Fool Me Once

Lately, he'd taken the time to review many of the books...just to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Alarmed at the arguments about trivial matters and his wife's increasingly hostile indifference, Ryan hid a miniature, voice-operated tape recorder under the front car seat in his wife's two-year-old Celica. When he retrieved it early one Sunday morning--while his wife still slept--he discovered his suspicions were well founded.

He listened to two conversations with girlfriends who had been in the car with her, and a half-dozen one-sided cell phone calls Carrie made. They all included references to someone named "Sean." The last conversation on the recording, partially cut off by the end of the tape, confirmed Ryan's suspicion the man they were talking about was Sean Michaels, Carrie's immediate supervisor in the main offices of the big downtown bank.

It didn't surprise Ryan much. Carrie's first adultery had been with a co-worker at the bank where she'd worked at the time. "Marshall" had been the supervising teller on Carrie's shift. They'd grown close over lunches and during long, boring interludes of little activity. It wasn't a big stretch to understand Carrie would be unfaithful to Ryan again with another supervisor.

Once he made himself look, he found numerous signals she was cheating and all of them were mentioned in the books. Carrie thought she was being smart and hiding what she was doing. She thought she had him fooled. Instead, Ryan knew what she was up to almost as soon as she started trying to deceive him. Such knowledge must inevitably lag behind the events a little, but he caught on very quickly...faster than he could have without having gone through Carrie's first adultery and its aftermath.

Once he was sure of what was happening, he began detaching. He let each newly discovered deception wound him. He let the acid of betrayal eat at the love he had for his wife. It was a measured thing. He wanted it all to hurt. He wanted his feelings for Carrie to diminish as quickly as they could. It worked, and actually faster than he thought it would. Gradually, Carrie's adultery burned away his love for her. When he couldn't find a trace of love for her inside him--even in the lonely hours of the night--he knew he was ready.

Chapter 2

"Hey, handsome...want a booth or a table?"

The friendly woman's voice brought Ryan back to his senses. He'd allowed his mind to wander a long way afield while he waited for the hostess to seat him. He was preoccupied a lot these days. He looked forward to getting his mind back. Not having himself under control bothered him.

"Oh...whatever," he replied, not caring in the least if he sat in a café booth or at a table. "How about some place near a window where I can see out, but where it's quiet too?"

"Sure," the short, rotund waitress shot back cheerfully. "Let's go...over this way."

Ryan followed her to a sunlight booth against the rear wall beyond the big group of regular customers and separated from them by a chest-high partition.

"Can I get ya some coffee, honey?" she asked while Ryan folded his 6 feet, 1inch frame into the constricted space between the tabletop and unmoving bench seat. It was tight for a big man getting in, but once there, the table was at a convenient height and a good distance from his body for eating or working on his laptop.

"Black, hot, and lots of it," Ryan returned.

The hostess/waitress smiled. Not that they had any of the designer brews here, but she didn't even like beingasked for a "cappuccino" or the like. It made her wonder just how much of a man a guy could be to want to drink something with a name like that. Her approval showed in her eyes.

While she filled the insulated pitcher back at the counter, she let her eyes rest on the big man who'd begun coming in every morning and evening last Thursday. He owned a small construction company, she'd learned--one that specialized in minor renovations, interior remodeling, and some building restorations. He dressed well and usually in a tailored business suit, but his strong hands were callused. This man had worked hard with his hands in the past, and most likely still did on occasion. Yesterday morning, Sunday, he'd came in with blue jeans and a work shirt on that had seen a lot of use.

"What can I get ya this morning, sugar," she asked after pouring her customer his first cup. She put the pitcher on the table close enough for him to reach out with his long arms and far enough from his hands to not be in the way. He smiled his appreciation.

"Orange juice, western omelet, hash browns, biscuits, and a side of ham?" he answered, pointing at menu item number six. She'd expected that. His order hadn't changed the last three mornings. She took the refolded menu from his hands after writing up his order.

"Comin' right up," she told him and walked away. She'd love to stay and chat with the man. The more she saw of him, the more she realized how much she liked his clear blue eyes, the strong chin, and...well, he looked like he was a hunk under those clothes. She wondered...and then she made herself cut off that line of thought. She was seeing Fred...had been for near a year now...and she didn't want to get sidetracked. He was too young for her anyway.

Ryan watched her slide the check with his order under the spring clip on the shiny metal order wheel and spin it around so the cook could see it. The cook nodded his understanding he had a new order. The hostess rushed off to greet more customers.

The line was getting longer. It looked like most of the little town had decided to not cook their own breakfast this early Monday morning.

There was a rising buzz of affable conversation, punctuated with the sounds of pieces of crockery being bumped against each other and the occasional peal of laughter. The smells of cooking eggs, bacon and sausage, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls emanating from the kitchen was making him salivate.

Ryan smiled. He liked it here, and he was beginning to like the cheerful, pleasant waitress a lot. She seemed to typify the folks in this small town...a village really. There probably weren't five hundred souls in the whole place. Most of the people he'd seen here so far were a lot like the waitress...reserved at first...outgoing and friendly once she got to know you. Yesterday, Sunday, she'd sat down across the table from him and chatted with him for twenty minutes in a slow period. It had impressed Ryan no end.

There was acrowd of people trying to get seated now. It was early, but folks in rural parts of Texas still started their days early to avoid the heat of the day. It probably wasn't necessary anymore, and there would be even less justification once Ryan's crew upgraded the air conditioning in the old courthouse, but it was a thing their parents and grandparents had done. In the absence of any really good reason to change, they kept on as they always had.

Only fifty miles or so outside of San Antonio...a metropolitan area with 1.5 million citizens...this small town hadn't changedthat much from the way it was in the late nineteenth century. Oh, the big slab of concrete that was Interstate 10 ran east and west just a couple hundred yards from the front door of the café, but the regulars hardly noticed.

He thought their grandfathers and grandmothers had probably taken as little note of the big herds of longhorns coming through after the civil war. For the umpteenth time since he'd come here, Ryan wistfully wondered what his world would have been like if he'd been alive back then. He'd always had this feeling he'd been born about 150 years too late.

He shook off the nostalgic mood. The hot coffee helped. He looked at it suspiciously. It looked, and tasted, strong enough to float one of the horseshoes another of his crews had dug up last Friday. They were clearing land out behind one of the local rancher's house to put up a separate garage and had come across a number of interesting finds. A second sip confirmed his first impression. It might even have floated a couple of the heavy iron shoes. He was glad he'd come to the little town to personally supervise a number of small-scale renovation projects. This was somegood coffee.

Ryan Gilchrist was a small-time contractor, just as he'd been four years ago. He was still a little frog in a big pond but, that having been said, he'd grown quite a bit during that period. There were plenty of tadpoles swimming around in the pond that were a lot smaller than he was now. In fact, the operation had grown so large, he had to spend most of his time with his butt firmly fixed in a chair behind a desk. He'd had to rent office space in a big building downtown. He hated working there. He often told folks he'd given up doing useful work.

He'd finished up a degree at UTSA over the past four years, going to school at night mostly. He'd had to take time off from work and finish some courses in residence during the daytime toward the end. He came away with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Resource Management but it wasn't as useful a thing as he'd thought it would be.

When he'd been looking through the school's catalog, he'd thought the courses in this degree plan would teach him to better manage his burgeoning little company. Some actually had proven to be very useful and others were "okay" courses. Most of them though...well, he'd had to figure out how to "learn" any number of irrelevancies just so he could answer test questions correctly. More than once, he'd had to grit his teeth and select answers he knew were totally wrong in the real world. That had irritated him no end. It was all over now, and the memory of the aggravation was fading quickly. He knew, though, he'd never go back to get a higher degree.

His mind drifted from topic to topic...and then back again. He was waiting for his breakfast to be served in a warm café full of friendly people. He appreciated the warmth...and the friendliness. There was little of either at home these days. His thoughts automatically shied away from thoughts of home. He didn't really have one anymore. There were better things to think about.

His business...things were going pretty well with it, everything considered. He'd even had to hire a secretary just to field all the phone calls that were coming in. Between her and a part-time CPA, the payrolls were processed and sent electronically to the employees' banks on payday. All of the Federal and State reports were filled out and forwarded to the correct agency on time too. Ryan concentrated on scheduling, personnel issues, and getting all the logistical details taken care of. He had eight crews working for him now--fifty-two men and women all together. Half of them were ex-marines and soldiers.

He'd come to rely on their maturity and high sense of responsibility and they'd responded. Most of the projects Ryan turned up were based on word-of-mouth advertising. His ex-servicemen and the others easily impressed the company's clients with their dedication, attention to detail, and the overall quality of the finished product. Today, he had three crews here in this small Texas town, out away from the big city. They were all working hard.

He told himself, and anyone who would listen, that he was here in the little town supervising the joint effort. In fact, he was here hiding from his wife because he couldn't stand the sight of her anymore.

********

"No, no," he growled softly into his coffee cup. "Fool me twice...shame on me. Huh uh...no damned way that's gonna happen."

He wasn't about to accept a second adultery on Carrie's part. He wasn't certain why he'd stayed around the first time but whatever the reason had been, he sure wasn't going to do it again. He had a plan...and it was almost time for the endgame.

After he heard the first tape recording, he made a point of secreting the tape recorder with a fresh miniature cassette in his wife's Celica every morning, and listening to the used ones sometime later in the day. He was amazed to hear his wife deriding him, his small contractor company, their friends, and virtually every aspect of their lives together.

More than once he listened as she completely rewrite much of their history together. Some of the things she said he did, particularly anecdotes about how he treated her...damn it, they flatly hadnot happened. He'd never taken a hand to her, much less had he ever beaten her as she claimed. Most of the other remarks were similarly colored by revisionist history. He didn't understand why the woman he'd married was doing this.

Gradually, Ryan had begun to put things together. As vigilant as he'd been, certain things had gotten in below the radar. He realized now many of their friends had been exposed to a steady litany of complaints she'd thrown their way. He could see the effect of her lies in their eyes. Some of the couples he and Carrie had regularly socialized with now avoided him whenever possible. When he did attend a function, he understood why they were reserved, even withdrawn, around him. It had to be because of things Carrie was saying about him. He knew why his brother-in-law and both sisters-in-law avoided him now. He understood why his wife's parents would hardly speak to him these days.

Her disrespect changed what he intended to do. Before, he'd determined he would simply confront her with his knowledge and let her know he was leaving. Texas was a no-fault state. It would have been a simple matter of waiting sixty days for a judge's signature on a piece of paper.

Now...now, he wanted proof of her adulterous conduct. Heneeded to go through a divorce trial; he would demand one so he could tell his part of the story. He'd have his attorney challenge every motion made by hers. Ryan's lawyer would propose hard-to-meet conditions in return. The hearings, proposals, and counter proposals would go on indefinitely. It might bankrupt him but he didn't care. If his business went under, it would have the beneficial effect of keeping her from getting a share of the little construction outfit that was just beginning to grow into something nice.

He had no way to refute most of her allegations. Most of the things she said were going on simply had never occurred...and it was damned difficult to prove something didn't happen. One of the persistent themes was that he was physically abusive; she'd repeated that in several cell phone conversations he'd overheard.

That one he thought he could rebut. He had a persistent daydream of standing up in court and tearing off his shirt to show everyone the work-hardened muscles in his chest and arms. He was going to ask the judge whether he thought a 220-pound man with his obvious strength could possibly beat his wife, as Carrie told more than one of her friends, without putting her in the hospital for lengthy periods. It was only a fantasy. He knew it would never happen, but it kept him from freaking out in some of the darker nights.

Carrie's deceit ate at Ryan's insides. It was a thing that demanded punishment of some sort. He couldn't understand where her revisionist history was coming from. He didn't know why she felt compelled to destroy his image with her family and everyone they knew. She shouldn't be allowed to do this but he was helpless to do anything about it right now.

The helplessness only made things worse. The anger was building inside him and he didn't know how much longer he could go on. He knew himself fairly well. He just wasn't a man who could take something like this for very long without lashing out.

He chuckled as he stared at nothing outside the café window. He'd remembered something the psychotherapist said to him.

Doctor Christopher had told Ryan, while he was still a patient of the doctor's, that he was just atad confrontation-prone. Ryan had laughed with his counselor. He knew the old doctor was absolutely right. In fact, he'd quit carrying the Glock a few weeks back because he was afraid he'd do something he'd regret.

Before he'd have used it to protect the love he had for Carrie. Now there was nothing left. She was no longer worth the possibility...the probability, more likely...that he'd spend a long term in the Huntsville prison if he shot her or her lover, Sean. She just wasn't worth it. He didn't want to go to prison.

His mind was still in neutral. There was nothing pressing he had to deal with and he didn't bother trying to keep his thoughts confined to one channel. He wasn't trying to think his way through his problems; his thoughts wandered a little further afield while he waited for his breakfast.

He didn't like jails. Even his slight acquaintance with them had soured him on them forever. The judge had given him an unbelievable light sentence for smashing his wife's first lover's balls and bruising Carrie's groin so badly. The prosecutor, knowing his jury pool, had opted beforehand to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor and the court had gone down that road with him. Seeing this, Ryan's attorney had talked Ryan into not asking for a jury trial.

The sentence had been 40 hours of community service and 30 days in the county jail, a far cry from hard time in one of Texas's prison facilities. On top of that, all but 7 days of the jail time had been suspended as a "deferred sentence." Even those 7 days had been pretty easy time. He'd only stayed in lockup at night and been released every morning to go to work. After 18 months with no additional violent incidents, the judge had vacated the rest of the sentence.

He'd already done the 40 hours of community service, of course and didn't regret it a bit. Those hours, and a couple hundred of hours extra, had been spent reading to children in the public library. He'd enjoyed that part of the sentence.

Ryan had heard through the grapevine that his wife's fuck buddy had been outraged at the light sentence Ryan received. "Marshall" lost one testicle and the other one healed very slowly. The man hadn't made any formal protest though. His wife had told him sweetly they already had three children and that was enough. Besides, she said, if he didn't shut up and start making things up to her and the kids, she was going to cut the remaining ball out of his scrotum and feed it to him for supper.

They moved to Denver when he was well enough. The first time he saw them on a restaurant menu, Marshall was physically ill when he realized exactly what "Rocky Mountain Oysters" actually were. The family had to leave the restaurant, with grinning apologies from Marshall's wife to the hostess who'd just seated them. The kids were just as happy to eat fried chicken at the KFC down by the Interstate anyway. Marshall never knew his wife passed the story on to friends back in San Antonio. The grapevine is a wonderful thing.

The smile the memory brought to mind faded slowly. Another recollection took its place.

On a business trip to Dallas a year ago, he'd found a store that was going out of business in a moderately rundown suburban strip mall. They sold all kinds of "spy" equipment but the location had been poorly chosen. The owner was going to relocate to one of the major downtown malls, but there was a gap between the ending of his lease there and the availability of space downtown. He was in a position where he had to get rid of his inventory at cut-rate prices or store it at ruinous monthly rates in a warehouse somewhere. Ryan picked up a dozen lipstick-case sized cameras, phone line recorders, binoculars, a good digital camera, three VCRs, and plenty of other supporting gear for professional-style surveillances.

He'd only used the equipment lately, within the last three months actually. It hadn't been necessary before. He'd hidden the small spy cameras upstairs and down, not knowing where Carrie would entertain her new lover if, and when, she brought him home with her. As it happened, she showed no scruples at all in taking Sean into her and Ryan's marital bed when Ryan went hunting one weekend with her father.