Whistleblower

A job’s a job, but a man’s got to have his principles.

Photo by Michel Stockman on Unsplash

Dear Tom,

I told your boss to make you come in five days a week, then I broke the motor in the good blinds so you roasted in your corner office. I had him clear your schedule too, so you sat there for eight hours. We got consultants to increase the firewall on your desk specifically so you couldn’t watch movies or scroll the web.

I put rocks in the pressure valves of your tires, screwed the caps on just enough so they would deflate, and I watched you run in your suit to catch the train during the heatwave. At the gym, I stole your shower sandals. We fed your license plate to Flock cameras and had the police pull you over to conduct random sobriety tests.

I made a Grindr account for you, a Tinder account, and then a Bumble account with the settings for friends only. I renewed all the subscriptions you tried to cancel. I paid off your son’s teachers to flag all their writing assignments as AI.

I went through your old Facebook account, found that time you dressed up as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween, and sent it to the press. I made fraudulent charges on your debit card for foreign vitamin supplements. I bribed your therapist to say that all of this was happening because you leaked Finepoint Inc.’s algorithm to the press, and that if you stopped working with the whistleblower lawyers, everything would go back to normal.

I doxed your gardener, your maid, your son’s piano teacher, your other son’s swim coach. I went to the nursing home where your mom is staying and visited her more than you did. I brought her flowers.

I hired a troll farm in Russia to review-bomb your wife’s ceramic shop. I leaked your Social Security information to my contacts in China, who made a virtual you who now has a negative social score. I gave your cell number to the Mormon church and expressed your deep interest in learning more.

When you wanted to take your family out of state, I broke into your house and put bed bugs on your sheets. I changed your toilet paper from double-ply to single. I taped over all your home movies with SpongeBob SquarePants episodes.

I’ve got to give it to you, Tom, I tried everything to get you to back off. But you didn’t. And when your boss wanted me to kill Bosco, I told him what I tell all my clients: I don’t do pets.

He’s a good dog, a good golden retriever like my pup Lilly. She was my best friend growing up. I still think about her, so much so that I could never get another dog. I liked spending time with Bosco.

One time there was a guy who went to the press about forever chemicals being leaked into the Ohio River. I found out that he starved his cat and locked him in a room for days on end. Poor thing howled until its voice gave out; it couldn’t even meow, just gave little squeaks.

That made me mad. The guy folded in three days and blew his brains out in Cleveland. I sent the cat to a shelter and made sure he got adopted by a good home that took care of him.

A job’s a job, but a man’s got to have his principles. Since your boss paid someone to kill Bosco, that means he violated our contract. You’ll find all our communication on the hard drive in the envelope, plus receipts and reimbursements. By the time this hits the news, I’ll be in Belize.

Best, Jimmy