Night of the Living Debt Part VII

Duane's hand rolled restlessly over the scroll button. CNN and the Times informed him that one politician was offending the working class and the other was making an ass of himself with absurd claims. They told him that income discrepancies were up, taxes were up, cost of living was up, the world population was up, and oil reserves were low. They told him about a Japanese physicist who may have found sustainable cold Fusion, the CEO of an Indian company worth more than Bill Gates, and it even told him what to think of movies that weren't worth his time to see and judge for himself. However, they told him very little about how to deal with zombie hobos. He hadn't really expected them to. Why, he thought, don't they ever report on the news pertinent to me?

The clock on the bottom bar of his screen told him it was 5:04. Almost quitting time. Normally, the thought of putting great distance between himself and Roy Baumann Jr. of Baumann, Baumann and Sons put a smile on his face. Today, not so much. He closed his Internet Explorer browsers and pulled up a game of Minesweeper. He lost three consecutive games on the first click. Duane Richardson doesn't enjoy losing. Clicking the game closed, he snatched up a pen and began twirling it between his fingers the way he used to do with coins. He'd made a pretty penny back in the day as a card sharp and coin trickster, and the memory of conning gullible fools usually cheered him up. Looking past his fingers, watching their motions, but refusing to concentrate on them so he wouldn't mess up, he saw the glowing clock on his desk. Looking more like a calculator screen than a proper clock, it informed him that it was 5:08. He checked it against his computer. 5:07. His cell phone. 5:09. His watch. 5:08. The clock again. Now it was 5:09. Grunting, he put the problem of disagreeing clocks out of his mind. Finally throwing his pen down, he began shuffling papers from one place to another, making his desk look slightly neater, but, he had to admit, drastically less functional. Shuffling papers was always a good way to both feel and appear as if work is being done when it isn't. Slowing down, he swiveled in his chair to stare out the window again. "Justice must be upheld." He muttered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Yes, it must."

Duane spun back around in his chair looking for the speaker. There was no one there. He rubbed the sides of his nose with his right thumb and forefinger and looked back to his computer's clock. 5:12. The first time in months he'd stop to relax at his job and the day was dragging on mercilessly. He wondered how all his free loading underlings ever managed it. "Justice must be upheld, Mr. Richardson and you are the man to do it."

Duane looked nervously around his office again. Hobos were bad. Disembodied voices were worse. They probably belonged to invisible people. And invisible people are probably voyeurs. "What the hell?" Duane nearly shouted.

"Down here, stupid." The voice said again, followed by a whistling sound that seemed to come from under his desk. So Duane bent down. And lying under his desk was a dog, curled up. The dog lifted its head, looked straight into Duane's eyes and said "Howdy."

"Howdy." Duane said weakly.

"Are you ready to serve Justice?" The dog asked him in its raspy voice. Duane was a tad concerned that he was having a conversation with a dog, on hands and knees under his desk, but he figured, in for a penny, in for a pound. As long as it didn't shed on his expensive oriental rug or mark its territory on his hardwood antique desk.

"Who are you exactly?"

"You know the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf?" The dog asked smugly.

"I've lived my life based on what I learned from that story. And one thing I learned is that you're a dog, not a wolf." Duane pointed out.

"One of many reasons no one ever believed the boy." The dog responded before wheezing out a sound that Duane thought was a laugh.

"You sly son of a bitch!" Duane tried to straighten up but hit his head on the bottom of his desk. It also dislodged an old custom made pen with Baumann, Baumann and Sons printed on it which they gave to clients. All it takes to fix the world's problems, from a stuck drawer to hobo zombies, is to use your head.

The dog laughed his wheezing smoker laugh again. "There is more than one kind of justice in the world. D'Agosto serves one who feels that all should be given the benefit of the doubt and treated equally."

Duane frowned. "That's idiotic. People aren't all equal. Brown Vs. the board of education- separate is not equal. Separate bodies, separate minds. Different strengths. Different weaknesses. The very concept of equality is bullshit."

The dog seemed to smile at this. "Very good, Mr. Richardson. Equality and justice are not the necessarily the same thing. For instance, there's a lot to be said for the justice of natural selection."

Duane smiled "Ambrose D'Agosto is too stupid to live."

"Yes." The dog replied simply. "But he is now a magically fueled moron. If want to survive the night, I suggest you listen very closely, Mr. Richardson."

Duane Richardson was never so happy to listen to someone other than himself speak.