Chapter 43: The Meaning of Fear

Okay, now I'm scared. I know what you're thinking, everybody says that, and you're right. I mean I've been scared before; several times in fact. Like when Brad and his goons ambushed me outside the mall. Skinny little freshman me against three football players, hell yes I was scared. Even before that, when I confronted Brad in the locker room because he was talking shit about Angela. If our star running back, Pat Nesky, hadn't been there I probably would have gotten my ass kicked. Both of those paled in comparison to waking up in the hospital after the fight knowing that I had been seconds away from ending Brad's life when I passed out.

Then there was the fear that gripped me when I realized that our killer had taken my friend for this year's victim, and the fear that I wouldn't be able to find her in time. Going into the killer's house after Rebecca knowing there was a bomb ticking away inside. Staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, complete with silencer, aimed at me at the bank. The pop-pop-pop of explosions as the robbers systematically emptied the safety deposit boxes in the vault and trying to deny the certainty that they had every intention of killing us all when they were through. The fear of what was happening to me when an unknown force took over my body and mind and used me to kill five people in that bank. Realizing that that same unknown force was using my gift to hurt people like Ray Parry. Learning about how Kurtz became a cold blooded contract killer, then inexplicably turned to torturing and murdering innocent young women. Seeing the similarities between what happened to him and what seemed to be happening to me. Sure, that's all scary stuff, right? Sure it is, but fear, real fear, that's different. I never appreciated how different it really could be, until now. I now have complete understanding of what real fear is and what it means to be truly afraid.

Real fear is what happens when you realize that you've just stolen six and a half million dollars from a professional assassin.

My third period English Lit class was a blur. I have no idea what happened. I guess I wasn't much better fourth period because Bob called on me twice and I had no idea what the question was either time.

"Mr. Matthews, are you all right?" He asked after the second time calling on me for an answer and getting no response. "Perhaps you should see the nurse?"

"What? No, I'm fine, thanks. How are you?" There was a general chuckle from the rest of the class, although several of the girls were looking somewhat concerned.

"See me after class please, Mr. Matthews." Just then the bell rang and I almost jumped out of my chair. I didn't realize the period had gone by already.

After everyone else had gone and I was just sitting at my desk looking dazed he approached me, "Jimmy, what the hell is going on? I've never seen you like this. Not even when Shannon died. If I didn't know better I'd swear you were high."

"I'm not, really, I mean..." He held up his hand.

"I know. But that's the point; you can't even tell when I'm making a point. What happened? You seemed fine last night. Is there a problem?" He glanced around, "Is something wrong with Jamie?"

"What? No, she's fine. It's just ... Bob, I think I just did something really, really bad."

"You mean just now, during class?"

"No, at break. You remember I said I had something I needed to do? Well I did it, and it worked, but I didn't realize what I had done until it was too late."

"That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"Let me help," Jamie said.

I felt her move forward, but it wasn't like the times before when she shoved me out and took over complete control. It was more like she was sitting next to me.

"What he's trying to say is the last time we saw Kurtz, we talked about ways that he would go about catching the killer if it were his case. Cutting off his funding was a big part of the discussion. While we were talking, it seemed like Kurtz got a snatch of memory from his alter ego but he was having trouble bringing it into focus, we touched him and even though he couldn't make it out, we got the whole thing..."

Bob interrupted. He had been looking at me strangely ever since Jamie started talking. "Jamie is that you?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Your body language changed and you suddenly look more relaxed. Also, you keep saying 'he' and 'we'. Jimmy was saying 'I'."

"Hmm, have to be more careful in the future, but for now. We're both pretty freaked out, but obviously I had a chance to just sit and catch my breath, now it's his turn. As I was saying, we saw the memory of the killer setting up his numbered account. Saw the man that he worked with, the account number, and watched him input his passwords. When we talked to Mr. Rodriguez about our money he suggested we move it somewhere else. That way, if the kind of people that got a hold of Rebecca ever got a hold of him he couldn't tell them where it was. Well, while we were opening up our new account, we opened another one, moved our money, then went back to see if we could move Sandman's money and maybe put a hole in his cash flow. It costs a lot of money to hide the way he is, but we never expected this."

"What?"

"Mr. Shelby," she said, swallowing past a suddenly very dry throat. "We just stole almost six and half million dollars from a professional fucking killer."

Bob's eyes grew about three sizes. He could have been Marty Feldman's brother. He had been sitting on the corner of his desk and he had to stand up suddenly because he almost fell off. "Jesus God! Does Rebecca know?"

"No, she knew we were up to something but we didn't want to tell her what unless it worked. We warned her there may be a reaction, but we weren't prepared for the kind of reaction this might trigger. We were hoping to irritate him a little, not totally piss him off."

"Whoa, back up a second. You took money from a numbered account and moved it to another numbered account, so no one knows who did it. The accounts are anonymous so there is no way for him to find out who did it."

"Bob, do you honestly think he's going to believe that it was anyone but Rebecca?"

"Why would he think it was her? I'm sure he has made other enemies over the years."

"Because it's the 'cop' thing to do. Bob, everybody else thinks he's dead; of course he's going to think it was her. If anyone else had his passwords they would have used them a long time ago. Bob, there's no telling what he might do.

"And you're afraid of what he might do to her?"

"Yes! But not just her. Bob, he knows where we live, and that we're involved with Rebecca somehow."

"Oh shit, I forgot about that part," he said. The way he said it was almost funny, it was like something from a movie, just casually tossing it off like he drove across town to pick up his dry cleaning and left his wallet at home. He was a little more animated after that. "Well, thank you so much for sharing all that, now I'm scared. Look, you need to warn Rebecca about this. I think you're right and this is likely to generate a much bigger reaction than anyone might have planned for."

"Bob, do you think she'll be upset that we did this? She trusts us and we've never done anything illegal with our gifts before. We don't want to lose her trust."

"Don't worry, you won't. There is a simple way to make sure. Turn the money over. Too bad you hadn't already worked a deal with Atkins; she might even let you keep it. Either way, there are huge rewards posted all over the world for this guy so when they finally catch him you're going to get a big chunk back. Maybe not that big, but still a lot of money and by turning it in you wave a big flag that tags you as a good guy." He checked his watch, "Listen, we're late for lunch and the girls are expecting us, so we need to go make an appearance. I'll come up with an errand for you to do at the beginning of the next class so you can go find a quiet place to call Rebecca. Make sure you use the new phone number. In fact, you don't seem to be feeling well, so why don't you just tell her you need to meet, and then I'll send you to the nurse's office to lie down for a while. Or you could go do all that now."

I thought about it for a second, as I did Jamie slid back and let me take over again. "No, lunch isn't that long and like you said, they're expecting us. I think it might be important to not upset any of the normal routines at this point. I doubt thirty minutes is going to make a difference. Besides, I think I'll feel better if I eat something. Stress is hard on the body; a little fuel at the right time can make a big difference."

"That's Jimmy again isn't it? Weird. Nice to know you've been paying attention in class though, that's so rare these days."

It probably wasn't the best choice but the milkshake did make me feel better. Susan and Mel were talking about Roxy when we got there, reminiscing about the days of their youth and the first time they had had to strip down and shower in front of a whole room full of strangers. The general consensus was that it was one of life's more traumatic moments regardless of gender. Mel shared the fear of being noticed staring at one of the other girls. She had known early that she was gay and was terrified that someone would notice her looking.

"Well at least no one would be able to tell by looking that you were interested," I said. "You didn't have to worry about getting an erection in front of a room full of guys."

"Huh!" Susan scoffed, "you've never had to worry about starting your period in the shower in front of a hundred other girls. Now that is embarrassing. I know, it happened to me and I thought I would die. They were merciless."

"I know what you mean," Mel said. "I've seen it happen a couple times over the years and it's always awful, but Jimmy has a point. Popping a boner in a locker room full of guys could get your ass kicked big time."

"Popping a boner!" Susan giggled. "Mel I can't believe you said that. I don't remember the last time I heard someone use that phrase, and in front of a student."

"Well that's what my brother always called it," Mel laughed. "And I'm not worried about embarrassing Jimmy, he brought it up."

Susan nodded her head, "Well, he certainly is harder to embarrass these days. God, do you remember last year when that girl was stalking him?"

Mel cracked up. "Yes! I swear I'll carry that day to my grave; the look on his face!" She looked at me and asked, "Whatever happened with that anyway? I don't mean to pry, but if you don't mind my asking?"

I did my best to suppress the smile, "We managed to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution to the situation."

That was it for Bob, who had been sitting quietly up to this point. He had to struggle hard not to spit out the coffee he was sipping when he burst out laughing. "Well put, young man! Well put!"

"Oh, Jimmy!" Mel laughed, slapping the table. "You are too much! I'm going to have to remember that one, 'a mutually satisfactory resolution.' That's good!"

"Thank you," I said. "It just came to me. Look, I don't intend for this to spoil the mood or anything, but sooner or later it's going to come out and I don't want you to feel bad about it when it does so I'm going to tell you now. It was Angela." There was instant silence and shock on both women's faces.

"There now, you see?" I said, irritated. "That's just what I said I didn't want to happen. Please, don't do that. My relationship with Angela was very special and I don't want you, my friends, to ever feel like you have to tip-toe around it. That's why I didn't tell you before and it's why I'm telling you now. I'm past it, it doesn't hurt anymore, much, so please don't let it get in the way."

"No wonder you seem to be so popular with the girls this year," Mel said. "You don't know it, but you've been the topic of several locker room conversations lately. A lot of girls are wondering when you're going to be ready for a new girl friend. There has even been some speculation that you may already have one from another school or something. I almost told one group that you had been close to Shannon."

"Oh God, whatever you do, don't let that out." I said.

"Why not?" Susan asked.

Bob handled the answer, "Susan, think about it. If you were sixteen years old, would you want to go out with a guy whose last two girlfriends died?"

"That's not fair, Bob, neither of those was his fault," Mel said. "Angela was kidnapped by a psycho and Shannon died in an accident."

"We're not talking about fair, Melinda, we're talking about reality. If you were a teenage girl wouldn't you think twice before going out with him? I'll even go you one better. What would your parents think about you going out with him?"

She thought for a moment and finally answered, "Okay, I have to give you that one. We have the advantage of age, experience, and knowing the whole story. They wouldn't, especially the parents. I'm glad I didn't say anything. You should keep in mind though that any girl you pay any kind of extra attention to around here is going to have the rumor mill running wild."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said. Just then the bell rang to head back to class. I stood up, "Thanks guys, for understanding and all, I'll see you around." I made a quick stop in the bathroom and then headed off to class. Bob sent me to the office to copy some handouts he had for the class. As I headed down the hall I noticed three guys clustered together doing something. One of them spotted me, glared, and then slammed the locker shut. They started walking toward me down the hall like they were going somewhere and as they past me one of them hit me with his shoulder. It was one of those stupid tough-guy things guys do.

"What an idiot," Jamie said. "Why not just hold up a sign with 'We're doing something we're not supposed to' in big letters. You better get the locker number, just in case."

"No," I said. "Chances are they are watching to see if we check the number. No point advertising we know they are up to something. And if they are we need to be careful about what we do or say because if anything goes wrong, they'll figure it was us that turned them in. He touched me, we can get the number if we need it, or just look at it on the way back; it's the sixth one from the end."

"You sure?"

"I counted them when he slammed it. Like you said, they were being pretty obvious. Better stay away from the suggestion boxes for a couple days."

I told the secretary in the office that Mr. Shelby had sent me to make some copies and asked her to show me how the machine worked.

"Thank you!" She said. I was a little confused at the reaction but she cleared it up right away. "Most of the students just pretend they know everything and try to do it on their own. These are not supermarket copy machines; you can't just push the green button. The smart ones come back and ask, the rest just end up jamming the machine. If they really screw it up and I can't fix it then we have to call a technician and it costs the school two hundred dollars just for him to show up, so thank you so much for asking."

I followed her into the copy center and was surprised at the size of the machines. Two of them were huge.

"How many do you need?"

"There are thirty three in my class, but he'll probably want them for the other class as well, so how about seventy? That way he has a few extras. They're four pages each."

"No problem. First things first, the machines are in power saver mode so they will take a few minutes to warm up. Fortunately we don't have to wait to start programming. Next, carefully, remove the staple from your originals, don't just rip them apart because it damages the paper and a tear can cause a jam as it moves through. Set your originals down and use this to get the staple out." I did as she instructed and she continued. Next, put your originals in the feeder, face up in the order you want them. Okay, stop." She said as I laid the originals face up in the tray. "Any time papers are bound together, even with something as simple as a staple, they can get sort of stuck together. The tiny little edge where the staple went in and out can hold two pieces long enough to try and feed them both at the same time. Then they come apart inside and jam the machine. So always separate your pages before you put them in. Now this machine will collate and staple the copies, but you have to tell it to. That's what this panel is for. It's pretty simple really. I'll watch and you see if you can figure it out."

It was mostly a visual menu. The icons were new but they were pretty self explanatory. It didn't take long to get it set up.

"Very good," she said. "It will take a little longer before the machine is ready, but then it will start automatically and beep when the job is complete. I'm afraid there is not much to do while you're waiting."

"That's okay; I'm just going to sit over here and rest a bit. I haven't really been feeling good this morning."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Now if anything goes wrong, please, don't try to fix it yourself, just come and get me."

"Okay, thank you for you help." As soon as she was gone and the door closed I pulled out my phone and called Rebecca. She didn't answer. Damn. There were several different reasons that might happen, none of them anything I could do anything about. I considered my options for a moment then dialed another number."

A deep voice gave a one word reply, "Rodriguez."

"Mr. Rodriguez, it's Jimmy, I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Doesn't matter, what's wrong?"

"I need to talk to Rebecca right away. I tried her phone, the new one, but she didn't answer. This isn't something I can discuss on the old one."

"I see. She's working over at the central court building with her partner on something, which case is this on?"

"The Sandman."

"Oh shit, that can't be good. Anything you can tell me about?"

"I did something. We figured if we could find a way to interrupt his cash flow it would upset his schedule and he would be forced to do something."

"We? You mean you and Rebecca?"

"No. I didn't want to tell her what we were planning unless it worked. Well, it worked, only I think it may have worked too well."

"You found where he's getting his money from? They've been looking for months trying to figure that out, how did you ... never mind, I probably don't want to know."

"I got the account number and password sequences to a Swiss bank account he set up some time ago. I set up an account in another bank and then just moved the whole thing. When I saw the balance I almost stopped but I was afraid we might not get another chance, so I just moved the whole thing..."

"You did all that by yourself? Damn, kid, that's good work, so what's the problem."

"Before I tell you I need you to understand, I don't want to keep the money. I won't lie to you, considering everything else that's gone on lately, I had considered keeping it if this worked. Even now, it's tempting but, I mean, no matter where it came from, no matter where he got it, as far as I'm concerned, it's still stolen; it's not mine. When I asked Bob what I should do he said to just turn it in. If it does what we want and smokes him out and we catch him, there will be plenty of reward money. Plus he thought you guys might want to put together a little thank you for my help."

"No problem, I can help you get it to the right people without risking getting caught. So how serious is this? You sound kind of scared."

"I am scared; you would be too if you'd just stolen almost six and half million dollars from a professional assassin."

His voice changed, "Excuse me? Did you just say six and half... million dollars?"