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Repayment

“I can’t believe these animals,” Kendall said, walking briskly down the front steps of the courthouse. “Community outreach programs? Who do they think I am?”

His assistant, Joyce, struggled to keep pace behind him. In her arms she juggled two leather briefcases and a stack of papers all too eager to blow away in the morning breeze. A steaming cup of coffee balanced precariously in the crook of her arm.

“That was only one of the options,” she said. A gust of wind threatened to blow the top piece of paper away, but she used her chin to pin it in place against the pile. “The judge said you could also return — “

Kendall cleared his throat, looking back at Joyce critically. Her fizzy red hair always reminded him of Ronald McDonald. She wore an intense look of concentration on her face as she tried to keep all of his court documents in order. Her name was Joyce, wasn’t it? His work ethic tended to drive assistants off every couple months. “There’s nothing to return,” He carefully straightened the cuffs of his bespoke sharkskin suit a fraction of an inch. “The moneys gone. Poof. Vamoose.”

For people like him, moving money was a form of magic. Always coming and going from unexpected places. Occasionally, if you were careful and quick with your paperwork, it could even disappear and reappear behind someone else’s ear.

“Right, gone.” she said. “At any rate, I’m glad you’re getting a chance to volunteer. I think you might even like your community by the end of this.”

She kept talking, but Kendall pulled out his cellphone from an inner jacket pocket and pointedly scrolled through emails until her voice trailed off to silence. The last thing he needed was pity from a glorified portable coffee mug. “Do me a favor, don’t think as much,” he said. “Run those back to the office right away and get them filed. I also need a call with Roshan over at Securities LTD before 3 pm. Got it? Or you need me to write it down for you?”

She nodded rapidly. “I got it, don’t worry,” She shifted the laptop cases in her arms, trying to find a comfortable position to hold them without spilling the coffee. “It’s kind of a long walk. Is there anyway I could get a ride with — “

The wobble of Kendall’s ringtone interrupted her mid-thought. He didn’t bother looking at the caller ID. Only one other person had this number. “I have to take this. You can find your own way back, right?” A waiting cab pulled up to the curb and he stepped in, shutting the door firmly behind him. He didn’t bother to look back as it pulled off towards his next appointment. “What’s the latest?”

The rough voice of his business partner Benjamin came through the line. “No hello? No ‘how are you’?”

In sharp contrast to Benjamin’s keen business sense, his speaking voice was slow and filled with pauses, like his mind moved too fast and he had to constantly reset it to get his words out. Kendall constantly had to surpress the urge to finish his sentences for him.

“We both know you don’t give a damn. Did you get the permits signed or not?”

“Got done early this morning. We break ground on Monday.”

Kendall breathed a sigh of relief. After his sentencing this morning, he could use some good news. And this was very good news.

“Listen,” Benjamin continued. “That is not why I called you. Everyone here wants to know how your sentencing went. Frank did good?”

“He got it knocked down to some form of community outreach. I’ll stay with it for a while, at least until we can start paying me back out and I get out of this hell hole. Speaking of which, any indication on when that would be? One month? Two months?”

“Relax! The permits are only the first step. There are records to file, documents to forge, bribes to be paid. These things take time, you know that.”

Kendall forced his knee to stop bouncing against the floor of the cab. Talking with Benjamin always put him on edge. “I understand, but until I get paid I have living expenses. Large living expenses. You need to front — ”

“You’ll get your money back. Keep your head down until then. I’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead in his ear. That ungrateful rat had hung up on him. Where would Benjamin’s condo project even be without Kendall’s investment? Locked behind a glass case in some architects office, that’s where. Trapped and going nowhere until Kendall had come along to save the day. He forced himself to take a deep breath and count to ten. Fine. Everything was fine. Let the courts think what they wanted. He’d do the volunteer work they required right up until he started recouping his magic investment.

One week later, Kendall stabbed at the doorbell for the first house on his list. Inside a dog howled for attention. Hopefully that meant that ‘Heinz Weber’ wasn’t home, whoever that was. Kendall had made a point to forget the names of those who had given him money throughout the years. No one remembered the names of the second place finishers, why would he remember the names of the losers?

From outside the house didn’t look like much. The yard was filled with more plastic political signs than grass, while the driveway held a beat up car that had looked worn out when it rolled off the assembly line in the 90s. Kendall was just about to leave the front step when the door creaked open an inch. A patchy grey bearded face poked out at head height, followed quickly by a much smaller patchy grey face at dog height.

“Heinz? Heinz Weber? I’m Kendall, from the community program.”

“That’s me,” Heinz said. “This old man’s named Jimbo.” He patted the dog’s head roughly. “You here to fix the spinny thing for me? It keeps spinning when I try to watch my videos.”

Spinny thing? The program coordinator had mentioned some of the requests could be odd, but this was something else entirely.

“Sure. Sure, if thats what you need. But first,” Kendall said, quickly pulling a small folded piece of paper out of his pocket. One of the requirements for his community outreach involved a personal apology to everyone whose lives he had effected. Writing something heartfelt had seemed pretty hard, but ten bucks and a quick trip to a freelance website had gotten him pretty close. “I’d like to apologize for my actions in soliciting investments for the Breckenridge fund. Through an unfortunate series of bad investments the money has been lost and the promised returns won’t be coming.“ Kendall paused. Technically he’d invested in a series of slush funds controlled through other shell companies of his, but that detail had been hard for his ghostwriter to fit in. “Due to the liquidation of the firm there won’t be any chance at repayment, but I’ve offered to help with anything you need around the house.”

Heinz blinked twice, his puffy eyes looming large through his thick, coke-bottle glasses. He sniffed long and hard. “My son handles my bills these days. If I owe you money, you’ll have to come back when he’s around.”

“Don’t worry about it,“ Kendall shrugged. No wonder he’d been able to convince this guy to invest without many questions. Heinz didn’t look like he understood much back then either. “You said your spinny thing is stuck? Let’s go take a look.”

Inside the house a tangy smell thick with spice had sunk into everything from the sticky linoleum floors in the kitchen to the dirt colored couches in the living room. Faded pictures of men in uniform and silk kimonos covered the walls. A series of brightly colored medals hung below an American flag that had been folded in a triangle.

“Got those back in ‘Nam,” Heinz said, pushing passed Kendall.

A small computer desk hid in the corner of the room, almost impossible to se under the deluge of empty beer cans piled around it. Heinz awkwardly swiped them off onto the floor with his left arm, his right hanging loose by his body.

“Get that in ‘Nam too?” Kendall asked, pointing at his right arm.

Heinz let out a short, bitter laugh. “Must have saluted one too many times. It don’t work so well anymore.” He picked up his right arm with his left, letting it dangle loosely for a second before dropping it.

“Thanks for your service,” Kendall said. “I guess.” he added after a brief pause. “Let’s take a look at your spinner.”

The monitor showed the most recent presidential debate on youtube, the buffering video icon spinning around in circles. Kendall clicked around at random for several seconds. How was he supposed to fix this? He didn’t know much about computers. There was an intern at the office who usually handled this stuff for him.

“My son knows how all this stuff works,” Heinz explained. “Sharp as a whip. Sharper than his old man, anyway. Can you fix it?”

Growing up, Kendall’s father had bought the first 56k modem on their block. That night they’d stayed up late chatting with strangers across the country. Kendall sat on his father’s knee, a metal tin of cheesy popcorn on the desk beside them, laughing at the jokes the chatroom filled with. He hadn’t talked to his father in years. “What internet provider do you have? Did they give you a modem?”

Heinz gave him another one of those slow, blinking stares.

“What about a small box with blinking lights?” Kendall asked again.

That got a reaction. Heinz reached behind the desk, balancing himself precariously with his hip braced against the desk. When he came back up he held a modem in his hand.

“This thing?”

“Perfect,”

One by one, Kendall quickly unplugged each of the wires leading from the back and plugged it back in. The router rebooted with a sudden flash of lights on the front. On screen, the presidential challenger stuttered and then launched back into a speech about the dangers of socialism.

“You got it!” Heinz cheered. Jimbo joined in with a low whining noise. “I just whipped up a batch of drunken chicken. Want to help me celebrate?”

Kendall’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Is that what that smell is? I’ll pass, thanks. Next time call GeekSquad.”

The next stop on his apology tour took Kendall to a small house tucked away on a tree lined cul-de-sac. A basketball hoop sat on the edge of the driveway, leaning more than a few degrees off center. An overturned bike lay in the front yard. Great, this one had rugrats running around. Vera had wanted kids when they’d first started dating. They hadn’t lasted long after he’d told her she shouldn’t plan on it anytime soon.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Benjamin is in meetings all day and isn’t available to speak,” the bubbly voice on the other side of his phone repeated. “If you’d like to leave a message I’ll see that he gets it.”

Kendall resisted the urge to hurl his phone through the windshield of his lease. Money had gotten tight over the last week since his visit with Heinz. It was too risky to think about further investment strategies with this much heat. It didn’t help that it had been one whole week without any contact from his business partners outside of vague emails that explained nothing, but assured him everything was moving according to plan. Now he couldn’t even reach them on the phone. “Who the hell are you? Why isn’t he taking my calls?”

“Mr. Benjamin has instructed me to handle his communications while he’s out of the country.”

“OUT OF THE COUNTRY?” Kendall hissed. “Why is he out of the country? Tell Benjamin he needs to call me back immediately. This is completely unprofessional.”

“I’ll see that he gets the message. Is there anything else?”

Kendall rubbed that spot on his forehead that signaled another headache kicking in. He took a deep breath to calm down. He still had to do another apology today and couldn’t go into that upset. “Just get him on the phone with me.” Throwing the phone against the passenger side window didn’t affect Benjamin’s new assistant any, but it did make Kendall feel slightly better.

By the time he knocked on the door of the house he’d managed to compose himself. A tall, blonde woman with short hair opened the door. He didn’t recognize the face, but he did recognize the sharp angled glasses and intense gaze from the audience at his trial.

“Someone from the court called to tell me you’d stop by,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d actually show up.”

“Judges have a way of being persuasive, Mrs…” he paused to look down at the paper with her name on it. “Davis.”

“It’s back to Williams, now, actually.”

Kendall shuffled his weight back and forth on his feet. Her eyes seemed to bore right through his own. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she saw through him, saw right through his thousand dollar suit and gold watch, saw all the way down to him. He’d pitched thousands of investors, from innocent rubes to multi-national CEOs, and now he felt uncomfortable in front of a housewife? The card with his apology written on it saved him from having to think. “I’d like to apologize for my actions in soliciting investments for the Breckenridge fund. Through an unfortunate series of bad investments the money has been lost and the promised returns won’t be coming.“ Kendall said quickly. “Due to the liquidation of the firm there won’t be any chance at repayment — “

“That’s it?” She snorted loudly through her nose. “Do you know how many times I tried to contact you? How long I sat in your office lobby downtown waiting for you to show up? I wanted so badly to believe that you could turn us around.”

“Investments aren’t guaranteed. Market downturns affect everyone the same way, myself included.”

Mrs. Williams looked over his shoulder at the shiny BMW he’d parked in their driveway. “Uh-huh,” she said, her voice flat.

“It’s a lease,” he snapped before he could stop himself. “Look, I came here to apologize. I did that. If you need help with anything I’m legally obligated to be here for at least the next hour. I can sit in the car, or you can ask me to work for you.”

“Oh, no. I’m gonna put you to work,” She reached out of sight and came back with a bucket and a bottle of windex in her hands. “Hose is around the corner. It’s been years since the outside windows have been cleaned.”

Kendall glanced at the outside of the house, mentally calculating how long it would take to wash that many windows. He groaned when he saw that most were on the upper level. At least the spinner thing hadn’t required a ladder. “Are you sure? I graduated top of my class at Harvard. I could show you how to incorporate your household. You could pay literally nothing in taxes next year, and you’d rather have me cleaning?”

“My husband warned me not to invest with you. The one smart thing that man ever said and I didn’t believe him. I believed in you, with your degree from Harvard and your fancy suits and your fast car. That’s the last time I make that mistake,” The bottle of windex rattled in the bucket as she dropped both on the front porch. “Wash the windows.”

The door slammed shut. With a sigh, Kendall loosened his tie and grabbed the bucket.

Twenty minutes later and Kendall finished rinsing down the last of the windows on the first level. A couple squirts of cleaner and a quick burst from the hose got him most of the way. Corners got wiped with the rag Mrs. Williams had included in the bucket. She looked like the type of woman to check those. He found an old ladder stacked on the side of the house which he used to reach the second floor windows. Rather than carry the hose up and down for each of the higher windows, he used the rag to wipe them clean. His afternoon turned into a repeated cycle of climbing up, spraying, wiping, climbing down. The shades were closed in every window of the upper level, except one bedroom. Posters of basketball players covered the walls. A nerf basketball hoop had been hooked over the door to the bedroom, a life sized cut out of Lebron James playing defense under it. Even the lamp next to the bed had the top shaped like a basketball. Kendall went through the motions of cleaning the window, but his vision went down to the basketball hoop in the driveway. Growing up, his street had a basketball hoop like that down the road a little ways. He’d stay out with his friends and shoot hoops under the streetlights during the long summer nights. Of course that was before his mother died and everything went to hell. Kendall shook his head to clear it. He finished wiping the rest of the windows clean, taking care to make sure he didn’t miss any spots. Once the ladder was back in place by the side of the house he knocked on the front door. Mrs. Williams had been waiting for him.

“All finished,” he said, then stood awkwardly on the front porch while she put the bucket down inside the house. “Listen, I just want to say I am sorry about how this all worked out.”

Her eyes flashed behind her glasses. “Good for you.”

A young boy with a pale face appeared in the hallway behind her. “Who are you talking to, mom?”

“Nobody,” Mrs. Williams said. She swung the door shut without a second glance.

Kendall walked back to his car in a daze. He’d finally recognized that look in her eyes as the same look his father often wore. After his mother’s funeral, friends and family had offered to cook meals, to run errands, anything to help out. But then the calls stopped coming. The two of them were forced to learn the hard way how to live by themselves. Suddenly, washing the windows seemed like the smallest possible way he could have apologized.

Above his car, the rim of the basketball hoop still leaned off center. Kendall found the lever to adjust the position of the backboard. He pulled on the orange handle, finagling it this way and that until the hoop locked into the proper position. He couldn’t do anything about the raggedy net, or the slight bend in the rim, but at least the kid would have the backboard in the right position. It wasn’t until he was pulling his car out of the driveway he saw the boy sitting in the bedroom window, watching him intently. He waved and the boy waved back. An unrecognizable feeling spread through Kendall, warming his chest as he drove off into the night.

Kendall sat alone in his BMW at the local park. The lights for the tennis courts had just turned on, competing with the glare of the sunset. Cars filtered out of the parking lot behind him. Parents, tired from watching their children play baseball, herded their dirty children into minivans to get home in time for dinner.

He still held the burner phone in his hands, listening to the pre-recorded message over and over without hearing it.

“We’re sorry, that number is not in service. Please hang up and try dialing again.”

He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. How could he have been so stupid? Top of his class at Harvard? The building permits had fallen through, or never existed according to the receptionist he’d talked to at the city permit office. His partner Benjamin had taken away the bubbly stonewalling assistant, taken down the voicemail, taken down his whole phone number. The secret burner phone intended to prevent the courts from finding their illegal money movements now prevented Kendall from tracking Benjamin down.

The pleasant gender neutral voice restarted with a chime. “We’re sorry, that number is not in service. Please hang up and try dialing again.”

Kendall turned the volume on the radio up until it was the only thing he could hear, until the heavy thump of the bass line against his ribcage was the only thing he could feel. He pounded on the dashboard with both fists, screaming out his anger behind tinted windows.

His money was gone, and it wasn’t coming back.

To Kendall’s surprise, the next morning dawned with the same sunshine as all the others. He’d been up half the night looking for roommates on craigslist. The tailored suit had been replaced with a cheap polyester track suit from the Gap. Polyester for Christ’s sake. His hair still felt a little damp from the brisk bike ride to his first stop of the day. After all of that, it had still taken him twenty minutes to find the right apartment. Twenty minutes of climbing stairs, walking hallways, and backtracking to do it all again. Despite that, Kendall’s back straightened as he knocked loudly.

“Hello?” A pair of eyes peered out behind the security chain installed on the door.

“Hello, Mr. Lane? I’m Kendall from the Breckenridge fund,” Kendall swallowed hard. The pre-written apology card crinkled in his hands as he twisted it back and forth. “I used my position to defraud your family out of a significant amount of money. I’m here to apologize and ask what it would take for you to forgive me.”

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