David Baldacci
No Time Left
Frank Becker was exceptionally good at his job and took great pride at being so exceptionally good. He took his client’s orders promptly and carried them out with professionalism and attention to detail. This was not simply being a sound businessman or even demonstrating altruism. It was very much in Becker’s interests to sweat the details, to obsess over them in fact. If he wanted to survive.
He was a small man with an ego many times the size of his body. A fat baby, he’d grown into a trim, methodical adult who did not overindulge in anything. He was single, lived quietly except when he was working, and had seen a large slice of the world because in his particular area of expertise there were no borders. He never expected to marry because that would be complicating, and he never desired to have children because that would be pointless.
He now stood outside on the curb in front of a modern building in the middle of a city that had seen more prosperous days. It was making a comeback of sorts, to the extent that steel, asphalt, and concrete and the populations that reside in and on them can have second chances. And it was a historical city with many sites of cultural significance that could draw tourists.
Becker didn’t care about any of this. He had flown here for one reason only and it had nothing to do with tourist sites or second chances.
He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out his nostrils as he’d watched his father do when Becker was a child. For many years he’d longed to release smoke out his nostrils like his father. While some sons pantomimed shaving while watching their old man, Becker had watched his dad smoke and exhale, memorizing the technique and the timing. And at age sixteen he’d accomplished his goal, but not without some coughing and hacking. Now he’d become an expert at nostril smoke exhalation, and he did it with a certain style. That was one of only two things he did that made him stand out a bit. In every other aspect of his life, Becker blended right into the crowd. The bland suits he wore, the low decibels of his speech, his everyman’s features, and the vacant expression in his eyes were all designed to place everyone’s attention on any location other than him.
He drew a bit of tobacco off his tongue as his gaze flickered like a dying light bulb at the tall, thin man in the excellent suit where each jacket cuff showed the exact same margin of white shirt underneath. He was pushing through the glass double doors of the downtown office building and began walking down the street. Becker bought a newspaper from a vendor and headed in the same direction. The other fellow was a prosperous and pleased-looking gent principally because he was very successful at what he did. Indeed, he owned the building he’d just exited. He’d accumulated lots of money, all of it legally, and gave a substantial portion of it away to good works. He was married to a lovely and refined woman and with her had had three bright children who would soon make their positive marks on the world. He had few enemies in the world.
But as Becker knew, it took only one determined adversary to change your life.
Becker folded the paper in half and carried it under his left arm, leaving his right one free to swing the umbrella he carried. It didn’t necessarily look like rain today but the weather person had cautioned folks that morning that a thunderstorm was certainly possible given the recent atmospheric potboilers of heat and humidity. He wore gloves though the day was not cold. This was the second thing he did that was out of the ordinary, but vanity left him no option. The gloves were black leather and had cost him two hundred dollars. He considered them well worth the price.
The fellow up ahead had his daily rituals. A walk during lunchtime was one of them. From watching him the past four days Becker knew that he would head south down one block, turn left, proceed to the park, enjoy the trees and birds and then retrace his steps and return to his office. Rituals like that were nice, comforting. And completely asinine, Becker knew. He had no such routines. At any given minute of his day no one would be able to tell where he would be based on the previous day’s experience. Most people embraced sameness; Becker raced from it. He knew how deadly routine could be if someone wanted to do you harm.
The man slowed. There was a crowd gathered at the corner. It seemed like something of significance was coming down the street and for this reason the police were holding folks back. Perhaps it was a parade or an official motorcade carrying a suitably important person, important enough indeed to warrant traffic police and clogged intersections. Like a rugby scrum at the corner, folks were massing. Some broke off from this pack and were craning their necks to see who or what was coming. Becker had picked this day based solely on this event happening at this precise moment. The fellow he was watching reached the intersection and joined in the head craning and standing on tiptoes to see over the jostling crowd. As more people packed the spot, it became like a log-filled river with a strained dam ready to burst. The cops sweated and pushed and cursed the citizens into some degree of order. Becker smiled at their plight. He had never much liked cops. His old man had been a policeman after a failed attempt at a career running a butcher’s shop in a small town. He’d moved to the city when Becker was still a baby. After he started wearing the blues he had taken to beating Becker with his nightstick after he came home and downed a few shots of gin so cheap and strong that it could burn a hole in metal. That and the smokes were his dad’s chief vices, other than beating his son while Becker’s stepmother looked on, drink in hand, and gave advice on where to hit him next. Becker’s real mother, he’d been told, had died at childbirth. That was all he knew. That was more than he ever cared to know actually. He doubted his real mother would have been any more loving than his stepmother.
As the police used their bodies and barricades and the strength of their lungs to keep the human logs back on the curb Becker angled to the left and stepped further into the crowd. It took him ten seconds to work his way forward, using pointy elbows and apologetic looks at folks he pushed past. Now he was standing directly behind the man. He checked his watch. He had a contact who’d given him a heads-up on this traffic-snarling event. In one more minute the limo and the surrounding trucks with bodyguards would be passing by. He edged closer. Before he slipped the newspaper into his coat pocket he glanced at the date. May 5, 2000. His birthday was next week. He would turn fifty. His celebration would consist of dinner alone and no presents. He cared for birthdays even less than he did beatings.
He counted the moments off in his head. This was really unnecessary because the crowd’s collective energy spiked when the motorcade drew within sight of the intersection. He started taking shallow breaths. It was not to control his nerves. For all he knew he had none. He wanted to reduce his oxygen a bit, to get a natural high from what he was about to do. He’d found it better than sex actually, because he had no concerns about pleasing anyone other than himself.
“There he is!” cried out one person.
Becker’s right hand increased its grip on the handle of the umbrella. He edged the point of the device upward and forward at the same time. The limo was passing, and the crowd had started screaming and waving. Becker thrust the tip into the flesh and then in the next motion moved to the side and flitted away.
As the other fellow rubbed the back of his thigh where the stinging impact had occurred, Becker was walking away, casually reading his newspaper with one hand while he twirled his umbrella with the other.
The man’s obituary appeared in the city newspaper two days later. He had succumbed to some inexplicable malady that had left him in agony before killing him. An autopsy would be done to see what had caused the poor fellow’s demise. His bereaved family lay in ruins, his business disintegrating without his stalwart hand at the helm.