"I really do wish you would just get him out of here," Pamela said.
'It's not that easy," the detective said. "Are you charging him or do I let him go?"
"Can't you just get him out of here?" She glanced at all the people clustered around her desk. "This is so embarrassing."
"Listen, lady, the guy copped a feel. Which tit did he grab?"
Waldo looked down. Pamela covered her eyes with her hands. "Will you get out of here?" she gasped.
"Did he grab this one?" the detective said. Like testing a tomato for ripeness, he put his large hairy hand on Miss Thrushwell's left breast.
She slapped it away and demanded to see his badge.
"If you are a policeman, I have a right to ask you to remove a customer from our premises."
"On what grounds?" the detective asked.
"Disturbing the peace."
"Listen, lady, don't get so damned uppity. When you have to testify in open court, you'll have to answer these questions. Probably the jury'll want to see your knockers anyway, to see if there was any injury. So the guy grabbed you. Did you encourage him?"
"I most certainly did not."
"Did you grab him first?"
"I have heard about police embarrassing women over such things," she said coldly, "but this is ridiculous."
"Listen, I nailed this molester in the street. Are you going to charge him or not? What do you want, lady?"
There was silence in the large chrome-and-fluorescent computer center. Waldo heard someone in the back of the crowd ask what he had done.
"Tried to grab that young woman right out in front of everybody. Copped a feel."
"He sure picked the right one."
Pamela stood up at her desk, smoothed her skirt. Her blazing eyes bore into Waldo Hammersmith.
"Sir, if you leave of your own accord and promise not to return, I will not press charges," she said.
Waldo looked to the detective.
"Let's go," the detective said. He left the center with Waldo, but when Waldo tried to walk away, the detective strode with him down the street.
"Are you in trouble?" he asked. His voice was steady and concerned.
"No. I just tried to-- uh, do that thing," Waldo said.
"You don't look like the sort," the detective said.
"Thank you," said Waldo. He hung his head in shame.
"Somebody make you do it?"
"No, no. Gee, who would do that? I mean who would want me to do something so silly, right?"
The detective shrugged. He reached into his hip pocket and took out a card. "If you're in any trouble, you call me." The embossed card bore the detective's name. Detective Lieutenant Joseph Casey.
"I'm Joe Casey. You've got my home phone. You've got my department phone. If you need help, call."
"I'm all right, thank you."
"That's what everybody says when they're in over their heads," said Detective Lieutenant Joe Casey. He offered a warm hand. Waldo shook it.
He put the card inside his vest pocket and then, carefully at home, away from the vision of the new butler, he hid the card in a small ivory box. On his next Insta-Charge, he received another computer message. This time he was to appear at a different address.
It was another empty room in another vacant office in midtown Manhattan. This time, the voice in the room said:
"Goose Ms. Thrushwell."
Waldo remembered the humiliation. Remembered wanting to die.
He sat in the dark, smoking Havana cigars, thinking for a long time. He could get back into the computer center and stick a hand under Pamela Thrushwell's dress. Or he could even follow her and do it on the street or in the subway. Maybe he would get away with it and suffer only mortification.
But what about next time? What would the voice want next time?
He took out a pencil and computed what his lifestyle would cost. He thought a couple of thousand a week for life would do, but was stunned to find out he was spending twelve thousand dollars a week and that was before food.
No more. He was taking his money and going.
He read the balance on his Insta-Charge statement and wrote a check for seven million dollars.
He went to the bank. The teller asked if he were serious. He said he was. The branch manager came over. He checked with the main office. The main office laughed. Waldo had only fifteen hundred dollars in his account and that was because of the security blanket of his overdraft checking program.
The next morning, Waldo lurked in a doorway outside the computer center. When Pamela arrived for work, he rushed up behind her and stuck his hand quickly underneath her skirt. She screamed. Another woman with a very heavy pocketbook blocked his retreat, a man yelled "masher," but Waldo dropped to his knees and crawled out of the crowd. He glanced back and saw the surveillance cameras inside the computer center pointed out toward the street. He could feel them laughing at him.
A few days later, he got another Insta-Charge statement in the mail. It was an order to show up at another address.
The soft feminine voice in the new office said, "Spank Pamela Thrushwell with a paddle." Waldo knew he would soon be asked to kill. A paddle could kill. He phoned Detective Joe Casey.
They met on a dark Hudson River pier, facing New Jersey. Waldo had picked the spot for its isolation. He was sure that whoever or whatever was behind this could see almost anywhere. He wanted to get away, away from any form of computer, away from any place that had surveillance cameras, but mostly away from all computers. A computer had started all this by changing his monthly statement. And Pamela Thrushwell worked at a computer center. Waldo thought computer and he thought get away.
"I'm in trouble," Waldo told the detective. And he explained how a bank error had led him to live a higher and higher life-style so that now he was dependent on the money. He needed it. But he was afraid of what he might have to do for it.
"I get the feeling that I'm being played with," he said. "I can't cash a check at the bank to get any real cash, but I can still buy anything with my credit card. So all I can get is what I need to live on."
"How much is that?" Casey asked.
"A half a million a year or so," Waldo said.
"Good money," Casey said.
"Where's it leading?" Waldo asked.
"A half million to cop a feel? For a little goose? A spank? Hey, Waldo, I'm a cop. I get paid a lot less for a lot tougher work."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying for a half million, I'd paddle the pope," Casey said.
"But where does it end?"
"What do you care?" Casey said.
"What are you saying?" Waldo asked.
"Spank the girl is what I'm saying."
Waldo shook his head. Something deep inside him said no. Enough. Bit by bit, he had been played into losing every little piece of himself. He knew that to go on further was to lose everything. Even going back to Millicent would be preferable. He was getting out.
"No," he said firmly. "I want to turn these people or this thing, whatever it is, in. I've had enough. I've gone far enough. I guess you do have to pay for what you get, and I'll pay whatever I have to pay."
"Are you sure?" asked Detective Casey.
"Yes," said Waldo.
"Tell everything? Littlest details? Everything? You're willing to give up everything?"
Waldo nodded.
"Listen, buddy. As a friend. Why don't you just give the broad a little bump on the bottom and pick up your dough?"
"Dammit, Casey, it's illegal and I'm not doing it anymore. Some things I won't do for money. Even big money."