Untitled circa 1992
The Head Office in Gerontin, Texas, called and found that Mr. Brooks was not home. The answering machine picked up the call. As soon as he got home, Mr Brooks screened his messages. Sandwiched between two calls from Sheena and a call from a distant third cousin was the call from the Head Office. Mr. Brooks was disturbed.
“Hello, Charley? Where the fuck are you? We need your expertise in handling a serious situation developing in our foreign markets. Shit! It’s like they were going to try and change the system. Crazy foreign bastards. And stupid. Anyway the Boss is steamed. He wants you to do something about it. All is clear. Expenses are taken care of. Just call us. This assignment is urgent, maximum
priority.”
Mr. Brooks immediately returned the call. He said he would see what he could do. Then, with the enthusiasm of men going off to war, Mr. Brooks packed his bags and left town.
Whenever Mr. Brooks left his residence, Mrs. Shriff would look after his place. She would find often in the trash many newspaper clippings of certain foreign ambassadors’ or of third world dictators’ assassinations. However peculiar this must have seen to her at the time, she never thought much of her tenant as being interested in foreign affairs. She went about her business without special attention to the personal affairs of Mr. Brooks. Not until the day Mr. Brooks left on another business trip overseas did she find the hidden meaning behind the newspaper clippings.
The day after Mr. Brooks received the call from the Head Office, Mrs. Shriff stopped in to check on his apartment. She found to her surprise that in such a hurry to leave Mr. Brooks left the place in disarray. While cleaning up his mess she found strapped beneath a drawer three ammo clips. Then she knew. Beneath his mild mannered exterior, Mr. Brooks was someone far more dangerous than what she knew him to be. Mrs. Shriff kept this to herself.
It scared her at first, but she had past suspicion on his covert assignments to foreign countries. “Why doesn’t he come home with interesting tales to tell?” she had thought to herself. Now she knows. Tales of murder and intrigue were not ones to be told to housewives. She just kept a watch on her resident watching for any strangeness in him. She watched, and she waited for him to come home.
