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Harry Gottlieb had never fired his weapon on the job; he’d never even drawn it off of the range. That was fine. He could go to his grave without having gotten into a showdown. He’d known a few cowboys who’d needed to be the first through the door. They could keep it. Thankfully, as a transit cop, he rarely got into those situations. Only a few more years to go before he could put in for his pension and retire on half-pay. He’d go somewhere tropical where the weather was rarely bad, and the temperature never dropped below seventy even at night. 

On occasion, he would allow himself to indulge this fantasy, and then he would remember the outstanding debts he still had including alimony. His dream of retiring with ease to the tropics would unravel. So, he forbade himself from thinking about it. Some might have been optimistic about the future, but Harry was more of a realist. The other day, he collared a turnstile jumper; the man had a few priors, so a judge signed off on a search warrant. During a routine search of the man’s apartment, they discovered hundreds of hours of film footage; all of it neatly categorized and time-stamped under file names too provocative and obscene to print. Most of the films were fetish specialities licensed to voyeuristic websites that specialized in subjects who didn’t know they were being filmed. For a lighter sentence, the guy agreed to testify against the whole network: the filmmakers, the distributors, etc. Did Harry get any recognition? As soon as the DA smelled something newsworthy a special unit took over. 

Thanks, Harry, we’ll take it from here. The only way he was able to keep up with everything was due to a clerical error that kept him cc’ed on internal memorandums. 

***

The door opened on the third knock but only a few inches as the chain was still affixed. Harry already had his badge out and held it up so she could see it. 

“Diane Selnick?” Harry said. 

“Yeah.” 

Not: what’s the problem officer? It was almost as if she’d been resigned to getting busted for something eventually. 

“I’m Harry,” Not Officer Gottlieb—put her at ease.

“Can we speak inside for a minute?” He added. 

She nodded, shut the door, and he heard the rattle of the chain coming undone. She opened the door and he walked inside. The TV had been on which she muted. There was a coffee table with a few magazines, a couch, and a cushioned chair. Nothing in the apartment matched. The walls had been painted an off-white. There were a few bookcases stacked with classics and operating systems manuals. Harry remained standing. 

He told her about the collar the other day. The guy’s name was Randy Zwiebel. She didn’t recognize it, but Harry put his hand up to suggest she just keep listening. Randy had already cut a deal and couldn’t give up names fast enough. Diane had been on the list as a webmaster of one of the websites in question. Harry told her he wasn’t there to pick her up on anything, and he could see to it her name was taken off the list. 

“What would I have to do?” 

How she said it was monotone. Harry got the sense that for a wizard with computers, her social skills were lacking.  

“Don’t worry,” Harry said, “It’s nothing like that.”

He’d done some research. He knew which subjects to avoid. It would have been a mistake to mention alimony since she’d been part of a bitter custody battle as a kid, so he made certain not to bring that up. He also knew she was looking for validation. Instead, he was straight with her about his desire to finally enjoy life after putting in so much unrecognized work at his job. As a webmaster and coder, he knew she did most of the heavy lifting and never got the spotlight. Whether or not his reasoning had worked, she said she would hear him out. He explained what he had in mind, and if she joined him in executing his plan, he would strike her name from the record. He also suggested if he turned him down, he could make life difficult for her. 

She agreed to help him. 

  ***

Harry had only ever come across penny shaving in fiction; rounding to the nearest cent during a financial transaction and putting the fraction into a separate account. Some enterprising people had managed to use the method before at gas pumps, or in one case stealing almost $200,000 in coins from fareboxes over a few years. 

Both criminals had been caught. 

With MetroCards, the fee was automatically deducted at the turnstile. What if there was a way to divert fractions of a penny of each transaction into a separate account? The trick would be getting away with it. Diane told Harry she could write a program that would destroy itself after completing the final sequence. The only thing she needed was access to the servers. If he could get her that, the rest was pretty simple. He could do that. If they skimmed a penny at a time from the daily commuters at Union Square, they might get close to one and a half million dollars at the end of two years. The most difficult part, after the installation, would be waiting for the money to accumulate. It wouldn’t be like winning the lottery, but if he was careful he could make it last for a lifetime. Diane had even agreed to take a lesser percentage since she had owed him for keeping her name out of the investigation. Almost everyone being prosecuted was going to stand trial. Whether or not they were convicted, the arrest would sully their reputations.  

The day of the installation arrived. Harry had created an ID badge for her, and if anyone asked she was to tell them she was a new IT hire. No one asked; whether anyone even noticed she had been there remained to be seen. Beforehand, she had explained to Harry what she was going to do, but it all sounded like a foreign language. He waited in the hallway outside of the server room until she was finished, and he escorted her outside. She told him unless someone was looking for it, the program would be difficult to find. 

Now, all they had to do was wait. 

They both had access to the bank account, so they could check it. They went their separate ways, though Harry continued to check on her each week. After the first fifteen hundred dollars was deposited, he asked her if she wanted to celebrate; just something lowkey like one drink. 

  ***


The drink became a monthly thing. On the fifteenth, each month, they would meet at Harry’s apartment and have a screwdriver; easy on the orange juice. Over a year, they had accumulated almost eight hundred thousand dollars. Harry hadn’t changed his lifestyle. He still cut the checks to Marie every month, griped about the job slowly eroding his will to live, and went bowling with Chavez and Moran when it was league night. 

However, he also resurrected his dream of escaping to paradise. This time, he would fully indulge in the fantasy. He’d imagine himself lying in a hammock, swaying in the breeze, and drinking something with an umbrella served in a coconut husk. If he was frugal, he could make it last. 

Throughout the year, he had begun to slowly remove himself from the grid, so when the time came he’d be impossible to trace. At the year and a half mark, he’d start to make the withdrawals in increments to avoid detection as well. No matter what, he wouldn’t let himself imagine the hammer dropping on his fantasy; not this time. Often, he thought about how Marie would respond when that first check didn’t arrive. She would probably call Chavez who would tell her he hadn’t seen Harry in a few months. It was like the guy had dropped off the face of the earth. Harry would be gone. Erased from existence. At the end of a year, Diane showed up at his house for their monthly drink with a suitcase. 

“Going somewhere?” Harry said. 

“My mother’s ill. I’m going to stay with her for a few weeks.” 

She handed him a slip of paper. 

“Here’s my contact info,” she said. 

He took the paper, crumpled it, and put it in his pocket. 

“Next time, you should clear this with me first,” he said. 

“There’s not going to be a next time,” she said, and her tone had changed. The hangdog look she always had was now replaced with a fierce determination. Harry tried to reply, but the words came out garbled. 

“Have a seat,” she said. She took his arm and led him over to his recliner. 

He sat down. His head had begun to swim, and his stomach became distended. She took out her phone, typed in a few things, and showed him the screen. Their bank account had a balance of zero. 

“I’ve been spiking your drinks the last few months. The paper you put in your pocket had been dusted with powder. By itself, it’s harmless, but the combination with what’s already in your system is lethal. Don’t worry, I planted a draft of a suicide note in your outgoing email.”

She started toward the door. He tried to speak, but again the words wouldn’t come. When he tried to stand, he fell out of the chair and onto the floor. 

“It took a while to copy your style, but I think I got it in the end. I just felt it was fair you should know. Don’t worry; I’ll probably head somewhere tropical,” she said. 

THE END


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Davie has worked in theatre, finance, and education. He taught English in Macau on a Fulbright Grant and has survived a ruptured brain aneurysm and subarachnoid haemorrhage.

He has published short stories at various places and crime fiction novellas with All Due Respect and Close to the Bone.

His memoir, Land of Allusions, is out now. His other work can be found in links on his website https://andrew-davie.com/

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @adavieauthor


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