by Marvin Kaye
I pursed my lips and nodded. “I can live with that.”
Braeburn laughed again. “But can you die with that?”
I sighed. “Please, I am starting to become very confused as to where all this is going.”
Braeburn leaned forward and opened up the map to feature areas outside of my own small neighborhood. “Your contract was for your own death, which we will provide within the boundaries of your life-insurance policy. We have also included the death of your nemesis, Percy Ambrose, at no extra charge.”
I cleared my throat to interrupt him. “Yes, well, we haven’t exactly discussed payment yet, have we, the paperwork has been vague on that point.”
Braeburn lifted his opened palms with a shrug. “One half million Euro, for either just you, or you and Ambrose.”
“Good God,” I coughed.
“Or…” Braeburn shrugged again. “Nothing.”
My eyebrows nearly touched my cheekbones as I frowned. “That’s quite a leap. I suspect that ‘nothing’ actually comes at a price?”
Braeburn nodded. “At Braeburn-Drury, we of course realize that money means little to the practically-dead. However, we imagine it can mean a great deal to those left behind.”
I pushed my teacup away with a scowl. “Name your terms, Braeburn.”
“You can well afford a half million Euro, it sits liquid in your accounts as we speak. The remainder will allow your family to live in their accustomed style for one, perhaps two years, after which their standard of living will drastically change. It is money well-spent, though; you will have a noble death, and Percy Ambrose will not become stepfather to your children.”
“Go on,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Of course, along with Ambrose’s life goes his earning power. You could, I suppose, allow him to live, and die knowing that your family will be well taken care of.”
“Not an option, sir,” I said.
“Well, then—your and Ambrose’s demise will be free of charge if you care to perform a small task for Braeburn-Drury before your death.”
My eyes, already slitted, narrowed further. “What task?”
Braeburn placed his hands on his knees before rising. “Come now, we shall need more tea before continuing—would you care to peruse this dossier while I brew another pot?”
Braeburn handed me a black file bound with a red elastic. I opened it to find another roadmap and the photographs of several middle-aged men. “What’s all this?”
“Read on, read on,” Braeburn said with a wave of his hand as he navigated a pot of water over a lit Bunsen Burner.
The dossier included a map of intersections marked with large X’s.
“What the devil?” I said.
Braeburn returned to his seat with a glance over his shoulder at the bubbling water. “It’s a lot of information, I know. Suffice to say we would like you to continue your drive after hitting Ambrose, and run over a few others. It’s a prime time of the morning; everyone walking to work, busy with coffee and thoughts of the day ahead. Nate Robinson crosses Oxford Street two minutes after Ambrose’s death, and provides the opportunity for another clean hit. Orville Buttbrinke walks into Thatcher Avenue a minute after that, and Neville Artting crosses Third Street moments later.”
I gave an incredulous look first to the papers in my hands, then to Braeburn. “You want me to run over all of these men before I die?”
“They’re on your way, shouldn’t be a bother. After killing Ambrose, what’s another four?”
“You named three others.”
“Well, we were hoping you could also nick off Herbert Trumboldt on the curb of Teister Lane.” Braeburn noticed my opened mouth. “You won’t hang for any of it, old chap, we have other plans for you.”
“You are insane,” I said, throwing the papers down on the small table between us.
Braeburn demurred with a small tilt of his head. “Practical, Rafferty, or perhaps opportunistic. Robinson’s a puppet of the new Russian Mafia, Buttbrinke and Artting work under him while maintaining their own separate black-market artillery trades. Trumboldt is perhaps the worst of the four, dealing in Eastern-European prostitutes and chemical weapons. Others will undoubtedly soon take their place, but a decisive strike like this will cause enough confusion in their ranks for our people to delay their operations for weeks, if not months.”
“Your people?” I said.
Braeburn sighed. “Yes, they save the world every day, without thanks.”
I cleared my throat. “And if I refuse…will your next client be charged with this task?”
Braeburn shrugged. “For this particular job, we might well have to wait a while before another suitable candidate comes along.”
“And until then I assume there are many other tasks to be performed?”
Braeburn sighed. “This is a business, Rafferty. Our bread-and-butter lies mostly in the humdrum—clients who wish to die quiet, painless deaths after dismembering childhood molesters or suffocating faithless lovers, and those who wish to submit to experimental medical procedures in order for their deaths to further science. It is rare for a client to not provide a template for his or her death, rarer still for one such as you to present himself.”
I snorted. “What could possibly be ‘rare’ about me?”
Braeburn settled back in his chair, although the water over the Bunsen Burner was roiling wildly. “You hold an inherent grudge against the world, and you like running things over.”
I bristled. “Well, who doesn’t?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Braeburn.
I shook my head. “This is ridiculous. Why, you heard yourself how I couldn’t even run over a squirrel.”
Braeburn nodded. “Yes, that’s a bit worrisome, but I believe killing Ambrose will deflate that hurdle.”
“Ambrose is bigger than a squirrel,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but he’s shagging your wife.”
I fell silent, my thoughts struggling against each other like capsized boaters. “I still don’t see what makes me different from your other clients.”
Braeburn sighed. “You actually applied to MI5 and Scotland Yard.”
I looked down at the Persian rug beneath us. “I was a bit of a maverick in my youth, had delusions of saving the world.”
“From Communists?” Braeburn smiled. “That job’s been taken care of. Terrorism seems a trend likely to last, but there are already quite enough agencies devoted to that particular evil. No, your interests lie in the more subtle world of corporate international espionage.”
“They do?” I asked.
“I believe so. The abuses of pharmaceutical companies, the buying out of ever-larger companies by a handful of financial behemoths?”
“It’s disgraceful,” I said, with heat.
“It is, indeed. Here at Braeburn-Drury we do not operate under the auspices of ‘good’ or ‘evil’—those are relative terms with no value in regards to business. If any activity was to be described as dastardly, it would be the monopolization of the world’s environmental, intellectual and industrial resources.”
“Are you fighting against this, then? By killing these men?” I asked.
Braeburn paused. “Yes.”
I sat still for a time, during which Braeburn prepared a sweet, milky cup of tea and placed it in my hands.
“My own death…” I began.
Braeburn indicated the dossier. “The last page. You can read it later.”
The light outside the apartment’s bay window stepped off dusk’s curb into twilight.
“I will perform your task,” I said.
Braeburn nodded. “I will assemble the paperwork.”
The following week offered a series of surreptitiously delivered instructions from Braeburn: Please ensure the roadster has a full tank of petrol. When convenient, please check that all turning signals are in working order. Your Monday morning breakfast should be light, with substantial protein. There was also a directive to perform fifty da
ily push-ups, which perplexed me; perhaps Braeburn believed this activity would hone my reflexes. I permitted myself to note, with a twinge of chagrin, that my only successful incentive for exercise to date was in preparation for a homicidal rampage culminating in my own demise.
I perhaps ill-used my last days by cloistering myself in the den watching dvds of Prime Suspect, leaving the house only for ridiculously rich meals at expensive restaurants I had previously neglected to patronize. Corbella did not notice a change in my behavior during this week; if anything, she seemed relieved that I bothered her less than usual. My sons also used this time to attend to school projects and friends without paternal interference. My home exuded an aura of peace and freedom I had not felt in it for years, and this cemented my resolution to end my life.
Alone on Sunday evening, I pried the black dossier from between my mattress and boxspring. Corbella was ‘out,’ with Ambrose, I assumed; the children were sleeping over with school friends. My mind wandered a moment back to university, trying to place an author with the grim pronouncement that we all die alone. I snapped off the red elastic, flipped through the businessmen’s biographies and scanned the ‘X’d London map I had virtually memorized; the only page of the dossier I had left to read was the last one.
I should have read it earlier, I mused; I might have done something different with my last week, or at least increased my push-ups. I thought, for a moment, how I held in my hands the answer to the greatest question most people have about their lives. The exact time and method of my death lay under a colorful map of London, where an illustrated choo-choo waved up at me from King’s Cross Station.
My index finger shook once before I willed it to stop. I remembered my mother, now dead, beaming as I led her through the dusty renovations of my then newly-purchased townhome. Corbella had kissed me in the foyer as a section of ceiling plaster fell at our feet, the empty hall ringing with our laughter. I blinked, and returned from ten years past to the finished tomb of my bedroom. I flipped the London map over to reveal the dossier’s last page.
It was blank.
On Monday, I gunned the roadster in my garage at 6:52AM. The garage door raised, and I pulled out onto the street. This morning was to go as planned, for my ill and my family’s good.
I drove down Ellwyn and turned onto Midfield, then expertly performed the sharp turn onto Cornwell. Flower stands blazed by my roadster’s windows in tufts of red and pink that blurred into butcher shops and shoe stores. I waited a few seconds at a street light, then made a left on Argon.
Argon was a tight street of ancient cobblestones where artists and heroin dealers had recently been displaced to make room for renovated townhomes and franchised bookshops. These flashed by as I accelerated toward the intersection presided over by the Rise ’N Shine Bakery.
Ambrose was there, stepping off the curb with his nose in the morning paper and a hazelnut latte held in his left hand; he was young and handsome, even while schlepping to work. For a moment, I imagined his floppy hair and smiling face in wedding photographs with Corbella, in Cancun or somesuch, my young sons throwing sand at each other on a sunset beach. I blinked these images away, revved the roadster’s motor, and ran over Percy Ambrose.
He didn’t have a second to acknowledge me, the roadster was that quick; he perhaps read Barnes & Noble stock up two points today, then saw a flash of stars before darkness. He disappeared under my hood and I screeched to a halt, then backed up to hear the satisfying sound of flesh under wheels. I accelerated forward and in my rearview mirror saw a rumpled mass of humanity in the road behind me; Ambrose was dead, for sure. I focused my eyes ahead, and sped toward Oxford Street.
I recognized Nate Robinson from his dossier photograph; doughy lips, a peaked nose and black trenchcoat. He stood in the crosswalk of Oxford Street, waving to someone on the sidewalk. The cars in the lane next to me sat motionless before the intersection’s red light, but I motored through it and watched Robinson’s body bounce up over my hood and onto the roof of my car before falling into the street behind me.
Car horns blared and pedestrians shouted as I turned onto Thatcher Avenue. Orville Buttbrinke’s eyes widened in the intersection as he waved his arms, but I didn’t stop the roadster. I plowed into him, and heard a spongy smack against my grill. My progress was slowed by the roadster’s left front wheel grinding against sinew; I backed up for momentum to break free and continued on.
Tiester Lane appeared before me, and I saw a man answering Herbert Trumboldt’s description hanging off the curb. With cat-like reflexes, he jumped back onto the sidewalk as I swerved to hit him.
“Bollocks!” I cursed to myself. I heard Braeburn’s strained voice in my memory: If complications arise, revert to Plan B. I parked the roadster and pulled a pearl-handled gun from the glove box.
“Blind fucker!” Trumboldt screamed as I exited the roadster.
“Be quiet, man,” I said, showing him my pistol.
“I will not, you fucking git!” Trumboldt shouted at me.
“It’s a bit early for that kind of language, don’t you think?” I asked.
“Not too early for you to almost kill me, you ignorant fuck!”
“Now, now, Mr. Trumboldt,” I said.
He became still as a statue at the mention of his name. “I don’t know you.”
“Nor do I know you,” I said, and raised my pistol.
“Stop!” Trumboldt held his splayed hands before me like the jazz hands of my niece in her school dance recital last year.
“What is it now?” I sighed. I felt my tweed car-coat from J. Crew whip most fashionably about my knees in the strong morning breeze.
“Who hired you?” Trumboldt asked.
“I work alone,” I replied. I hadn’t anticipated this degree of theatricality in my contract with Braeburn-Drury, and thought ruefully that my best investment had been my last.
Trumboldt smiled. “You’re Braeburn’s lackey.”
My pearl-handled pistol wavered a moment.
Trumboldt placed his thumbs in his belt loops and chuckled. “It’s true, he didn’t have the guts to kill me himself.”
“You, sir…must die,” I said, waving the pistol at him.
“And why’s that?” laughed Trumboldt.
My mind scanned the memorized black dossier. “Eastern-Europen prostitution ring and sale of chemical weapons.”
Trumboldt nearly choked on his mirth. “I visit prostitutes, but I’m just a tax man.”
I puffed up my chest. “Who sells chemical weapons to questionable clients.”
Trumboldt’s knees were now bent. “Stop, I’m going to piss myself!”
I fired the gun. Its bullet shot a pinstriped section of cloth off Trumboldt’s left thigh.
He looked at me with wonder, then pain. “You clueless motherfucker.”
I fired again, and his left shoulder snapped back.
“Oww,” Trumboldt said.
I could hear several sirens approaching, what sounded like both ambulance and police cars. I pulled Trumboldt from the pavement and pushed him into the roadster.
“Talk,” I said, using my right hand to drive and the left to hold my pistol to Trumboldt’s temple.
“Braeburn’s going to kill you,” Trumboldt said.
“Of course he’s going to kill me, that’s what I paid him for!”
Trumboldt blinked up at me. “You’re a suicide?”
I pursed my lips, and continued driving.
“He’s not what he says, is all,” Trumboldt said. “Half of his business is legit, the other he uses to further his own means.”
“He’s saving the world!” I shouted, as I ran a red light.
“Fuck, man, you’re an idiot!”
I pressed the pearl-handled pistol closer to Trumboldt’s head. “Why’s that?”
“Braeburn is saving Braeburn, not the sodding world.”
We were passing warehouses next to the Thames, and I pulled into a greasy alley where I embraced Trumboldt’s neck in a
chokehold. “I’m dying today no matter what, and I’m to take you with me. You’re making me late for my destiny. If you have something to say, say it.”
“Braeburn’s not going to kill you,” Trumboldt said.
My arm twitched, but still held onto Trumboldt’s neck. “More.”
“He’s going to make you a patsy for several crimes and leave you for MI5, that’ll take attention away from his own affairs for a while.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
Trumboldt sighed. “I went to Braeburn-Drury for a suicide myself.”
I slumped back in my seat, and let my pistol fall.
Trumboldt winced, and felt his shoulder. “The ‘task’ added to your own demise, the black dossier with the last page blank?”
I started, and brought the pistol to his forehead. “No. I will free the world from corporate dominance, then die painlessly.”
Trumboldt laughed. “You’ll rot in prison, and have your ass reamed daily.”
Sirens sounded again, distant yet insistent.
“Where were you supposed to go?” Trumboldt asked. “A warehouse a few blocks from here?”
I nodded, against my will.
Trumboldt coughed, pink spittle landing on the roadster’s steering wheel. “Braeburn won’t be there, but MI5 will.”
I turned to my captive. “I really think that you do sell chemical weapons.”
Trumboldt grinned. “How else can I afford all of those prostitutes?”
I smiled back, then shot him in the face.
I had never ridden on the large Ferris Wheel next to the Thames, but watched it now as I waited for Braeburn to approach; his bowler hat appeared out of nowhere.
“It’s time, isn’t it, man?” he said.
“Seems like.” I found myself, like presumably countless others before me, wishing for a last cigarette even though I hadn’t smoked for twenty years. The ever-increasing background noise of sirens distracted my thoughts.
“You went above and beyond, with that Trumboldt nonsense.”
“Yes, hadn’t expected that,” I said.
