"Taking Care of Business"

"I'm sorry," the bartender said, pulling the empty tumbler back from the man hunched over the bar. "I think you've had enough."

The man's words didn't register with Spencer Barnes immediately. When they did, he looked up to the server with a feigned look of outrage -- Spencer didn't get angry, and even pretending to be so was difficult for him -- and countered, "I've only had two!"

The bartender just shook his head as he dumped the ice cubes into the bar sink and set the tumbler in a plastic tray. "And that was plenty. I ... I don't mean to be critical, but ... well, you're kind of a light weight, aren't you?"

Spencer's gaze dropped to the condensation ring left behind by his now absent glass as he mumbled, "I don't drink."

"Really...? So ... what are you doing here ... in a bar?"

Spencer drew a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly. He couldn't tell the man; he knew that many people came to their local bartender with their problems, looking for insight ... looking for solutions. But this was one problem that didn't seem to have a solution.

Spencer Barnes kept the books for one of the most exclusive prostitution rings on the East Coast ... and he'd lost the books! Specifically, he'd misplaced the electronic Tablet that he'd recently uploaded most of the business's important information to, from client information to lists of prostitutes to information that neither of them would want anyone to know.

Despite having started as little more than a book keeper twenty years ago, for over a decade he'd practically run the business himself. He'd amassed an amazing amount of information over the years, all protected on an encrypted laptop that wouldn't even turn on without the chip buried in his forearm being within 10 feet of it.

But last week, in an attempt to update the antiquated system, he'd transferred everything to the new Tablet. He'd been unable to get the encryption program to work, so he went to his bank to put it in his safe deposit box in the mean time.

And, of course, that was when the bank got robbed! The four, heavily armed men grabbed cash, cells, and computers from the customers and tellers but -- knowing it was the easiest way to get caught -- avoided the vault and were out of the bank in under four minutes.

And now, everything about the business was out there ... where ever there was. And Spencer ... well, he was dead! If his employer -- the now 50-something Madam who'd begun building this business while still in her teens -- learned about this before he was able to recoup the Tablet, she'd slap the shit out of him until he was crying on his knees, then have someone put a bullet in the back of his head. And if she didn't do it herself, there were always the powerful politicians, underworld bosses, and other unsavory characters whose unencrypted names were now available to which ever of the bank robbers happened to power the Tablet up.

"I'm so fucked," Spencer mumbled.

"That may be," the bartender replied, "but you need to be fucked somewhere else. Can I call you a cab?"

Spencer thought about his situation for a moment. A cab to where...? The morgue? He needed an answer, a way out of this. He knew what the answer was, of course; he just couldn't believe he was considering it...


[OOC -- I'm thinking that maybe Spencer knows an unsavory character from the Tablet who might be able to learn who pulled off the bank heist. If you are interested in writing that character or any of a number of others listed here, drop me a PM. (Do not post here without approval. There are still two posts to come from my other characters and you don't know what's ahead.)]