Abacus

sleep. He tossed and turned for hours as he endured the same reoccurring nightmare. At least once a month this same nightmare would wake him from his sleep, sometimes he yelled out. During it the heads of Jenkins, Fleming and other crooks from the moleskin book spun around him like a perpetual felonious Ferris wheel.
    As they spun around him, he saw the detail of their faces up close. They were pale and ghoulish, like they had been dead for months. As they spun past him Jenkins would say, “I killed your parents and I’ll do it again. You can’t stop all of us.” Others from the book would say, “You’ll never beat us, there are way too many of us.”
    As they goaded him, Randall felt frustrated, like his hands were tied. He wanted to stop them, but he couldn’t. It made him feel helpless again. Like that helpless kid who was unable to save his parents in their time of need.
    Waking from the nightmare, he was angry and restless. He stared up at the ceiling and concentrated on the light fitting to try and erase the images. He thought about how he could stop them. I’ve got to finish him off. They’re only going to stop when he is dead. Jenkins must die.
    Loosening his tie , he sat on the side of the bed and kicked off his shoes. He sat there with head in his hands, his hair soaked in sweat. He needed to talk to someone, but it had to be someone who understood his torment. He looked at his watch and saw it was ten thirty at night.
    Standing up, he reached for his phone and typed a text message. Randall, just need a chat. He sent the message to DL, lay back on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.
    Minute s later the phone vibrated in his hand. “Hi, Noel, sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said apologetically.
    “It’s okay , don’t worry.” Noel’s soothing, mature voice gave him the reassurance he needed. “You know you can speak with me at any time.”
    “I’m still having those issues sleeping. I just need to talk to someone. The trouble is, you’re it. You’re the only one I can talk to.
    “Well , shoot, lad,” Noel urged.
    Randall sat up on the end of the bed and paused, a little embarrassed about what he was going to ask. “The thing is, Noel, I keep having this nightmare. I see crooks’ faces spinning around me, taunting me. Jenkins is one of them. He tells me he killed my parents and he will kill again and there is nothing I can do about it. I keep seeing the faces of other crooks who tell me that we will never win as there are too many of them. The trouble is, when I think about it, we may only be just chipping away at the surface, we could be doing more. Do you agree?”
    There was a drawn- out silence as Noel considered the question. “Why, what do you think, Randall?”
    “I don’t know sometimes. I think the nightmare gets to me because I can’t get to Jenkins to finish him off. But there may be an element of truth to what they are telling me. I think we could be doing more on a much larger scale.”
    Noel took a moment to think about his response. “If you want us to kill Jenkins it will be done, you just say the word. I am more than happy to arrange it if you think it will help.”
    “No , he is mine, leave him,” Randall said firmly.
    “But on that issue, what is DL going to do when I finally kill him, ’cause I’m gonna take the chance as soon as it is presented. I will probably be locked up for the rest of my life so my DL work will finish. But I’ll be happy in my cold cell, because I will finally have some inner peace, you know.”
    “ Don’t you worry because we have considered that.”
    “And… ”
    “ You’re not a well man, Randall.”
    “What do you mean , not well? I feel fine.”
    “We have compiled a dossier on you from your childhood right up to the current day. Our in-house psych has already pre-prepared your defence. You will be portrayed as a basket case, a person who is not fit to enter a plea. We will hand pick our judge and once he looks at your past, the matter won’t even get to trial. You will do about six months in an institution for treatment, then be out again. You won’t serve a day in jail. Rest assured.”
    “True?”
    “True.”
    “That is good news . My only reservation up to now was my children; I hated the thought of leaving them without their dad. I didn’t want them to have to visit their old man in jail. Hearing there is a chance of avoiding jail time gives me a lot of comfort, Noel. Thanks.”
    “ Now, back to