Dead End Job (23 page)

“Yup! Yup, yuppie yup, yup!” Martin cooed at my success. “You’re the one, Lulu! I knew you could do it.” As he sat down in the chair across from me I decided the best option that I had for survival was to play along. “OK, OK!” He clapped his hands together, excited, moving his sizable ass up and down in the seat. “Print that shiz!”

I looked back to the monitor and found the reports file as quickly as I could, then I hit print. I heard the dull humming noise as the printer warmed up directly behind Martin, and then the click as it engaged and the warm sheets of paper began to pop out onto the cradle. 

“I knew you could do it, Lulu! You sassy little biotch!” He tilted his head to the side, smiling. His eyes glossed up and for a moment I thought he was going to cry with joy. Seeing Martin’s sudden change of mood made me feel a little bit more optimistic about my prospects of surviving so I decided to try to play along, hoping he would forget about any plans he might have had to off me, take what he needed, let me go my way and leave. I pretended like I was trying to say something important, and I even tried to smile back, but the tape across my mouth was presenting a problem. I made some gurgling noises and pointed to my mouth, as if asking his permission to remove the tape.

“Oh what is it, Honey? Do you want to tell me something?” he crooned.

I nodded enthusiastically, and when he didn’t budge, I slowly brought my still bleeding hand up to my face, pointing to the tape and nodding for approval. I waited for him to react, desperately hoping that this sudden change in situation wouldn’t set him off again. “Oh, why not,” he said, waving his hand at me. “Can’t hurt. Go ahead, Darlin,’ take that tape off. I just put it there so you wouldn’t get scared and scream. I didn’t want aaannnyy trouble from you, like I got from those last girls.”

My hand was shaking so badly when I finally brought it to my face that I didn’t think I would be able to accomplish the deed. I gingerly touched the tape with my fingers tracing it up at least six inches away from my mouth and deep into my hair, where the strip ended. I took a deep breath through my nose and gently but quickly started ripping the tape away from my face. When the small clumps of hair stuck to the tape painfully detached from my scalp, I bit back a scream. That was the worst part: the remainder of the tape slipped away from the skin of my face relatively easily, as it was already moistened with tears and saliva. I pulled away the last little piece that was clumped in a big wad at the base of my right ear, and took a second, allowing myself a shaky sigh and then a large breath in through my mouth. I finally exhaled, pulling myself together, and looked up at Martin with my best happy face.

“Oh my Dear,” I breathed, forcing myself to gush instead of grimace. “I am so happy for you about Guy Farner. That is a perfect fit for your skills, way better than working here for saggy old Mr. Curtis. You should’ve told me sooner!” Then I smiled as sweetly as I could. I decided not to bring up the fact that he had tased me, bound me and gagged me and instead focus on the positive.

“Really?” Martin paused and seemed to take me in.

“Yes!” I rushed, not wanting to give him too much time to think it over. “You know that I’ve always supported you in anything you’ve wanted to do.”

He seemed to be buying it. I waited a few seconds and observed him. Pretty soon his big chin started quivering, and it looked like he was going to break down any second.

“This whole thing has been so stressful, Lulu, you don’t even know.”

And, liftoff.  Martin’s voice cracked and a fat tear slowly started to roll down his red cheek. He stared down into his lap and began to sob in earnest. I got up and cautiously went over to sit on the edge of his chair.

“I know, I know,” I said quietly, trying to avoid getting blood on his shirt while patting his sweaty back with my hand. Martin was now fully sobbing and having difficulty breathing due to the rivers of snot exiting en masse from his large nose and flowing down the front of his shirt. “It’s OK, honey. It’s all going to be OK.”

I decided that it was best for me to get things wrapped up as quickly as possible. While Martin was still sobbing, I gingerly got up and went over to Elaine’s printer, where I took the documents from the tray and shoved them in a manila folder. For a second I thought about just taking off in a run and leaving Martin there in the office, but I realized that this was too risky. If I exited through the front, the door was too damn loud to avoid detecting, and if I tried to go out through the back, I’d have to make it all the way through the office to the kitchen and call the elevator before he’d noticed. Even though I figured I could probably out-run Martin, to the best of my knowledge he was still holding the taser that my torso ached from. Not worth the risk.

I quickly came up with a better plan—I went back into the office, where I grabbed the box of tissues from Elaine’s desk and waved them in front of Martin’s face.

“OK, I have your reports here, everything you need for Guy Farner, and you’re going to get your things we’re going to go have a drink. I think we both need one, don’t you?”

“Really?” he snotted up at me, taking a tissue and shoving part of it up his nose.  “Do you think we can go to Linda’s again? That was really fun.”

“Sure, why not?” I stuttered. Much to my surprise, he seemed to be buying it.

“Oh, good. I seriously need a drink. Maybe five drinks!” He snorted with laughter.

I took a couple of steps towards the door, giving him an encouraging smile. Martin stood up and looked like he was ready to go. I started walking away from Elaine’s office towards the back entrance, where Martin and I normally exited together. I chatted him up as we went—I wanted to make this experience seem as normal as possible. “Where’s your coat?” “Do you have your wallet?” “Do you want me to drive?” I kept spouting off questions as we walked before he could even answer them. He followed me, ominously silent.

Things were going fine until we reached Martin’s cube. Suddenly he stopped, walked over to his desk, and plopped down the stack of reports he was holding with a concerned look on his face. The greenish light from the kitchen illuminated his pale, blotchy face as he looked down at the papers with consternation and frowned.

“Are you sure this is everything I need?” he asked, still shuffling through the papers. “I just want to be sure. Maybe I should call the person at Guy Farner and ask.”

“Oh, no,” I said, my voice cracking in a high squeak. This was no time to lose my shit. I swallowed my panic and made myself speak in a calm, low voice. “I’m sure that you’re fine. You have all of the financials from the legal department. Everything from Elaine’s files. That’s got to be what they need. See? I started with the very first one from January and there is each month going forward.”

I leaned over his shoulder and started going through the paperwork, hoping to assure him that he had everything he was after. But as I shuffled through the papers, instead of following along with what I was pointing out, Martin seemed distracted. His desk drawer was open and his left hand was shuffling around for something. I figured he was trying to find a paperclip. I tried to ignore it, and stuck with my self-appointed task, until Martin slowly turned his head to look up at me. “Lulu, I’m really sorry about this,” he said, quietly.

A chill flowed through my body. I quickly pulled my hand away from the desk and stood up. “Everything’s fine Martin,” I said, even though I didn’t believe one word of it. “We can go now, have a drink, and I’ll forget that this ever happened. You don’t have to hurt me, we’re friends.” My body shook from fear and adrenaline. I backed up carefully. Martin followed me slowly.

“I know, Lulu,” he whispered. “We’re friends, you know, and this is hard for me, but you have to understand, this is part of the deal. Guy Farner won’t let me work there if anyone knows about this little deal that we had. I’m sorry that I had to get you involved in this. I tried to keep you out of it, I really tried! I wanted to you leave this company, but those other dumb bitches couldn’t get me what I needed. First Sarah, then Maya. I told them what I needed, but they could only give me some bullshit reports that no one cared about. You know that Elaine doesn’t even know how to access those reports. I realized that you’re the only one who could get me this stuff. You know it’s true, Lulu, so I’m sorry, but this is the only way.”

As we spoke I had backed all the way through the kitchen; we were now in front of the double glass doors. Martin stopped walking and slowly lifted his left hand up from behind his back. In it was a dark grey, shiny, pistol.

“No Martin,” I whimpered. He was going to shoot me at point blank range, and I was going to die, right here in the entrance of the Merit office.

“I said I was sorry, Lulu.”

I dove as fast and as far as I could toward Martin, screaming. I saw a bright flash. I didn’t hear the shot, but I felt like someone had socked me in the left shoulder, hard. I fell backwards. My ass hit the ground, followed by my shoulders and finally my head, banging against the glass doors with a loud ‘thud.’ As I laid there on the carpet, I heard Martin breathing heavily as his large body stood over mine. I stayed as still as I could and didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t know if he was going to shoot me again. I didn’t know if I would die anyways from the first wound. I did know that I fiercely wanted to live, to fight him, to stop him from hurting me more, but I couldn’t move. I felt paralyzed. I was begging my body for action, and opened my eyes in the same instant that he was lifting the gun, aiming for my head this time.

BOOM. The glass door above me shook violently. My head rocked back and forth against the hard surface. BOOM. The door that I’d been leaning on was suddenly gone. My head crashed to the ground as the door shattered into a million pieces. My arms instinctively flew up around my face as shards of thick glass fell onto my head and body. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Four more explosions rocked me.

In the silence after the last explosions I heard a voice calling my name. “Louisa! Louisa! Are you OK? No! No! Oh my God, Louisa!”

His hands were on me within seconds, wiping away shards of glass, lifting my head up off of the floor and holding me close to his strong, warm body. The smell hit me before anything else: that comforting, sexy, familiar cologne: Rocky.

I cowered towards him, shaking. He lifted me up like a rag-doll and carried me away from the glass towards the elevators, where he gingerly laid me back down on the ground. I was still hugging myself, but Rocky pulled my arms away from my body. “You have to let me see Louisa, Sweetheart, you’ve been shot,” he reasoned.

I fought him for a moment, but when his words finally entered my conscious and made sense to me, I went limp and my arms fell to my side. My head rolled over to the side, and I could see the carnage that I had somehow miraculously survived. The double glass doors were shattered, and large pieces of thick tempered glass were spread out on the floor everywhere within a ten-foot radius.

Behind the glass and in front of the kitchen lay a large, unmoving mound that was once my friend, covered in blood and glass. Upon closer scrutiny I could make out red hair, and patches of blue shirt under enormous red pools of blood. Martin was gone.

“Looks like the bullet went in and came out, and you’re not bleeding that much. You’re going to be alright,” Rocky said, comforting me. He took my right hand and put it on top of the wound. “Push down here for a minute, I’m going to call you an ambulance,” he continued. I did as I was told, cringing from the pain. He grabbed his radio and efficiently relayed the information to an emergency responder from the Police station. Then he put the radio back in his belt and knelt over me. He replaced my hand with his own, applying a gentle and steady pressure. His other hand circled my waist, and he held me close, breathing softly into my hair.                             

“Oh Louisa, I’m so sorry,” he said in a husky whisper. “I should have been here, this should never have happened. It’s all my fault. You know I would never let anyone hurt you. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

My mind tried to process everything that was happening, but it couldn’t. I was floored. I tried to respond to him, but all I managed to get out was something that sounded like “oohhhblsalsheh.”

Even through my nonsense sounds, Rocky pretended to know exactly what I was talking about. “I know, Sweetie,” he said. “Does it hurt much?” He stared into my eyes. He looked so kind and concerned, I didn’t want to tell him that the pain I was feeling was similar to someone holding a hot iron on my shoulder for an extended period of time, so I just shook my head slightly and made another gurgling sound.

Chapter 17: Sick Day

I’m pretty sure I had officially experienced just the amount of pain that causes a person to black out, because the next thing I knew I was coming-to in a sterile white room, listening to the quiet but steady beeping of machinery. When I woke up a bit more I realized that the steady beeping noise was intermixed with whispered conversations coming at me from different directions in the room. I cracked my eyelids open and was able to make out a nurse in blue scrubs hovering above me, attending to an IV bag. I lifted my head slightly and saw my mother Marilyn at the foot of my bed, sitting in a very uncomfortable-looking hospital chair next to my stepfather Joe. Alex and Amanda stood to my right, whispering to each other about something.

The moment they realized that I was awake, Alex grabbed Amanda’s arm and squealed. My mother jumped up from her seat and jogged to the side of my bed.

“Oh, Honey, how are you feeling?” she asked, squeezing my hand, probably a bit harder than she intended to. When I tried to answer her my voice would not function. My tongue was drier than I ever thought possible—I felt like I had swallowed a small bag of sand. I tried to clear my throat, hoping some saliva would crystallize magically in my mouth, but all I managed was a croak.

“Water?” I practically dry heaved.