name. Tell Jeff to ask him what his psychiatrist’s name is.”

Larry scribbled GET PSYCH’S NAME, ended the call, and ran back to the radio room. He handed the slip of paper to Jeff, who glanced at it, nodded, tossed it aside.

“This is for all the people who’ve cheated me and betrayed me,” Tim said. “Like my wife and my manager and everyone. My parents, too. They were never there for me when I needed them. My father, he never gave me credit for anything. He was ashamed of me. He was this big college football star. I was never any good at sports.”

“Me, neither,” Jeff said. He told a story about how, of all the things he had to do in phys ed, he was the absolute worst at lacrosse. “They wanted me to catch a tiny little ball in a tiny little net at the end of a fucking stick. Was not going to happen.”

“I hated all of it. I’ve never been very coordinated. Whenever they’d pick teams, like in gym, I would always be picked last.”

“I hear ya,” Jeff said. “I like to joke that when they got to me, they’d see if they could get someone from another school.”

That actually prompted a chuckle from Tim.

“You know what?” Jeff said. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you come down here, to the paper, for when I get off at six? We’ll go get some breakfast, talk this out. There’s a really good diner close to the paper, open twenty-four hours. They do a great omelet. My treat.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’d be a trap.”