“What can we do to help Sarah?” Jim had asked. “There must be something.”
Dr. Goldsmith had opened his desk and pulled out a card. He turned it over and jotted a phone number on the back of it. “A friend of mine from medical school is the Medical Director of a clinic in Inglewood that specializes in helping families that are unable to pay for medical care. They have a cancer treatment center. Call him. I’ll let him know you’ll be in touch.”
And that had been that. Unfortunately, the most the clinic could do was put Sarah on the prerequisite chemotherapy treatments that only made her sicker. Within the past two months she’d gone from a fifty-five pound rag-tag of childhood spunk to a thirty-eight pound wraith with a pink scalp, pipe stream arms, and sores along her mouth.
At least it was shrinking the cancer in her belly. That was a very good sign.
And through it all, he and Nancy spiraled further to financial destruction.
He’d become so involved with serving the customers along the bar and filling the waitresses orders that he’d forgotten Julie Montenelli until she signaled him again. A middle-aged businessman with a balding pate and an oversized dark blue suit coat had found a spot next to her and was trying to pick her up. She held her scotch glass out to Jim again. “Another Scotch on the rocks, love.”
“Coming up.” He refilled her glass and brought it back to her.
She made eye contact with him again as the guy next to her continued talking to her. “So when we reached sixty percent in our sales force I just told Harvey,' listen pal, either get your shit together or...’”
“Thanks, Jim,” She pushed another ten his way and mouthed the words Keep the change. He nodded and grinned, his eyes going from the suit trying to put the make on her, to Julie’s obviously irritated demeanor. “How’d you like to make a little extra money, Jim?” She asked, totally ignoring the suit.
He was wiping the counter in front of her again. “Sure. What you got in mind?” He’d made under-the-table money from some of the other Polo Club clients before; an entrepreneur who owned two shipping firms once hired him to do some computer programming for his firms’ network systems; another business owner had hired him for a similar job. Others hired him to act as a bartender for private parties on their estates. Julie probably had a similar job lined up. He thought he’d heard Martin tell him that she owned a multi-media company.
She smiled again, oblivious to the suit next to her as he finally got the hint he was being spurned and turned away. “Meet me in the parking lot when you get off work. We can talk when it’s less busy for you.”
“Sounds good to me.” Another customer beckoned down at the other end of the bar. He turned to her and smiled. “Duty calls.”
She smiled back as he went back to work.
*
Tuesday, 2:35 AM
He’d forgotten entirely about Julie’s job proposition by the time last call rang out. Those that were still in the bar bellied up to order their last drinks while Jim and the other bartender, a blonde surfer-boy college kid named Neil Greenspon, hustled the drinks. Julie disappeared from the bar and Jim was thinking about what he was going to do to get through this weekend while Nancy pulled in her double shift at Moose’s. He had Sarah all weekend and wasn’t slated to work at all, and he hoped to get in about twenty pages of reading the latest James Patterson novel.
It wasn’t until he was exiting the Polo Club and making his way toward his car that he remembered Julie’s job offer. And with the remembrance came his name being called. “Jim!”
He turned, craning his neck around the parking lot until he saw her. She was sitting in a sleek black Mercedes. The driver’s side window was down and she waved him over. He raised his hand in greeting and walked over to her. When he approached the driver’s side door she motioned to the passenger side. “Get in. We’ll talk.”
He moved to the passenger’s side, opened the door, and got in. The interior of the car smelled like new polished leather with the faint tinge of cherry. The metallic whirring of the power window on the passenger side purred as the window went up and smiled at him. The dashboard lights were on, the radio turned to a soft jazz station. “Glad you could make it,” she said.
“I almost forgot,” Jim said sheepishly. “I was thinking about my first two days off in a row in almost four months.”
“Ah! A big weekend then?”
“For me it is.”
“Plans?”
Jim smiled. “Just spending it with my little girl.”
Julie smiled back. “That’s nice.”
“So...Julie,” Jim began. “What kind of job opportunity for me do you have in mind?”
Julie’s red lacquered fingernails drummed on the steering wheel. Jim could smell her perfume; he wondered what it was. White Diamonds? He’d bought Nancy a bottle of White Diamonds last Christmas and put it on the VISA card along with everything else they’d been putting on it for the past year, everything from the new washer and dryer, to Sarah’s Christmas presents, to the occasional dinner out of the house, to the flowers Jim had bought Nancy on Valentine’s and Mother’s Day.
“You’re still interested then?”
“If it’s a job, I’m there.”
“Okay.” Julie seemed to consider this. She looked out at the parking lot. She seemed to be contemplating what she was going to say and that made a flutter rise in Jim’s stomach. Then, before the flutter could become full blown butterflies, she turned to him. “I’ll tell you what I need done in very simple terms. I will pay you three million dollars in cash to befriend somebody from your church who you will lure to a location where he or she will be sacrificed in a Satanic Black Mass.”
What? Jim thought. He met her gaze, the flutter in his stomach now gone as he realized it had to be a joke. Surely a woman who wanted some kind of part-time help wouldn’t pull such a joke on a prospective employee. But then he read the look in those remarkable gray eyes and saw they hadn’t lost that glimmer, that staunch conviction. Her features hadn’t broken into a smile; she hadn’t laughed aloud and said she was kidding.
She was serious.
And she was waiting for an answer.
He finally found his voice. “You’ve got to be kidding. Right?” His lips turned up slightly into a smile, the notion that it was a joke beginning to breed in his system. His smile quickly evaporated, though, as she remained serious.
She wasn’t joking.
*
For a minute he was stunned. He leaned back in his seat staring out at the parking lot, which was completely empty now. Julie moved to retrieve a bag that was nestled between the front bucket seats. He could hear her rummaging through it as a multitude of thoughts raced through his mind. She obviously wasn’t kidding; she was serious about her proposition. And who was he to judge that it was a joke? He knew the kind of money that walked in at the Polo Club. He’d heard about the deals made, the way money was thrown around on things as insignificant as bathroom towels or silverware that cost thousands of dollars, to dates with high class call girls that ran into the tens of thousands, to the tabs spent for private parties. Three million dollars? Most of the people that frequented the Polo Club saw a million dollars the way he saw a twenty-dollar bill.
Julie’s entire demeanor was different from the pleasant woman he’d come to know on a casual basis for the past several months. “I see that you’re interested, but I also detect hesitation.”
He turned to her, feeling less overwhelmed now and more determined to see what made her tick. She hadn’t brought him this far to play an elaborate joke on him, that was for sure. “Let me see if I get this straight. You’ll pay me three million dollars to befriend a somebody from my church,” —he almost said, I stopped going to church two years ago, when Sarah got cancer, but didn’t—“and lure them to a sacrifice?”
“What’s so hard to understand?” She asked.
“A sacrifice? Are you kidding?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
&n
bsp; “I don’t know. I don’t really know you well enough to tell. I thought I did, but—”
“Well, I’m not kidding. I’m dead serious.”
At this, Jim felt his heart rate speed up. The urge to get as far away as possible from Julie Montenelli overrode his curiosity. “Why do you need me?”
“I’m a member of a very powerful, world-wide, secret Satanic organization that has been working for years in a series of rituals to bring about Satan’s rule on earth and ensure his triumph in the final battle–what many Christians call Armageddon. The ritual you will be participating in requires a believer in God to lead another believer to their sacrifice to the Dark Father.”
Jim almost said, You’ve got to be kidding me? He kept his mouth shut. It was obvious Julie was not only deranged, but also very serious. Wasn’t the Manson family deadly serious about Helter Skelter?
“You don’t believe me.”
“It is a little hard to swallow.”
“You believe in God, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Jim was a Christian in name only. Had he ever mentioned his spiritual beliefs to Julie in the past? He was pretty sure they’d discussed religion at one point, and if they had, he most likely would have admitted that he was a Christian, attended church, and then left it at that. The truth was, he used to be very devout in his beliefs and attended church weekly. However, thanks to the events of the last two years he was beginning to have some doubts, but he wasn’t going to tell her that now.
“So why don’t you believe me?”
“You want to pay me three million dollars to lead another person to their murder?”
“Yes.”
“And there’s no catch?”
“No catch at all.”
“And you’re not a cop? This isn’t some kind of—”
Julie burst out laughing. “No, Jim, I’m not a cop. This isn’t a sting or a setup.”
Jim felt nervous. He couldn’t help it. The request was just so whacked. “How do I know you won’t change your mind and decide to use me in your sacrifice instead.”
“The ritual is very specific. It requires a believer in Christ to willingly lead a fellow believer in Christ to that person’s ritual sacrifice.”
Jim thought very carefully about his next question, and then decided to ask it anyway. Despite knowing Julie was bad news, he didn’t feel immediately threatened by her. He felt nervous, under scrutiny, like he was walking a thin line between getting out of this car alive or being devoured. “How do I know you’re not bullshitting me?”
Another smile cracked her features, as if she’d treaded similar ground before. She opened the file folder in her lap and took out the top sheet of paper. “You want to know if I’m for real. Is that it?”
Jim nodded.
She smiled, as if expecting this. “Then I’ll show you.” She began to read from the paper in her hands. “Your name is James Douglas Cornell, your date of birth is April 15, 1974. Hawthorne, California was the lucky city that first welcomed you into the world. You live on 393 East Lambert Avenue, in Pasadena, California. Your mortgage is with Bank of America, you’re second mortgage is with them as well. Your phone number is 555-4811, your social security number is—”
“What the hell is this?” Jim yelled. He’d almost burst out screaming when she first began to read, and as she continued on, that fluttery feeling in his stomach began again, this time accompanied by one of dread. It was similar to the feeling he used to get as a child on a long trip to the dentist.
Julie continued as if she hadn’t heard his outburst. “—45-9729, your wife’s name is Nancy, maiden name Caprio, your daughter’s name is Sarah; she has lymph cancer that has rapidly spread through her–”
“What are you trying to do to me?”
“—body and your health insurance carrier dropped you because you went out of their range and sought the services of a specialist.” She paused from that. “Those goddamned HMOs.”
“You bitch,” Jim breathed, his teeth gritted in rage. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.
Julie continued again as if she hadn’t heard him. “You had a promising career as a software developer but were laid off last year. Your wife is a teacher for the LA Unified School District and is on the verge of being laid off due to budget cutbacks.”
“Stop it,” Jim breathed. This was the first he’d heard about a potential layoff. But if everything else was true—
“—you were expelled from high school for smoking pot on campus—”
Jim started. “How the hell—”
“—your crowning academic achievement was in the fifth grade when an essay you wrote took first place in a district contest—”
“—did you know that?”
“—and,” She shuffled through some more papers, finding what she was seeking as her gray eyes met his over the paper grimly. “...the last time you were with another woman was the one night stand you had five years ago with Karen Hetfield. You remember her, I’m sure.”
At the mention of Karen Hetfield’s name Jim grew cold. He felt his limbs turn to ice. Who the hell was Karen Hetfield? The name drew a blank, and then he suddenly remembered. She’d been a computer technician in the compensation department at Lockheed where he’d worked. He remembered her as an attractive woman, with long curly blonde hair that cascaded down her back. She'd had a flawless figure. In short, a real beauty. She’d been married to a guy in payroll and they had a three-year-old son. And she also had one hell of a crush on Jim; he could tell from the vibes that emanated from her whenever they ran into each other in the hall. They would usually make small talk—how’s the job going? that sort of thing—and she would flirt. He would find himself flirting back, but then would realize what he was doing and kill it. It had gone no further than that. They’d never gone out, never did lunch together, never partaken in a quickie in an abandoned conference room after work or stole a quick lunch hour at a motel room. Hell, nothing between them had ever happened. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he began, his throat choking up as his rage struggled to burst forth.
Julie put the papers back in the manila folder and replaced it in her purse. She regarded him pensively. “Yes, you do, Jim. Karen was very eager to work for me. All she needs to do is place a call to your wife when I give her the word and mention a few...intimate, but vague details. You may never have slept with her, but it won’t make any difference. The mere thought of you having a brief fling with a woman at the office will be more than enough for Nancy to file for divorce even if what Karen tells her is a bold-faced lie. It’s the possibility that it could have happened, plus the stress Nancy is going through now, that will send her over the edge.”
“And what does Karen get out of this?” Jim asked breathlessly, already knowing the answer.
“She gets...a tidy sum.”
Now as the implication of the blackmail threat floated before him all he could think about was how she could have known about Karen. For Julie to conduct such a thorough background check on him would have been easy; for her to find out that the woman from his former place of employment who worked down the hall had a desire to fuck his brains out and that she’d sensed the feeling had been mutual was nothing short of genius. He’d never cheated on Nancy, not once in their seven-year marriage, not even in the ten years they’d been together. He may have had the occasional fantasy about another woman, but then what guy hadn’t?
“I don’t blame you for whatever you may be feeling,” Julie said softly. She was regarding him calmly. “I can see you’re shocked. Go home and think about what we talked about tonight and then meet me at the Rivera in Arcadia on Thursday night. I promise that what passed between us tonight will go no further. We’ll talk then.”
“I don’t think so,” Jim said. He was reaching for the door handle, fumbling for the catch. “I’m not meeting you anywhere.”
Julie’s expression remained the same. “You’ll show up or your wife finds out about Karen.”
“She won’t believe you,” Jim sneered. “I never slept with her and Karen knows that. You’ll never be able to prove anything. Nancy won’t believe it.”
“I think she will,” Julie said. “She’s under a lot of pressure now from work, worrying about your daughter, your marriage. This little...bit of information...whether she believes it to be true or not, will surely push her over the edge. There’s no telling how she’ll react.”
Jim found the door handle and flung the door open, almost spilling himself out. He slammed the door and began to storm away, dimly aware of Julie’s voice calling after him: “Thursday night, eight o’clock, the Rivera Club.”
“Fuck you!” He yelled back. He reached his Datsun, fumbled for the keys and was so angry that he dropped them twice. He wasn’t even aware of the sound of the Mercedes’ engine starting, or the purr of the car as it pulled out of the parking lot. It wasn’t until he got the door of his own car open and collapsed into the front bucket seat that he realized how tense he was.
She’s insane, he thought. She has to be. There’s no way I’m going to meet her Thursday night. If she shows up during my shift the best course of action is to ignore her. Pretend this didn’t happen.
And if she follows through with her threat about Karen...well, I’ll think about that if it happens.
Later, when he composed himself, he started the car and drove home.
That night, Jim found it very hard to get to sleep.
*
Tuesday.
He did a pretty good job of keeping what happened from Nancy. He devoted his full attention to Sarah, taking care of her, taking her to her chemotherapy treatments in Inglewood during the day and watching cartoons with her in the afternoon. When Nancy called during her break or lunch periods he kept the conversations to a minimum; everything was fine, Sarah was doing well—she ate half a hamburger today! —and he was pretty sure that new software company was going to call back for a second interview. How was her day? And then she’d go off into an almost endless litany of her stupid, arrogant students, the mindlessness of the school system bureaucracy and the fear she felt when she walked through the metal detector when she reported to work everyday. There were members from thirty different gangs that attended Yonker’s Junior High School, and each one of them had members willing to kill for as little as lunch money. The faculty was not immune to the problems its students and teachers faced when it came to the gangs.
Do Unto Others Page 2