CHAPTER 4: THE RECKONING AT THE GATES
"Where are you right now, Sarah?" I asked, my voice dropping into a register that was no longer human. It was the flat, dead tone of a foreman commanding a demolition crew.
"I'm at the 24-hour laundromat on 5th Street," she wept. "Jamie's asleep on a plastic chair next to the dryers. Arthur... is it really you? Are you really alive?"
"I'm alive," I said, looking back toward the brightly lit patio where Gertrude was currently re-entering the party, smoothing her silk pantsuit as if she had just successfully disposed of a minor nuisance. "And I’m coming to get you. Give me twenty minutes."
I hung up the phone. I didn't walk back to the party through the side yard. I walked right through the center of the patio, my heavy boots slamming against the stamped concrete. The caterers froze as I approached the grand French doors leading into the dining room.
"Arthur!" Gertrude called out, rushing toward the glass doors from inside, her face twisted in a frantic attempt to block my re-entry. "Arthur, stop this madness this instant! You are ruining everything!"
I didn't stop. I threw my weight against the heavy glass doors. They flew open with a violent crash, one of the brass hinges warping under the force. I stepped back into the glittering dining room, where a buffet of smoked salmon and artisanal cheeses was laid out on a silver tray.
"Listen to me!" I roared, a sound that came from the absolute depths of my soul. The entire room went dead silent. The classical music seemed to die in the speakers. A hundred wealthy, respectable citizens of Columbus turned to look at the dusty, wild-eyed man standing in the center of the wealth he had built.
"Arthur, please, he's traumatized from the desert heat," Gertrude lied smoothly, turning to Dr. Halloway with a tragic, trembling smile. "The dehydration does terrible things to the mind..."
"This house," I shouted, pointing a thick, scarred finger at the crystal chandelier, "was paid for with five years of my life in a hundred-and-ten-degree desert. Every month, I sent $1,800 to that woman—my mother—to feed my wife and my son. And do you know what she did?"
The guests looked uncomfortable, some of them lowering their wine glasses, their eyes shifting between me and Gertrude.
"She threw my wife and my six-year-old son out onto the street three years ago!" I yelled, my voice shaking the drywall. "She told my wife I was dead so she could pocket the money and build this... this temple of vanity! She lied to me every single Sunday so she could play the grand socialite in front of all of you!"
"That's a lie!" Gertrude shrieked, her respectable veneer completely shattering. Her face turned an ugly, mottled purple, her aristocratic accent vanishing to reveal a harsh, shrill screech. "You're an ungrateful, low-class brute! Just like your father! I made this family respectable! You would be nothing without my guidance!"
"Call the police, Gertrude," Dr. Halloway said, reaching into his tailored jacket for his phone, looking at me with disgust. "This man is clearly a danger to himself and others."
"Go ahead," I said, stepping right up into Halloway’s pristine personal space. He flinched, taking a hasty step back into a tray of champagne glasses, sending them crashing to the floor. "Call them. Tell them to bring the fraud division. Because I have every single wire transfer receipt from Al Rajhi Bank saved on my digital drive, mapped directly to her personal bank account. Five years of federal financial fraud. Let’s see how respectable your church elder looks in a bright orange jumpsuit."
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Gertrude collapsed onto one of her minimalist Italian leather sofas, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as she realized the sheer, mathematical finality of what I possessed. The paper trail was absolute.
I looked around the room one last time at the beautiful people who had toasted to a thief. "The party's over," I said quietly. "Get out of my house."
