“Excuse me, sir?”
Gus blinked. Shook his head. Willed his eyes to shift back into focus. The drab beige walls of his private office greeted him.
“Dammit, Marty. You startled me.”
The chair across from Gus’ desk was occupied by his useless receptionist, Marty Jaeger. Marty’s shoulders straightened and his eyes rolled back ever-so-slightly. “Hello, sir. I just got off the phone with an agent who requested a complaint be filed so he can get moving on a warrant, and I wanted to run the initial facts by you before having him come in to get the paperwork handled.”
Gus nodded, saying nothing. Marty placed his hand on a manila envelope that hadn’t been sitting on the desk when Gus had lost track of time.
Speaking of time—what time was it? How long had he been out of it?
A quick glance at the clock revealed that it was only half past ten. Maybe a forty minute daydream. Not the worst he’d had lately.
Marty was talking again. “…best to gather the basics, but there are a few blanks on the fact sheet, as I’m sure you’ll notice. From what the gentleman on the phone was saying, it sounds like quite a doozy of a case, but he was adamant that there is ample evidence to convict the perps.”
“Alleged… perpetrators.” Gus couldn’t bring himself to abbreviate it. A heavy sigh escaped his chest as he slid the envelope closer and flipped it open. A neatly-organized cover sheet met his eyes, laid out using the template he’d sent Marty years ago.
“Well, Marty, I’m glad you finally figured out the proposal template, at least. It’s so much easier for me to consider a complaint when the facts are actually intelligible. So many of the cases you’ve brought me lately have just been presented so poorly.”
Marty clenched his jaw and screwed his eyes tight shut, exhaling through gritted teeth. “Of course, Augustus. Do you think you’ll be able to take this one on?” His voice was tight. “It looks pretty open and shut. Just show up and do your job, and there’s no way they’re getting away with it.”
Gus raised his eyebrows, looking skeptical, before glancing down at the fact sheet in front of him. He scanned it quickly, and his expression shifted. He leaned forward, reading more carefully. Flicked through a couple of pages.
Marty cleared his throat.
Gus blinked. Shook his head. Looked back up at Marty.
“Well? What do you think?”
“Yeah, fine, I’ll take it. Assuming he even gets past the grand jury.”
Marty heaved a sigh of relief before standing up and walking to the door. “I’ll check your calendar and offer the gentleman an in-person meeting to discuss.”
Gus grunted an affirmative response, already lost in thought again. It had been a while since he had tried a murder case. He leaned forward, propping himself up by his elbow. Organized crime. Bureau agent involved for over a year. Multiple homicide. Second degree. Fraud.
Who was filing this case?
Gus flipped back a few pages to find the client information sheet. It was mostly bare—damn Marty and his lack of initiative—someone named R. McDowell. Male. Not local. 202 area code on the phone number. Nothing else to go on.
There was a list of possible witnesses a mile long.
Maybe this really would be open and shut.
Gus’ lawyer sense was tingling, a wry smile growing on his face.
He sat back in his chair and picked up the phone, punching in a ten-digit sequence by heart.
He heard the phone ring on the other side of the office suite.
Ring.
Ring.
“What do you want, Butler?” Jones barked from the other end of line. Gus couldn’t see his face, but he could hear the exasperated half-smile in his partner’s voice.
“Did Marty try and sell you on this complaint before he brought it to me? He seemed more sniveling than usual.”
“Yes, and I told him that you need to pull your weight around here for once. I hope you agreed to take it, because God knows I can’t keep covering your ass while you…”
“I took it, I took it,” Gus cut him off, the color rising in his cheeks. “Yeesh, man, I know how you feel about this stupid slump, you don’t have to lay into me like that.”
Jones snorted. The sound came through harsh and scratchy, and Gus pulled his ear away from the phone. A knot twisted in the pit of his stomach, and for a moment, he hovered his thumb over the red ‘end call’ button.
“Oh, come on, Gus. Don’t be like this.” Jones’ voice was muted but audible. Gus sighed, chest tight, and put the phone back to his ear. “Was there a reason you called, other than to make sure you actually had to take this one?”
“Just wanted to get your read on it, I guess. Marty said he’d find a time for this…” Gus glanced back down at the file, “Agent McDowell… to come in for a full consult, but the first facts look promising.”
“Really promising,” Jones agreed. “Honestly, it seems so open-and-shut that it might even convince even an old miser like you that there is hope left to be had in this hopeless world.”
“Maybe.” Gus chuckled, in spite of himself. “But it’s a big, bad world out there, and nothing is quite that simple.”
“Sure, I guess. But good people doing good work makes a world of difference even so.”
Gus’ shoulders fell. He removed his glasses, set them on his desk, and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Maybe you’re right. You’d know better than I would, anyway. You’re a good man.”
“You—” Jones hesitated. “I do my best.”
“Damn.” Gus whispered, startled by the sound of his own voice. He hoped Jones hadn’t heard him. “Anyway, thanks. I’ll have this guy come in right away.”
“Yeah,” came the reply from the other end of line. Distracted, awkward. “Yeah, whenever you can. I’m sure Marty will get you sorted out, too.”
“Alright. Well, if there’s nothing else?”
“You…” Jones sounded confused. “You called me.”
Gus clenched his jaw. “That’s right. G’bye, then.”
“Bye.”
The phone clicked, signaling the end of the call. Gus rubbed his face with a sigh and put his glasses back on. He pulled his laptop to the center of his desk and opened his browser, muttering under his breath. “Can’t even pretend to call me a good man anymore. Knows me too damn well.”
Gus glanced around his desk, hands smoothing out imaginary wrinkles on his pants. His eyes landed on the sleek black picture frame just behind yesterday’s coffee cup. The smiling faces of paid models looked out at Gus. But the deep gray-blue of a portrait studio backdrop peeked out from behind a fold in the stock photo, a subtle reminder of all he had lost
“Too damn well.”
Glaring at the frame, Gus flipped it photo-side down and busied himself with the mess of paperwork he’d shoved haphazardly into his largest desk drawer. Sighing heavily, he sorted the crumpled pages into bills (on-time and overdue), legal documents (confidential and not), and junk. The junk got thrown away immediately, with only the slightest twisting feeling in his gut that he might need it someday. He glanced back and forth between the remaining piles, trying to prioritize.
Overdue bills. Overdue documents. Upcoming documents. Upcoming bills.
Not that he’d have enough time to get to everything. The clock read a quarter past three, and the nagging voice of experience in his ear suggested that it would show five far too quickly.
And, of course, it did. With a heavy breath and a racing mind, Gus filed the bills he’d managed to pay and double-checked that his emails had gone through. Two and a half stacks still stared up at him from the surface of his desk.
Which would be worse to come in to on a Tuesday morning—a cluttered desk and a clear to-do list, or a clean desk and a renewed mess of papers hiding in the largest desk drawer?
Gus pulled the drawer open, swept the entire contents of his desktop into it, and slammed it closed. Well, tried to. He looked uncomfortably at the ripped paper corners peeking out willy-nilly and… was that an uncapped sharpie?
He shrugged. That would be a problem for Tomorrow Gus.
Without saying a word to Marty or Jones, Gus locked the door of his office and stepped out into the sweltering, humid evening. The sun wouldn’t set for hours, and its presence would be felt long past the onset of night. Gus pulled his sport coat off and slung it over his arm, steeling himself for the journey home.
Step after step after step, he plodded down the familiar streets, waving at the same old faces in the same old windows. He fingered a ten dollar bill in his pocket as he turned the usual corner, stepping into the bustling dinner crowd at his favorite gas station Indian restaurant. He inhaled deeply, as if the fragrant spices were the only cure for his tight jaw and persistent headache.
For a moment—a fleeting but somehow infinite moment—it worked. His shoulders relaxed and his eyes closed slowly, reflexively. Another deep inhale. Another slow exhale.
Gus danced and dodged his way up to the front counter, where day after day, a styrofoam box in a plastic bag would be placed for him. With a flicker of a smile, he passed the bill over the counter to one of the servers, took his bag, and maneuvered his way back out to the door. Somehow, the midsummer night’s heat felt cool after the tight quarters of the restaurant.
As Gus rounded another corner, he was surprised to see the flashing red countdown already at 5… 4… 3…
He glanced at his watch. Almost a minute late. Where had he stalled? Would the bus driver wait for him? He shuffled back and forth—left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot—the bag growing heavy in his hand. After what felt like an age of the world, the light switched from red hand to white walker, and Gus crossed the street as quickly as he could without risking his dinner.
But it wasn’t enough. He watched with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as the bus pulled away from the stop. Halfheartedly, he waved his free hand in the air, hoping against hope that Ishanee would see him and pull over. But the bus turned the corner without him, leaving him stranded at the stop for an indeterminate amount of time.
Gus pulled out his phone to check the bus schedule. When it finally loaded, he threw his head back, letting out a dissatisfied ‘ugh’. Twenty minutes, assuming no further delays. He sat down on the mottled wooden bench that sat beneath the cloudy plastic shed that was the bus stop. Tapping his toes on the ground underneath the bench, he was met with a squash where there should have been a thud. Teeth clenched, he leaned forward and found a bright blue string of gum connecting his shoe to the concrete.
“Dammit,” he whispered. Stood up. Looked around. “Screw this.”
Gus clutched his takeout bag, which was quickly cooling and dripping with condensation, and stepped into the closest building he could find.
A blast of ice-cold air met him like a wall, along with a long-forgotten scent that took Gus back to the straight-backed days of his youth, all starched button-downs and stern looks from Grandma as he mumbled along with words he didn’t know in a language he didn’t speak. A fearful, heavy, holy smell.
“…have done and in what I have failed to do. Through my fault…”
Gus hadn’t realized that there were others in the building. He clutched his dinner closer to his chest, suddenly tense. He became uncomfortably aware of the contrasting smells he’d brought into the service. As heads in the back rows turned toward him, he panicked and slipped into a bench off to his left, setting his bag and suit coat down as he silently moved his lips to a random sequence of words. Beside him, a young mother bounced a smiling baby on her hip.
All of the sudden, everyone sat down, and Gus thanked his lucky stars that he’d chosen a seat at the back. An older woman—Filipina?—walked up to the front and started reading. Taking that as his cue, Gus slid his phone out of his pocket and refreshed the bus schedule. He glanced back at the baby, who was drooling profusely and trying to bring some sort of toy banana to its mouth.
“I was tired,” said a loud, friendly voice, “of missing every family event and childhood milestone.”
Gus looked around, trying to determine who was playing on their phone, until he looked down and saw a pop-up ad on his own screen. Frantic, he grabbed the phone and tapped the screen half a dozen times. The ad finally closed, and Gus stared at his shoes until the church lady stepped away from the podium.
Everyone around him stood back up, and a discordant, off-key song faltered back from the front rows. In his confusion, Gus accidentally locked eyes with the woman on his left. She offered him a tired smile, a gesture Gus found oddly comforting and equally disquieting. The bags under her eyes mirrored his own, and he returned her smile briefly before looking around again. The man in the green tunic was at the podium now, and there were more half-remembered recitations. Candles flickered in blue and red glass cups beneath a statue of a young child in a pinkish dress. Small bowls sat in wooden brackets nailed on each side of the back doors.
Gus’ heart pounded in his chest, and leaving this place suddenly felt urgent. Nodding to the baby a couple of times, Gus gathered up his dinner and prayed that the plastic rustle of the bag would be hidden behind the voice of the minister, who he was certain was following Gus’ departure with frowning disapproval.
A laminated sign on the back door read “Judas Iscariot: the first person to leave Mass early.” Beneath the text was a sketch in which a frowning, dark-browed man walked away from a table full of concerned friends.
It looked like a meme, but Gus didn’t get the joke.
He pushed the heavy wooden door open and stepped back onto the sidewalk. His breathing steadied as he sat back down on the old wooden bench and opened his to-go box. The familiar crinkle of the wrapper on his utensils calmed him. Hesitating, but only for a moment, he pulled out the flimsy black fork and took a bite of his butter chicken. A bite of rice.
It felt illicit, sacrilegious somehow, to eat at the bus stop instead of at the coffee table in his apartment, but then again, it had been anything but a regular evening.
Half his dinner was gone by the time the next bus pulled up to the stop. Gus was the first one in line. His stomach churned as he swiped his card and glanced up and down the rows of seats. Not a single familiar face in the whole bunch. He selected an aisle seat in the first row, studiously avoiding eye contact with the headphone-clad teenager two seats down.
“You’re in my spot,” came a gruff voice above him. A bedraggled man in a tattered brown coat stood too close, gesturing for Gus to scoot over into the middle seat. He hesitated.
“Did you hear me? I said, you’re in my seat.”
“Everyone please take your seats,” called the bus driver, clearly annoyed at the delay.
The man cleared his throat again, his dark eyes flashing fire under thick, furrowed brows. Gus reluctantly slid one seat over, and the man sat down with a harrumph.
The ride felt longer than usual, stretching into an age of the world. Gus had never been so glad to get home. He jumped up as the bus pulled into his stop and half-ran the two blocks to his apartment complex. Panting, he reached for his keys, only to discover that he’d left his coat behind somewhere.
“Shit.”
Expecting nothing, Gus jiggled the handle of his front door. It turned, and the door opened. A wave of relief washed over Gus as he pushed the door past the uneven spot of carpet where it always got stuck. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and collapsed on the landing of the staircase that led up to his bedroom. It took every ounce of willpower he could muster just to move over to the couch instead of finishing his dinner right there in the entryway.
A few hours later, as the sun finally set and darkness deepened outside, the blue light of Gus’ TV danced and flickered across his living room, drowning out the weak light of the crescent moon that peeked silently through his crumpled, half-closed blinds. A mostly-empty mug of decaf coffee—black, of course—fell to the floor with a thud as Gus rolled over, tugging a damp towel over his shivering frame. The smooth, sensual voice of Local 2’s overnight reporter reverberated throughout the room, making its way into Gus’ dreams, where he was once again happy: a young up-and-coming lawyer with a beautiful wife and the most precious little boy in the world.
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider dropping a couple quarters in my digital typewriter case!
You’re reading What I Have Failed To Do, a serialized first-draft from Sara Dietz at Blinking Blue Line. If you’re new ‘round these parts, welcome! If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read, I’d love to have you stick around.
And if you’re in the mood for your next favorite story, check out my crime/medical thriller, Remembrance, or my fantasy-quest serialized novella, The Ravenswing Report.
Why would a private lawyer be prosecuting a criminal case?