Kill Me (9 page)

I said, “Tell you what — I’ll do one Slaw Dog and one Original with onions if you’ll do kraut.”

We shook on it.

Want to know what I was thinking?

I was thinking that Thea would never have kidnapped me for lunch and whisked me uptown through Central Park to the original Papaya King. She wouldn’t have ordered the King Combo — no way — and she would never, ever have thought about getting kraut or onions in polite company unless she had a fresh tin of Altoids in her perfect little Kate Spade shoulder bag.

No, if I’d been with Thea instead of with Lizzie, my wife would have been leading me up Madison Avenue from the hotel on 57th, skipping from precious boutique to precious boutique like a flat stone finding its way across a still pond, telling me the whole time all the good things she’d heard about the little restaurant that just happens to be inside Barneys.

Nor was I thinking at all that Lizzie might someday be the person who would plan my death.

Funny thing.

At the time, in the simple territory of my mind, I was just out on an errand buying some insurance, having a midday meal with my new insurance agent.

I was being a grown-up.

And, sure, I was flirting with a pretty girl on a lovely day in Manhattan.

What on earth was wrong with that?

SEVENTEEN

Waiting on line at a Mickey D’s drive-thru has never managed to make me hungry. I don’t salivate driving past a Taco Bell. But waiting my turn at Papaya King, watching those dogs nestle together and curl and crisp on that grill, and listening to them sizzle and spit, made me ravenous. Lizzie somehow snagged us a pair of stools at the narrow counter while I waited impatiently for our food to arrive.

I was still expecting my comedically contrived host from Nobu either to join us or to replace Lizzie as my dining companion, so I was surprised, and pleased, that when I tracked her down with our food she hadn’t pulled over a third stool. She saw something else in my eyes — something besides my surprise, something that I was quite aware I was feeling, but that I hadn’t been intending to communicate to her, either directly or indirectly.

“You’re married,” she admonished me, with a superfluous
“tsk.”
“Do I have to say everything twice?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I replied, sitting down across from her. “This is lunch. Lunch. Married men eat, you know.”

She covered an involuntary laugh with a quick exhale and a murmured, “Not all of them,” but otherwise let my comment float by. She said, “Anyway, I know things about you that your wife doesn’t know.”

I thought about that claim for a moment, and I wondered what it was she knew and whether it attracted or repelled her. Roll of the dice. I said, “You probably know things about me that I don’t know.”

“That’s probably true, too.”

With a jab as quick as the flit of an iguana’s tongue, I grabbed one of her curly fries. She gave me a look that only hinted at what I’d get if I tried to steal, say, a kiss, instead of a fry.

The look, I admit, made me tempted to try.

We sat in silence for a while. I ate slowly, savoring my food, but also savoring the opportunity to watch her eat. Why?

Figure it out.

One and a half dogs down, she dipped a final Cajun curly fry in ketchup, nibbled it slowly, and then dabbed a Papaya King napkin at a few different locations on her lovely lips. “You’re not sure about us,” she said. She paused just long enough at that point that I considered the possibility that the “us” was she and I. When she continued, however, and added, “About what we do,” I knew that the “us” she was talking about was she and her Death Angel compatriots.

“So it’s time for business,” I said, stating the obvious. The clamor and bustle and informality all around us made Papaya King an almost perfect location for a confidential business meeting about insuring one’s timely death. “But I have this small problem. I’m congenitally suspicious of doing business in situations where the other party knows more about me than I know about them.”

“Ah,” she said.

“It’s a philosophy that has served me well over the years. Old dogs, new tricks, you know?”

“I’m sure it has served you well. See if this helps you with your dilemma: This business — what we do — is all about asking people like you to yield some control now, so that you can be certain to have control later.”

“Later? When?”

“When your force of will, and your ability to move mountains, may be a little bit more compromised than you’ve grown accustomed to. As a general rule, we tend to serve only clients who share your control issues. Those who are indifferent about control don’t gravitate our way. Think about it.”

She threw her napkin on top of her remaining food, as though she needed to put a physical barrier between herself and her desire for more … something. I made a mental note of her need for an artificial wall. This wasn’t a woman to whom self-control of appetites came naturally.

I admit that I like that in a woman.

“There’s something else you should know about me: I’m more of a control freak than most wealthy men,” I said.

“You think so?” she teased.

“I do.”

“I wasn’t being completely honest with you a moment ago,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “We’re actually here today so that I can invite you — no, encourage you — to request a refund of your enrollment deposit.”

“ ’We’re’ here today? Who’s ‘we’?” I looked around. “Is that other guy here someplace? From Nobu? Or is he off practicing his set for the next open-mic night at Carolines?”

“You and me,” she said. “Just you and me.” She was looking at me, and she reached over and once again rested her palm on my cheek, insisting my attention be on nothing but her.

“So it’s you?” I leaned closer to her. “You would like me to back out and request a refund?”

“Yes. I think that would be best.”

“Are you speaking personally or for your … company?”

“Both. I think you should withdraw. My associates agree. Your deposit will be returned.”

“Less the ‘eligibility assessment’ fees, of course,” I added, playfully. Or sarcastically.

“Of course,” she concurred, much less playfully and totally without sarcasm. “Like any concern, we have bills to pay.”

“Overhead.”

“Overhead, exactly. Keeping our sources of information open … is not inexpensive. Hiring the best people isn’t cheap. Anyone with your business experience knows that.”

Lizzie’s eyes were a deep, careless Scottish plaid, mostly dark, with streaks of kelly green and flecks of golden heather. When she lowered her voice, as she had just done, it was as husky and elusive as the wind through a thicket.

Insight moment: When a woman causes me to wax poetic, even in the silence of my thoughts, I’m in serious deep water. The nearest shore? Not even in sight.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked. “With me? What did you learn during your investigation that has given you such pause? Why are you suddenly so eager to dump me?”

She was ready with an answer. “You can’t cancel us, like life insurance. After the second payment is made, you’re in, Once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no backing out. No second thoughts.”

“I admit I don’t totally get that part of the deal. It troubles me. Life is unpredictable. One always has to adapt.”

“Our experience is that clients with doubts tend to be less satisfied. And more troublesome.”

“That’s so subjective. And I thought this was all about the money.”

“I can assure you that it’s not,” Lizzie said.

“That’s easy to say.”

She said, “Something we don’t advertise: We do a healthy proportion of our work pro bono. To allow people who can’t afford our fees to participate in our services, we serve ten percent of our clients for free. The thing is, they can’t cancel their contracts, either. If we were in it only for the money, we’d let the pro bono clients cancel anytime, right?”

“That’s something to consider,” I said. “It’s a compelling argument, I have to admit.”

“Thank you. Thank you.” She performed a cute, little, seated curtsy before she lifted the corner of the napkin with her fingertip, still, I thought, struggling with those impulses of hers. One more fry? Another bite of that dog? I couldn’t be certain what the temptation was, but I liked that it wasn’t easy for her.

“But then again, you could be lying about the pro bono,” I said. “Marketing is marketing.”

She acted offended. “Have I lied to you?”

“Your name is not Lizzie.”

Her expression grew bittersweet — the face of a mother about to reluctantly admit to her child that there is no Santa Claus. “I do like you,” she said, punctuating the admission with a small sigh that I couldn’t interpret. “I do. Hypothetically,” she continued, “let’s say we allowed clients to terminate their agreements. Just walk away, whenever they wanted.”

“Okay, let’s say that.”

“Think it through. We’d be of no help to our clients. Our services would be meaningless.”

“I don’t get it. Why?”

“Human nature. When the moment comes — when some doctor who knows your prostate or your colon better than he knows you, says you have six months to live, or a year — everybody will have second thoughts about living and dying. Everybody imagines an end that is much worse than what will probably really happen, or much less horrific than reality will allow. Everybody, at least for that moment, forgets why they hired us, and what we promised to protect them from.

“If we allowed cancellations, we would be allowing someone facing death nose-to-nose to decide how they want to die.”

“What’s so wrong with that?”

“Nothing. People do it every day. Every hour of every day. But we exist to serve a more discriminating client. We’re not in the business of encouraging people who are in the tumult of serious illness or horrific trauma or prospective death to delude themselves into prolonging their suffering; we’re in the business of helping people who are living well decide exactly — exactly — under what difficult conditions they wish to continue to live before they are facing a life that is ending.”

“Oh, yes. The capital
L,
that kind of living? I remember that from the seminar at Nobu.”

“Yes, the capital
L
kind of living. Don’t patronize the notion. It’s … a special thing.”

“Huh,” I said, recognizing her passion about the topic, and recognizing that I was losing the debate.

“So how’s Antonio?” Lizzie asked, also recognizing I was losing the debate, and eager to land a final blow.

Her casual question felt like a slap. “Don’t,” I said. I was confident that she knew how Antonio was: Antonio was an extension of a hospital bed, a destination for a feeding tube, source material for his waste drain. I had no doubt that she knew that the barely squiggly lines on the EEG said that Antonio had just enough brain function that debate-prone medical ethicists could argue endlessly about whether or not his current state qualified as “living.”

No capital
L
.

And no living will.

Antonio, how could you fail to sign a living will?

She leaned toward me and took one of my hands in both of hers. “It’s important work. What we do. I believe in it with all my heart.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m not in this for the money. I made good money in my previous job.”

I saw them lining up in front of me, so I tried to connect the dots. “I can tell that you do believe. At this moment, I no longer question that. But tell me, are you suggesting to me that Antonio canceled his contract?”

“Discretion, remember? We don’t kiss and tell.”

I suspected that she would reveal more if I waited. So I waited. If I hadn’t been determined to wait her out, I would have said something stupid, like “I’m still waiting for the kiss.”

She said, “All I can really tell you — and I shouldn’t even say this — is that your friend had been made aware of the availability of our services, but at the time of his accident he was not an active client of the firm. Therefore he is … not a client of the firm.”

Jimmy told Antonio about the Death Angels before he told me,
I thought.
Huh. Why would Jimmy tell Antonio first?

I held up my arm and pointed at my cast. “You know about the Bugaboos, don’t you?” I asked, changing the subject, but not really changing the subject.

She nodded. “You make that fall ten times, you end up hitting one of those two trees at the bottom nine times out of ten.”

She knew a lot about the Bugaboos. Had she talked to Jimmy? Is that how all this worked?

“Maybe. I like to think if I make that fall ten times, I get an edge down and ski to a stop eight times out of ten. One time, maybe, I graze one of those two trees. The tenth time I get lucky and thread the needle. I come up laughing.”

“In your fantasies you never hit the trees? Not head-on?”

“Never.”

“I’m dining with an optimist.”

“Or a fool,” I admitted.

“Well, there is that. But in my experience with men the two aren’t mutually exclusive.” She sucked hard at her straw to get at the dregs of whatever tropical concoction she’d ordered. The slurping sound definitely got my attention.

“I actually grazed one of those trees on my way down. That’s how I broke my wrist.”

“Yes, we know. A few more feet to the left, and …”

She let the thought linger like an aroma, good or bad, that hangs around a kitchen. In this case, a sour aroma. Too much vinegar for my taste.

“I’m a lucky guy, I guess.”

“I guess,” she said.

“Well, Lizzie, despite your best efforts, you’re giving me plenty of reasons to enlist your services. Yet you want me to withdraw my application? Why?”

Her eyes grew rueful.

“Because of Adam,” she said.

Dear Jesus.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.