A Union Contract

Who stole the money and from whom was it taken?
After Mr. Canaan was dead his widow and her lawyer opened his safety deposit boxes and inside discovered over two million dollars and a few Tai Chi videotapes.
The lawyer claimed Mr. Canaan was a gambler and had won the money at Atlantic City over a period of years and had stowed it away. He said one of the bundles was bound by a tape with the insignia from one of the casinos. Mrs. Canaan said she was unaware that her husband had been such a heavy gambler, but it must have been so because on finding the money she saw several casino binders. She mentioned the names of several.
Sherri Palatnik, a chronic junior executive, said she was not surprised. She had always thought something was amiss but she wouldn't elaborate. Later under oath in front of a grand jury, she denied having any knowledge whatsoever. In fact she denied having implied that rumors had reached her ears.
None of the partners of the law firm would give the goods on any other. Even those who had retired and were granted immunity refused to implicate any former coworkers. Each who came to testify fidgeted and appeared uncomfortable when the employee expense accounts were read out once again.
The Union had changed leaders a couple of times since Mr. Canaan's tenure. So none of the officers who came to speak could say much with any conviction.
The only thing that was a certainty, was that after the election in which Mr. Canaan lost his position, the law firm handling the Union's legal requirements was dropped in favor of another, not entirely different, firm. Many of the lawyers moved to the new firm. They were familiar with the Union members' needs.
In the end, the district attorney's assistant failed to make his case so it was a moot point as to how the money arrived in the safety deposit boxes. Mrs. Canaan was two million dollars richer, minus her attorney's fees of course.
And the old law firm which was paying a pension to the retired partner who had been a long-time friend of the deceased? They walked away quietly licking their wounds and hoped to rebuild their good name. They really did not need the bad publicity a trial would have brought on them.
These are rough times. Everyone says the stock market is due for a correction, in which case even privately held companies will suffer. Buying Union contracts could prove prohibitive under the new economy.

Empty

Kathia sat at the dining room table. Just sat, looking at the morning paper on the floor and the empty chair across from her. She would have to make a move soon. The hospital had called over an hour ago to tell her David had passed away. On the one hand, she was relieved it was over. She would not have to face a future filled with betrayal and doubt, but on the other, she already missed him.

Phone calls had been made already. His sister in Phoenix knew. His brother would be told as soon as they could locate him. Freddy was next door with Sally. She would take care of him for the afternoon. He had already asked Kathia more than once if Daddy wouldn’t be coming home. Sometimes seven-year-olds couldn’t articulate their feelings but they could perceive when things were not right. David had been in the hospital for six weeks.

Six long weeks, during which Kathia had gone through torment wondering what came next in a situation like this. She knew there was no going back, but it didn’t seem there was any going forward either.

The day he had had the heart attack she’d been out of her mind. When she’d found the pictures on his computer, at first, she was afraid. She was looking into the mind of someone she’d lived with for so long but had never really known. It seemed like hundreds of files – all without descriptive names but numbered sequentially. All of young boys engaged in sex acts.

David had done a paper on Internet pornography for the school, but that was two years ago! He couldn’t explain it as research material – not the way the files were so carefully disguised with numbers and stored in a misleadingly named folder. She was scared.

Then she was angry when she thought of Freddy upstairs.

In the murk of her reactions, she recalled how David had asked her to cut her hair very short in a boyish way and how their sex life had improved a bit. He was taking Viagra – he claimed. But it didn’t last very long.

Then he came home unexpectedly early and found her in the den.

“What’s up?” he asked, all innocence.

She glared into his eyes and said nothing.

The screen saver was playing the melody of the theme from Friends. He glanced at the computer and then looked back at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“How could you?” she asked, “What is wrong with you? You have a child of your own. What if someone had pictures of Freddy like that?”

“That will never happen. I don’t know why, I…” but before he could finish, she picked up a paperweight and threw it at him. It missed and shattered against the wall.

She ran past him, shoving him as she did, and he fell in front of a chair. She was all anger and confusion as she raced into the kitchen. Once there, she quickly surveyed her options and then took a large knife from the drainboard.

When he followed her and with outstretched arms, tried to say something, his words were more excuse than explanation.

She held the knife threateningly and said through her tears, “If you ever touch Freddy, in any way…”

It was then that David clutched his chest and fell to the floor.


She’d only visited him once a week. The difference in their ages had never seemed so vast until the fourth week when she realized he wasn’t going to recover. At fifty-six, he looked like a man of seventy. The enormity of her anger had dissipated on seeing him like that and confusion had filled the space. She knew only that she could never sleep next to him again. She would never kiss him again while he was conscious, and what she felt most acutely was that there would be no vindication. He was escaping retribution. She never told him that she had formatted the hard drive, blindly wiping out all his work, and hers, everything.


At the table, she realized she had probably sentenced him to self-annihilation with the hatred in her eyes that day in the kitchen. A thought crossed her mind. She couldn’t remember now what she’d been searching for when she discovered the pictures.

Intrigue

Walking through the marketplace, I noticed the couple I had met at the hotel, both dressed more appropriately for a vacation on the Hawaiian islands rather than this place. They were arguing over the price of gold trinkets. There was another couple—elderly, more sedately dressed—sitting at a table in the outdoor café. When I passed them, I heard the woman say something about there being “only a little while to wait.” Suffering the annoying buzz of a slight hangover, I stopped at a fruit stall and bought a pear.
While I ate my breakfast and observed the activities and listened to the sounds of the crowded market, I ruminated over the consequences I would soon face as a result of my article having been published in the morning edition of The Gazette.
I needed to see Raoul. I needed to speak to him before Dana called Beto.
And there was the matter of the newlyweds, Sarah and Ivan, their problem and what they had discovered. If Captain Balthazar interrogated them, the wrong answers could land all of us in deep trouble.

Balthazar has been in this place a long time, long enough to have achieved a position of authority. Some would say he’s been here too long—that he’s a tired old man in need of a vacation. But isn’t that the reason many people have come here? He told me he wouldn’t rest until he brings all the wrongdoers in these parts to justice. He believes in his mission and he will see it through, even if it takes another ten years.
Whatever anyone wants or needs can be gotten on the black market. Somebody runs it, but nobody’s talking.
Raoul is on Balthazar’s list. Dana too. And Beto. Sometimes it seems like everyone is on his list. For that matter I, myself, may be one of his targets, although he often gives the impression that he’s confiding in me. I investigate situations, yet I know of nothing any of the others have done that could be considered wrong. But then, I guess that depends on who’s considering their actions and what point of view one has.
Sarah and Ivan seem too naïve to be involved in anything illicit. They came here on their honeymoon. They’ve stayed, however, for more than five months. That’s the longest honeymoon I’ve ever heard of.
I had just finished eating my fruit and was about to go for a cup of coffee when two men in uniform tore through the marketplace in a jeep, creating a great disturbance among the merchants and pedestrians. No one appeared to know who they were, but that was only the first mysterious occurrence in a string of events that were about to unfold. Nobody could have predicted what happened in the next few weeks.

“Beto,” Dana said, “Be there with the money at two-thirty, don’t fail me.”
When did I ever fail her? he thought. He derived special pleasure from seeing her smile when he performed his role correctly. It was his theory that a happy Dana was a significant factor in the success of their operation.
The financial rewards involved were relevant to their continued partnership.
The telephone rang. Beto used considerable restraint in hiding his enthusiasm upon answering but then realized it wasn’t Dana calling back. The voice on the other end was deep and gruff.

Balthazar had told me that he was going to call Beto, but feeling insecure, I attempted to contact him first.
“Beto,” I said to him, “The captain will be calling on you. Please be careful in what you say to him.”
“I am aware of this, O’Brien,” he said, “As a matter of fact, I have just spoken to him.” I could tell he was trying to give the impression of being on top of the situation, but he sounded confused. Then he said, “You know, a person wanting to be a smuggler has to be more careful.”
I played dumb, and he hung up on me before I had a chance to ask where I might reach Dana.
I felt relieved because all these people were going down.

Ivan flicked some lint off the lapel of his white jacket, adjusted his handkerchief, and smiled at his wife. Sarah was very happy because they were finally getting out of there.
It seemed everyone had decided to come to the bazaar. Sarah and Ivan were waiting for the soldiers to come. Everything was fairly quiet for about half an hour, and there was a palpable sense of expectation hanging in the dense and torpid air. Only the bargaining of a couple of gaudily dressed tourists rose above the silence. Apparently they did not know what everyone else knew.
Soon the soldiers did come in a jeep and they immediately started to register the entire place.
In the end, hopefully, everyone who should be would be behind bars and the newlyweds would be able to return home.
When they entered the cafe, they saw a lot of people. Sarah remarked that these people were very strange, but Ivan wasn’t one to assess the minor players. And nobody appeared odder than those tourists, haranguing about the prices of things which would eventually be confiscated. They sat down at a table and waited.
They had arrived for a honeymoon, but it was not long before Ivan became aware of the black market. They, or he at least, had seen some things. Shortly thereafter, they were contacted by a person named “Raoul”. He told them not to say a word and not to try to leave. These were dangerous times, especially for travelers. They were scared but acted normally, and for a while it seemed no one noticed there presence.
Raoul told them about Balthazar, who was investigating illegal operations, and he said that they mustn’t talk to him.
Ivan, due to Sarah’s prompting, had talked to Balthazar. He told him someone had called, though he did not know who, asking them for favors which would involve them in a black market. He realized too late that that had been a mistake for though he tried to convince the captain that they were not involved in anything illegal and had no intentions of becoming so, Balthazar likewise advised them that they should not leave until the investigation was completed.
Weeks grew into months.
Now they sat watching and waiting for something definitive to happen.
There was a great hubbub at the stalls. They had seen this kind of thing before. It usually ended with the arrest of one or two people and then investigations continued. This time promised to be different, conclusive in some way. Ivan capitulated to Sarah’s hopeful expectations.
He placed his hand over hers and their rings clacked. At least they still had each other.

Raoul, peering through the shades of a nearby window, watched the uniformed men roughing up a drunk. The soldiers could always count on getting some useless tidbit of information from a drunk to report back to Balthazar, either for the price of a cup of wine or by force depending on the degree of the witness’s inebriation.
He also noticed the young couple sitting nearly unfazed in the café. He read their look of slight concern as one of resignation more than for their own well-being. He knew then that he had lost them to the other side. He had foolishly believed they might be helpful when they arrived, but so many things had occurred in the last few months. He would not make a mistake like that again.
The black market was the main source of money for all these people.

Ernest Savage and his wife Eleanor were upset. Shopping was the only thing they had planned for the day. Now, as the soldiers intervened, that was put on hold. Their only other option was lunch and then back to the hotel where Eleanor would write in her journal and then take a nap while Ernest sat in the bar.
“That couple that came five months ago, they’re somewhat suspicious characters, don’t you think?” Eleanor asked. “I mean how much time do you need for a honeymoon? Young people nowadays are just crazy.
“Last night I heard them arguing about something they did wrong. They were saying something about a procedure they had messed up. Now do you see my point?
“A procedure?!? The main question is: Did they really come here for honeymoon? I don’t think so.
“This morning, they passed near me heading towards the village. They were talking, no, no, no, whispering! It’s obvious that they didn’t want me to hear what they were saying.”
Ernest nodded. paying scant attention to his wife’s ranting. His mind was elsewhere. He was thinking how much he used to complain about his job at the factory back in the States before retiring to this godforsaken place, and how he’d give anything to be back there now complaining or not. One can never recapture the excitement and enthusiasm of a first vacation. Times change.
“Are you listening to me?” Eleanor asked.
“I told you last night,” he said, “That wasn’t their room you were eavesdropping on. That’s the room where the dark-haired philly is staying.”
“Dark-haired philly! Ernest, you’re impossible,” she snapped, “I wasn’t eavesdropping. They were arguing very audibly. And I didn’t imagine them purposefully dropping their voices when I passed them this morning.”

Beto on his way to meet Dana and with several hundred thousand euros in his briefcase saw the young couple as they exited the bazaar. Strange he thought why are they going into Balthazar’s office? He despised his gruff manner. Hadn’t he ever heard that one could win more flies with honey than with vinegar?
Balthazar was the dominant personality in this community. Someone wanting authority here only had to seize it. Balthazar had already questioned Dana and Beto about their activities, which is why they both avoided him if they could. They always maintained sufficient space between them.
Now the sounds of shouting and weeping were coming from the big man’s office. Uh oh, thought Beto, more victims added to the tyrant’s list.

“There are some who prefer to wallow in their miseries and misfortunes, surrounding themselves with dark influences at times when their lives are equally black,” Dana said, “But if you prefer to look up at the stars when you're lying in a gutter, you’ll pick yourself up, get in a car and drive to the nearest empty field you know. Bring a bottle of wine or an ice-cream cone. Park in that field, sit on the ground, and let music play from your open car doors. Loudly. And then you'll know what Raoul knows. Everything is going to be all right.”
That was her way, to speak in parables. I had no idea why she trusted so much in Raoul. He seemed barely able to keep himself out of the hands of the law. And yet, somehow, he always managed to do just that.

Missing Notes

"Even though I haven't moved up the corporate ladder, I now and again merit these awards for excellence in various categories. One or two have had a high degree of prestige.
"I was nominated for one four months ago, and it came down to this: My last supervisor, a woman I had had a disastrous affair with, had to sign her approval to the nomination, as it was proposed by my current manager (a woman with whom I've always gotten along very well), and it upset my old supervisor to have to sign the form as she had written some bitter notes which she made part of my personnel folder. She checked the folder to see if the notes were still there and discovered they weren't.
"She let it be known the notes were missing and though they had only her word that they had ever been there, the bank started an investigation.
"They discovered that one day for about twenty minutes I had had access to my folder and they were ready to accuse me of tampering with bank records. I was put under pressure until one day last month when my old supervisor, my ex-girlfriend, had a nervous breakdown in the office and it became clear she had been ready to crack for some time.
"They found denigrating notes, scores of them in her desk, in which she had written false accusations of a plot concocted by me and my new manager, of whom she was insanely jealous.
"So they gave me this cruise for two to make up for it. I'm here with my new girlfriend, who's a writer. We intend to write my story and see if we can make some money from it.
"I know it is only a matter of time until they squeeze me out of the job. They don't like these kind of things occurring during working hours. I think they were surprised I didn't ask my manager to come with me."