Evasion by Mark Leslie Page B

kneel over his friend and keep pulling in lungful after lungful of sweet air.
    “Jesus, Gary.” Scott finally gasped. “What happened?”
    He begin to get up, wondering if Herb and the security guard had been close enough to hear the scuffle.  Gary and Scott hadn’t been loud at all, except maybe for the fall to the floor and the loud smack of the back of Gary’s head. But considering the size of the building and how far they were likely away, he doubted they’d heard a thing.
    But he still needed to get away before they came back.
    He stood and stepped over to the door.
    As he was reaching for it, the knob turned, and from the other side of the door, Herb’s voice in unison with the security guard, blended together that now familiar monotonic drone of words: “You won’t get away. You cannot evade us!”
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Twelve
    Four-and-a Half Years Ago  
     
    Scott was sitting at the diner table across from the client that had attracted him to the meeting. Despite the delays from his father’s surgery, the meeting was still happening, and for that reason, Scott was at a state of unease that he usually didn’t face when meeting with a client.
    Normally he was confident and somewhat cocky in his approach. The clients needed him more than he needed them, and he could easily command a premium dollar for his services. He could be picky about whom he chose to work with, he could dictate the terms of the relationship.
    But, because of the lack of control on his side, the continued delays inflected on the meeting prior to it happening, thanks to the delays at the hospital for his father’s surgery, Scott’s position of power and authority had been undermined.
    The client, upset and angry over the delays, was in the position of power.
    Scott was in an undermined position.
    And he wasn’t used to that at all.
    So he was already off guard, a little set back, when his cell phone rang.
    “Sorry about that,” Scott said, lifting the phone up to flick off the ringer while simultaneously glancing down at the screen to see who was calling. It was a Sudbury area number, one he didn’t know, but it was an exchange Scott recognized as being from the hospital.
    “You’re not answering that,” the client barked at him, his cheeks fleshed red, his jowls quivering like a bowl of translucent pink gelatin. “After dicking me around all morning, you’re not going to answer that.”
    Scott looked back at him, wondering at the chances he would be able to make the initial revenue this job had initially promised.
    The client, his voice louder, reached out and placed his hairy, thick-knuckled hand over top of Scott’s, the one holding his cell phone. “You answer that fucking phone and we’re done.”
    This was a lot of money. Scott looked at him, at his beady little blue-grey eyes, bunched closely together under the thick mono-brow that crossed his forehead. That single caveman-esque eyebrow would have been the man’s most striking feature if it weren’t for the large bulbous nose. It had obviously been broken multiple times, and it carried a deep red-blue hue, the color associated with years of heavy and abusive drinking.
    It was early afternoon and Scott could already smell rye on the man’s breath.
    He couldn’t be more than in his mid-forties, but the man looked to be pushing sixty.
    Sitting there, realizing he’d likely already lost the job, Scott hated the man with virtually every single fiber of his being. And, for the first time since he’d started his career as a hacker, he hated this pandering he’d had to do to people like this client; to the dregs and lowest common denominators of society.
    He hated himself, the path his life was on, the dealings that were a regular part of his life.
    It was a strange awakening to suddenly have dawn on him, all while the phone vibrated in his hand beneath the large clenched first of this client he had so eagerly sought to travel such a great distance in order to