Strangers Among Us by L. R. Wright

Author:L. R. Wright [Wright, L. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631941900
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 2019-01-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

ALBERG, DRIVING TO WORK through the cold gray slant of the rain, was remembering the summer morning when he had picked up his ringing phone, pronounced his name, and at first heard only silence. Then:

“This is Eliot.”

Alberg had removed his reading glasses and leaned back in his desk chair, blinking in the hot sunshine that poured in through the small window in his office wall. “Yeah. Hi. How’re you doing?”

“You said something about a job.”

“Yeah. What’re you interested in?”

“What’ve you got?” said the kid.

“Well this is what I know about offhand.” He began doodling on a pad of paper. “The vet needs somebody to help in the clinic. That appeal to you?”

There was more silence. “Maybe. I like animals, but—”

“Yeah?” said Alberg.

“But I don’t know about sick ones. Hurt ones.”

“Okay. Well, over at the paper, they always need delivery boys. And girls.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And, uh.” Alberg wished he’d known the kid was going to call. “I think they need guys to deliver over at the supermarket, too.”

“But you probably need a driver’s license for that.”

“Oh.” Shit, thought Alberg. “Right. You probably do.” He drew a little car on the pad of paper.

“Not for the papers, probably,” said Eliot. “Just a bike. I had one at home. But we couldn’t bring it. There wasn’t enough room in the trailer, you know?”

“Uh-huh.” Alberg drew a bicycle, and then added a stick man, riding it.

“This U-Haul thing.”

“Right. That’s tough.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s possible that Earl might need somebody. I don’t know—a busboy, is that what they call them?”

“You mean the restaurant?”

“Yeah.” He penciled in a bunch of trees behind the stick man on the bike. Earl really did work too hard. He could do with more help. “You know, clearing tables, doing dishes. Stuff like that.”

Another silence. “That’d be good,” said Eliot.

“Yeah?” said Alberg. “You’d like that?”

“Yeah,” said Eliot.

And so it had been arranged.

He was trying to comfort himself, he thought, as he pulled up in front of the detachment. Struggling to convince himself that in this particular case he had done everything possible to help the boy, to help avert disaster.

But as he locked the car and hurried through the rain he was not comforted, because even though this time, yes, he had tried, he still had not helped the boy, still had not been able to avert disaster.

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