Free Harmless by Ernie Lindsey Page A

going to think you’re a
suspect now , you moron.”
    “Not if they don’t find
out.”  I think I might’ve come across as pleading, but Pendragons don’t plead. 
We suggest with intent .
    “They will!  They have
to!  I have to tell them, don’t you get that?”
    “You don’t have to.  Not really.”
    “Uh-uh.  No way.  Not
now, not ever.  I’m not losing my job—I’m not going to jail for you.”
    Okay, maybe we don’t
plead, but there’s no harm in a genuine ‘please.’ 
    “Please keep it between
us.  I’m asking you for help, because I need to know why .  I would do
this on my own—and I don’t have any doubt that I could—but you’ve got resources
that I need.”
    “Are you kidding me? 
No.  No .”
    “So is this going to be
like the time you didn’t help Jason Carter?”
    ***
    I left something out
earlier.  Something about his past.  Not exactly on purpose—mostly because it
wasn’t important to the story right then and I figured you’d get a better
understanding of the depth—or maybe the weight —of this information if I
offered it when it was the most relevant.
    Whenever I make a new
friend—Thomas, Mailman Jeffrey, Darlene at the liquor store, Michelle at the laundry
place—I like to create what I call a character profile.  It helps me understand
them better as a person.  Their likes, dislikes.  What they eat for lunch. 
Whether or not they exercise regularly. 
    Armed with information
like that, it enables me to become a better companion.  And if I can’t get
everything I need from the person in question, I’ll do some background
research.  Typing “Darlene Hanks” into Google is harmless.  If you want something
kept private, don’t put it on Facebook.  Darlene, by the way, enjoys posting
pictures of what she’s having for lunch. 
    When I showed Shayna
the profile I’d created for her—and this is no lie—she balled it up and threw
it in my face.  Hours and hours of research dismissed with the words, “You have
to stop this.”
    Bear with me, because I
might wax poetic a little bit here.
    Four years ago, Officer
Jason Carter arrived on scene at a bakery downtown, which resulted in a robbery
devolving into a hostage situation.  Two unidentified white males.  Armed. 
Dangerous.  Holding the baker, his wife, and two employees at gunpoint. 
Subsequent reports would indicate that the police found nothing more than one
hundred dollars and some loose change in the cash register.
    Officer Carter had
approached with heroic intentions and found himself pinned down just outside
the bakery, hiding underneath the window, ducking at the occasional shot fired
in his direction whenever he’d attempted to retreat.  For whatever reason,
backup had been delayed, and he’d held the same position for ten minutes.
    (This information comes
secondhand from eyewitness/hostage testimonials.  How reliable their accounts
are, those memories created during extreme distress are open to conjecture.  Perception,
reality, you know what I mean.)
    Next to arrive had been
Officer Thomas Planck.  A rookie. 
    More shots were fired,
and in short, he panicked.  He found himself unable to come out from behind his
cruiser and assist Officer Carter, eventually resulting in Carter’s death when
he grew impatient and attempted an escape for better cover.
    Officer Thomas Planck’s
lack of action, or refusal to help, earned him a one-month suspension—which was
deemed “time to reconsider his chosen profession.”
    How do I know all of
this?  Most of it came from digging through back issues of local newspapers. 
Some of it I made up as part of the character profile.  Everyone has a story,
whether it’s his own truth or the one you create. 
    Do you ever find
yourself people-watching, say, in an airport on the way to New York to see
Brian Williams, and make up stories about each person walking by?  She has to be a super model.  He’s on his way to meet his girlfriend,