What dumb idea brought him to this point? Was it vodka rage or the Prophet's prediction that Cayla would leave him, four weeks to the day? Either way, Eddie knew he had to blow. Cops, neighborhood watch, citizen heroes, lock up and a world of hard time.
The Prophet bubbled and rattled. “Relax boy. She still has to walk out of your life.”
Eddie looked past the Prophet at the sour crust of old vomit and the urine tide marks against the wall. “Sorry, man. I'm outta here.”
He shoved his bruised knuckles in his pockets and turned to leave, but the Prophet grabbed the leg of his jeans. “Boy, I'm not following you. I'm not getting up. I knew this moment was here and now, but that don't make you right and it don't make me better. For you, one last foretelling. Wednesday's gonna get you, boy.”
The Prophet of Winchester rattled his final breaths. Eddie shook his cuff loose, turned his back on the bile-spattered, urine-stinking hell and walked out into the reassuring gas fumes and fairground neon of civilization.
The next afternoon, Thursday, the Prophet of Winchester was four lines on page eleven of the midday edition and a feeling of dread in Eddie's stomach.
“You need to get it right,” Eddie told himself. “Get it fixed now or failure is going to be your buddy for the rest of your life.”
He picked up the phone and pushed buttons. Six calls in he struck it lucky with an offer lugging boxes, not bad money but not a good future. Next he got smart. How hard could it be to find a night school?
Cayla was a tough sell. “A job is good, Eddie baby, but this night school thing? It's kinda big league. What about us? Where's the two of us if you're going blind with books every night?”
Eddie looked at the leopard print strung over the cracked window. “The two of us? Honey, in a couple of years we're in the burbs with nice curtains, flowers in the garden and kids on the lawn, just like in the movies. Her face didn't believe him, so he explained it three more times until her mouth smiled and agreed.
Four weeks to the night he ushered the Prophet of Winchester into history, Eddie found an empty apartment and the note from Cayla. “Sorry babe. It's not working.”
* * *
Wednesday morning on his second coffee, Eddie Delft read the vicinity for threats. Well dressed customers like him, no freaks and five solid posts outside to guard the walkway. No chance of something with wheels finding its way through the big windows to park among the glass top décor and share a java with him.
He sat back and watched the comings and goings. Fifty short yards to the office foyer and safety. Now what could go wrong? He took a sip on his coffee, gagged and spat. Paint flakes? The penny dropped and Eddie jumped. Not a car. A falling lamp.
Time to move before Wednesday brought the rest of the house down. He shouldered his way past the barista, saw the mouth move but didn't hear the words. “Toss the check, and the java's on you next time.” He pinned the barista with his eyes. “My lawyer's way more aggressive than yours.”
Eddie found his fear again on the sidewalk. Time slowed. Horns blurted. He sidestepped and weaved against the flow, random particles of life, too busy to watch where they were going. Yellow cabs blurred in the corner of his eye. He calculated trajectories, rated his chances and moved out of the stream, closer to the windows for an extra half a second of safety.
Outside the office building, a faint stain on the stones looked him in the eye, and said, “Hey, remember me, bud? I'm what's left of love.”
Eddie paled and back-pedaled. It always caught him. The cleaners did a good job of scrubbing, but it wasn't enough. Four years back on a winter Wednesday, Cayla looked him up again. They stood there breathing each other's dizzying exhalations, swore their love with heart throbs, electric loins and knew it was right.
Wednesday registered its objection with a falling slab of marble, served it with a garnish of traumatic gore and nightmare disbelief. That was when Eddie gave up love and focused on the numbers, his night school revelation. Numbers were easy. Numbers were calming. Numbers couldn't hurt you.
Twelve steps into the foyer. One pillar to lean against and breathe for five seconds. Eight steps to the stairway doors because the velocity of a falling elevator is enough to reduce a body to about four inches of goo with a variable deviation in direct proportion to the BMI of the falling body. Just this one day, once a week, of twelve flights up before another four days of safe and easy mechanical vertical motion. On the seventh floor he felt the burn take hold of his thighs. On the tenth floor he felt the pounding in his sinuses. Twelve came just in time.
The numbers came back in the office with a threatening voice in the coffee nook.
“This Wednesday thing with Delft is way out there. It's one day out of five he's in his office doing who knows what. That's a twenty percent hit on his productivity. I don't like it.” That would be Jimpson, the bad cop, from Corporate Oversight.
“Back off. He's good. The private accounts like him. He gives good analysis. They ignore it. They stuff up and learn to love him. He's our ethical front. You haven't got enough of that to work with, bro.” There was Kelly, the good cop from Investment Ops.
“Ethics, shmethics! This is productivity. Like in transparency and accountability. Tell me why I shouldn't hit the alarm button?”
“He makes his quotas and then some. Doesn't mess around. Doesn't drink and mouth off on internal matters. Works Saturdays. Goes to church. Gives generously. Management likes it.”
“Doesn't change the fact that he won't take meetings on Wednesdays. He sits there goldbricking in his office while Irma builds walls around him. What is he? Holy?”
“She's got the memo from heaven on the fourteenth floor. Nobody touches the man on Wednesday.”
Eddie slipped past, small and unnoticeable. Irma's desk faced his door, the gamut for barbarians battering at his gates. Hard work and attention to detail won him the kingdom of Personal Investments. Irma's perfect filing made it possible. Answers when needed. Never delayed. Never late. Never, schmever.
“Coffee. Two spoons of instant, one sugar, no milk,” she called. Minions looked around. Irma delegated with a pointing finger. “You. See to it.”
Eddie pulled the spare chair to the side of her desk. Tidy means nobody blocking the passage. He looked Irma up and down but saw no change to fret about. She was flaccid fifty, a heavy breather, but comfy in her floral dress and the ready smile was on her face.
“Thanks, Irma. You got my back.”
“And you got mine,” Irma completed the equation.
Eddie leaned forward and buddy punched her on the shoulder. Irma glowed. She was the other half of his team, empowered to manage, to keep the minions in their place, with noses to monitors and hands on keyboards.
“And?” Irma knew the routine but kept an eye out for problems.
Eddie took the coffee from the minion, sipped and answered. “I need the combined tallies on client contacts by tomorrow AM. I want to know what's happening with the Brunswich account. And watch out for Jimpson. He's stirring.”
“Jimpson, huh? Shall I mail him for the March governance report? It's overdue.” Irma's smile reminded Eddie of a shark in a feeding frenzy.
“Yup.” Eddie returned the smile with interest, stood up and pulled a memory stick from his pocket. “Here's the projected returns for Q2. On time. Circulate it with the usual note.”
Eddie's office was prime corporate real estate on the north-western corner of the building. The floor-to-ceiling view of the offices of other corporate overachievers unnerved him. The leather couch seating area threatened disaster. If he used them today, to conference, to schmooze, a bad call was almost guaranteed. That spelled cardboard box time, a certain ticket to the one-way elevator trip out of employment.
He imagined the cardboard box. There was Cayla, reduced to a smile in a photo frame, a stab in the gut every time he looked at her, but the smile wanted to be remembered. There was Midnight as a kitten. No nine lives for him, just a daring leap for a pigeon and a twenty-three floor fall. That was also a Wednesday. No photos of parents. Eddie found comfort in being an orphan. One calculator, now obsolete. One digital clock, also obsolete. The box would rattle.
Eddie opened a random spreadsheet and selected a group of cells to graph and frown at if Jimpson walked in on a mission to find the gold bricks.
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a well-thumbed sheet. Two columns accounted for his sins, one column for homeless shelters and one for orphan mentorship. He hoped Wednesday recognised the acts of mitigation. He jotted down another hundred for mentorship. No need for the kids to wind up directionless in bad-ass, piss-stained alleys with bruised knuckles and curses like heat-seeking missiles. He followed it with fifty for homeless shelters and hoped the prophet had a sense of solidarity. After a moment of reflection he crossed it out and upped it to seventy-five.
With everything he could safely do behind him, Eddie steepled his fingers, sat back and began the long wait for the day to pass.
Just after eleven, Jimpson showed up, guns blazing. Irma fired back. Eddie heard voices rising, wondered if he could go out and take the blows? Irma solved the problem, put an end to the argument by collapsing, turning blue, her final defense of Eddie.
Jimpson burst in and sounded the alarm.
“Eddie, call nine-one-one! Irma's having a coronary.”
Eddie's fingers crawled over the buttons, struggling with the idea of an emergency.
"Nine-one-one operator. What is your emergency?"
“My secretary. She's collapsed.”
"Where are you?"
“I'm at the corner of...” His phone clicked twice, stuttered and died with the chuckle of rapid klaxon beeps.
* * *
Eddie found the courage to return to the office on Tuesday, arrived with a resignation letter in his head. The office was a throng of buddy pats and caring hugs. He kept his cool by repeating the letter to himself.
All trace of Irma was gone. A new desk and blank walls, a few lighter patches where her photos once hung, rounded out the clean sweep of her memory. A different secretary sat in her place, a temp, anonymously brunet and middle-aged. The space was a vacuum without Irma's mauve Tuesday dress. It sucked Eddie's eyes, thoughts and soul into its aching emptiness.
In his office, he fired up the computer and wondered where to get a box, a small one. His hands flew over the keyboard leaving form resignation letter words in his wake. Terminate. Immediate. Regret. The door opened between the second paragraph and 'Yours faithfully'.
“I'm Lilly Gallagher. I'll be standing in. You're obviously busy. Can we talk a bit later?”
Eddie smiled. He loathed the brash entry, hated her squeaky voice and knew they would never be friends. “Later is good.”
“Before I go, there's a short remembrance for Irma, tomorrow at ten, with two minutes of silence. Everyone wants you to attend. And Mr Jimpson scheduled a meeting on the Waymire portfolio at twelve. In the breakaway room for boardroom three. Will you remember that, or should I diarize it for you?”
Eddie picked up the photos of Cayla and Midnight. No box needed. He headed for the elevator with nothing but bad memories in his hands and head. Thirty-seven steps out. Eight minutes home. How many steps home? Not sure, but count them for completion. Twenty-three floors down. No more Wednesday. No more fear.
As he stepped of the kerb, he hardly registered the car that spat him back onto the sidewalk.
Lying on his back, bubbling blood, Eddie smiled up at the ring of shocked faces. “It's Tuesday. I win,” he coughed as the lights dimmed.
* * *
The coroner pulled back the sheet and surveyed the ruin of the man who no longer feared Wednesday.
“What's the story with Smiley here?”
His assistant opened the file and started to read. The coroner whistled as he laid out his tools.
“Usual,” his assistant said. “Pedestrian. Didn' t watch the road. At least his eyes are still in. Here's something funny though.”
“Go ahead. Funny me.” The coroner tapped out a snappy cadence on the side of the slab with his chest cracker.
“Smiley here came in yesterday, Tuesday. The driver is listed as Wednesday Jones.”
“I'm laughing on the inside,” the coroner said as he made the Y-incision and pulled back the skin. “Feed that to the press. He can make page eleven tomorrow.”
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