Shock and Awe Read online

  “Hey Cory, did you get a good workout?”

  The other man, a lanky person in his thirties with a freckled face and bright red hair gave him a restrained smile and nodded.

  “We always get a good workout when you’re here Matt. If I was doing this every day, I could easily enter the Mr. Endurance Contest and win it hands down.”

  Matt flashed him a guarded smile and released the grip on his ankle. Then he lifted the other leg and repeated the process.

  “Well, there’s no gain without pain.”

  Cory nodded again and looked at the students doing their stretching exercises on the other side of the room. And Matt could tell he wasn’t looking forward to what he was about to say.

  “Listen Matt, we need to have a talk.”

  Cory turned back and waited a few moments before he continued, as if to steel himself. Then he dove straight into it.

  “You know there’s been a sharp drop in attendance numbers in the last few months. Students that have been coming here regularly have stopped showing up altogether, and a lot of the beginners give up after their first semester.”

  Matt nodded, but didn’t say anything. They all knew that things were far from perfect.

  Cory looked down at the floor and Matt realized he was about to deliver the blow, the one that would throw his world into turmoil.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to reduce your hours Matt.” Cory looked back up again and tried desperately to gauge his reaction.

  “I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but there’s just no way around it. This club isn’t generating a sufficient income stream to stay afloat. Hell, if things continue the way they have, I’ll have to close the doors within the next six months.” Cory stopped, and waited for Matt to respond.

  Matt let go of his ankle and placed his foot back on the floor again. The message that he had been expecting had finally been delivered. The meager paycheck that he received from the club would be reduced even further, and he knew that this was the beginning of the end of his stint as head instructor at the dojo. It was inconvenient to receive such news at the best of times, and it was absolutely catastrophic to receive it at the moment. Because technically speaking, he was broke.

  He took a deep breath and turned around, and shifted his gaze toward the students.

  “Have you told any of them?” he asked, before looking back at Cory again.

  “No, I haven’t. But I will in a couple of days. Not that I think it’s going to come as a big surprise. They’ve got eyes, and they are certainly capable of putting two and two together.”

  He gave Matt a restrained smile and shrugged.

  “I guess it’s just a sign of the times. Young kids today don’t want to take up activities that require some physical effort. They’d rather sit in their rooms and play video games and smoke dope all day long.”

  Matt pursed his lips and nodded, even though he didn’t necessarily agree with Cory’s assessment.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know,” Cory said.

  “So you still want me to come in, or are you cutting me loose completely?”

  “No, no. I still want you here.” Cory raised his hands in front of him to make it clear that he wasn’t firing him. “But I can only pay for three sessions a week.”

  Then he let out a sigh and looked Matt in the eye. “Is that ok with you?”

  It was anything but ok, but Matt knew there was nothing he could do about it. So instead of saying what was really on his mind, he just nodded and said, “Sure.”

  The relief on Cory’s face was immediate.

  “That’s excellent news,” he said and gave Matt a friendly pat on the back. “I tell you what, we’ll continue as per normal this week. Then we’ll discuss which days that suits best after that.”

  “Sure, we’ll talk later on,” Matt said. Then he turned toward the wall again and continued with the stretching exercises.

  “You bet,” Cory said and gave him a quick nod before he started walking over to his wife who had been standing by the entrance door the entire time, watching the two of them carefully. Matt wondered if everything had gone according to her expectations, and guessed that it probably had.

  Matt didn’t display any signs of emotion until he was sitting in the driver seat of the old Ford Cougar. He looked around to make sure that no one was watching him, then he slammed his hands hard against the steering wheel and let a few choice words escape his lips.

  He gazed over at the dojo at the far end of the strip mall, and for a brief second he could see himself crashing the vehicle through the big glass windows. He could also see himself jumping out of the car and giving Cory a few well deserved kicks and punches to the head. But just as quickly as the thought had appeared, it disappeared, and he sat back in the seat and wondered how he was going to make ends meet from now on.

  He closed his eyes and thought about how unfair life could be sometimes. The reduced hours would normally not have been that big of a deal. He would have found himself a new dojo somewhere else and offered his services. Or in a worst case scenario, paid the six hundred dollars to renew his electrical license and start working as an electrician again. But there weren’t even enough money in his bank account for that. The five thousand dollars that had been sitting there had gone when he had to pay for his mother’s funeral a month earlier. There hadn’t been a single cent left in her estate to pay for a plot at the cemetery, and thus the burden had fallen on her only remaining child, and it had literally bankrupted him. And now he had been dealt another blow, and this one was a hard one that he wasn’t sure he would be able to recover from.

  He opened his eyes and took one last look at the dojo where he had been a full time instructor for the last three years. It had been a good job, and he had enjoyed it immensely. Karate was after all the most important thing in his life, and it had been so for almost two decades now. He also realized that he had been extremely blessed to be able to have it as a living for the last seven years. The first four in Houston, and the last three here in Phoenix. He couldn’t complain. There were people who woke up every morning and dreaded what they had to do for the next ten hours. With him that had never been an issue. He had always enjoyed it, and never really thought of it as a job. But now it had come to an end.

  Where will I go from here, he thought. To California perhaps or somewhere further up the West Coast? There were certainly an abundance of clubs up that way, and with his credentials, he should be able to land a job as an instructor without too much difficulty. But for that to happen, he needed money to keep him going for the next few weeks, and unfortunately the money just wasn’t there. And that scared him more than he was willing to admit.

  He tried to brush away the gloomy thoughts and started the car, and began making his way out of the parking lot.

  I’ll have to start looking for a new job right away, he told himself as he was heading north on the I-17. Then if I’m lucky, and an opportunity presents itself, I’ll have to grab it with both hands. Beggars can’t be choosers.

  It was ten to nine when he eased the car into the driveway of his rented three bedroom house in Alhambra in the western part of Phoenix. He killed the engine and turned around and grabbed the duffel bag from the backseat. Then he got out and walked over to the entrance door.

  He could hear the neighbors on the other side having it out again. A loud female voice was telling someone, probably her husband or boyfriend that he was a no good piece of shit. And this verbal salvo was quickly countered with similar words by the one she had just addressed. Matt cast a quick glance at the house and shook his head. At least I won’t have to put up with this for much longer, he thought.

  The first thing he did when he got inside was to strip out of his gear and chuck it in the washing machine. After that was taken care of, he headed over to the bathroom where he had a quick shower.

  After he finished, he put on a pair of shorts and a tank top, grabbed a cold Coors from the fridge and sat down at th
e table on the patio in the backyard.

  He could still hear the neighbors arguing, and he wondered if the police would eventually show up and put an end to it. Probably not. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where people rang the cops. The residents were pretty good at minding their own business.

  Matt gazed over at the neighboring properties. Even in the dim glow created by the patio light, he could see how unkempt the places were. All kinds of trash were spread out across the grass, even a couple of wrecked cars. Some people just didn’t care whether they lived in a pigsty or not.

  It was one of those trade-offs you had to make. You either chose a nice and tidy neighborhood, or you went for the cheap and crappy rentals. And he had opted for the latter.

  He took a big swig from the bottle and tried to enjoy his beer, but the loud shouting coming from the neighbor's place ruined it for him. He thought about getting the laptop out, and see if he could find some karate clubs that he could contact tomorrow. But he decided against it. It was better to wait until the morning. The smart thing to do was to sleep on it, and give himself an opportunity to think things through. He needed to come up with a game plan, and once that was taken care of, execute it.

  At least he didn’t have to worry about making rent for the month. He still had two and a half weeks left before he had to come up with another seven hundred bucks. That was at least one burden he didn’t have to worry himself with.

  He spent another fifteen minutes out on the patio before he went back inside again. Normally he would have parked himself in front of the TV for half an hour or so, but he didn’t feel like watching anything this evening. Instead he turned off the lights and went into the bedroom, where he lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling fan that was pushing the dry air onto his face.

  I’ll have to reach a decision by the end of the week, he thought. I can’t put it off any longer than that. Next month I should be lying in a different bed in a different house, wondering if I have made the right decision. And with a little bit of luck, the answer should be a resounding yes.

  Then he closed his eyes and had a thousand thoughts racing through his head as he tried to drift off to asleep. And when it finally came, the clock on the nightstand showed a quarter past one.

  3

  The thing that changed everything happened the next morning, shortly after he had returned from his daily run. It was a routine that he’d stuck to rigorously for the last seven years, and he could count on one hand the times he’d deviated from it.

  He would be out of the house by six at the latest, and cover a minimum distance of five miles. It didn’t matter what the weather was like. He always got his gear on and started pounding the asphalt while most people were still asleep. And this morning had been no exception, despite the bad news he’d received the previous evening.

  After returning home, he’d taken a quick shower and parked himself in front of the laptop at the kitchen table. He had placed a cup of coffee on his left hand side, and he could see the steam rising up from the surface.

  His initial plan had been to look up the contact details for various dojos on the West Coast, and call them later on that day and find out if they could offer him a job.

  But for some reason he had opted to log into his bank account first, to see how much money he had left to his name. He knew it wasn’t much, and he knew he would have to liquidate some of his assets to make ends meet for the next couple of weeks.

  But when he saw the balance on the screen, he’d felt like someone had just knocked the air out of him. Then he just sat there absolutely still and stared at the figure wide-eyed, wondering if he was dreaming, and if he was, whether he was going to wake up soon.

  But deep down he’d known that it wasn’t a dream. This was real, and he was awake. He was sitting at the kitchen table in front of his laptop, which showed that there was one hundred thousand one hundred and eighty dollars in his savings account.

  Without realizing it, he placed a hand over his mouth and took a deep breath and held it in. What the hell had just happened? How on earth had the money ended up in his account? It had to be a mistake, some glitch in the bank’s computer system. That had to be why it was there. And if he logged off and signed back on again, the problem would have been resolved and his balance returned to normal.

  He let the hand drop into his lap and exhaled. But then again, what if it wasn’t a mistake? What if someone had transferred a hundred thousand dollars to his account by accident?

  Matt felt his hand being drawn toward the touchpad, and noticed how his index finger started guiding the arrow onto the deposit tab at the top of the page and click on it. Then he was redirected to a page that showed the latest deposits. And there at the very top of the transaction list was the information for the one hundred thousand dollars.

  It had been transferred to his account yesterday, by a company called Corporate Solutions.

  Matt sat back in his chair and finally noticed the coffee mug next to him on the table. He reached for it and took a sip.

  Corporate Solutions? Who the hell were they? He’d never heard of the company, and he could think of absolutely no reason why they would want to give him such a large sum of money.

  It had to be a mistake. There was no other logical explanation for it. Someone at the bank or a representative from the company must have entered the wrong information, and accidentally sent the money to his account. But despite the obvious screw up, that’s where it was currently sitting.

  Matt took another sip from the coffee mug and started thinking about the implications of this error. How long would it take before someone discovered the mistake and took appropriate measures to recuperate the funds?

  Probably no more than a couple of days.

  The intended recipient of the money would soon discover that the funds hadn’t hit their account, and they would then contact the sender to find out what was going on. The sender would look through their records, discover the error and try to rectify the situation. And the money would eventually find its rightful home, which meant that he would have to act quickly if wanted to access it. That was of course provided that he decided to go down that route.

  Matt felt his pulse quicken and a few beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He was surprised that he was even entertaining the idea. But nevertheless, it had managed to find its way into his head. The fact that he was a couple of hundred dollars away from being broke, and would soon find himself out of a job had obviously something to do with it.

  What would happen, he thought, if he were to get out of that chair, head over to the Wells Fargo branch down the road and withdraw a couple of hundred dollars from the account? Or even better, a couple of grand? It would give him some much needed breathing room, and an opportunity to stay afloat until he managed to find himself a new job. Whether it be here in Phoenix or somewhere else.

  The bank would obviously want to know why he had withdrawn money that technically speaking didn’t belong to him. But he could always act dumb and claim he didn’t realize that the money had been placed there by accident.

  Would the bank decide to press charges if he did, and were they in a position to do so? And where did he stand legally if he decided to go down that route? After all, it was their mistake, and thus he should be able to claim ignorance. Provided he wasn’t too greedy and emptied the entire thing.

  He sat there for a few more minutes until he’d finished the coffee. Then he walked over to the entrance door, grabbed the car keys from the cabinet under the mirror and left the house.

  Matt riffled through the ten, one hundred dollar bills that he’d just withdrawn from the ATM, and felt like he’d been given a part in a very surreal dream. Only, this wasn’t a dream. This was the real deal. He was wide awake, and the money he was holding in his hand was not an illusion. He’d even pinched himself a couple of times just to make sure.

  But even so, it was hard for him to come to grips with this new reality. And despite the fact that his o
nline bank statement had shown a very healthy balance back at the house, he’d been worried that reality would hit him in the face when he placed his card inside the ATM. That the machine would simply decline his request. That the error had somehow been rectified during the time he’d left the house and arrived at the mall. That his bank balance had returned to normal, and that he would once again be flung into a state of uncertainty and have to turn every penny until he found a new job.

  But none of that had happened. The money was still there, and now one percent of it was tucked between his fingers.

  Seeing the money had also quickly cast away any moral dilemmas that he’d harbored about tapping into the newly acquired funds. It was a matter of survival. A choice between potentially running out of cash, with all the unpleasantries that came with it, or a reprimand from the bank, and ultimately a slap on the wrist from the authorities. Because Matt didn’t think it would amount to much more than that.

  He cast a quick glance around him before shoving the money into the pocket of his shorts and start walking back to the car. The feeling of utter devastation that had come over him yesterday when Cory had given him the bad news had disappeared, and when he got back into the driver seat, he had a big grin on his face.

  He leaned back and started going over his options. There was a very real possibility that the money would be removed from his account within the next twenty four hours. He had no idea what the procedures were in cases such as these, but he considered it a likely scenario. He also realized that a thousand dollars wouldn’t last that long. Traveling to the West Coast, looking for a job and getting a new place would easily set him back a couple of grand. And that meant that he would have to make a few more withdrawals.

  He tried to think what the maximum daily limit on his card was, and was pretty sure that it was three thousand. If he could manage to withdraw that, he should be able to stay afloat and sort out the mess that he had managed to get himself into. And if he was successful, he could give Cory a call and let him know that he wasn’t coming back. Why spend any more time in Phoenix than he had to? The attendance number at the dojo wouldn’t miraculously start to rise in the next couple of weeks. On the contrary, it was only a matter of time before Cory would have to cut him loose altogether. And by that time the bank would be on his tail, wondering why he had helped himself to some of their money.