Devil in the Details
Fiction by Carolyn Divish
Devil in the Details
On Wednesdays, Steven Brundigen buys a lotto ticket and then calls his mom on speakerphone.
Ask me how I know.
Of the two of us men here at Schmitt & Schmitt Life Insurance eighth floor west, only Steven never cares that these cubes are made of foam and fleece held together by a metal frame. They don’t actually block any sounds.
They’re not real walls, Steven.
When he returns from his jaunt to buy the ticket from the shop on the corner, I’m treated to an afternoon of Steven’s cat’s latest antics; where the little guy sleeps and what toys the fuzzy friend plays with. Then comes the weekly roundup of the folks in Steven’s hometown, delivered by the old lady who raised him to be such a paragon of late-forties adulthood: who she saw in the grocery store, which church ladies were fighting with the others, and what stores were closing. In the last few minutes of each call, Steven muses about his ten-step process to claiming the winnings. As he says goodbye, he taps the ticket that he’s pinned up on his cube as he repeats his lucky numbers: 13, 36, 39, 53, 66, with the magic number ball 14.
I could repeat it all in my sleep, from the numbers to his ten-step process.
“You’re never going to win the lottery, Steven,” I want to yell. “You’re an actuary for god’s sake. It’s your job to know the odds.”
Last August, the new management decided to create a more cohesive environment by cutting out headphone use. We’d all get to know our neighbors by letting their idiosyncrasies crawl under our skin. All in the name of teamwork.
Just before Christmas, I received my second write-up about not being a team player. The tiniest earbuds available couldn’t get past Tracee.
“What did I say about those anti-people devices?” Tracee smiled as she slipped the half sheet of paper on my desk. The paper’s pistachio-green color had been chosen to honor the holiday season. “I know you old-guard Gen-Xers like to beat to your own drum, but….”
I considered correcting her but decided instead that I did, indeed, ‘beat to my own drum.’
Tracee pushed the paper all the way across the surface until it was next to my keyboard. She patted it the way one would pat a dog and then sat on the edge of the desk to wave her aluminum water bottle like a pirate in a tavern. The knock-off Stanley cup proclaimed that she was a valued volunteer at an animal clinic that provided low-cost spay and neutering services.
“If I catch you one more time, we might have to take it as a declaration of mutiny. We might have to rethink whether you’re a fit here at Schmitt.” She frowned in a sad clown expression and then slapped her knees with a chuckle. “Get it, ‘a fit at Schmitt’?”
Tracee was only five years younger than I was, barely a millennial, but I was ‘old guard.’
Even now, three months after she returned from a holiday trip to Costa Rica, she hasn’t noticed that I swapped out that aluminum water bottle with one I’d designed myself. My version changed the uninspired logo to read, “Community Euthanasia: A Kinder Solution to Human Overpopulation.” It was created using the same script in the same logo style. Unless you looked closely, you wouldn’t see it.
Whenever I see her punctuate her phrases with a swing of that cup boldly endorsing mass homicide, I think to myself, “Are you a fit at Schmitt, Tracee? Is life insurance really your calling?”
No one else has noticed either.
The bottle, I mean.
They have certainly never noticed me. Which is just the way I want it. I’m glad to be just another middle-aged man wearing a personal uniform of L.L. Bean button-downs and khaki pants. An anonymous human that even my coworkers can’t place. Not at the cafeteria. The elevator. Or anywhere else. When I literally bumped into a pair of the women—Mandy and Maddie—at the CVS around the corner, they continued discussing the ineffective new formulation of cramp pills without a hint of embarrassment.
“I mean, it used to work on the angry uterus feeling, now it does nothing, literally nothing. I’ve practically taken handfuls.” Maddie clutched her lower abdomen as she took a step toward the shelf to let me pass. “No change.”
“These help.” Mandy shook her industrial-sized bag of M&Ms. “I swear to God, I go through these like they’re water. I bought two of these last week. I’m out. None! I’m just glad I haven’t gained any weight.”
I’m here for the paycheck, not the social time. Until I can retire 20 years from now and live out my additional 10.8 years of expected time in bliss, I am rocking a desk in the center of Schmitt & Schmitt Life Insurance eighth floor west.
But eight months of the more cohesive team environment means I’ve heard everything Steven has said from his side of the cubicle wall for 138 business days. 1,104 hours of sniffling and humming to himself. 52.5 hours of the same cat stories, grocery store encounters and lottery planning. Not that the other coworkers who buzz through the cubicle maze, slam metal desk drawers with wild abandon, and blow their noses into damp tissues are any better, but familiarity breeds contempt.
I have nothing left but contempt.
*
This morning, when Tracee raises her water bottle in greeting, it sparks an idea.
Following Steven’s return from buying his weekly lottery ticket, I walk to the corner store to buy another ticket. I fill in a fresh bubble paper card with Steven’s normal numbers, only changing one digit. My change is subtle, that last number being 67, not 66, but that is the point. I don’t want him to notice. What would be the fun in that? Of course, I would notice.
I would notice, Steven.
After everyone leaves for the day, I replace his pencil-marked bubble card with the one I’d made, making sure to place the pushpin at the exact same spot. Then, I remove his lottery ticket from the top of the stack and put the one I bought in its place. I fold the ticket he’d bought today, the one with his real numbers, and throw it in the back of my desk drawer next to the pistachio-green note.
I imagine the weeks or months or years that will go by with him purchasing lottery tickets using the wrong bubble card. Instead of the significance of those numbers, which were based on a manipulation of his cat’s names, he’ll have one with no connection. A cuckoo in the nest, you might say. Each time I hear that sing-song recitation of those same six numbers—13, 36, 39, 53, 66 with the magic number ball 14—I will know that singular thrill. From my side of the cubicle, I’ll know he never really looked at the ticket.
But fuck a duck if it isn’t the bastard’s lucky day.
On Monday, Steven arrives with a box of donuts and a bounce in his step. “Great day, isn’t it, er….” Thrusting the box at me to cover his mistake, he reads the name on my company-issued plaque velcroed to outside of the cube. “John Smith. Really?”
“The one and only.” I turn from my spreadsheets, where I have been calculating the effects of the newest vape products on the life expectancies of longtime users.
“Well, huh.” Steven peers down the dead-end stretch of cubicles. “I guess I’ve never been back here. I mean, I know you’re over here. I know now I’ve seen you by the copier and the fax, but we’ve never really met. But this stretch with no neighbors and no windows? Don’t you get a little lonely?”
My cube faces a greige wall and a framed print of Elias Schmitt’s founding quote, “Keep your eye on the prize. Things work out for the best, but be prepared for the worst just in case.” A quote that is so suspiciously like a very famous management system, I doubt he came up with those ideas himself. I am on the no-reason-to-go-there side of the cubicle jungle. No one wanders by. No one leans against the door frame just to check in. No one passes through.
It’s perfect.
“I’m okay in the quiet.” I pick a nice donut in the corner of the box. It’s the biggest donut in the box, and from the look on his face, the one he’d hoped to keep for himself. I take a big bite. “What’s the occasion?”
With his face radiating pent-up glee, Steven tries nonchalance. “Just feeling happy today.”
Other than last year’s day of enforced “fun,” Steven and I have rarely seen each other face to face. I’d seen him, of course. Pudgy and red-headed, he stands out. Mostly because our coworkers are all women, but also because he is one of the few middle-aged lunch box carriers. Not that bringing a lunch was that strange. It’s the Lisa Frank-style kitten on the front that sets him apart.
I raise the donut in a cheers motion. “Guess your happiness is good fortune for me. Thanks, Steven!”
As he is about to leave, he takes a step back and examines my shirt. “Wow! I have that same one. We could be twins.”
I check my blue-checked oxford with the single pocket. “You’re right. It’s uncanny.”
It is far from uncanny, Steven. Everyone has that shirt. It is an L.L. Bean bestseller. That’s the point.
From the moment that the announcement came over the radio that the winning ticket had been sold at the store near work, I knew I’d dig in. Not for a minute did I consider undoing what I’d done. Giving it back would have been the easiest, of course. No harm, no foul. Just a harmless prank. I wouldn’t even need to admit it. Just drop that ticket on his desk and go about my day. But what fun would I have? Not one to let a win slide, instead, I would double down.
From his weekly phone calls, I knew that he’d hold on to the ticket until he had his plans in place. First step would be to sign the back of the winning ticket, which I did immediately after arriving extra early this morning.
On Sunday, I made a few calls, step three of Steven’s lottery ten-step process. I learned from my research (step two) that I could collect the winnings anonymously, but having the advice of an attorney (step three) would be the keystone to my success. Only the best lawyer would do.
While Steven circles the rest of the cubes, telling the other cube dwellers the same story and sharing donuts, I make follow-up calls. By the time he arrives back to his spot with an empty donut box, I have several copies of the winning ticket, which I’ll store in different safe deposit boxes, and an appointment with Robert, Robert & Rodriguez, the top attorneys in the city. Next Tuesday, I’ll be creating my legal entity. After 170 days, I’ll send a representative to collect my winnings. A year after that, Schmitt & Schmitt’s second most senior actuary would quit for health reasons, take a position in South Carolina, or possibly just fade away. It would be interesting to know how long before anyone noticed. Whatever choice I made, no one would connect the dots to Steven. I’ve always been frugal. Living without dipping into a sizable nest egg wouldn’t be hard.
My pockets are fireproof.
“Bullshit!” Steven yells. His angry voice interrupts the peaceful working atmosphere. He slams a metal drawer. “Bullshit.”
Tracee snaps to his cube. Her aluminum water bottle clinks with its daily dose of ice as she swings it with her words. “Steven, do you have a problem? Those words are not to be used in a team environment. They make people uncomfortable.”
I click into another page of the spreadsheet. I adjust a number from the source data. I change the number back again.
“Yes, Tracee, I do have a problem,” Steven hisses. He slams his hands against the desk. The stress makes him sound like a PBS detective. “Someone has taken my lottery ticket.”
“Your lottery ticket?” Tracee’s mug stops swinging. Her voice sounds confused, as if she thought Steven was making the whole thing up.
“Yes, Tracee.” Steven’s voice takes on an angry sing-song quality. “My lottery ticket.” He taps the stack of tickets on the cube wall. The papers flutter.
“But it’s right there.” The water bottle approaches the wall. The ice spins in the metal. “That big stack is still there.”
“My lucky numbers are five numbers: 13, 36, 39, 53, 66, with the magic number ball 14,” Steven explains slowly.
“Okay.” Tracee still doesn’t get it.
I grip the armrests of my seat. My heart thuds in my chest. I am giddy.
“That’s not the ticket I bought. Do you see?” Steven yanks the stack of tickets from the wall. The cube structure shakes. “Someone replaced it.”
“Replaced your ticket?” she prods. She chooses each word carefully. “With the exact same one?”
“Look at this number.” He jabs the top of his desk with every point. Metal rattles. “67. This is 67. I’d never use that number. There’s no three in it. See? No three. The rest are all from my cats. This is from Garfield’s birthday. This is from Shadow’s numerology chart. This is how many days old Hedda was when she died. This is the day that Romeo arrived on my doorstep. This, this is just a number.”
“Okay. Just a number.” Tracee sounds as if she is backing away. The ice in her cup no longer clinks against the sides. “But it matches the slip that you used to order the ticket.”
“This isn’t mine either.” Steven pulls the bubble card. The tack goes plinking off into the space behind his desk. “I’d never do this.”
I tuck my head down into the keyboard. My shoulders shake with quiet laughter.
“You’d never do what?” she continues with her confusion.
Steven sputters. I picture his arms flailing wildly. “This! This! Any of this!”
“I see.” Tracee grasps for words.
Nervous movements scuff on the carpet as other team members of Schmitt & Schmitt Life Insurance eighth floor west stop working and drift toward the commotion. No more clickety sounds of keyboard entry. No more low murmurs of people talking to themselves as they puzzle out math problems. No more emptying cups. Just tiptoed steps over the carpet. No one wants to miss the moment Steven Brundigen loses his mind.
“Someone is fucking with me.”
“Language, Steven.” Tracee places a sheet of paper on his desk and slides it towards his keyboard. Her bottle rattles with ice. “We are a team and words like that do not support the warmth and familiness Schmitt stands for.”
“Familiness” isn’t a word, Tracee.
Steven’s voice conveys a slump to his posture. “Someone is playing a trick. They must be.”
“Now what kind of trick would that be?” Tracee’s warmth signals a return to firmer ground. The volume of her voice rises as she recognizes she has an audience. “Why would anyone target you? They’d just be jealous, that’s what I say. It’s a sign of a little person, if you ask me.”
This “little person” is soon to be 135.8 million dollars richer. I will be a tiny person if it jettisons me out of this place. Should I have felt more pity for Steven? Sure. Did I?
Nope.
Steven moans in anguish.
“Hang on, now.” Tracee’s aluminum bottle rings out as she drops it on Steven’s desk. “Let’s take a closer look at these other tickets.”
My heart races. She’s beginning to take him seriously. We’re in uncharted territory now, boss.
As much as I don’t want to, I’ll have to consider sauntering over to his cube. I can’t be the only one who doesn’t react with curiosity.
“This looks like a legitimate ticket.” She reviews the top ticket that I purchased from the corner store. “If nothing else, you’ll still be a winner with it, you know that, right? Might not be the top, but it’s a good payout.”
Steven whimpers.
“Okay.” Tracee wheels a chair from an empty cube nearby. She flips through the stack one at a time, starting with the next oldest ticket. She repeats herself. “Let’s take a good look at these other tickets.”
I wipe my palm sweat on my khaki pants.
She reads out the numbers in order: 13, 36, 39, 53, 67, with the magic number ball 14.
I already know what they will find. The next 17 lottery tickets in the stack, all the way back to early December, will show the decoy number. I’d made sure to create them with a purchase date of the Wednesday before the Saturday drawing. After I learned the winning number on Sunday, I drew up decoy tickets that were masterful dupes. Today, before anyone else arrived, I replaced the top 17 tickets with the ones I’d created. Sure, the barcodes were all the same, and the paper isn’t the right quality, so they won’t stand up to scrutiny. If it got far enough that they brought the tickets into the store to be scanned, I’d be cooked. I couldn’t imagine we’d get that far. I trust that Steven will recognize the first date, December 6th, as the day his beloved Fluffy had escaped the patio door. He’d been so distraught, he arrived late, spent the whole morning on speaker phone and almost forgot to call his mom. We all remember that date. If he’d lost the slip and drawn up a new one, he wouldn’t remember.
“Well, you had a pretty bad day that day, right?” Tracee soothes.
Steven grunts in agreement.
The other members of the team offer small words of support as they drift just as quietly back to their desks.
“Feel better now?” She slaps her hands on her knees as an official end to the meeting. She wheels the chair back to the neighboring cube.
Steven grumbles to himself. “Someone stole my ticket.”
“Steven,” she calls as she marches back to her cube. “We don’t need to dwell on it anymore. Let’s remember we’re a family at Schmitt. A big happy family.”
But he does dwell. All morning, Steven grumbles in his cube. He slams his desk drawers. He kicks the cube walls. Although the usual hum of his computer continues, the tippity-taps of his computer keyboard does not. He calls his mother on speaker phone to complain.
“Why, Steven dear, it’s a Monday morning. You never call on a Monday. I’m about to head out for my water yoga class. Is everything alright?”
I try to focus on the vape data, but my mind keeps wandering. Even when I manage to forget about the enormous payout, Steven’s temper tantrum brings me right back to dreaming.
I’d learned from yesterday’s research that winning that a large sum correlated with an early death. Large jackpot winners are something like twenty times more likely to die from homicide or drug overdose. But those people had taken risks. They had told people they cared about or had accepted the money personally. I was not a risk taker.
The lump sum payout would be enough for a solo man in his midlife. No kids, no spouse and none on the horizon. I can remain in my one-bedroom condo in the shabby neighborhood. It’s paid off. The taxes are low. The neighbors are working class but respectable. Bill, a mechanic, across the hall already handles my auto repairs and oil changes in exchange for me doing his taxes. Destiny around the corner walks my dog Muttley and all she asks is that I create the occasional flyer for her burlesque show. We have a barter economy. If I continued living there, I could buy a nice vacation place that no one would need to know about. My trust could own a cabin in the Rockies, an apartment in Paris, or a bungalow on the beach—any beach—while I continued buying my store brand, discount groceries, and watching television on the 36” screen.
I just have to keep everything quiet.
Except then, I get a call back from the lawyer.
I never get calls, so I missed that it was on a loud setting. A really loud setting. So loud, it’s like shouting in a library, especially after Steven’s outburst.
“Mr. Smith?” The caller introduces herself as an assistant in the office of Robert, Robert & Rodriguez. “I work with Deborah Rodriguez. She asked me to reschedule your meeting. Do you have Wednesday at 8:30 available?”
Since I hear so much from Steven’s calls, I keep my volume low, but someone had reset my sound. I pull the headset back from my ear.
I quickly told her that I’d call her back.
But Steven has heard enough to be getting suspicious.
I can tell by the way he’s now peering over the top of the cube wall. A position he can only be in if he has pushed his keyboard aside to kneel on the desktop.
“Deborah Rodriguez?” he asks.
“Sorry?” I click on cells at random on the spreadsheet as I will my heart to stop pounding. I’ve never been this close to being caught before.
It is exhilarating.
He thrusts a hand in the direction of my phone.
“Oh, the phone call?” I click a number and copy it to another cell. I am making a mess that I’ll have to back out of or risk ruining the whole thing. The loss of accuracy on the pineapple mango-flavored vape might give users a few years of life expectancy. “It was nothing.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Oh yeah? Huh.” I’d kept the phone call as short and low as possible, but he’d heard the name of the most powerful estate and trust lawyer in the city. “Well, it was just a nothing kind of call.”
He is right, though. It is not nothing. It is the biggest not nothing I’ve ever done. Steven is not the soft-in-the-middle doughboy I’d had him pegged as. He has the making of a sharp adversary.
I need to act. Fast.
“Everything okay over here, Steven?” Tracee’s voice comes over the cube wall. She’s adopted the kindergarten teacher voice she uses for her most top-shelf management ideas. This time she drums her nails against the aluminum walls as she pretends to come up with a problem-solving idea. “You know, if we are going to have a problem with focus today and disturb our neighbors, we might consider working from home.”
“Oh, no.” Steven disappears back to his side of the wall. “No, I have to be here today.”
I lock my desk drawers and hustle to the elevators.
When I return from my errands, I find Steven, a cadre of city cops, and an irritated Tracee. They clog the dead-end walkway near my cube.
“Mr. Smith,” says a cop with broad shoulders and a square jaw.
Next to him a slimmer female cop leans a shoulder against the cube wall. A third one studies the Schmitt quote on the wall as if it contained a lifechanging nugget of truth. He taps the frame. “This is brilliant. If more people kept their eyes on the prize, our jobs would be lots easier.”
The beefy cop clears his throat, a reminder to the younger cop that he should be keeping his own eyes on his own prize. “Mr. Smith, your colleague here has raised some serious accusations concerning you.”
The lady cop nods. The chastened younger cop adds a nod for good measure.
The entirety of Schmitt & Schmitt Life Insurance eighth floor west waits in their cubes, huddled low to hear the only drama ever to have struck so close to the actuarial team, a group of people whose livelihood concerned itself with the mathematics of crime, not the procedures.
“Sorry?” I arrange my features into an expression of shock. “What is this about?”
Tracee’s eye roll and crossed arms communicate everything I need to know. As if I could have any doubt.
“You want to tell us where you’ve been?” The lady cop masks a whiff of boredom.
“He went to see the lawyer about collecting my lottery winnings,” Steven bursts out. “I heard him on the phone.”
I lift my soda cup and Styrofoam food container. “I took an early lunch.”
“But before that,” Steven protests. “You’ve been gone for an hour.”
“Mr. Smith, can you show us what’s in your desk?” The broad-shouldered cop takes a step back to allow me into the cube.
“Is this really necessary?” Tracee looks from the cops to Steven. “As I said before, we’ve never had problems. We’re really just a happy family.”
“Am I suspected of something in particular?” I try to do a running total of what incriminating things might be in my drawers. Of all the things I’d planned for, a trio of cops—fresh from not enforcing traffic laws or avoiding the city’s murder crisis—would show up to demand to catalogue my collection of desk supplies. Most were pilfered from my neighbor’s cubes—after hours, of course—but do I really want them seeing that I had a conglomeration of expensive pens engraved with initials that weren’t mine or a whole drawer full of phone charger cords?
No, no. I do not. Although would they know what they were looking at? The potential intrigues me. A whole new level of mischief unlocks.
“Yes! Yes, you are suspected,” Steven sputters. He folds his arms in front of his body in the way he might cradle a cat. “You took my lottery ticket.”
Tracee groans.
You wanted a family, lady. You got it. Familiness at its finest.
Channeling a look that I hope approaches an affable Hugh Grant, I shrug. “I, uh, don’t play the lottery.” I place the Styrofoam containers on the desk and let my eyes flicker to Steven as if I were afraid of calling him out. “I’m an actuary, so it’s my job to know the odds.”
The line lands just as I’d expect.
Steven’s face hardens. “You may not ‘play’ the lottery, but you do play little pranks around here. You think we don’t notice. I notice, John Smith. I notice.”
I wince as I give the cops a see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with face. “Sorry, Steven. I’m simply here for the job. Not the office politics games.”
“Sir, if you do have his ticket, it could be considered a crime.” The broad-shouldered cop shifts into the cube. His beefiness dwarfs my space. The two other cops hover in the adjacent empty cubes.
“What crime would it be?” I ask, with just enough quiver to my voice to stroke the cop’s ego.
See, sir, you’ve scared the nebbish numbers guy, who is in awe of your physical prowess. A beta to your alpha. A man who understands his location in the pecking order.
It’s all an act. The law is murky in this area. I’d already checked. It solely went by who had custody of the ticket. Lawsuits have happened but the results are that lottery winnings were a civil issue, not criminal.
“Well, now, let’s just say you have his ticket. You could just give it back, and then we’d all go on our merry way.”
“If I had it, I would.”
This prank has turned into a tug-of-war. I am going to hold onto that rope until the very end.
“Should we get a search warrant or at least get the legal team involved?” In a brief flash of management responsibility, Tracee shakes her water cup with some half-hearted authority.
“Ma’am.” The lady cop smiles. “We could do all that, but we’re looking at extending the disruption. We’ve already taken up a few hours. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“Plus, you said that he had his lottery ticket, right? That you think he made a mistake and is having trouble coping?” The beefy cop scoots my desk chair toward the top drawer, where I’d placed the pistachio-green note.
Tracee nods. Her face flushes with concern. “I’ve had my doubts about him lately.”
I pull my keys from my pocket as I consider this. I had no idea she was noticing cracks in Steven’s mental status. I could have done something with that.
“Look.” Steven thrusts a photo of a cat over the cube. “See this? This isn’t my cat.”
The trio of cops and Tracee freeze. The beefy cop has already pulled on his examination gloves and crouches next to my desk. I have already unlocked the larger drawers that contain nothing but the tangle of charge cords, some snacks (a hoard of approximately 10 lbs. of M&Ms), and an unlabeled bottle of cramp pills with a corresponding bottle of similar-looking sugar pills. The two other cops and Tracee stood in the cube entrance.
We all stare at the framed photo of a tabby in confusion.
“He thought I wouldn’t know what my own cat looked like.” Steven climbs higher so we can see him over the top of the wall. “This cat has eight stripes on its forehead. Eight! My Fluffy had six. Six! He thought I wouldn’t be able to tell my own cat’s markings.”
The swap had been genius. I’d found a similar cat in a cat food ad. After some image manipulation to remove the bag and a quick swap in the frame, the photo had remained on his desk just like usual. The imposter cat had a dopey expression due to its slight cross-eyed gaze. I hadn’t even considered the number of forehead stripes.
The photo has been on his desk for months, long before his cat had gone missing.
I wonder when he noticed.
“Steven,” Tracee sighs. She stares at the floor for a long moment. “I think you should consider taking the afternoon off.”
The beefy cop wordlessly asks if he could open the Ziplock bag of M&Ms.
I nod. I hate M&Ms, scourge of the candy world.
The cop offers Tracee the opened bag. She takes a handful. The lady cop and the younger cop did as well. The weight of the candy strains the plastic. It really is a lot. Possibly two or maybe even three industrial-sized bags.
“No! Then he’ll take my lottery ticket.” Steven shakes his head, clearing the words like they’d appeared on an Etch-a-Sketch. “I mean, he already did and then he’ll take it somewhere else.”
The beefy cop exchanges a look with the lady cop. He seals the bag and begins to replace it in the drawer, but I shake my head. I make a motion like a granny encouraging a kid to eat. He shrugs and passes the bag to the third cop. Being the youngest, it must be his job to be pack mule, since he doesn’t seem to be doing anything else.
Beefy cop’s hand rests on the drawer where I’d thrown the pistachio-green paper. It would be the last drawer he’d need to search.
“I’ve got more proof.” Steven stands on his desk now. His height puts his head near the fluorescent light fixtures. “There’s Maddie’s medicines and Mandy’s candy. Donna’s pens. Siena had some too.”
From the other cubes come sounds of commotion as women who had been trying to pretend not to notice the hubbub can’t pretend anymore. They shuffle into the aisles to get a better view.
“And, and, he took all of our phone chargers.” Steven begins pointing around Schmitt & Schmitt Life Insurance eighth floor west. “He rearranged all the trash cans. He turns off the fax machine multiple times every day. He sabotaged the toner in the printer. He’s always changing the tilt on the blinds at night so the sun shines off my computer. He acts like he’s innocent, but he’s not. He’s always doing little things, things he thinks we won’t notice. We notice.”
Color me impressed. Steven is more observant than I’d figured him to be, but still a bit of a nut job. I never touched the trash cans, the fax machine or the printer. Those were frustrating enough as they were. No need to catch myself in the mischief. But honestly, I’d never considered shifting the blinds. Brilliant.
The lady cop groans quietly. She crunches candy in the side of her mouth. “Claude, I think we’ve seen enough.”
Beefy cop stands. The man who is evidently named Claude removes the gloves and throws them in my trash can.
“Steven, Steven.” Tracee puts her water cup on my desk. She circles around the cubes. The three cops trail her. “Come down now. I’m sending you home. You need a break.”
“I can’t,” Steven protests. The cops grab him by his waist and pull him down. “Don’t make me leave. I need to get my ticket. I need my ticket.”
“Easy now, buddy.” Claude wrestles with Steven. Steven’s no match, but he keeps trying. He throws fists like a contestant in a kitten fight. “Let’s get you some rest, eh? All this mathin’ can bring anyone down. Makes us all just a little crazy.”
“He’s got my ticket.” Steven wrenches his shoulders in an effort to free himself from the smaller two cops while beefy Claude consults with Tracee about next steps. “I need it back. I need it.”
The lady finds her taser handle. “Sure, he’s got it, and he’s moving your trash cans and talking through your computer—”
“I didn’t say that.” Steven throws his shoulder toward the lady.
The zapping clicks as probes make contact with his chest. Steven drops to the carpet.
As the cops deal with him, Tracee returns to my desk and grasps her aluminum cup.
“I’m sorry about that, John.” She takes a long pull from her straw. “You are a valued member of our family. I hope you know that. I like how you just buckle down and do the work. No drama from you. Quiet as a mouse. Work. Work. Work.” She leans her butt against my desk. “I wish I had ten of you.”
I nod, showing my earnestness. “I’m proud to represent Schmitt’s familiness.”
She pats my shoulder. “Maybe when he gets some time away, he’ll be ready to rejoin us.”
I swear inside my head. I do not want him back to ruin everything.
No thanks, Steve.
“How long do you think he’ll be away?” I log into my computer. I have some stats about mango vape usage to correct.
“I’m no therapist, but I think two or three days should be enough to get his head on straight. What do you think?” Tracee seems to be legitimately asking my opinion.
Oh no, Tracee. You’re the parent of this mess.
I give her a pained expression and continue poking in the spreadsheet.
“Well, we’ll just play it by ear then.” She shakes her cup. The ice has melted. “But plan on three for now.”
I didn’t plan on staying long, but I couldn’t quit. Quitting after a suspect lottery win is too obvious. I’d have to play my cards just right. Today, I had been forced to move too quickly without having a chance to plan. I’d been fortunate that the bank in the building lobby had safety deposit boxes. If not for that stroke of luck, I’d have been sweating a desk search. Finding that lottery ticket would have unraveled everything.
I won’t let that happen again. No, Stevie, I won’t.
“Look at your mug, Tracee!” Steven hollers as he is dragged to the elevators. “Look at the wording! It says ‘Community Euthanasia,’ not ‘Community Animal Sterilization’!”
Tracee slurps the last of her water. “What did he say?”
Down the hallway, the cops grunt as they regain control of him. Distantly, an elevator dings, signaling its arrival.
“Hmm?” I pull out an earbud that hasn’t been playing anything. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
She taps her nails against the metal. Her jaw tightens. “Did you seriously just put those anti-people devices in right in front of me?”
I hang my head sheepishly. “I am so sorry. Today has just been so stressful. I needed to level set. It’ll never happen again.” I drop the earbuds into a drawer and close the metal slide quietly.
Come back in an hour or so, Tracee. I’ll have probably forgotten by then.
“It better not, mister. I’m keeping an eye on you.” Tracee points two fingers at her eyes and then twists her wrist to aim them at mine. “I’ll let this one slide. Next time is the third strike. I hate to let you go, but rules are rules. We need to prioritize family, got it?”
“Got it.” I nod contritely. “Tracee, I’m definitely a fit at Schmitt. I’ll prove it.”
Tracee looks as if I’ve stolen the words from her mouth. She slaps her knees. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it. You still haven’t gotten to eat your lunch. I have some feathers to smooth with the other folks.”
On her way out, she straightens the Schmitt quote that the younger cop had knocked off center. Keep your eye on the prize. Things work out for the best, but be prepared for the worst just in case.
“The officer was right, wasn’t he?” Tracee slings her empty cup in an arc as if saluting the grey-haired Schmitt. “We should all live our lives with such wisdom.”
“I agree.” I grip the key to the safety deposit box until she leaves, then pick up the phone to call Deborah Rodriguez back.
Hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, Carolyn Divish received an MFA from Butler University. Her stories have been featured in Baltimore Gothic, 100-foot Crow, Coachella Review, Silver Birch Press, Wild Word, and others. She can occasionally be found on a few socials @carolyndivish.
Such a fun piece; great dialogue that builds a movie in the reader’s eye. The perfect lunch-hour read.
That was great fun!