Free Pent Up by Damon Suede

him: his boss had duped someone.
    Watching the dark glass above, he hoped it wasn’t him.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    FEAR IS the cheapest weapon and the hardest to hold.
    “Think fast.” A blue racquetball bounced off the window and smacked into Ruben’s chest hard enough to sting. He spun. “Ow.”
    It was day three, 2:19 p.m., and Bauer glared from the other side of the living room with his hands extended to catch.
    Ruben squeezed the little ball, collapsing it in his hand. Why was Bauer pissed? And why the ball?
    “Think. Faster. Dumbass.” Bauer sounded angry and looked straight at him. “Well, then you tell him to sell or we destroy his family and sell them off for parts to the Swiss.”
    Ruben straightened. “The hell?”
    “I want him to shit his pants!” Bauer shook his head and pointed at his earpiece and laughed without smiling. “Lowball him.”
    Oh. Phone call on the headset. Until today, Bauer had kept his business behind closed doors. What was this call, anyways, and why did he want Ruben to hear it? Or did he? Had he just come out to play?
    Andy ground his teeth. His jaw flexed. “This close? He should shit his pants, man. And then he sells or you’re going to come give him a colostomy with a chainsaw.” He beckoned for the ball.
    Speechless, Ruben gently tossed the blue ball back underhanded. He didn’t want to break anything. Fuck knows, he couldn’t afford replacements. Was this jagoff playing catch?
    “Bullshit.” Bauer sighed, either at him or the call. “If not fast, at least you can fucking think , Joe. We got him pinned down.” With a snarl, Bauer pitched the ball hard at the window so that it smacked into Ruben’s chest again.
    A game.
    Ruben goggled and muttered, “Nuts,” but finally he threw the ball back at the glass. Following orders.
    It bounced wild but his boss caught it, giving Ruben a thumbs-up and that goofy clean-cut grin. Raggedy Andy wanted to play.
    For the next half hour, they played fake handball against the window in a million-dollar room, grinning like idiots while Andy brokered some kind of takeover. Happily, nothing got broken.
    By the end of the call, Ruben had learned fuck-all about international finance or the Apex Fund, but at least he’d started to think of Bauer as Andy. Dude was too nutty to be called “Mr.” Anything.
    As predicted, Ruben’s security duties just peddled make-believe, but they sure as hell paid well. Every time Ruben felt like grumbling, he looked at those new suits hanging in his brother’s closet and bit his tongue. None of his business how Andy wasted his money or anyone else’s.
    A couple of clients came to the apartment for meetings while Hope served drinks and research reports. Ruben shook their hands, laughed on cue, and saw nothing to endanger Andy’s money or safety. The clients were bland and blank, mostly old white dudes dressed like soap opera villains in handmade shoes, but not an eyepatch among them. Boring, actually. As he’d suspected, any black ops Wall Street mercs were strictly no-show.
    Sure enough, the man spent most of his time on phone calls piped through a Bluetooth earpiece, shouting financial advice into the air like a schizophrenic with an MBA.
    By the weekend, Ruben felt pretty certain the biggest threat to Andy Bauer… was Andy Bauer. The security gig ended up feeling funny but harmless. As long as Ruben stuck around, Andy could pretend he was in danger, but protected at the same time. Ruben could track Andy’s paranoid logic: he wanted an invisible goon, so he’d bought one.
    Gradually Andy monitoring him and his lack of boundaries started seeming pitiful, unnerving, but unfreaky. He seemed as lonely as Ruben felt. Maybe he was.
    Let sleeping dogs lie.
    Funny thing: he dug Andy’s company. The occasional predatory flashes showed calculation and financial know-how, but he wasn’t a prick, exactly. He took an interest in Ruben, which automatically made him interesting. Not a bad guy, just lonely,