Siegel, James - Derailed

I went down.

I couldn’t breathe; I began to claw the air for breath.

“That’s for canceling your cards, Charles. It was kind of inconvenient for me, seeing as how I was in the middle of buying something.”

The other man thought the whole thing was funny — he started laughing.

Then Vasquez said: “We’ll be leaving now, Charles.”

It took me five minutes to breathe normally again, then another five minutes to actually get up, using the wall as support. The five minutes I spent on the floor trying to breathe was spent crying, too, partially from the punch to my solar plexus and partially from the realization of where I was.

Down on the floor next to a roach-infested container of two-day-old Chinese takeout.

SIXTEEN

I stayed late at the office the next day.

I was feeling kind of jumpy and ashamed at home these days — not in any particular order. Every time I looked at Anna, I’d think about the ten thousand dollars I’d robbed from her fund; and every time the phone rang, I suffered through that interminable pause before someone actually answered it — imagining actual dialogue that always ended with Deanna tromping into the bedroom or den or basement to accuse me of ruining her life and killing our daughter.

I preferred that moment happen over the phone — seeing that I couldn’t imagine actually having to look her in the eyes as she recited my litany of crimes. In the office I could shut the door and turn off the lights and stare at my reflection in the computer screen, which was stuck in perpetual sleep state — which was the state I wished I could somehow place myself. I could think about ridding myself of this awful thing that threatened to derail my life. At home I could only suffer its consequences.

At the moment, I was trying to look up the T&D Music House.

I wanted to call them tomorrow about the track for the aspirin spot. Something emotional without being maudlin. Something that might disguise the banal dialogue and wooden delivery of the actors.

I couldn’t find a listing for them, though. T&D — wasn’t that what Frankel had said? Or was it some other letters? No — I was pretty sure it was T&D.

Maybe the postproduction guide I was using was out-of-date. Maybe —

I heard a loud bump.

It was past eight, and the custodial staff had already finished their rounds. I was fairly certain nobody was burning the midnight oil but me.

I heard it again.

A kind of scraping now, a few clinks, a thud. Someone next door — Tim Ward’s office, and I’d seen Tim with my very own eyes sprinting off for the 6:38 to Westchester.

Then something else.

Someone was whistling “My Girl.” Temptations, 1965.

Maybe it was a member of the custodial staff after all — some piece of unfinished cleaning up that needed to be taken care of while the office slept — custodians, like a shoemaker’s elves, appearing mostly at night to magically leave behind the fruits of their labor. A new carpet, freshly painted walls, a renovated air-conditioning system. Sure, it was just one of the elves.

Clink. Thud. Boom.

I stood up from my chair and walked across my paper-strewn carpet to see. When I opened the door, the noise stopped. So did the whistling. I thought I heard a sharp intake of breath.

There was a light on in Tim Ward’s office—the desk light, I guessed; a cool yellow was radiating through the glazed glass like sunlight caught behind morning fog. For a moment, I was unsure what to do. You don't have to do anything when you hear someone whistling late at night from the office next door. You can, but you don’t have to.

I opened the door to Tim’s office anyway.

Someone was doing something to Tim’s computer — an Apple G4, same as mine.

“Hello,” said Winston Boyko. “I’m fixing it.”

Only Winston didn’t seem to be fixing it.

He seemed to be stealing it.

“Tim said it was flickering on and off,” he said, but he looked flushed and his voice was unsteady. The computer was connected to the wall with a thin steel cable Winston must’ve been in the process of cutting. I figured this out because Winston had what looked like a wire cutter in his hand.

“Tim asked you to fix it?” I said.

“Yeah. I’m pretty good with computers, didn’t you know that?”

No, I didn’t.

“We’ve got a computer department, Winston. To fix computers.”

“Well, what do you know? Guess I don’t have to, then.”

“Winston?”

“Yes?”

“Tim didn’t ask you to fix his computer,” I said.

“Not in so many words. No.”

“You don’t know anything about computers, do you?”

“Sure I do.”

“Winston . . .”

“I know how much they sell for.” And then he shrugged. Okay, the charade is up, he was saying. Can't blame a guy for trying.

“Why are you stealing computers, Winston?” Maybe that was an odd question to be asking the person stealing it. After all, why does anyone steal anything? To make money, of course. But why Winston—the human baseball encyclopedia and all-around agreeable guy. Why him?

“I don’t know. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“Jesus . . . Winston . . .”

“You know what a G4 sells for? I’ll tell you. Three thousand used. How about them Apples? ”

“It happens to be illegal.”

“Yeah — you got me there.”

“And I saw you stealing it. What am I supposed to do?”

“Tell me not to do it again?”

“Winston . . . I’m not sure you — ”

“Look. I didn’t steal it, right? See — the computer’s still here. No harm done.”

“This is the first time?”

“Sure.”

But now I remembered hearing something about missing computers. That’s why they’d fastened them to the wall with steel wires in the first place, wasn’t it?

“Look,” Winston said. “It would really be inconvenient for me if you said anything.”

And for the first time, I felt a little uncomfortable. A little nervous. This was Winston here—my baseball trivia partner and mailroom buddy. But this was also a thief, standing here late at night with no one else around, with a wire cutter in his hand. I wondered what kind of weapon it’d make and decided probably a good one.

“So can we just forget about it? Okay, Charles? Promise I won’t do it again.”

“Can I think for a second?”

“Sure.” Then, after that second went by, and then another one: “Tell you what,” Winston said. “I’ll tell you why it would kind of fuck me over. Aside from getting fired from this job, of course, which wouldn’t be the biggest deal in the world, relatively speaking. I’ll be honest with you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Here’s the deal.” He sat on Tim’s chair. “Sit down, you look like you’re going to jump through a window.”

I sat down.

“The thing is . . . ,” Winston said.

Winston had served time.

“Nothing major,” he assured me. “I was a recreational drug user.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, I was also a recreational drug pusher. ”

“Oh.”

“Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t like I was dealing H. Mostly E.”

When did drugs become designated by letters of the alphabet? I wondered. Was there one for each letter now?

“It was my college job,” Winston said. He scratched his upper arm over by his tattoo. “I suppose I could have worked in the school cafeteria. This seemed easier.”

“How much time did you . . . ?”

“Sentenced to ten. But my bid was five. Five and a half up at Sing Sing. Which is like a hundred years old.”

“I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t sure if I was sorry about Winston going to prison or sorry about catching him in the act of stealing a company computer, which might necessitate his having to go to prison again. Maybe both.