Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
“Wake up, motherfucker!”
Jack fought the urge to hurl the phone across the room. “Hey, Boris. Can you do me a favor?”
“Not unless you’re tipping me.”
“I don’t have my wallet,” Jack mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “What day is it?”
A great, beleaguered sigh. The sound of a chair rolling, pages flipping. Finally, “It’s the seventeenth.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Says right here in the ledger.” A yawn. “That’s the end of my goodwill. Get the fuck out of bed or whatever you need to do. I don’t care.”
“Thanks, Boris,” said Jack, slamming the phone into its cradle. A glance at the alarm clock revealed the time: 7:03 a.m.
Jack stumbled his way to the factory, fueled by the muffin he bought last night (and a rogue candy bar that he didn’t remember buying, but must have, because it was on his bedside table) and the coffee from the lobby.
When he stepped inside, Henry frowned at him. “You’re late.”
Jack shrugged. “By two minutes.”
“Audit’s not off to a good start.”
“Oh, well,” said Jack, too tired to argue. “Where shall we begin?”
By noon, his head pounded, but he’d filled out his paperwork more thoroughly this time and was cautiously optimistic that he hadn’t screwed anything up.
Maybe, just maybe, everything would work out.
His hopes faded when he arrived at the gas station, prepared to spend his last fifty cents on a hot dog that looked and smelled like it had sat under the heat lamp for days, and discovered one dollar and fifty cents stuffed into his pocket.
One dollar and fifty cents. The exact amount of change he’d gotten that first night. He should only have fifty cents left after his last two purchases.
Unless… maybe he had more cash with him than he thought? Perhaps he’d stuffed it into his pocket before the trip and forgotten.
That was the only reasonable explanation.
The hot dog tasted like it had rolled across the parking lot and taken a bath in a puddle of motor oil, but Jack shoveled it down as quickly as he could, relieved to put something in his belly after nothing but coffee and this morning’s muffin.
In the shower, he took a few minutes to appreciate the water as it glided over his skin, the steam that filled the room and fogged the mirror.
He hadn’t relaxed in days. The shower was tiny and slippery, but the water was hot. At this point, he’d take anything he could get.
Everything is fine, he told himself, sliding into bed.
If he just kept telling himself that, maybe it would be.