LITTLE BLACK BOOK

“Open the door!” Incessant banging on, and rattling of the fortified cockpit door accompanied screams of panicked pleading from the other side. “You’re going to get us all killed!”

Jacob sat in horror, frozen to the co-pilot’s seat, awestruck at the events unfolding around him as Samantha, firmly gripping the yoke, reached for the P.A. receiver.

“Attention Walmart shoppers,” she said with a coy sort of calmness, her voice echoing through the plane. “We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you an important announcement: I don’t know how to fly a 747, but I am flying this one until the big, ugly guy in the brown coat, and glasses, flying coach, is tied up and held down. Want to not crash? Get him!” Her impromptu announcement did nothing to abate the small mob of pilots and stewards banging on the door.

“...Why?” It was all Jacob could think to mutter, glancing over at Samantha with an expression of horror.

Samantha looked over at him, letting a grin spread across her face. “Yolo,” she said.

Jacob’s eyes followed a small fly buzzing around the closet-sized screening room of his doctor’s office, barely comprehending the words being spoken by the oncologist sat in front of him.

“I know this is a lot to take in, Jacob,” he continued. “It’s important that you don’t shut out support structures in your life. Friends, family. We’re going to fight this cancer aggressively, but they’re the ones that are going to help keep you-“

“I don’t have any friends,” Jacob said as if waking up to the conversation from a lethargic trance. “I grew up in a foster home too so no real family.”

“I’m just saying... Don’t think your life is on hold, waiting for remission. Go on dates. Go out to eat. Go to the movies. Go to work. That kind of thing.”

“No job. Can’t seem to get an agent at my age.”

“Listen. Live. That’s all I’m sayin. Here,” the doctor scribbled an address down on his paper pad, ripping the top sheet off, and handing it to Jacob. “This is the patient care center on east 34th and 4th Ave. You’ll go there for your treatments. Pick up these medications before your first appointment. See Jenny at the front desk on your way out.”

“Hey, Doc, uhm,” Jacob paused to slip his shirt back on. “Same deal as before? I’ll leave Jenny the check, but can you not cash it until Thursday?”

“Yeah yeah yeah...” the oncologist said as the exam room door closed behind him.

Stepping out of the doctor’s office into the hustle and bustle of the city hit Jacob in the face like walking into the worlds loudest refrigerator. He propped his jacket’s collar up to shield his face, and started towards the subway.

As Jacob walked, multiple vibrations emanated from his pants pocket. Could it be? Could his auditions from last week be finally calling him back? Pulling his cellphone out, his hopes felt a bit dashed away as the notifications showed to be from Snapchat. The sender’s name was ‘SamanthaCummings&Going’. He opened the app to a picture of a sultry, young, red haired vixen in lacy white lingerie blowing a kiss through multiple bedazzle filters. The caption read “Message me for premium and hookup prices. XoX Samantha.”

If only, he thought, chuckling to himself as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. Jacob made a hard right turn out of the crowd into a dingy alleyway. The cut through saved him a few steps to the subway. He had walked this route quite a few times now. The alley was almost reminiscent of old NewYork. The kind of alley Hollywood would imagine a crime scene in: dirty and lined with graffiti and dumpsters. In the moment, it made Jacob think of the one-line bit part he’d auditioned for as a first responder. He stopped to picture it, in his head, the scene he had rehearsed, and it taking place in this alley.

“What do you mean resuscitate,” Jacob pitched the lines, suddenly falling into character, pointing to a spot on the ground. “That is a corpse, Officer! This man is dea-“

Jacob’s rehearsal was cut short by the sudden meat-smacking thud of a body, fallen from the sky, hitting the pavement perfectly in front where he had been pointing. An older man in a tattered suit lay in front of him, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. Jacob froze, not immediately sure how to process what he was seeing. Shouts from the rooftop above prompted him to look up. Two heads were perched over the side from where the man had fallen, looking down.

“Aye, buddy! Don’t you freakin move! I wanna talk to yous!” The two men vanished back to the roof, presumably on their way down.

Jacob’s gaze turned back down to the man on the ground. He lay there blinking and trying to catch his breath, but unable. He had landed with an arm lain across his chest. His blinking, struggling eyes looked up at Jacob, and with subtle gestures, he motioned to the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Jacob knelt down, starting to take panicked breaths, and not sure how to help. The dying man produced from his pocket a small, black, leather journal, its cover tied shut with a single string. “Ta- take...”. He motioned for Jacob.

“What is it, pal? There a number for a relative or something in there? I’ll get ya some help.”

“Go...” said the man, as his whisper faded, seemingly to cue his eyes to roll back into his head. What little struggling he was doing now stopped. He was dead. Jacob’s hands shook uncontrollably.

“Hey!” A voice yelled down the alleyway. The two men from the rooftop were running down they alleyway towards Jacob. “I wanna talk to you!”

Instincts overtook Jacob as the adrenal rush hit its peak. He ran faster than he has ever ran in his life, even pulling dumpsters and throwing trashed boxes out into his pursuers path to slow them.

Somewhere between that alley and the subway station a mile away, he outran them, having executed every parkour-esque move he’d ever seen perpetrated in action movies. Jumping the guard rails and ticket counters. Sliding down the center of the escalator, and finally running into the train car at full tilt, using the brace rail to arrest his momentum. Jacob fell on his back onto the seats, trying to catch his breath as the passenger car doors closed. It was in this safety, and the assurance of the train car leaving station, that Jacob sat up, and examined the black book he had taken from the dead man in the alley, clinched in his hand.

It took multiple stops and turn-arounds for Jacob to finally arrive back at his apartment in lower Brooklyn. Jumping on random trains was not an exercise he had ever attempted in his 34 years living in the city.

Exhaustion and fatigue weighed down on his tired legs as trudged up all twenty-four stairs to his third story apartment. He had been glancing over his shoulder the entire way home. When he finally reached the front stoop of the apartment, he noticed a small pink note was tapped to his door.

“Notice...of...eviction...” he read aloud, snatching the paper up as he did, and balling it up in his hand. He casually chucked it down the stairs as he unlocked and entered the door, immediately dead-bolting it behind him. He rested his head against the door, peering through peep hole for a solid two minutes before finally walking in and falling on his aging, worn out couch. Sleep came instantly.

“Ok, so run me through this again? You’re one of my followers on Snapchat, but the reason you abruptly showed up, and paid me $200 to make out with you, was because the other guys who came running through were chasing you?” Samantha leaned back in the booth seat, fidgeting with the half-empty beer bottle in front of her.

“Yes. They freaking ransacked my apartment. I don’t even know how they knew where I lived?”

“...And they want this book you stole from them?”

“No. A dead guy gave it to me, but... but yeah they want it back.”

“Well... Then give it back to them?”

“Think about it, though. I’m a witness to their murder. This book is probably the only reason I’m alive.”

“What’s in it?”

“There was a grand in cash tucked into the pages, but like everything written is random numbers.” Jacob opened the book to show Samantha, sipping his beer as she flipped through the pages.

“Well, sweetie, the numbers on the left look like GPS coordinates,” she said running her fingers over the penciled lines. “But I don’t know what the other numbers on the right are? One thousand? Five thousand? Nine hundred? And next to those seem to be times?”

“There’s a couple pages like that, and then nothing else. A blank journal. Only other thing is the author signed his name on the back cover. Dee...Dee something, what was it?” Jacob slid the book back over to his side of the booth and flipped to the inside back cover.” “D. DRP.”

“What kind of name is that?”

“I don’t know,” mused Jacob. “Is it a name? Or a code?”

Samanthas eyes widened, suddenly. “Oh my god.”

“What? What do you know?”

“D, period, D, R, P. Dead drop.”

Jacob’s expression was washed with confusion.

“These are dead drops. You said the book had a grand stashed in it?”

“Yeah? So?”

“This...this is some criminal’s pickup schedule! This is like mob stuff.”

Samantha snatched the book back and looked over the numbers. “If these numbers are dollar amounts,” she opened her cell phone and began punching in numbers. “Most of these coordinates are states away but like... these five right here are in the city. Soho, Brooklyn. Queens... there’s over twenty thousand dollars here. Less than an hour by subway.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we can get paid. Think about it? Ten thousand dollars enough to start fresh. Finally get out of the city! And unless you wanna end up dead in the river, you might want to consider it.”

“So we rob the mob, and run away with their cash? Is that what you're suggesting?”

“Yes.”

“...But run where?”

Samantha shrugged. “I’d probably go to Mexico.”

Jacob thought for a second as he starred at Samantha. “Mexico sounds nice.”

“So you stalked my Snapchat for months, and never bothered to hit me up for a good time?” Samantha asked, turning to Jacob who sat in contemplation, looking out at the clouds beneath them.

“Heh. Yeah,” he admitted, returning her gaze.

“Why? Am I not your type? Not attractive enough?” Samantha asked with a playful grin.

Jacob laughed. “No, no. I was just worried you might be like an undercover cop.” Laughter slowly filled the cockpit as the two let laughter swell up over them. They were holding hands just above a plastic grocery bag filled to the brim with $20,000 in cash.

“Should we open the cabin? Let the pilot take over?” Jacob asked as their laughter died down.

“Nah. Let’s put her down on the water. See if we can’t swim away with our cash.”

“Okay,” Jacob said, meeting Samantha’s gaze as she returned her hands to the yoke, and slowly pushed forward.