Until You Are Dead

by John Lutz

  Millow lay there, feeling the pain come and go, for only a minute before he was aware of rushing, echoing footsteps drawing nearer. Leather soles and heels scuffing on the smooth tile.

  Dr. Steinmetz and two young interns were suddenly standing over him. Steinmetz's face was angry and appraising as he bent over Millow and examined him. "Get a stretcher," he said calmly to one of the interns, who turned and ran. Sighing deeply, Steinmetz stood, and the intern knelt and placed something soft beneath Millow's head.

  "It's too late," Millow said in triumph, and he tasted blood in his mouth.

  Steinmetz's face didn't change. He turned away for a moment, then turned again and knelt.

  Millow felt the bite of a hypodermic needle.

  "Can we get him to the operating room in time?" the young intern asked. "He's failing fast."

  Failing fast . . . The words were like a benediction. There was a vast and growing darkness in Millow.

  Darkness, gradually giving way to a burning red.

  At first Millow thought he was dead, then with logical disappointment and instinctive joy he realized he was alive. He opened his eyes.

  Dr. Steinmetz glanced up from whatever he was studying in the yellow folder and smiled down at Millow. "How's the unwilling patient today?"

  Millow let his head sink deeper into the soft pillows. Dr. Steinmetz, the tiny white room he was in, the prison, all seemed to shrink until it was as if he were looking at them from a great distance. Then they disappeared altogether, and he was aware only of the throbbing that ran through his body, the inexorable beat, beat, beat of his artificial heart.

  On Judgment Day

  It's on this bleak Dublin morning that they're about to hang O'Hara. We go far back, do O'Hara and I, to the time when I was a youth of fourteen on my father's retreat and fishing resort on the wild North Coast.

  It was then that O'Hara was the most wanted of the organization terrorists in Ireland, fresh from shooting the kneecaps off a treasonous pub owner in Londonderry. On the run, was O'Hara, and the English had never so much as caught a glimpse or obtained a description of who they were seeking. They chased a rumor here, a false lead there, and shadow was all they caught.

  I remember when first I laid eyes on O'Hara. When I stumbled one bright afternoon into my father's office, straight from a hapless day's fishing, there was a giant redheaded man registering at the desk. He had on a short-sleeved shirt that revealed powerful forearms, and it was easy to imagine a ship or an eagle tattooed beneath the material stretched tight over his massive chest. There was the very smack of adventure in the way he talked and carried himself.

  With the redheaded man, nearly hidden behind his bulk, was someone who, once caught in my eye, held me fascinated in my youth. Kate turned out to be her name. She was in her early twenties but seemed nearer my own age, so small and fine was she. The thing about her was in her crystal-brilliant green eyes and her gold hair that fell to her bone-narrow shoulders. When she saw me staring at her, she smiled tolerantly and mortally wounded me.

  "Carry Mr. and Mrs. Muldoon's bags to their cabin, Johnny lad," said my father.

  Gladly, I obeyed, hoisting a large case and a flowered valise.

  "I'll just take this one, Johnny," said the redheaded Muldoon, and picked up a medium-sized leather suitcase as if it were empty, and followed me down the wooden steps and along the path to the secluded cabin on the edge of the green woods overlooking the green sea.

  "Boats are free for those renting a cabin and can be found down at the pier," I said to Muldoon in the cabin, looking all the while at Kate, who in some embarrassment looked away.

  "Your father told me, lad," said the redheaded giant, and handed me down a pound note.

  Over the next week, my enchantment with Kate didn't escape the notice of my parents, though my father said not a word. It was my mother who one day warned me, "You quit gaping at Mrs. Muldoon lest her husband throw you like a dart."

  I didn't answer her but with a nod. I hadn't suspected I was so obvious.

  It was that very night that I heard the arguing coming from the Muldoon cabin, angry voices I couldn't quite understand.

  The next morning, Kate seemed beaten down, and there was a redness about her fine eyes.

  "Is everything all right?" I impulsively asked her in a soft whisper, as I untied their fishing skiff from the pier.

  She glanced at me, surprised, and nodded.

  I stood on the dock and watched the redheaded Muldoon steer the tiny boat out into a sea broken by the reef but still choppy and capped with foam.

  For the first time, I experienced a strong protective instinct toward a woman, and I realized that while the Muldoons were out fishing, their cabin stood empty. Perhaps, if I looked, I might find some evidence of the redheaded giant mistreating his companion, or even holding her captive of sorts, and could bring about her rescue and gratitude. So it was that I, love-stricken fool, let myself into their cabin through a rear window.

  I was disappointed to find nothing in the least unusual, except for a pretty pink dress that Kate would have no use for here. I ran the soft silk of it along my cheek and let it drop back into place on its hanger in the cedar closet. The thought of Kate in the dress was a sharp ache in me.

  When I was about to leave, feeling ashamed, was when I spotted the corner of the leather suitcase, the one the redheaded man had insisted on carrying, beneath the bed. I dragged it out, unbuckled its thick straps, and opened it.

  In the quiet, hot stillness of the cabin, I almost fell in a faint.

  Inside the suitcase was a weapon I later learned was an Israeli Uzi submachine gun, as well as a pistol, and some substance in a wooden box that turned out to be plastique explosives. And there were newspaper clippings about the shooting of the pub owner in Londonderry the week before.

  I drew in my breath, remembering then that O'Hara was rumored to like young girls and to bring them with him on his travels. "Sainted mother!" I said, actually crossing myself even as I closed the suitcase and placed it back under the bed exactly as I'd found it.

  There was nothing for it but to tell my father. Not a political man, he. There was nothing for him to do but to telephone the law.

  "You stay well clear of that cabin," he said to me, his face ashen as he hung up the phone. "The English are sending a force for that man, and he won't go along peaceably, you can be sure,"

  I nodded, walked onto the back porch, and watched the sun inch down to the horizon. Excitement fueled my pounding heart. And something else.

  I couldn't help it. I leaped from the porch and cut through the darkening woods to the Muldoon cabin. Through the window I looked, and saw them sitting at the tiny kitchenette table eating a light supper.

  So I crept around to where their small Hillman sedan sat parked. Staying low, I opened the car's door, depressed the clutch with my hand, and slipped the shift lever into neutral. Then I shoved the car so that it rolled down the slight grade, off the dirt road, to rest against a tree. I swallowed then and knocked on the cabin door.

  "Your car has rolled off, sir," I said, when the redheaded Muldoon himself answered my knock.

  He craned his thick neck to look, then cursed. "Thank you, lad," he said, and walked toward the car, shutting the cabin door behind him.

  Well, I couldn't just walk in, so I went back around to the rear of the cabin to where I'd peered in the window. Kate was still at the table, sipping tea from a cracked blue cup.

  "Kate!" I whispered hoarsely, not having to speak loudly because the window was partially raised. Her head jerked around, long hair swinging in a graceful arc. At first she was shocked, then she smiled and walked over as I beckoned.

  "They're coming for Muldoon!" I said.

  Her green eyes widened, luminous in the failing light. "What?"

  "The English are coming for this Muldoon you're with!"

  I knew he wasn't her husband; he couldn't be! "He's O'Hara, the terrorist!"

  She grinned and said, "Bosh
to you, young Johnny."

  "It's true, I swear! Look in the suitcase he keeps beneath the bed! Then get away before the shooting starts!" I could hear the hum of the Hillman's motor as Muldoon backed the car up the hill toward the cabin.

  As I watched, Kate quickly dragged out the suitcase and looked at its militant contents. Her face grew frightened and sad.

  "Out now, while you have the chance!" I pleaded.

  She gazed at me with a curious kind of new respect I still hold dear, then she nodded and climbed out the window.

  It wasn't ten minutes later that the English arrived to find the redheaded man on the cabin porch, looking for Kate. Smart and quick, he was. No sooner had they shouted a warning than he broke for one of their own vehicles sitting with its engine idling, ducking bullets as he ran.

  Ten years ago it all happened. And now, finally, we've run O'Hara to ground and the dread hanging day is here.

  I can picture O'Hara on the scaffold now, her crystal green eyes yet clear and defiant, her blond hair taken by the wind like a flaxen banner.

  But no, that's a poetic misconception of my own devising. It's hoods the condemned wear when they're hanged; black hoods.

  It had never occurred to me, so long ago, that O'Hara would be using a man for cover and diversion. For it was the same young woman — O'Hara herself— often reported in the company of whatever poor devil she was traveling with at the time. Like the hapless Muldoon, gunned down years ago, a victim of British bullets. O'Hara's guile, and my innocent heart.

  Was it knowing Kate O'Hara that prompted my own life to change course so that I joined the organization as an undercover agent for the British? Was it a young boy not able to glimpse the steel and the killer's resolve within her?

  It's true I can't forget her words to me before she melted into the woods behind the cabin, or the cool, light press of her lips on my own.

  "God bless you, young Johnny Bender," she fervently whispered, "for helping a naive and foolish girl gone astray to return to family, safety and sanity!" So saying, she disappeared into darkness and time.

  And never since have I trusted anyone.

  Death by the Numbers

  I saw in the morning paper that the chief of police said that if the present crime rate continued, within the next three years one out of every five citizens could expect to be a victim. I couldn't get concerned.

  My breakfast toast had burned slightly and the charred scent lingered, rather pleasantly, throughout my well-furnished tenth floor condominium apartment. I walked into the modern, deep-carpeted living room with my third cup of strong black coffee. Yesterday had been my fifty-eighth birthday, and as I passed the mirror-tiled wall I glanced at my sallow but still handsome face. I laughed at my vanity.

  The doorbell chimed curtly, as if to call time to my foolishness.

  When I opened the door I was looking at a medium-height, broad shouldered man in his early thirties. I knew the type. He was wearing dark slacks and a checked sport coat with an elaborately knotted tie. He had thick black hair, strong dark eyes, strong white teeth and a high-voltage smile. He was high-voltage.

  "Mr. Clark Stone?" he asked.

  I said that I was.

  His hand flicked out to give me a standard business card. When I glanced down at the card in that studiously pokerfaced manner people use to glance at business cards, I saw that it was engraved with the words Guarantee Insurance.

  "I'm Dan Bent," the man said, shaking my hand with firm intimacy. "You told me on the phone yesterday that ten o'clock would be all right."

  I remembered then that I had told him that yesterday, when my mind had been occupied with more important matters.

  Bent pushed past me, still smiling, into the living room.

  I shut the door and turned to face him as he sat down on the low-slung sofa and snapped open his leather attaché case in a businesslike manner.

  "I don't need any more insurance, Mr. Bent."

  Bent had heard those words before. "You do," he said. "You just don't know it yet."

  He was cheerfully determined. I decided maybe the simplest thing to do was to hear him out, then send him on his way. His healthy white smile widened as I sat in a chair opposite him. Outside the tall window I could see three or four distant gulls circling.

  "What do you think of statistics, Mr. Clark?" Bent asked. "I don't like them. They're the closest thing to astrology." Bent's face glowed with the newly acquired morsel of wisdom found in that analogy. "I never thought of it quite that way, but statistics do have a way of foretelling our fate."

  And you're . . . let's see, fifty-eight yesterday — right?" I said that was right.

  "Get ready to die, Mr. Clark."

  It was a sales gambit designed to startle, and it worked.

  "Not in the near future, perhaps," Bent added. "But when you do go, what will you leave behind?"

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "I haven't any relatives, any favorite charities." I considered offering Bent a cup of coffee, then decided that would only prolong his visit.

  "Oh, we know how alone you are, sir. We also know your net worth. And we know how when you were with GemStone Jewelers as an active partner, jewelry of. . . questionable origin was made accessible to potential buyers."

  I stood up, propelled out of my chair by surprise and anger. Bent was smiling a challenge to me now, letting me know he could easily handle whatever my reaction might be. He was probably right. I smiled, too.

  "Our research department is as thorough as any," he said.

  "Just what does Guarantee insure, Mr. Bent?"

  "Why, we deal in life insurance. We insure that nothing fatal is likely to happen to you in the near future. At least not at Guarantee's hands."

  I laughed. The shakedown was out in the open. "And if I don't buy the policy?"

  "Then we insure that something will happen."

  "So you're an extortionist and Guarantee is a phony company."

  "Not at all," Bent said with an injured air. "We mainly sell legitimate life insurance policies. Call it a front, if you will. But if you go to the police and repeat what I've told you, the company and I are able to deny this part of the conversation and still account for our existence and my visit here. And as I said, Mr. Clark, we're very much aware of your background."

  I sat staring at Bent, envying him. He was a man playing with his deck, someone else's money and all the chips. "How much are the premiums?" I asked.

  Bent studied something inside his open attaché case. "Five thousand a year, half payable every six months. Not unreasonable, Mr. Clark."

  "Guarantee must have a number of clients," I said, "to be able to be so reasonable."

  Bent glanced up from the open case and nodded brightly. "Oh, more than you can imagine. It's all done by computer, both the legal and illegal ends of our business. Statistically, we were bound to get to you sooner or later, Mr. Clark. If projected over a long enough period, statistics are one of the few sure things in this world. Death, taxes and statistics."

  "You're quite a believer in statistics, aren't you."

  Bent nodded, displaying his wide white smile. "Because we lease our computer and its memory bank to certain parties, we have access to the facts surrounding a great many illegal transactions everywhere in the country.

  "This hard information, when crossed with reliable personal information, invariably links names to transactions. The computer is then fed more information concerning the bearers of those names, furnished by our research department, and it prints out prospective clients on a selective basis." He cocked his head, his smile gaining candlepower. "And here I am."

  "Sounds efficient," I had to admit. "Now let me understand the proposition. The policy costs me five thousand dollars a year, half payable every six months. And if I don't buy the policy, who knows what could happen to me tomorrow?"

  Bent nodded again. I expected him to say "Guarantee knows," but he didn't. Statistically, I was sure that few of his carefully researched "clients"
refused to buy the policy.

  I ran my palms over my thighs to my knees and sighed, flicked at my pants leg creases. "How about a cup of coffee?" I asked.

  "Thank you," Bent said. "Then we can settle the particulars, when and where to send the money, that sort of thing . . ."

  He was all business, that one.

  I went into the kitchen and rattled things around for a while.

  When I returned, Bent was leaning forward on the low sofa, leafing through some papers in his attaché case. "Instant okay?" I asked.

  "Fine," he said.

  I walked up behind him and plunged my longest butter knife exactly between his shoulder blades at an angle to the heart.

  He sat up straight, turned and stared wide-eyed at me for that appalling breach of etiquette. His eyes asked me why, then they asked nothing and he slumped sideways on the sofa and started a gradual slide to the floor. The couch and carpet were ruined.

  By the time you get this tape cassette at Police Headquarters I'll be . . . well, you'll find out where soon enough.

  You see, Bent was right about statistics, but wrong in assuming they'd never catch up with him or Guarantee Insurance. Eventually the company was bound to approach someone like me, and the story could and would get out. I hadn't much choice, really.

  I'd just been released from the hospital the day before, on my birthday. There was nothing more they could do, and with my medication I wasn't in any great pain. The doctors told me about the sort of cancer I had, how I could expect to live only a few more weeks, maybe not even that long.