Prologue
Paul Zordinsky needed a shave.
And a bath. And a reason to get off the couch. He ate there. Slept there. Watched ESPN and Fox News there. Last week he finally cancelled the Playboy channel and HBO, along with the newspaper (he never read it anyway) and subscriptions to Mother Jones, the American Conservative and Guns and Ammo. He had long run out of ways to occupy time and started to collect packing boxes, but lacked the energy to fill any.
He looked different. Nine months fired from a fifteen year tenured position at Texas Baptist University he scratched and kicked to earn, Paul's waistline expanded and dark brown hair streaked gray. Fat pillows under his eyes and deep wrinkles folded into his forehead made him look tired, older than forty-two.
The scandal, made the local late-night news circuit when campus police forcibly removed him from the classroom, embarrassed the university and forced the Board of Regents to revoke tenure. He couldn’t get a job anywhere in Houston, including as a eighty-five dollar a day substitute teacher. He spent his retirement savings on a civil suit against the university, but it was found to have no merit.
His wife left with their two boys, which was probably for the best. They started to look at him with pity and disdain. She also left him with a mortgage three months in arrears.
Paul sat on the couch, a spotted, ripped piece of furniture the boys once used in the game room upstairs. It was the only thing in the den besides an old thirteen inch television and a plastic bin used to keep copies of completed applications and job leads. It was full.
A Fox news program was on. A group of commentators talked about the latest unemployment numbers and how the President's stimulus package had been a dismal failure. He shook his head, looked around the house, loudly sucked his front teeth and sniffed. The pundits had all started to sound the same, no matter the channel.
Sighing, he muttered, "Well Paul, what's done is done."
His back creaked as he rose and tried to arch and stretch away some of the pain. Paul walked slowly to the kitchen, taking stock of the barren house as he did. Barefoot, his feet made a sticky, sucking sound over the cold hardwood floor. Next to the refrigerator, Paul opened a drawer. A black and silver Smith & Wesson Model 627 stared back at him. Paul lifted it, ran two fingers along the barrel and thought of the past year and how everything, namely his life, crumbled like blue cheese.
The doorbell chimed. He cursed. It chimed again.
Paul flung the door open. A tall, thin man, wearing a light gray one-piece uniform smiled. Twenty-two or three years old at best, he wore a matching gray ball cap and a name tag which read, "Jay". Bleached-blond, curly hair peeked from under the cap. He carried a small, rectangular package. A clipboard rested on it.
"Look, you can tell whoever sent you young man, that I don't have the money okay, exactly like I didn't have the money last month, and like I won't have it next month. Understand?"
"Uhm," the man began, raising an eyebrow. "I'm just delivering a package dude."
"Package?" In his haste to get rid of the deliverer, Paul failed to see the box.
"Can you sign here?" The man held out an electronic signature pad.
Paul signed, closed the door without saying thank you and placed the plain, brown box on the sofa. There was no return address.
Who could be sending me something? Probably something from her.
He raised it to an ear, gently shook it before opening. Inside, a thick, manila envelope rested on a bed of Styrofoam balls. Paul tapped the envelope in his hand, then laid it down. Underneath the foam were pink, lacey panties, and a leather diploma folder. The panties smelled of perfume, something he had bought.
It was from her!
Paul opened the folder. His eyes widened, he gasped, dropped the folder on the carpet and pressed back into the sofa.
It fell open. There was a picture of a young redhead woman, gagged and bound to a chair. A knife embe dded in her sternum formed a triangle of blood-red on her clothes. Auburn hair-with clumps of it matted in the blood- had been pulled back to expose the forehead. The words, "I AM SORRY" in big, colorful letters was scribbled on it. The picture had been shredded and glued to the back of a notebook size of pasteboard.
After a few moments, Paul swallowed hard and slowly opened the envelope, expecting a cobra to spring from it. Inside were two stacks of money in various donations. Post-it notes were attached to each stack. One said, For Your Trouble and the other, For Your Pain.
