The Enabler, Page 2

don’t have a secretary. Had one once. It ended badly. There’s a news report on. Breaking news.

  “…top story of a local man, Jim Phillips, arrested after a daring bank robbery yesterday afternoon. A married father of three who we are told was recently laid off went on a killing spree at a local bank. After a two-hour standoff he killed himself. We have this exclusive interview with his wife…”

  “Idiot” I say as I turn the TV off. How am I going to get my money from him now? There’s always a way. For as much as I hated my entire family they did teach me one thing. If you really want something there is a way to get it. My problem is that sometimes I don't know what I want. I know what I like, need, and desire. But I rarely want something. That’s not true. I want to charge Maggie for wasting my time and costing me money by canceling another client for her 1pm meeting. I sit and wait. My next client isn’t scheduled until 2:30pm. I consider heading to Tony’s quickly for lunch but my plans are changed when I check my messages: two from Maggie, one from the sheriffs department.

  Shit.

  TWO

  This isn’t my first police questioning and it sure as hell wont be my last. I have connections but even those connections can't stop something that involves a bank robbery and suicide. I know because they called me before I called them.

  “Sorry, Cy, but there ain’t nothin’ I can do…”

  “You know I’d help you if I could…”

  “Get a good lawyer…just not me.”

  I could talk my way out of this. Yeah, they had a lot of what they called evidence. The transcripts from my conversations with Jim Phillips. Me pretty much telling him to rob that bank. But what I didn’t do was tell him to kill himself. This cop, Detective Simmons, was right out of a bad cop film. So was his partner Officer Thomson. Except they forgot to rehearse their parts. The were doing bad cop/bad cop.

  “You know you’re not getting out of here, right?” Simmons said as he slammed the transcripts on the heavy metal table I sat at. “Right?”

  “He has to know,” Thomson said. “You do know that don’t you, Tatum?”

  “Call me Cyrus,” I tell them.

  “No,” Thomson said as he sat down opposite me. He looked one chromosome short of human. This guy had no choice but to be a cop. Either that, or a wrestler.

  “We’re not your friends” Simmons said as he leaned on the table getting close to my face. Not too close. They didn’t want to be charged with harassment.

  “Maybe you just don’t know me well enough” I tell him. He gets closer to my face and I see Thomson make a small twitch with his mouth. He is afraid that Simmons will lose it and touch me. I use this new weapon. “Don’t waste your time talking to me. I have done nothing wrong. This is not a Dr. Kevorkian situation where I helped someone kill themselves. You have transcripts? That’s good. I’ll like a copy of them and find out how you got them so fast and how legally you obtained them.”

  Simmons’ eye twitches.

  “Going to ask for your lawyer?” Thomson asked, attempting to sound tough. It wasn’t working. I didn’t smile at him. I knew how to play this.

  “Oh, not at all” I assured him. “There’s no need for me to bring them into this.” Simmons sneered at the mention of “them.” Yes, I had more than one lawyer. “After another hour or so you’ll realize what a waste of time it is questioning me and let me go. You’ll put a guy on surveillance and have him tail me for a few days. Then someone will give you a call telling you that the case is closed and that I am no longer going to be followed. No phone tapping. No late night visits. No anything. So, yes. I’ll just wait until then. I’m sure you have a few more questions for me.”

  They look at me as if I just shit in the room. Simmons takes his hands from the table and walks over to the mirror, which of course is a two way. Thomson looks as if he wants to join him but stays put. He locks eyes with me and then smiles.

  “You’re a smart guy, aren’t you?” Thomson asks me. I nod. “Then if you’re so smart, why did you have a guy, whose credit card and bank records show was a high paying client, kill himself?” Simmons looks at us, waiting for a response.

  “I didn’t get paid for him to kill himself,” I say. “I got paid to encourage him to do what everyone always say they will do but never get around to it. They think about it when it’s too late. After they hear they have cancer the want to climb mountains. After their spouse tells them they want a divorce they decide to get a makeover. After they’ve been fired they want to take up painting. After they find out that their kid is a queer they want to teach them sports. After they lose a limb they want to take up bicycling. After they get dumped they shed those extra pounds. After they get knocked down one too many times they finally fight back. They all want one thing.”

  “And what’s that?” Simmons asks me.

  “To live.”

  “Oh, bullshit!” Simmons shouts and punches the mirror. I swear I hear someone say cry out in pain on the other side. “You can't believe the shit that comes out of your mouth!”

  “You catch more flies with honey,” I tell him.

  “And you catch more ass beatings with a smart mouth!” Thomson said.

  “Are we done?” I ask. I have a client at 5pm and I don’t miss appointments. They look at each other and then back to me. “Okay, then. Hopefully we’ll meet under nicer circumstances.” I gather my things and leave. When I get back to my office a surprise is waiting for me.

  “Where have you been, Cyrus?” Maggie asks me.

  “Apparently you don’t watch the news,” I say to her as I pass. I make my way up the stairs and she begins to follow. “May I help you?” I ask her. She looks at me as if I belched in her mouth.

  “Don’t start this,” she says. “Don’t start treating me like another client.”

  “You are another client,” I remind her. And then I close the door leaving her outside.

  Henry David Thoreau once said “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” I imagined when I was a silly kid that I would grow up to be a kick boxer or a sea captain. No dreams of being a fireman, policeman, or astronaut. I wanted to be a sea captain because I love the ocean. I wanted to be a kick boxer because my father beat me every single night until I was 14. Why did he stop when I was 14 you ask?

  I talked him into killing himself.

  It’s funny, but we tend to persuade people into doing things when it either shuts them up or works in our favor. We don’t care if someone down the street is ranting and raving in another person's face but once they get in ours we will persuade them either verbally or physically to get out of ours. Someone has something you want the same rules apply. I learned early that my gift was getting people to do what I wanted whether I truly wanted it or not.

  You say enabler.

  I say motivator.

  “Let me in,” Maggie whines from the call box. I ignore her and consider calling the police but I think I’ve had enough of the law for one day. My next client cancels after seeing me walking into a police station on the news. I’ll have to do damage control later. “I’m not leaving.”

  I head downstairs and pass her without stopping. She follows me. I speed up and so does she. This is getting annoying. She grabs me by the arm and spins me to face her. Tears are rolling down her cheeks. Women only cry when they want something. It’s just a matter of chipping at the stone of what they want and finding the statue underneath.

  “What?” I ask her. Not meanly or anything. Just sternly.

  “John wants to leave me,” she says. I shrug. “He says I am terrible in bed and can't see himself with someone like that.”

  “You are pretty bad in bed,” I tell her. I swear I hear her jaw drop. “Look, what do you want me to do? Talk him into taking you back?”

  “No, I want you to take me back!” she shouts at me causing a few people on the street to stop and look at us. I smile and begin walking away. She is making us look like one of those couples that fight publicly. It
is not a good look. She grabs my arm again and I pull it away and turn to face her while holding my hands up.

  “Don’t touch me again,” I warn her. “Just walk the other way and stay away from me. I am not taking you back. You left me to be with a man that had more money. Had more.” Since we split I have become quite wealthy. I love throwing that little jab in there. What she did to me was the equivalent to dumping a guy and having him win the lottery the next day. “What we had is dead.”

  “No it isn’t” she says while slowly reaching for me. I take half a step back. “Cyrus, please…”

  “Bye, Maggie” I say and walk away. I don’t look over my shoulder. Asshole? No.

  Realist.

  “You are a terrible man! I will sue you! You killed my family! You killed my husband! How dare you?!”

  That’s the message waiting for me when I got home left by Mrs. Phillips. I erase it and the other thirty she left. I have no time to deal with the ramblings of a madwoman. Maggie left me some calls as well. I erased them without listening . I have to hold a press conference tomorrow and clean up my reputation. I decide to give my older brother a call. He answers on the third ring.

  “What do you want, Cyrus?” he asks me. We rarely speak. He blames me for our father killing himself. He doesn’t know for a fact that I did but he has strong suspicions.

  “Just to talk” I tell him. He scoffs. “Have I told you that I love you?” I hang up before he can