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boys’ section of Sears, and his suit draped a couple sizes too big. His haircut was discount, as was the wide tie riding too high on his collar. He wasn’t much of a physical specimen, either, with crayon lips, a pointed jawbone, and intense eyes. As he waited, he sipped a can of disgusting cola, his third in an hour. He wished the god-damn beverage machine had Diet Coke instead of this generic discountcrap. It tasted like metal and the bubbles were too fat.
    Dawson’s attention refocused as a female voice informed him, “The report from the Director’s office yielded only dead-ends. I’m sorry, Oliver. The documents had no fingerprints. We may never know the source of this information on Jackson Securities or Mr. Drucker.”
    “Whatever happened to those FBI lab geeks being able to walk on friggin’ water?” Dawson immediately regretted the outburst. “I’m not mad at you, Angela. Just frustrated.”
    After she disconnected, Dawson slammed the phone down. This was a kettle of month-old fish-stink. His two biggest leads, and now both obliterated. He wanted to believe neither the FBI lab nor the Security and Exchange Commission’s Enforcement Division had leaks, but he knew one or both did. And he had been so close to squeezing Cannodine and Drucker.
    “Some squeeze I managed,” Dawson mumbled to himself. “I’m worse off now than when I started. Now the bastards know who I am and that I care.” They’d be watching, whoever they were.
    With his leads down the toilet, he doggedly began to pack his bags for the trip back to Washington, D.C.
    “Not giving up,” he told himself, “just waiting for another break.”

CHAPTER THREE

      I T WAS A DISHEARTENING FEW WEEKS OF UNEMPLOYMENT . At least twice, and as many as four times a day, Peter called, interviewed, and generally impressed those he met, only to get dinged when they contacted his former boss for a recommendation.
    On several occasions, he tried pretending he’d been unemployed for the last couple of years, but that didn’t fly too well either. Being a bum did-n’t exactly inspire prospective employers. One interview began to sound like the next, and Peter often forgot what dead-end job he was pursuing from one hour to the next. He even dipped into the marginal job market— those paying near minimum wage. Most of those employers wanted to know why a university educated man, who graduated near the top of his class, felt hell-bent on getting a shitty low-paying job working next to high school dropouts. They suggested he might quit the minute he found something more lucrative, as if moving up the job ladder were an option. Quitting his old job before having a new one had proved another of his less than brilliant strategies. At least he had the excuse of stress at his mother’s death and a sudden compulsion to move his life in a direction she would have approved. Still, not a smart move.
    Compounding this desperation, he needed to decide between rent payments and car payments. He elected to pay on the car—he could sleep in the back seat, but he couldn’t drive his apartment to an interview. Since the landlord had no empathy for Peter’s plight, he’d let it be known that after eight more days of unpaid rent, he’d evict both tenant and cat. And things got worse. Peter had just one more week to find enough money to service his mother’s mortgage commitment or risk foreclosure. Recalling a bit of high school French, he summed up these sentiments with a rueful chuckle: “ Sur moi le déluge. ”
    In his bathroom, prepping for yet another day of defeat, Peter stared at the mirror and spoke to his reflection: “Hello. My name is Neil. I want to work for you. I will do anything. What? The job pays a buck-fifty an hour? No problem, so long as there is ample opportunity for advancement.”
    Pulling his tie knot to his throat, he wondered if it was strong enough to make an adequate noose. Next, Peter imagined his slim wallet saying: feed me .