First Thrills

by Lee Child

  “Any others?” A man barked down to her through a small yellow bullhorn.

  Mira knew when to seize opportunity.

  “My husband,” she yelled. “Oh, God, I warned him not to take the boat out! He’s not a very good swimmer!”

  The man with the bullhorn nodded to let her know he’d understood.

  Jagged lightning rent the sky and the pilot looked away worriedly. The lightning hit again and again. The copter lurched and a female face peered down at Mira.

  The blonde from the surveillance videos!

  Mira remembered L. S. Crum’s report: Grad student . . . Marine biology . . . Did a lot of diving together . . . Coast Guard Reserve . . .

  Did a lot of diving together!

  Over the beat of the thrashing helicopter blades, she didn’t hear the gull’s scream this time. With its sharp beak, the bird was rushing at her again, right at Mira’s eyes.

  The last thing she saw before she closed them was a familiar face next to the blonde’s in the open ’copter doorway. It was a face that did not regret its own er’s sins of omission nor his sins of commission. It was the face of a most unworthy sinner.

  It was Rob’s face. And if he had been close, she would have seen herself reflected in his eyes.

  *

  JOHN LUTZ is the author of more than forty novels and 250 short stories and articles. He is a past president of both Mystery Writers of America and Private Eye Writers of America. Among his awards are the MWA Edgar, the PWA Shamus, The Trophee 813 Award for best mystery short-story collection translated into the French language, the PWA Life Achievement Award, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Golden Derringer Lifetime Achievement Award. His SWF Seeks Same was made into the hit movie Single White Female, and his The Ex was made into the HBO original movie of the same title, for which he co-authored the screenplay. His latest book is the suspense novel Urge To Kill.

  LISE S. BAKER is a licensed private investigator and a member of the World Association of Detectives. She has been nominated nine years in a row for California Investigator of the Year by CALI (California Association of Licensed Investigators). Her award-winning novel The Loser’s Club was inspired by John Lutz’s fictional detective, Fred Carver. Collaborating with Lutz on the short story “Eye of the Storm” is a dream come true for this writer/detective.

  Currently, Detective Baker is working on a murder case for the Northern California Innocence Project. This is in addition to running her agency, L.S. Baker Investigations, which specializes in fraud investigations.

  MICHAEL PALMER and DANIEL JAMES PALMER

  I’ve always loved Vegas. And not just in a “I love going there” kind of way, which I do. It’s really much more than that. Vegas is like a second home to me. In the same way some people turn all warm and tingly inside when they stroll into, say, a knitting shop, that’s how I feel as soon as I take my first footsteps onto the blood-red carpeting of a Vegas casino.

  I’m home.

  Funny thing is, I’m a doctor, a general practitioner, and a darn good one. So you’d think after seeing my fair share of emphysema cases and a battalion of concerned parents whose teenage kids have just started lighting up, that I’d despise the cigarette smoke that clings to the ceiling and the table felt. But you’d be wrong. I love it, despite having quit the nasty habit to win a bet some twenty years ago.

  And who says gambling can be dangerous to your health?

  The sounds of chips plinking against one another are like birdsongs to me. I love watching the waitresses work the room—the ones destined to seduce some high roller and those still strutting their stuff, despite being as well-worn as flea market furniture. I love the unending sea of lights and the symphony of the slots, praising the winners with their bells and chimes, while goading the losers into pointlessly dropping more down the hatch. But what I love most about Vegas is winning money and that’s something I’ve always been very good at doing.

  Now, Lee Anne, she’s my wife, might be quick to disagree with that last claim, but she tends to focus on the negative. See, as any real gambler knows, you’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet and that means the losses with the wins. What Lee Anne can’t seem to grasp is that even with the expected dry spells over the years, if you add it all up, I’ve won more money than I’ve lost, which is more than most players could honestly claim.

  Some folks who know me best, Lee Anne for one, might argue that I had no business attending the AMA symposium on osteoporosis, held at the Luxor in Vegas, but Lou (he would be the head of my group, and the one flipping the bill) didn’t seem to mind since I needed the continuing medical education credits.

  “Bobby, do you really have to go for a whole week?” Lee Anne asked, while I was packing.

  One thing to know about my wife, she only calls me Bobby if she’s really unhappy about something I’ve done. To my friends, I’m Bob and at work I’m Dr. Robert Tomlinson, but at home, at least lately, I’m far more Bobby than I am Bob. Over the years, I’ve come to use Bobby myself whenever my behavior veers a few degrees from the center.

  Yeah, I told her, I had to go. But of course, that was white lie. I did have to go, but not for the CMEs. I mean, Vegas wouldn’t be Vegas without a little bit of sin thrown into the mix. You know, take the sweet with the bitter.

  My first night in town, I skipped out on the Cardinal Healthcare– sponsored cocktail hour and rolled into the Bellagio’s vast casino. I wanted to wet my whistle with a little blackjack at the fifteen dollar table just to get the juices flowing. Since most of us docs were staying at the Luxor, I had no desire to bump into any of them out on the floor. See, I was harboring a wee bit of guilt about spending my practice’s hard earned money on the conference and not being the all-functions, all-the-time sort of guy. I figured, so long as I didn’t run into anybody who recognized me, I wouldn’t have to feel bad about having skipped out on the cocktail hour. Of course, even at the Bellagio I was spotted. But later I’d be glad because that was how I got introduced to The Dead Club.

  The cocktail hour back at the Luxor was only half-cocked and already I was down three hundred on a string of hard-luck hands. The thing about strings, though, for good or bad, is that they’re destined to end. The MIT math wonks who claim that sort of thinking is nothing but a gambling fallacy are full of S-H-I-T, if you ask me. I can feel when a win streak is coming on. It starts in my toes and buzzes up my legs like electricity; I had that feeling now. The first two cards of my next hand were the six of clubs and four of spades. Naturally, I doubled down, intending to cut my current losses in half with a win. My next card was the jack of clubs. The dealer bust hitting on thirteen, and just like that, I heard that bad-luck streak snap like the string of an overplayed guitar.

  That was when I met Grover.

  He sat down on the empty stool to my left and placed a hundred dollar initial bet, which he proceeded to lose in seven seconds. His follow-up was an even two hundred smackers.

  “Looks like you’ve soaked up all the good luck this table’s dishing out tonight,” he said to me.

  I’d won my fifth straight hand and he’d dropped his third.

  “There’s more luck to be had,” I replied.

  Now Grover was the sort of fellow you didn’t easily forget and I knew that I’d seen him earlier in the day at the symposium registration booth. He had a grizzly-bear frame, a thick Santa Claus head of snow-white hair, and a matching snowy goatee. I was pretty confident he didn’t recognize me.

  “So what sort of doc are you?” he asked.

  Guess I was wrong.

  “GP,” I said. “You?”

  “Orthopedist. Name’s Grover Theodore Marshall. Friends just call me Grove.”

  Grove had a vise for a handshake and a deep Southern accent. I never bothered asking where he was from, or what hospital he worked at, and he never bothered to tell me.

  “Look at that,” Grove said.

  “What?”

  “That woman over there.”

  My ey
es followed his finger until I spotted an attractive thirtysome-thing brunette at the craps table.

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “She keeps touching her hair with her left hand. Hundred bucks says the next time she does it, it’ll be with her right.”

  “You serious?”

  I let my attention wander and the dealer had to ask if I wanted to set down a bet. I hated passing on a deal when I was so hot, but there was something compelling about Grove. We left the table together.

  On closer inspection, the woman was well into her forties, and wore too much makeup.

  I reasoned that either Grove was lying to me and she had been touching her hair with her right hand all along, which made it a sucker bet, or he was thinking that I was thinking he was lying, in which case he’d expect me to double the stakes, but only if I got to bet the right hand—a wager he’d politely decline. Trusting my gut, I went with the left-hand touch. Three seconds later I was a hundred richer.

  “Goddamit!” Grove said, slapping my back hard enough to rattle my lungs. “I was so sure she was going to go right.”

  He slid a hundred from a thick wad and pressed the crisp bill into my palm.

  “Just dumb luck,” I said.

  “No way,” he said. “Hell, I got you pegged. You’re a player. I’ve gotta hang with you, man. You think you can teach this old dog a few Vegas tricks so I don’t get my clock cleaned all week?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Grove said.

  “It’s Bobby,” I said. “Bobby Tomlinson.”

  Grove and I spent the rest of the conference as inseparable gambling buddies. It helped that he shared my conferencing habits, which involved attending a morning session or two, skipping the afternoon sessions entirely to hit the tables, and breaking briefly for dinner, with more gambling until well past the witching hour. I shared all my trade secrets for blackjack (best odds for the player) and craps (a game I’ve affectionately renamed, “Lose All Your Money Fast”). By the week’s end, I was up over fifteen-hundred and Grove, good God, had socked away almost four grand thanks to his willingness to place bets that doubled mine.

  We were drinking vodka tonics, lounging on a couple of cushy chairs, and watching an array of forty television sets broadcasting what seemed to be every sporting event taking place in the world at that moment. Of course, we could bet on all of them, which we did for some. Grove won five-hundred bucks when Baltimore returned a punt for a touchdown.

  “Hey, G.P.,” he said, jabbing at my specialty, “didn’t your mama ever tell you that the real money’s in surgery?”

  I guess I invited that taunt. All week long I had complained about not having deep pockets—the kind that would let me make the sort of bets Grove made without batting an eye.

  “My wife is scared to death of the tables,” I said. “I thought it might be a good idea to stay married and see my two kids through college.” Each time I said something even half-funny, Grove laughed roundly and pounded my back.

  “I like you, Bobby,” he said. “I wish we could keep playing.”

  “Got to get back to reality.”

  “You know,” Grove said. “You’re a really great player. A gamer’s gamer. You’re like a craftsman on those tables.”

  “Hardly. I just helped educate you about some commonly held beliefs.”

  I took an extra long sip of my vodka because I wanted Grove to think I was that casual about my skill.

  “If you’re as good a doc as you are a gambler, you could make a killing in our club.”

  He voiced the thought almost as an aside, but he got my attention.

  “What club?”

  “Huh? Oh, I’m sorry, I was thinking out loud.”

  “Yeah? What club?”

  Grove shifted his weight in his chair, glancing about as if the security cameras were as interested in his mysterious club as they were in the blackjack card counters.

  “It’s sort of a private club for doctors,” Grove said, in a conspiratorial whisper. Then he added, “Doctors who like to gamble.”

  “I’m a doctor and I like to gamble.”

  “Yeah, well, we don’t bet on cards.”

  “Yeah? What do you bet on, death?”

  I laughed. Grove didn’t even break a smile.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “Is that what you really do?”

  Grove shifted his gaze down to his feet and spoke even softer.

  “It’s not exactly what you think. It’s not even really illegal or anything. But ethically, well, it would be a bit awkward if word ever got out.”

  “I think I want to know more.”

  “Look, I’ll tell you,” Grove said, “but I need you to swear, Bobby, I mean swear to me, that you’ll never breathe a word of this to anybody. Heck, I might even be able to sponsor you if you want in. That’s how much I like you. We haven’t admitted a new member in over five years.”

  “So what’s the club?”

  “It’s called ‘The Dead Club.’ ”

  “Sounds sinister. Tell me more.”

  “Okay, here’s how it works. Each month you get an email with a link. The link is to a password protected website. You’ll have to download an application first before you can use the site. That way we can erase any record of the club on your computer in case of emergency.”

  “By emergency I assume you mean detection. What’s on the site?”

  “Each month there’s a new medical file for a terminally ill patient in some hospital somewhere in the world.”

  “The world?”

  “It’s sort of a global club.”

  “And you’re all betting on terminally ill patients?”

  “That’s right. We’re using our considerable doctoring skills to wager, based solely on the information in their medical records. Like I said, we bet on precisely when they’re going to die.”

  “That’s a quite a new twist on the old line, ‘I’m sorry Mrs. Smith, but I regret to inform you you’ve only got six months to live.’ ”

  Grove’s smile was far from his signature warm grin. This one was etched with profound mischievousness.

  “See, that’s how the club started, Bobby,” he said. “A bet between two docs on just that and, well, it’s sort of grown from there.”

  Right then and there I wished I had introduced myself as Robert, or at least Bob. But I kept thinking—How can I get in on this action?

  “How many in the club?” I asked.

  “I have no idea. Don’t even know how long the club has existed. Membership is on a trial basis and you have to be nominated by an existing member to be considered. Then you get vetted by a committee, all secret stuff, don’t ask me how they do it and if you make it past them, which apparently few do, your name goes before the board for approval.”

  Grove was shockingly cavalier describing the club, given that it crossed fairly broad ethical lines.

  “Where do the records come from?” I asked.

  “Member-supplied. I have put up a few records myself. Of course you can’t bet on your own.”

  I wanted to say something, but I was too stunned to speak. Grove continued.

  “When you break the club down, there’s really nothing wrong with what we do. It’s all anonymous, supervised by the competition committee, which changes members every four months. We take pains to remove anything that could tie a record to the actual patient. No names, addresses, hospital, next of kin, exact birthday—none of it. All of that information is removed before it gets posted.”

  “How much have you won?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say if, like you say, you’re worried about college tuition, a few winning bets in The Dead Club could take care of all that—all four years, both kids.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” I said. “But what if the patient dies of something else. A slip and fall, say.”

  “Hey, in our world, dead is dead.”

  Fast-forward now. Two months slip by since I met
Grove and his twisted little club. I had sunk back into my life dominated by sore throats, snoring problems, unexplained and unexplainable chest pains, equally mysterious muscle and joint aches and of course, parents concerned about their teenagers’ smoking and pill-popping habits, refusing to look at their own.

  Lee Anne and I fell back into step; that lost week in Vegas is now just a fuzzy memory, made even fuzzier by the routines of life—household duties and shuttling our children (Jake twelve and Max ten) to and from basketball practice, piano lessons, and the like. Then, on Christmas morning, no less, I get this email from tdc0529@aol.com. The message simply read: “YOU’RE IN” and there was a link for me to click. By this time, I had pushed Grove and his crazy betting pool to the back of my mind. I clicked the link anyway, and then panicked when it was clear some application was being installed on my computer. I was about to power off the machine when a Web browser popped open and the Web page that loaded read:

  THE DEAD CLUB

  Login:

  Password:

  First-time visitors, click here

  When I clicked the first time visitor link, I was asked to enter my social security number, which to my surprise, I actually did. What’s even more astounding is that it recognized my social and then returned a username/password combo, which allowed me to log on to the site successfully. I guess Grove had nominated me and I had been vetted by some committee and approved for membership in The Dead Club.

  The site, itself, was a marvel. There were bets being tracked in real time from what I gauged to be nearing a hundred cases, some stretching back several years. The older cases were locked for any new action, but you could still track the current odds to win. To get into a betting pool, you had to bet on the current, active case, which for January was an eighty-eight-year-old man with stage-four pancreatic cancer, which, according to his biopsies, had spread to several adjacent organs, the most deadly of which was his liver. He was already showing signs of hepatic inflammation and obstruction.