Since the Layoffs by Iain Levison Read Free Book Online Page B

instrument of work, and work is a thing of honor. That’s something that the people who closed the factory never understood.

FOUR
    M onday morning, 5 a.m. The newspaper guy brings the papers, dumps them out front of the store in a bundle and drives off. I eagerly go out and cut the string, put the newspapers in the rack, then take one out to see if my crime has shocked the city.
    Nothing. Not on the front page, anyway. There’s a lot of stuff about a local hospital closing its doors because no one can pay their bills anymore, and some Washington pol got caught doing something bad with funds earmarked for some great cause. Never heard of him. I flip back to page two. Nothing. Trouble in the Congo and the Middle East. Isn’t there always? I toss the whole section and grab the thinner “Town and Area” section, which holds the comics. Nothing on the front page of the section, just more about the hospital. After flipping past eight pages of friggin’ hospital articles, which I guess are supposed to make me feel something (What the fuck were they expecting? That the hospital managers would just keep helping sick people out of the goodness of their hearts? We know by now that nobody gives a fuck about us, so we don’t care about this shit, just give us a paper full of comics and sports and shut the fuck up with this manipulative liberal ass-kissing that’s supposed to make me feel sorry for myself), I see a small article on the bottom corner of page nine which is headlined WOMAN, DOG, SHOT BY INTRUDER. In the article, which is three short paragraphs, one paragraph less than was devoted to the trouble in the Congo, I learn that a neighbor found Corinne Gardocki, 39, Sunday morning when he noticed her body lying on the back steps.
    She was thirty-nine? Bet she wouldn’t have wanted the whole town to know that. I thought she was a good bit younger. Police Sergeant Somebody-or-Other was ruling it a homicide, tipped off, I suppose, by the gunshot wound in the head. He surmised that a Peeping Tom (I beg your pardon!) had been watching Mrs. Gardocki when the family dog attacked, and violence had begun.
    I get my first criminal impulse, an insane desire to call this cop and set him straight, tell him I’m not a Peeping Tom, I’m a respectable assassin, thank you very much. Of course, I overcome the impulse, but I feel slightly offended. I also have a strong desire to go back there, look around, see how the place looks in daylight without a dead woman and dog on the back steps, see the yellow police tape around the place, tape for which I am solely responsible. There is most likely a cop sitting out front, waiting for the criminal to return to the scene of the crime, as they almost always do, supposedly. Now I see why. I’m surprised at how strong the urge is.
    I fold up the newspaper and put it back in the rack.
    Tommy comes in at seven. We chat for a bit. He tells me that his wife, Mel, got a job for an insurance company, administrative assistant. I congratulate him.
    “We might even be able to pay all our bills this month,” he tells me.
    As I’m walking out the door, he asks, “Jake, man, have you been fucking with the security system? All the tapes say Friday.”
    “Haven’t touched it. I don’t do well with technology.”
    He shrugs. “Maybe it was Jughead.”
    I shrug. “See you tonight.”
    “Later.”
    So the only suspicious thing I’ve done is screw with the security system. Someone has noticed. What to do now? Screw with it more, or leave it alone? I figure just take the tape and throw it out might be the best thing. Or tape over it. We’re supposed to keep the tapes in order, each one lasts twenty-four hours, and there are fourteen, so we can go back two weeks. If I mix up the order, and throw the incriminating tape in tonight, I won’t need to worry about it anymore.
    And I can’t control the urge to walk up past the Gardocki place again. Instead of driving home, I drive about a mile away from the