One to Go (3 page)

“We love Janie,” said Britney. “Cute as a button.”

“No one wants to see her turned to charcoal,” said Chad.

Britney laughed. “Well, maybe someone would.”

Chad said, “You need to make a choice. Option
A
or—”

“Option
A!
” Tom shouted. “Option
A!
”

“Excellent choice,” said Britney. “But, as I'm sure you can appreciate, there will need to be compensation.”

“We think of it more as a kindness,” said Chad. “We extend to you the kindness of saving Janie from a fiery death brought on by your own self-absorbed negligence—rules are for others, not for Tom Booker. In return, you will need to extend us a reciprocal kindness.”

“So, you're saying you're some kind of—what? Angels?” He knew the sarcasm in his voice sounded forced.

Both chuckled. “You might say, ‘right field, wrong team,' ” replied Chad.

Tom stared at Chad with a perplexed look on his face, his mind swirling. What the preppy jerk suggested was impossible. He'd long ago dismissed the concept of an afterlife as a fairy tale perpetuated by human beings since they emerged from the goo. From Thor to Zeus to Jesus, God, and Allah, belief in a higher being offered a glimmer of hope that no matter how miserable one's life, it would conclude with a happy ending.

Looking at their faces, Tom sensed the couple could read his thoughts.

Chad and Britney each giggled as they held their hands out in front of their chests, forming a cross with their index fingers like a pathetic victim trying to ward off Dracula.

Tom turned his eyes away. His mind flashed back to his youth. As a boy he'd been raised in the Methodist church by very religious parents. When he was in high school, his dad had been killed by a drunk driver, and after that he'd refused to attend church services depite his mother's pleas. He couldn't buy her explanation that his father's death had been “God's will.”

And then four years later his mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. When the chemo and radiation and herbs and potions failed, he'd resorted to prayer, begging God to spare her. But He didn't, confirming to Tom that even if God did exist, He was a sadistic sonofabitch.

Still, given what he'd just witnessed, either he was hallucinating from injuries caused by the crash or—

He turned back to them. “Am I in”—the word caught in his throat—“hell?”

“A lot of people would say Washington's a living hell,” responded Britney.

Chad laughed. “Very good, Brit.” To Tom, “No, you're standing right here in the middle of Memorial Bridge.”

“So here's the deal,” said Brit. “There are five innocents in the minivan.”

“You're calling Rosie an innocent?” asked Chad. “What about the muff dives with her Pilates instructor?”

“But she always came home to Gino with a smile on her face,” responded Brit.

“Good point,” said Chad.

“
Will somebody just tell me what the hell's going on?
”

“ ‘What the hell,' very clever,” said Brit.

“In return for Option
A
, once every two weeks, one of the occupants in the minivan will die,” said Chad. “See, they were going
to die anyway—you killed them, sorry to keep bringing that up. But you've got to pay attention to the road ahead. And watch the hooch, Tom. Drinking's bad juju.”

“Definitely bad juju,” said Brit. “And while all of them would be heading north so to speak—”

“Even Rosie,” said Chad.

Brit continued. “The boss saw an opportunity for a win-win transaction. Your daughter and her friends will be allowed to live, but in exchange, you must provide him another life.”

“By
provide
, you mean…?”

“Snuff, exterminate, bump off—you get the point.”

“That's crazy! I'm not a murderer.”

“Of course you are,” said Chad. “You just murdered five innocent people.”

“Wouldn't you do anything to save your own daughter?” asked Brit.

Tom dropped his head in his hands.
This can't be real, this can't be
—

“We've made it easy for you,” said Chad. “The substitute can be a scumbag or as pure as the driven snow. But everyone you snuff goes south, whether they would otherwise deserve it or not.”

“Life for a life,” said Brit. “What could be more fair than that?”

Finally, Tom got it. He breathed a sigh of relief. Chad's words were so outlandish, he now knew he had to be dreaming. Wait till he tells his buddy, Zig. Preppies from hell; Zig'll get a big laugh out of that one.

“Oh, we're real,” said Brit.

Tom smiled. The only way they could read his mind is if he were having a crazy nightmare. Feeling cocky, he decided to call their bluff. “Prove it.”

Chad shook his head. “What, you want us to spin our heads and spew green vomit? Sorry, Tom, but you're just going to have to trust us. Or not.”

The expression on Brit's face could best be described as apologetic. “So, by Saturday midnight at the end of every second week,
either you deliver us a soul, or I'm afraid we'll be compelled to take one from the van.”

“Remember, Tom,” said Chad, “you're the one who put yourself in this pickle.”

“Gotta dash,” said Brit. They both waved, then continued jogging west along the bridge.

In a split second, Tom was in the Lexus driving west on the bridge. No pain. Anywhere. Not even a scratch on his safety-glass windshield. He quickly checked his rearview mirror. He could see the minivan heading east, trailing the red pickup.

Everything looked perfectly normal. He reached the western bridge entrance, circled the turnabout and headed back east across the Memorial.

What the hell happened? He must've caught himself drifting into the opposite lane, slammed on the brakes, and momentarily bumped his head on the steering wheel. Crazy. He still had goose-bumps running the length of both arms. Again, his eyes found the dashboard glove compartment.

“
Watch the hooch, Tom. Drinking's bad juju
.”

He needed to calm down or he really
was
going to cause an accident. He opened the glove compartment.

Twenty minutes later he emerged from the Colonial Parking garage on C Street, and popped a few more mints into his mouth as he jogged north to the museum.

When he crossed Independence, he noticed at least a dozen school groups gathered at the entrance. He smiled briefly, remembering fondly his days as a schoolteacher. Life had been a lot less complicated then.

Janie and her classmates, wearing their green Fairfield Elementary
Frog shirts, stood at the end of the line. It looked like Janie had obtained a Frog shirt for her visiting cousin and made Angie an honorary Frog. A few mothers patrolled outside the herd to make sure there were no stragglers. Rosie, arms folded, fuming, gave Tom the evil eye as soon as he crossed the street.

He ignored his former sister-in-law and waved to his daughter. When he reached her, she jumped into his arms. Nothing short of heaven could match the feeling of his child's arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

Heaven.

His mind flashed back to his daydream—vision, hallucination, whatever the hell it was. While seemingly extending for fifteen or twenty minutes, the blackout must've only lasted a split second, since he hadn't lost control of the wheel.

“Mommy was mad at you 'cause you were late.”

“I know, honey. Sorry. But I'm here now.”

Rosie approached. She didn't look happy. Come to think of it, she never looked happy.

“Thanks,” said Tom. “Know it was an inconvenience.”

“You make a commitment, you keep it, Tom.”

“You're right. Sorry.”

She was in full scowl mode. “No smart-ass comeback? You sick or something? You should know by now that family commitment comes first.”

Tom thought,
maybe you should tell that to your sister who made a commitment not to cheat on her husband
. And as far as the smart-ass comment reference, he probably deserved that. He forced himself to hold his tongue.
One Mississippi
—

“Right. Traffic. I should've left earlier.” No use telling her his boss expected a complete buy-sell memo for the firm's second largest client by 9:30 a.m., and if he screwed up and lost his job, his family commitment to provide alimony and child support payments would be significantly jeopardized.

“Aunt Rosie gave a man the finger,” said Janie.

Rosie scolded, “Janie—”

“What happened?” asked Tom.

“Some idiot in a silver car cut me off on the bridge. Almost made me run into the redneck driving a pickup truck in front of me. Might've caused me to spin off the bridge, the jerk. Didn't he see I had
children
on board?”

“What's a redneck?” asked Janie.

Rosie exchanged glances with Tom. “His truck was red, honey. So we call someone who drives a red truck a redneck.”

“So you're a greenneck, Aunt Rosie?”

“Exactly,” said Tom.

Angie called from the gathering of Frogs. “Hurry up, they're letting us in!”

“I got it from here, Rosie. And thanks again.”

“I swear, Tom, I don't know how you can call yourself a responsible father.”

The response jumped from his brain to his mouth before he could implement
One Mississippi
. “Thanks for that. By the way, how's your Pilates instructor?”

She froze, then turned back to him with a look of panic, no longer the tough broad who felt it necessary to convey how put-upon she felt as a result of his screwup. Her eyes pleaded with him, then teared up. She quickly disappeared into the crowd. Tom had never seen her that way.

The woman was scared shitless.

Napoleon's was packed, but Argus, the bartender, had reserved their usual seats at the end of the bar, the prime location for scoping out single women entering the establishment. Argus tapped them each another Stella—Zig's second, Tom's third. A small voice in the back of his head whispered,
slow down
.

A very small voice.

“So, she might be having a lesbo affair with her Pilates instructor, so what?” asked Zig.

“That's not the point. How would I know that? The only way I could've known is if my bridge vision—”

“Impossible,” responded Zig, with a certainty born of his lofty status as a fourth-year associate at SHM.

Brian Zigler, Virginia undergrad, Harvard Law, had been assigned to Tom as his mentor when Tom joined the firm. SHM had instituted a mentoring program for new associates several years earlier, and had received glowing reviews from top law schools for the firm's sensitivity to the stress experienced by newcomers. Numerous other firms had copied the program, a feather in the cap of senior partners in the continuing battle for status among the city's legal elites.

Zig was single, and also lived in Adams Morgan. After the mentoring period had ended, they continued to hang out together. Zig had been there for him when he'd had to deal with the breakup, and Tom had moved to the area on Zig's recommendation.

“Then how could I have known?” asked Tom.

“Who the hell knows? First, you could be reading her reaction wrong. Second, if it is true, maybe she said something about her instructor that at the time seemed innocuous, but your subconscious noticed the tone of her voice, or a tic in her expression. Then when you had your flash-vision, your subconscious mind shot that idea forward to your conscious mind.”

“You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?”

“Absolutely none.”

They laughed, then clinked their glasses and drained half the contents.

Zig turned back to front-door surveillance. “Bogie entering the grid.”

Tom saw an attractive brunette come through the door and head toward two other girls sitting mid-bar. Zig caught her eye and waved. She waved back, then greeted her friends.

“Who's she?” asked Tom.

“No idea,” responded Zig. “But before the night's over, my friend, that will change.”

Tom shook his head. Zig was not what anyone would call classically handsome. At an even six feet, he was two inches shorter than Tom. Red hair, acne scars, and maybe fifteen pounds overweight. But for some reason, women were attracted to him. Zig explained it as projecting confidence. He was probably right.

After Gayle had left him for another man, Tom fought his sexual insecurity by chasing every skirt who walked across his path. Zig suggested his conquests were solely the result of young women desiring to date a lawyer. To prove him wrong, thereafter Tom had told prospects he was an elementary schoolteacher, which, up until a couple of years ago, had been true. While he admittedly noticed some drop-off, he'd discovered there were more than enough women who didn't care what he did for a living.