Think Twice

Win sighed. “Your warnings are like your appendix — they’re either superfluous or they hurt you.”

Myron frowned. “Seriously?”

“Not my best analogy, I admit.” Still reading off his phone, Win said, “Tracking the number now. Hmm. Got it. According to the location towers, the phone is currently emanating from a Budget Inn in someplace called Havre, Montana.” Win glanced toward Myron. “Get on the plane. The flight to Havre is a little over two hours. I’ll pin-drop you the phone’s location.”

Chapter Twelve

You park outside the home of Walter Stone.

It is two in the morning. The house is dark other than the dim glow from a computer monitor coming from the downstairs den. Walter is fifty-seven years old. His house is a three-bedroom Cape Cod of aluminum siding and faded brick on Grunauer Place in Fair Lawn. He has two sons, both in their twenties. One just had a baby, his first grandson. Walter is at his keyboard. He got laid off last April. The Foodtown supermarket he had worked at for thirty years shut their doors, and they won’t find new work for an older white guy, no matter how good he is. That’s what he tells people. It’s the truth, in his mind. His wife is named Doris. She plays pickleball three times a week and does her best to find ways to keep out of the house most days. Right now, she is upstairs sleeping. After dinner, that’s where Doris always goes. Upstairs. Walter stays downstairs. They’re both good with that.

You sit outside in the Ford Fusion. You wear gloves and a ski mask. You have a gun on your lap.

Walter, you assume, is still giddily typing away.

He thinks he is safe behind internet anonymity.

Walter started off on social media like most people his age — poking fun at it, wary of the time suck, thinking it’s something lazy kids do. He hates the new generations — Generation X or Y or Z or Alphas or whatever — thinking they’re all soft and spoiled and that they’d rather suck off the tit of his taxes than do a day’s honest work. Walter’s youngest son Kevin is a bit like that. Into computers and video games and whatnot. A total waste of time, if you ask Walt. Still, at some point, Kevin signed his dad up with a Twitter account first. Not sure why anymore. Guess so Walt could see what the fuss was about. Maybe use it as a free news feed or something. Walter would be damned before he gave any money to the local paper or watched the lies on lamestream TV. Once he started checking out the site, well, maybe it was because Kevin created his account or maybe there was some weird algorithm, but Walter’s Twitter feed filled up with tweet after tweet of the dumbest, most vile, naïve load of bullcrap you could ever imagine. How did people get so dumb? None of these idiots posting all day have a clue how the real world works. The only thing they were more full of than shit? Themselves. Man, they all thought they were the cat’s ass, didn’t they? Endlessly pontificating and condescending and yeah, Walter knew what those words meant. And don’t even get him started on the thumb-up-the-ass, brain-dead women. Jesus H. Get a boyfriend or something. All whining anytime a guy said boo to them or bumped into their elbow. Man, that got Walter’s goat. Everything a guy does nowadays pisses them off. Heck, just talking to them was an “act of violence.” Oh, and not talking to them — ignoring them? That was disrespectful and sexist. When Walter was young, a girl liked to get a wink and a nod. It was flattering. Try that now and she’ll blow a rape whistle in your face. I mean, get a grip, sweetheart. You’re not all that.

That’s kind of what happened at Foodtown too.