“Pierucci,” Gus repeated, taking his best guess at the correct spelling. “First name? Or is the whole family involved?”
“Father and son.” The client nodded. “Jude Senior and Jude Junior. And the prison warden. Maybe a couple of cops. It’s not a small operation.”
A slight nod. “I’ll need the name and specific information for every warrant you want issued.”
“It’s all in there,” he said, gesturing to the stack of paper he’d placed on Gus’ desk. “I can rattle it off if it would make you feel better, but Ms. Harvey and I have already done all the work. Like I said, the arrest should be made within a week, if all goes well.”
Gus resisted the urge to grumble that this was exactly why he hated taking on new clients, making a mental note to complain to Jones about this guy later.
“Yes, well, you’ve only got a month, so that’s not saying much.”
The client didn’t reply.
“Ms. Harvey?” Gus clarified, trying to fill the silence as he finished typing out his notes.
“Leonora Harvey. She’s the one who caught wind of all this and took the notes I’ve got there.” His voice softened ever so slightly. “She’s really something else.”
“Yes, you mentioned that a moment ago.” Gus looked up from his paper. “So then why are you here instead of her?” He realized it may have sounded more rude than he meant it, but only after he’d spoken.
The client—Robert, was that his name?—scoffed. “Because she’s a civilian? She’ll obviously be a key witness, but this is quite literally my job.”
“Fair enough,” Gus replied absentmindedly, rifling through the papers in front of him. “Well, I’ll get this paperwork started and let you know when I’m ready to have you come in and sign it. You said you need the warrant within the week?”
“You think you can get it filed by then?” Robert sounded a little surprised. What had Marty told him on the phone?
“Yeah,” Gus said. “Certainly looks like you’ve already done the heavy lifting.”
Robert stood up and offered Gus a handshake, which Gus reluctantly returned.
“Just make sure you leave your information with Marty on the way out so we can get the bill for the retainer sent over.”
“Of course,” Robert replied with a half-laugh. “Can’t forget about the money.”
Gus didn’t quite know how to respond, so he said nothing as his newest client walked out, handed Marty a card after a brief chat, and disappeared through the front doors of the firm. For a long moment, he stood at his desk, staring without seeing.
“You okay there, man?” Jones called as he passed the door.
Gus blinked. Nodded. Sat back down. “All good. Just thinking.”
A father-son crime duo. Talk about setting a bad example for your kid.
Jones let himself into Gus’ office and stood in the doorway. “How’d the meeting go?”
“Surprisingly well.” Gus’ voice was slow, uncertain. “I don’t like him, you know, but the story itself seems promising.”
“Of course you don’t like him,” Jones teased. “I could tell from the second he walked in that he was going to rub you the wrong way.”
Gus chuckled and rolled his eyes. Jones stepped out of the doorway, calling out as he left, “But I’m glad you’re feeling good about the case. You need a win.”
The door swung shut. Gus glanced down at his desk and found his eyes lingering on his picture frame. His fingers moved with practiced ease as he flipped the frame over and slid the contents out. At the top of the stack was the stock photo that the frame had come with. Gus set it down on the desk and his heart skipped a beat. A knot grew in the pit of his stomach.
The smiling face of his son confronted him. Theo was young in the photo. Maybe ten years old. Fourth grade. His little voice echoed in Gus’ mind, “Dad, my teacher wants you to come for Career Day, do you think you can make it? All my friends think you have the coolest job EVER!”
“Your friends think it’s cool to be a federal prosecutor?” He cringed at the memory of his own distracted skepticism.
“Dad, you literally put bad guys in jail every single day.” Theo had prattled on. “One day I want to be just like you.”
“Well, I don’t literally put them in jail, Theodore. That’s the prison staff’s job. I only help secure convictions, but…” The memory faded, and Gus mourned his son’s childlike certainty that good always won out in the end—and the trusting naivety of being a ten-year-old boy. Surely Theo no longer wanted to be just like him—middle aged, balding, and divorced?
“Oh, how the turn tables,” Gus muttered to himself as he drew his attention back to the large stack of paper on his desk, wondering if he ought to just start at the beginning.
A quick glance through the top third of the stack revealed that it was generally in chronological order, so Gus slipped his glasses off, took a sip of his coffee, and started reading.
***
By the time Gus turned over the last page of evidence that Robert had brought, the rest of the office was silent. He had a vague memory of Jones stopping in to wave goodbye, but he couldn’t remember how many pages ago that had been. As he blinked his tired eyes and looked around the office, several sensations hit him at once: a desperate, gnawing hunger, followed by an urgent need to visit the men’s room.
He stood up, clenching tightly, and raced down the hall, glancing at the clock as he did so.
Seven o’clock?
What time had Robert come in? Nine? Ten at the latest?
Gus relieved himself and walked back to his office, trying to figure out where the day had gone. He stared at the haphazard pile of loose paper on (and around) his desk. His mind reeled with the details of the story that Robert had left with him. It beggared belief from start to finish, and Gus debated the odds that the whole thing was an intricate prank from Jones to punish him for slacking off so much lately.
Leaving the mess untouched, Gus locked the door of his office and stepped out into the hallway and then the quiet evening light of his street. He pulled his phone out to check the bus schedule, but a notification on the lock screen stopped him in his tracks.
Missed call from Theodore Butler. Three hours ago. And a voicemail.
Gus slipped his phone back into his pocket, hands trembling, and turned in the direction of the bus stop.
“He doesn’t want to be just like me,” Gus muttered under his breath. “He doesn’t want to work a dead-end job that demands everything he has to give. He’s too good for that. He deserves a family who loves him and supports him and encourages him to take breaks. He doesn’t want to wake up one day and find himself married to some…” Gus grumbled and censored himself. “Some woman who doesn’t even like him anymore packing her things and leaving. Taking the kid with her. Claiming she doesn’t get what she needs in the relationship, that she’s tired of waiting for me to change. Tired of fighting. Doesn’t she know everything I did was for her? For them? And she has the audacity to claim I don’t love them?”
He was fuming by the time he sat down on the old wooden bench.
“Won’t even let me talk to the boy more than once a month, has the courts convinced I’m unfit to be a parent, acts like I’m some sort of monster for trying to provide for her.”
A dove flew past him, startled out of the street by the oncoming bus.
“I want so much better for him that this shitshow of a life. Taking the bus. Living in a run-down hellhole. Stuck in a job that barely pays the bills and sucks the life out of me. No hope that things will ever get better.
The bus slowed to a halt in front of the stop, skidding through a puddle and sending a spray of water onto Gus’ shoes. “Over my dead body will he be just like me.”
Gus stepped onto the bus, damp shoes squelching, still lost in thought and sat down in his usual seat. His stomach gurgled and groaned, and Gus realized he’d forgotten to grab dinner on his way out the door.
“Dammit.”
“What is it, sweetie?” asked an unexpected but familiar voice. Ishanee?
Gus’ eyes flew to the driver’s seat. “I didn’t know you worked this late.”
“Yessir, every day.” She didn’t turn all the way around, but she glanced back as far as she could. “I’ve been worried about you. You’ve missed a couple trips. Doing okay?”
“Doing okay,” he affirmed. “Been a weird couple of days.”
“Fair enough,” she replied, and they sunk back into a companionable silence.
Gus pulled his phone out again. He dismissed the notifications from Theo with a pang of guilt in his gut. Halfheartedly, he opened the app for the grocery store near his apartment, but there were no delivery options available until the morning. Closing that, he glanced through the fast food apps he had downloaded before selecting one and placing an order for delivery in half an hour. He rolled his eyes at the delivery fee, setting the tip to the lowest recommended amount, and sighed. Life was too damn expensive.
He slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned to look out the window of the bus. Vibrant white and pink and purple flower bloomed on the crepe myrtles in the median, a brief glimpse of something beautiful in the midst of the drab city streets. Gus felt his fingers itch, yearning to hold a pencil or, even better, a paintbrush. The crepe myrtle tree in his front yard growing up had been the first thing he’d ever learned to draw. Every summer, the memory of that day grew fainter: the sweet smell of summer air, the warmth of the sun on his neck, the way the shadows moved across his notebook as the clouds passed in front of the sun.
And, of course, the pressure behind his eyes at the sight of his drawing, ripped and crumbled like so much useless confetti, at the top of the family trash can. The cold metal of his old flashlight. Its dim, flickering beam. The soft pad of his feet as he tiptoed back to his room. The soft click of the door and the squeak of the bed as he climbed in and silently cried himself to sleep.
“No,” Gus muttered to himself again. “He’ll never be just like me.”
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.
Oh, man. That last flashback... that's hurtful. I can't imagine.