Zero day, p.3
Zero Day, page 3
***
Terrell scanned the crowd at the sports bar as he, Ray and Ray’s fiancée Brittany made their way through the crowd. After a minute or so he saw Jayne sitting at a table away from the bar, with two guys standing nearby, one white and one Latino. She saw him and waved her hand, then turned back to the guys standing by her. They looked none-too-pleased as they watched Terrell and Ray, along with Ray’s fiancée Brittany, walk their way, and after a brief word with Jayne they departed.
After greeting Jayne and introducing Brittany, Terrell asked her who the guys were. Jayne replied that she had no idea, they had just come over and started talking to her while she was waiting for Terrell and Ray to arrive. It didn’t surprise Terrell one bit that Jayne would attract male attention at a bar, or anywhere else. Besides her blond hair and lithe body, she was a looker, of that there was no doubt. He wouldn’t say she was necessarily model pretty, but she definitely would draw a second, and maybe a third, glance in a crowd.
He wondered, not for the first time, what type of game she was playing by inviting Ray and him out for a drink. She had said she wanted to thank them from saving her from the rabid coyote, but he suspected there might be more to it. Not that he thought of himself as God’s gift to women, by any means. But he had a feeling that there might be something more than just friendly regard in her attitude towards him. Of course, it could all be in his mind. He intended to play it cool and see how things developed. He had enough experience with women in his 34 years on the planet to know that a woman would let you know what was on her mind eventually: once she did, he would make his decision–if there was one to make.
They talked briefly about the terrible news from earlier in the day, when a man had shot up a restaurant near the USC campus in Los Angeles, killing 12 patrons before the police gunned him down. The shooter had apparently gotten into an argument with some other restaurant patrons, and things had escalated quickly from there. This followed on the news a day earlier of the tragedy in Anaheim, a suburban town south of Los Angeles, where a man, reportedly enraged after his wife had burnt dinner, had knifed her and their three children to death. It made Terrell think of those prepper websites he would visit from time to time for shits and giggles. Now it didn’t seem so funny–maybe they were right, and society really was going to hell in a handbag. If this continued, they certainly would be raking in the bucks selling those bugout packages they were always advertising–featuring long-lasting food supplies and whatever else a person might need to survive the zombie apocalypse if and when it arrived.
The conversation quickly turned to less depressing subjects, such as the upcoming football season. Jayne said she was a fan–and she impressed Terrell with her take on the current NFL landscape. She had apparently done her research as far as he was concerned; she knew that Ray and Terrell had played college ball together, after which Terrell had played seven seasons in the pros as an outside linebacker before injury ended his career.
Terrell kept an eye on Ray as they talked. His friend had been a bit off in recent days. He was generally a stoic guy, not one to complain or get angry easily. But twice this week Terrell had had to intercede to prevent Ray from getting in (starting, to be precise) a fight.
He wondered if the coyote bite and subsequent rabies shot could have anything to do with it. The doctors had said that rabies typically took 2 to 3 months to manifest–so Ray had received treatment in plenty of time. But Terrell couldn’t think of anything else that might have caused the change in behavior. Ray and Brittany seemed to be getting along fine, with their wedding only two months off. Could the rabies antidote be behind his friend’s behavior? He had no reason to believe this was the case, but he disliked taking pills or medication of any type, so perhaps it was just his own personal anti-prescription medicine bias speaking.
Of course, he couldn’t be too harsh on modern medicine. After the back injury he’d suffered towards the end of his fourth year in the pros, he had thought his ability to walk without pain, much less his ability to play pro football, was gone forever. A herniated disc was no laughing matter, that was without a doubt. After two years of trying to fight off the pain he had gone in for back surgery, and to his amazement the pain had vanished, for the most part. It had bought him another three years in the pros before the cumulative toll of the various injuries he had suffered over the years ended his career for good. On cold days now his arthritis kicked in, in the back and elsewhere. But that he could deal with, with the help of a variety of natural supplements he took to ameliorate the condition.
Turning his thoughts back to Ray’s condition, Terrell had been relieved to hear that his friend was scheduled to return on Monday to the medical center, where he had been given the rabies antidote for some follow-up tests. If there was anything amiss with him, hopefully his doctors would spot it then.
The talk at the table turned to the upcoming nuptials, and Terrell watched on as Brittany described the plans she and Ray (mostly she, Terrell suspected) had made for the event. He wondered again about Jayne’s intentions as the two girls talked. He had no objection to dating a white girl, assuming she was so inclined and the two of them hit it off. He knew some brothers who refused to date white girls on principle, and one brother who only dated white girls for the same reason (what that principle had been, he couldn’t recall, if he had ever known), but that wasn’t him. He thought back to that comedian Ray was so enamored with, what had he called himself? An equal opportunity offender, or something like that. Well, Terrell thought of himself as an equal opportunity dater. He had dated Latinas, African American girls, a couple Caucasian girls, and one Asian girl. As long as there was a connection between the lady in question and himself, he was good to go.
That didn’t mean there weren’t complications at times. He recalled the looks he was sure were drilling into the back of his head when he was dating Hayley, a white girl from a very wealthy family. Or the reluctance of his Asian girlfriend to take him home to meet her parents, who she had feared would not be as polite as she hoped. (In the end he had met them, and it had been fine.) But he was getting way ahead of events, he told himself. For all he knew, Jayne just wanted to thank them for their heroics, and that would be the end of it.
At that moment, the two guys from earlier, along with another friend, an Asian guy with long hair, approached their table. Only in LA, Terrell thought. The country was certainly much more diverse these days than it had been in the past, but LA was diversity on steroids. Interestingly, while the white guy and the Hispanic guy were a bit above average in height, the Asian guy was as tall as Terrell, who was well above average himself. So much for stereotypes.
“Hey, aren’t you Terell Tremblay?” the Hispanic guy asked.
“Better known as Terell the Terrible,” the white guy added.
Terrell laughed at his old nickname, earned back in his high school days in Phoenix. “Right you are gentlemen. How can I help you?”
“Would you mind if we got your autograph, we used to watch you back when you played at USC?” the Asian kid said. Actually, Terrell thought, the guys looked to be in their early or mid-20s, about the same age he guessed Jayne was, so hardly a kid. He agreed to sign for them, but just as he took a pen from one of them, Ray stood up. He was a good two inches taller than Terrell, and maybe 30 pounds heavier.
“Can’t you punks see we’re having a private conversation,” he said, his voice thick with rage.
The young men were taken aback by Ray’s belligerence, so Terrell stepped between them and Ray. He needed to cool things down fast. “I’m not sure what’s gotten into my friend,” he said, “can you give me a moment to talk to him please?” The men hesitated, not wanting to look weak in the face of Ray’s aggression, Terrell intuited; but they were smart enough not to want to tangle with an enraged man of Ray’s bulk for no good reason, so they started to walk away. This wasn’t enough for Ray however, who walked around Terrell and sucker punched the Hispanic guy, who crumbled to the floor instantly.
“What the hell,” the Asian guy shouted, before taking a swing at Ray. His blow connected with the side of Ray’s head but seemed to have little discernible effect on the former USC lineman, who tackled the man before Terrell could stop him. Once they were on the ground, he landed a right cross to the young man’s face before grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming his head into the floor while Terrell tried to pry him off.
Terrell wasn’t benching the same amount he had during his days playing pro football, but he prided himself on staying in good shape, both aerobically and lifting wise. But for all his strength he couldn’t pull Ray off the man. The young man’s other friends joined him and together it was all they could do to prevent Ray from killing the man below him. Finally, the club bouncers arrived, both as large as Ray or larger, and between the five of them they pulled him off his victim and subdued him. After continuing to struggle for a time, his limbs thrashing spastically, Ray subsided and lay still.
After talking to the man Ray had attacked, who apparently didn’t want to press charges, despite sporting a black eye and a large lump on his head, the bouncers told Terrell to get his friend out of here or they would call the police anyway. All of a sudden, Ray surprised Terrell by doing something he had never see the man do: cry. He sat on the floor, sobbing quietly, and Terrell could just make out the words as he said: “What is happening to me?”
***
Later that night Terrell lay in bed thinking. Jayne was asleep beside him. She had asked if they could go somewhere to talk after the incident at the sports bar. He had suggested an all-night café he knew of, but Jayne had said she wanted something stronger to drink after what they had been through. She said she had a good bottle of aged bourbon at her apartment and she figured this was as good a time as any to drink it.
After arriving at her apartment, they had drunk the bourbon (which Terrell had to admit had been as fine a spirit as he had tasted in a long time) and spoken of the night’s shocking events. Jayne had been afraid that she had somehow caused the incident by setting up their get-together, but Terrell reassured her by telling that similar events had transpired with Ray recently. None of them had escalated to this level, true, but it had been bound to happen sometime the way it was going. Thankfully, nobody had been killed and hopefully somebody could figure out what was wrong with Ray, because this was not the friend Terrell knew.
Ray was big and burly, yes, but Terrell had never seen him get in a fight outside of the battles he fought in the trenches as a lineman. Ray was a smart guy. After college he had gone to work as an architect at his father’s firm in Los Angeles.
In any case, after drinking and talking for a time, one thing had led to another and here he was, lying beside her in bed. Whether it would be anything more than a one night stand he couldn’t say. But he was in no mood to think about that now. What was wrong with Ray? He thought again of the incident with the coyote and the rabies shot Ray had been given. That was the before, as he saw it, and his crazy behavior over the past week was the after. What had happened to him?
The soft respiration of Jayne’s breathing comforted him as he lay next to her. As he continued musing about Ray and his situation a name occurred to him. Jeff Kronstedt. A second- string tight end on the USC squad which had won the Rose Bowl when Terrell was at the college. Jeff had been a scrappy, hard-working player whose great hands made up for any lack of speed. But it wasn’t the man’s prowess at hauling in errant throws which had made Terrell think of him. While Jeff had been a great teammate and hard worker, whether during practice or at a game, it was his academic chops which made Terrell think of him now. Kronstedt had majored in biology, where he had been an honors student, and gone on to be a research scientist at a major biotech firm in San Diego.
He had lost touch with Jeff after the man finished grad school and moved to San Diego, but he thought that if anyone could provide some insight into what was going on with Ray it would be their former teammate. He would reach out to Kronstedt, or Dr. Kronstedt, now that he had a PhD, tomorrow morning. Comforted by the thought that he might be able to do something, however minor, to help Ray, Terrell took a quick look at Jayne, who was still sleeping soundly, then closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.
Chapter 5
Day 5
D erek quaffed his beer as he surveyed the people around him. Jack Laird held weekend parties at his lakefront house a few times a year, and they were almost always good fun. Jack was the chief investment officer at Asclepius Investment Partners, a hedge fund that sent a lot of business PTP’s way. Jack was 15 years or so older than Derek and Jay, who was at the party as well with his wife Dawn in tow. That was a relationship that worked well, as far as Derek could tell. It wasn’t that the two of them were perfectly matched, as Jay tended to be fairly phlegmatic in conversation, while Dawn was a volume talker. But maybe that was for the best, as how often did two people who were exactly alike make for good spouses/partners?
His musing on the complexity of modern relationships was interrupted by Leland Talbot, who held out his fist for a bump as he walked by with a comely blonde at his side. Leland was an independent floor trader who had a good feel for the markets and a good sense of humor to boot, so Derek had suggested to Jack that he be invited to these parties. Besides his charm, there was no doubt Leland was a handsome man. Derek admitted that to himself as he watched the trader show . . . Cecilia, he believed it was, the view of the lake from the balcony. Getting Leland invited here certainly wasn’t helping him score points with any of the eligible single ladies who might be in attendance, he thought ruefully.
The two of them had talked earlier about the week’s market action, as well as the tragic news of the day from France and Los Angeles. The occurrence of yet another mass shooting in America was bad enough, but the attack in France on an elementary school, or whatever the French equivalent was called, was truly horrifying. From what he had read, the attacker had been a parent of a student at the school who was aggrieved over the school’s treatment of his child. He had used a knife to kill 10 students, a teacher and one police officer before he was shot dead.
Leland had related a story of his own about a disturbing incident earlier in the day. He had been grabbing a sandwich at a Subway franchise near his house and a man had started yelling at the staff for taking too long to make his sandwich. Another patron had told the man to calm down, at which point the disgruntled customer had hauled off and slugged him, then jumped on him and tried to bite him. Luckily, three football players from the University of Illinois were standing in line with Leland at the time, and the four of them had managed to drag the violent customer off the man and eject him from the store. What is the world coming to when you can’t even buy a sandwich in peace? Derek had said. Leland had agreed that the level of civility in society certainly seemed to be on the decline these days.
Speaking of lack of civility, Leland’s story made Derek think of a road rage incident he had witnessed yesterday. The driver of a black SUV had cut off another driver and himself turning on to Wacker Drive. When all three cars had stopped at the next light, the well-dressed middle aged man who was the driver of the other car, a new model Lexus, had leaped out of his vehicle, opened the trunk, grabbed a baseball bat and proceeded to bash in the SUV’s side window before the light changed and it drove off in a hurry. Derek supposed that he should have called the cops and reported the incident, but he had been so shocked that he had simply driven off when the light turned green.
As Derek drained the last of his beer from the bottle, Jack Laird approached him with a beer of his own in hand.
“What do you think of Sensortech Quantum Dynamics these days?” Jack asked. This was a Chicagoland maker of high-tech sensors used in drones and other military applications.
“Ever since Jensen and his merry band of hawks got the boot, I’ve stayed away from defense names,” Derek said. President Jensen had been what some might call a fanatical believer in deterrence through military might–during his term in office defense stocks as a whole had soared to new heights.
“I hear ya. But it’s not like President Garcia has taken a hatchet to military spending, even though you might think so from the performance of many of the stocks in the sector. Anyway, you may want to take a look at it, I think it could be a good play with the introduction of their new drone sensor only a month or so away.”
Derek looked at Jack closely. The man was well connected, and while he had a clean record with the SEC, he was known to edge close to the line when it came to acquiring and acting on information that might be considered illicit from some perspectives. But whatever info he had on the stock, whether honestly acquired or not, he knew better than to reveal his source to Derek, leaving him free to make a play on it if he so desired.
“I’ll check it out,” he said.
It had been a good month for the firm so far, and Derek had some funds in his personal account he was looking to place. He had missed out on Jack’s last tip and watched regretfully as it tripled in three months. He hadn’t hesitated due to any qualms about the provenance of the pick, he had just been busy at work (and at home trying to salvage their relationship with Daphne) and hence too distracted to follow up on the pick. He resolved not to do the same this time–he would do some quick due diligence and if everything seemed kosher, he would buy some shares right away.
“Here’s another tip for you, a super speculative biotech play. I’m still doing due diligence on it. In fact, I’d be interested to hear what you think about it, if you get a chance to look it over. The name is Interference Biomechanical Technologies.”
