I thought about running. Just head for Miami and then figure out how to find someone who could get me a passport, maybe even all new ID. Yeah, even Jacob R. Keys could be made to no longer exist with the money I had. Money was all it took, at least that was all it took in the books I’d read, and according to my new best friend.
At three fifteen, I decided he wasn’t going to show and was just about to leave when I heard the sound of what I thought was a small plane. It seemed really low, like it was crashing or something. So I got out of my car and looked up until I realized that the sound was coming from my right and it was coming from the swamp. I practically jumped out of my skin when an airboat leaped through the tall grass twenty feet down the canal. The guy sitting in the top seat, driving the thing, was wearing a big hat that was tied under his chin. He drove the airboat right up to my car, banging into the right front fender.
“What the hell?” I yelled, but the noise from the boat drowned out my words before they even left my mouth. It was that loud.
After the guy shut down the engine, he jumped down, pulled off his sunglasses and yelled, “Hey, buddy! I’m glad you could make it.” It was Psycho Bill.
“You really did it, didn’t you?” I yelled at him accusingly, and then I realized he wasn’t wearing a mask. He looked to be thirty to thirty-five. No facial hair, deep blue eyes. Not a bad looking guy, but something about his eyes made him look wild, like a caged animal of some sort.
“I did you a big favor. You should be thanking me, not complaining about what I did. The Bitch got what she deserved,” he stated flatly as I checked him out. He was about five ten, maybe six feet tall; he had brown hair and his skin was kind of pale but not too pale. He definitely didn’t spend a lot time outside in the sun. He looked like he worked out, but he may just be one of those people who was naturally fit.
“How long have you been waiting? I hope not long. What do you say we get on with this? I’ve made us dinner reservations at a great place down at the beach. You do like seafood, right?” he asked as he pulled a plastic bag from his pocket, handing it to me.
I looked at it, but I didn’t move as he walked around the driver’s side of the car, placed the car in neutral and grabbed my gun off the seat. Shit. I forgot about it again, and now he had it. Again.
“Here, take this,” he said as he handed me the gun. He was still wearing the plastic gloves. “Did you get everything else you wanted out of here?” he asked as he started the car. “What are you waiting for? Write the note, dumbass!”
I snapped out of my stupor, opened the bag and pulled out the pen. Leaning on the car, I asked, “What should I say?”
“Call her a bitch and say you’re not sorry that you killed her. Then say something about how she cheated on you and she deserved to die. Then sign your name. Hey, that’s the last time you’ll sign that name. Can you feel the freedom?” he asked after he made his suggestions. Shit. He was wearing that wicked grin again, and I was totally creeped out by it. I put it out of my mind, and I wrote the note. I didn’t see how I had any other choice.
I started by saying that I deserved better. She shouldn’t have cheated on me after having destroyed our life savings and the good life we had. I then said she deserved to die and now I had nothing left to live for, but I wasn’t sorry. I told them I knew I was dying anyway, so this would just make it happen faster and while I could still have control over ending my life with dignity. I then signed it: Goodbye, Me. He read it and shrugged his shoulders, telling me to put it back in the bag and then throw it in the car. I did as I was told and then went and got my one suitcase and the bag with the money in it out of the trunk.
He started the engine on the car, got out and closed the door. He then leaned in the driver’s side window and put the car in gear. It rolled into the canal where it quickly disappeared under the water. He then looked at me and asked for the gun. I hesitated, but he stood right there in front of me with his hand out, demanding it. I, of course, let him take it from me, even though I could have shot him dead right then. Why didn’t I save myself? Did I really, deep down, just want to die? Hell, I was being controlled by a mass murderer—maybe a serial killer; I’m not sure what the difference is—who had set me up to take the fall for at least three murders. Shit! Was I was pathetic or what?
Psycho Bill grinned that wicked grin at me, pointed the gun toward the water and said, “I want you to go over there and fire a shot into the water and then drop the gun right here on the bank, okay?” I nodded and did as I was told.
“Why did I do that?” I asked, once I had done it.
He looked at me strangely and said, “Really? You don’t know why you fired the gun and left it on the ground where someone can find it?” His voiced sounded as if he was completely shocked I would ask the question.
“There isn’t anyone around to report having heard a gunshot. Besides, what if some guy out hunting stumbles across it? Won’t he just take it home if he should find it?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so, because I’ve already called it in. They’ll be here any minute now, so we have to hurry. I told the 911 dispatcher that I heard a shot and saw a car under water in the canal out here. The police will be here in about a half-hour or so, and this spot is very isolated. They’ll find the gun and the car with the note inside and you’re home free for that murder. Get in the boat. We need to get out of here. You know anyone in Miami?” he asked as he started the boat engine. I shook my head no, and he just smiled. But before we pulled away, he opened his cooler and began pulling out dead chickens and tossing them into the canal. As we sat and waited for a few minutes, a couple dozen gators swam up and gathered around us in the canal. He then tossed the remaining couple of dozen chickens left in the cooler into the canal, over the top the car and up on the shore where I was supposed to have killed myself. The gators went after all of the chickens. A couple of the animals even fought over the last chicken on shore. Then as soon as the gators slipped back into the water, the birds descended and picked up every scrap of chicken that was left by the gators.
The chicken tossing completed, he scrambled up into the driver’s seat and quickly gunned the engine. We headed off to the east at a breakneck speed. In every direction, there was nothing but dark water and tall outcroppings of sawgrass.
It took us two hours to drive across the swamps in the airboat and reach the public boat ramp at Holiday Park, where he had a pickup with a trailer waiting. We pulled the boat out and drove off just before sunset, starting my new life and leaving me scared out of my wits.
We’d driven for about ten minutes and were on Orange Boulevard heading toward Davie when I suddenly had to talk before I lost my mind. Everything was beginning to blur at the edges, and I felt like I would pass out if I didn’t find a way to make sense of this nightmare I was in.
“Okay, Bill,” I began. “I know you mentioned something before about why you picked me, but could you go over it one more time?” I asked sheepishly, not wanting to do anything to upset this maniac. “Or not.” I threw that in to give him a choice, in case he wasn’t feeling like explaining himself just now.
“Man, for a smart guy, you sure can be thick. Let me try and explain this so you’ll completely understand. Ah, first, I didn’t pick you. I picked her, your ex. I was just cruising around one afternoon about four years ago, and this red Chevy Malibu cut me off. She never looked, didn’t use a turn signal, was talking on the phone and putting on makeup while driving.”
“That’s why I never rode with her,” I mumbled as he continued.
“Now, I’m not your typical road rage asshole. I am far worse. Most days, it takes all of my strength to control my rage toward the idiot drivers who think it’s their right to run you off the road or to cause major traffic problems, just because their momma calls them special,” he commented sarcastically.
“Anyway, she cut me off and then proceeded to slow down as she applied eye shadow. So I pulled around her in an effort to get ahead of her only to hav
e her speed up just as I was trying to pass. I managed to get about three quarters of a car length ahead of her and then flipped on my blinker. That bitch then sped up and stayed right in my blind spot, no matter how much I sped up.
“I lucked out, though, when she had to reach for her purse, and that gave me a chance to cut her off, which I did.
“Do you know she had the balls to flip me off and lean out of her window and scream at me?” His face took on a faraway look and a slight grimace as he continued. “Now, that really pissed me off, and it put her in my crosshairs.
“To piss her off further, I slowed down, and at the next intersection I almost stopped before I turned right from the center lane causing her to slam on her brakes. I heard her tires squeal. Looking back at her in my rear view mirror, she was flipping me off again, waving her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs. It was great to see her lose it, ’cause my plan was to race around the business strip there and get ahead of her at the next street. I managed to do so because traffic on Daniels was pretty heavy, and there was no one in the alleyway. I pulled up to the intersection and waited for her to get there. Then, just as she was about to cross the intersection, I let the truck jump forward about ten feet.
“She was on the phone now and still playing with her makeup, so she never saw me until I jumped, and then, she overreacted. She swerved to her left, thinking I was coming into the roadway, but I had stopped far enough back that I was still legal and safe. Technically, I did nothing wrong. But what she did, well, that was a different story.
“There was a cop sitting right across the street, and all he saw was her swerving out of the way of nothing. She had several cars behind her swerve to miss her as she came to a stop in the next lane after cutting over there for no apparent reason. Once she had stopped, she began screaming at me and flipping me the bird again. I just laughed.”
“That ticket she got really pissed her off,” I interjected, because I needed to hear myself talk. “It cost us two hundred and thirty dollars plus the increase in insurance because it was an offense that she couldn’t go to driving school for and avoid the points. I don’t remember what the cop wrote it for, but it wasn’t reckless driving. It was…” I fumbled with the memory.
“It was for ‘failure to properly control a moving vehicle,’” he blurted out as a big smile broke across his face, erasing his scowl.
“Yeah, that was it. And didn’t he also write her up for verbally abusing a police officer?” I asked him for some stupid reason. She had been married to me at the time. How would he know?
“Yes, that was the best part. Once she crossed that line, she had no choice but to pay the fines and take the points. It sure made my day,” he quipped. How did he know this? What did he do? Break into my house and read my mail?
“I bet you’re wondering how I know about that, huh?” He read my mind, and I just sat staring at him. “The next day is when I decided to take a closer look at her. You see, God has given me a mandate.”
“What?” I mumbled. This was an unexpected twist. Did he just say God told him to kill people? Shit. I’m really screwed.
“This mandate tells me I’m supposed to wander around, weeding out the really bad people, sort of like culling the herd. Life is a gift from God, and each of us is supposed to take care of each other. But you wouldn’t believe how few of us ever make an attempt to help others. We’re all so caught up in the trash that fills our everyday life that we’re too self-absorbed to care about anything else. Now, my specific job is to cull the herd of the truly hypocritical ones. You know, the ones who proclaim at every opportunity that they love someone and then dump them the moment things get a little rough.” He looked at me as if he expected me to say something, but I was too shocked to speak just yet, so he continued.
“Your late wife was the perfect example of that. Do you know how many times in the last month of your relationship she told you how much she really loved you but couldn’t take living with you anymore? Huh? Do you?’ he asked sarcastically with a touch of malice in his voice. I just shook my head.
“That bitch told you a hundred and six times during the last month before she filed for divorce that she loved you. Yet that whole time, she was buffing that other guy’s knob since the day she got to Florida.”
“God’s given you a mandate?” I sheepishly uttered.
“Now, don’t go getting all sarcastic and patronizing on me, buddy, or I should say Jake. That way you’ll get used to it and won’t screw up when you introduce yourself to someone.”
“She really started buffing that guy right after she got to Florida?” My ire was starting to rise. He had orchestrated this whole thing, and I was really starting to feel like I was trapped in a living hell.
“Yeah, but I first caught them after the ticket. They used to fondly reminisce about that plane flight from Detroit. They even met at some conference in Orlando that she had to attend for work. It was all the gossip at her office. I guess she had been throwing herself at a couple of the guys there, including that black guy she kept telling you how nice he was. What she really was thinking about when she was telling you how she felt, was that he had a…”
“Shut up! I don’t want to know. Christ! I know she screwed me, good and bad at the same time. I’m humiliated enough, okay?” I blurted out tersely.
“Okay, I understand. I can be a bit cold at times,” he said in a consolatory way then quickly got us back on track. “Now, back to your question. Yes, God has given me a mandate. My job is to look for people, just like your late wife, who lie barefaced to those who are closest to them on a regular basis without any remorse or guilt. She did this for years. She drove you into bankruptcy by lying about having the mortgages in place for all of those properties you bought and remodeled. She lied about the rental contracts with the state for those same condos. She lied about the interest rates she got on the loans to cover the difference between your life savings and price of the properties and remodeling. She lied about loving you.”
Ow. That last one really hurt, but I kept quiet, wishing he would shut up, now that I had him talking. His explanation of how we got here wasn’t helping with my growing sense of total panic. I found myself wishing I still had the gun and wondering if I could shoot him, if I had it.
“I broke into your old house and planted bugs. That way I could get the lowdown on her and you. If both of you were total shits, I’d have returned both of you to papa and let him fry your asses!” he continued. “I’ve been at this a long time. I’ve seen and done some brutal things, but that woman took the cake. There she was, stealing your money, screwing some guy behind your back, regular like, and then screwing some other guy’s behind his. What a bitch!”
“How long did you listen to us?” I asked, wondering what he had heard exactly.
“The day after the ticket is when I stopped by and acted like I was a repairman who she’d given a key to. I even met one of your neighbors, and they didn’t think it odd at all that a strange guy was wandering around your place when no one was home. I think you were out working that day. You were selling recreational vehicles back then.”
“Did you hear everything that went on in the house?” I asked, knowing he would probably say yes, and I really felt ashamed to have been overheard trying making deals with God.
“Hey, I destroyed the tapes, and God sent me to answer your prayers. It’s just that God works in mysterious ways. He’s also a very vengeful god. You see, each of us is given a task by Him, and we have to do it, or we don’t get to go to Heaven after our fun-filled days in paradise. Now, don’t try to equate what I just said to what the Bible says. Heaven is the everlasting paradise, and Earth is the paradise where we can actually enjoy some of the devil’s simpler pleasures. Once you’ve been to Heaven, you don’t think about sex anymore—it really doesn’t do a thing for you. In Heaven, it’s more of a mind thing. Kind of like that country song, ‘In Heaven, there ain’t no beer, that’s why we drink it here!’ Well, that and sex.”
>
“Right. God sends us to Earth to have sex and drink beer,” I sarcastically replied as we approached the Lauderdale airport and jumped on I-95, heading south.
“Yes, that’s right, and to do the tasks He’s set for us. Some of us have bigger tasks than others, and some of us try like hell but never get it done. He rewards the effort, but it better be a real effort, or he’ll fry you.”
“Bill, I’ve never heard such a crock of shit in my life. I don’t believe for a minute that God has given you a mandate and that we all have tasks to do before we die. I know I’m going to Heaven because I’ve accepted Jesus as my personal savior. That’s how it’s done in the Bible, and that’s all there is to it.” I proudly rebuffed his bullshit. “The Bible says we can’t make it to Heaven on our good works because unless we are reborn in Christ, God views us as nothing but filthy rags.”
“Jake, that’s great. But I’m telling you, you had better figure out what you’re supposed to be doing for the man before time runs out or else he’ll spit you out like warm water. Haven’t you ever felt like you were supposed to do something more than what you have? You know, something that if you told your friends, they would laugh at you and think you had lost your mind or something?” I just nodded because that was how I got elected township supervisor and why I did my best to help people who were having a hard time in life.
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