Lottery (19 page)

he minute Ling left for Kansas, Caleb called a cab. He purchased a pre-paid cell and then contacted Price. Price had been adamant that they meet inside St. Mary’s

Cathedral. Evidently the prick thought it was all right to extort money in a house of worship. Caleb had two days before he met with him—two days to decide what the hell he was going to do.

After long and tedious discussions with Weber, they’d made a decision that the best way to handle this was to put an end to it. Price had to go.

After some research and Weber’s help, Caleb purchased the Boone and Crocker folding Alpha Hunter knife from eBay. He was meeting Price in public and couldn’t chance using a gun. He’d had little experience with knives, but Weber assured him he’d guide him through the process.

The knife used to gut and skin deer would serve its purpose. Caleb had paid extra to have the merchandise over-nighted to the house. Sam and Mei never got the mail, so he wasn’t worried they’d find the package.

The next day, Caleb had the taxi wait for him while he went inside Target. When he’d told the driver to stop in front of the
liquor store, he’d paid his tab and stepped out of the cab with his purchases and duffel bag.

The more he thought about McKenzie and Ron Price thinking they were entitled to his money, the angrier he became.

As he walked toward the Tenderloin, everything seemed to be closing in on him. Was someone watching? Following him? Feeling on edge, he glanced in every direction, but didn’t find anyone who looked suspicious. God, on top of drinking too much, and seeing dead people, he was becoming paranoid.

When Caleb came to a busy gas station, he ducked into the private bathroom and came back out disguised in a dark curly wig, a tweed tam, moustache, and wire-rimmed glasses.

After he secured a cheap hotel room, he walked up the stairs, the steps creaking beneath his every step. Carefully, he set the duffle on top of a wobbly dresser, dropped the sacks from Target on the bed, and locked the door. He barely noticed that the furniture had a thick coat of dust or that the room reeked of cheap perfume. Caleb was on a mission. Ling was his motivation; the only reason he listened to Weber. Wondering what Ling was doing or who she was meeting drove him crazy.

He took the bottles of gin out of the brown paper sack, set them on the dresser, and then carried the duffel into the bathroom. It turned his stomach when he noticed dark hairs in the sink and the garbage overflowing in the small wastebasket. But cleanliness was the least of his priorities. The hotel room was now his office; a solitary space where he could work on perfecting the murder that would keep his marriage safe.

Carefully, he took off the disguise. His hands were trembling when he laid the wig and moustache on a towel, put the glasses inside the tam and placed them beside the wig.

His hands shaky, Caleb opened one of the bottles of gin and took a long swig. He glanced at the packages on the bed. There was a lot to do before he met up with Price.

After he dumped the four, seventeen-inch square pillows he’d bought at Target on the bed, Caleb took out the red magic marker in the bottom of a sack. Next, he took the knife out of his pocket. The three-and-a-half-inch blade with a razor-sharp surrogated edge was intimidating; just holding the weapon made Caleb uneasy.

The deer knife reminded Caleb of the day his father had taken him deer hunting. He remembered that the tip of the sun was barely visible on the horizon when they crept through the woods in South Dakota, their ankle-high boots wet with dew. Caleb had prayed they wouldn’t cross paths with the graceful, sturdy animal he’d only seen in pictures or movies. But his prayers went unanswered when his father had cradled the shotgun in Caleb’s arms and told him to aim for the Buck’s head. Thinking about it, Caleb could almost feel the perspiration dripping into his eyes … his muscles tensing … the tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

“Shoot the God damned thing,” his father spat angrily. Caleb dropped the gun, turned and ran. The fear of what his father would do to him if he caught him made him run so hard and so fast, the forest around him became a swirl of green and brown. Hoping he would find somewhere to hide—someplace where his father would never find him again. Feeling as if he was suffocating, when he’d tripped, he knew he would never be able to escape his father’s wrath. Staring up into the devil’s eyes, tears blinding Caleb, his father had used the butt of the gun to teach him a lesson as he reminded Caleb what a gutless, spineless sissy he was.

Caleb took another swig of gin as he stared at the pillows. He needed to focus. He’d read that an average man’s chest was seventeen inches across—the same width as the pillows. Two-thirds of the heart was located on the right side of the sternum. The aortic valve was located on the top, left hand side of the
heart. If the aorta was severed, Price would bleed out in a matter of seconds. Caleb not only had to be swift, but accurate.

He pulled the diagram he’d printed out of his pocket and studied it. The heart was supposedly the size of an average man’s fist. He put the diagram down on the bed, and used the marker to draw an “X” on each of the pillows to depict the placement of the vital artery.

He blew out a breath and tilted his head back. In just a few hours, he would slice into a man’s chest and rip the life out of him.

“You don’t have a choice,” Weber told him authoritatively.

“Don’t I?” Caleb started to pace.

“Well, you do.” Weber suddenly appeared in front of the only window in the dingy room. “You could go to jail.”

Caleb shook his head. “But I didn’t kill you.”

Weber casually sashayed to the chair that was pushed into a corner of the room and sat down. “Facts are you stole the lottery ticket and then killed McKenzie Price. I don’t think the courts would find you an innocent man.” Weber paused. “Do you?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Caleb mumbled, and leaned back against the dresser.

“There you go.” Weber smacked his hand on his knee. “And you don’t have a choice now. Price has to go.”

Knowing Weber was right, Caleb practiced over and over thrusting the blade into the top left hand side of the “X.” He twisted the knife quickly to the right … then left, and pulled it out quickly. The spongy material inside the pillows sprayed out over the bed with each vicious slice. Taking swallows of gin every few minutes, Caleb needed to practice like he had when he was a pitcher in little league, until the motion was natural and fluid.

“You’re doing great, O’Toole,” Weber spurred him on, giving him tips on how to hold the leather handle, and reminding Caleb he had to run like hell when it was over.

Exhausted, Caleb’s arm and hand aching, he plopped down on the edge of the bed. Catching his image in the mirror above the dresser, he couldn’t believe what he saw. Standing up slowly, he walked closer to his reflection. God, how could he let himself go like this?

He anchored his hands on either side of the wobbly dresser and leaned closer to the mirror. His eyes were puffy and swollen, his hair was matted and unkempt, and he hadn’t shaved in days.

Not being able to stomach what he saw, he turned away. “I can’t do this,” he mumbled. “I’m not a fucking killer.”

“Yes, you are.” Caleb looked up and saw Weber standing behind him in the mirror. “Everyone is capable of murder. Especially if someone threatens to destroy your life.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Pussy,” Weber said angrily. “Grab your fucking balls for once and be a man.”

“
Stop
!” Caleb shouted, ramming a fist straight through the mirror, the glass shattering into miniscule pieces. The pain ripped through his knuckles, and he saw his fingers were cut and bloodied. Jesus God, he hated himself. When he looked back up, Weber was gone.

“I have to do this.” Caleb rambled and paced, holding onto the gin bottle. “I have to.” The more he drank, the more confident he became. For hours, he repeated the process of knifing the pillows until there was nothing left but bits and pieces of fluffy sponge.

Running a hand over his hair that was soaked in perspiration he glanced at his watch. It was almost eight—an hour and a half before he was supposed to meet Price.

After he shoved as much of the remnants of the insides of the pillows as he could into a sack, he opened the door and went down the back stairs. Checking to see first to see if anyone was around, he disposed of the bag in the dumpster in the alley behind the hotel.

Back in his room, he put on the disguise, making sure the moustache was secure. He wiped off the blade, closed it and pushed it into his pocket. On the way out the door, he took a long swallow of the second bottle of gin, as he’d already polished off the first one.

On the street, Caleb pulled the tam down on his head and put on his sunglasses. Before he hopped on the trolley, he grabbed a large cup of coffee at Starbucks. Getting off at Grant Street, he walked the rest of the way to the park across the street from the cathedral.

Even though Caleb had had a lot to drink, he didn’t feel drunk. His mind was sharp—focused on what needed to be done. Maybe it was the combination of strong coffee and adrenalin that counteracted the liquor.

From the sound of Price’s deep, baritone voice, Price was probably hefty, which meant he might be able to overpower Caleb. Price had told Caleb he’d be wearing a 49ers cap, so the bill would be either black or red. Caleb had no idea where he was going to kill him, but Weber was right, it had to be done.

Standing beside a towering oak, Caleb kept a watchful eye on the steps that led up to the door. A continual trickle of Bible thumpers entered and exited the front door; a pile of kids rushed out a side door. Catechism must have just let out.

His stomach tightened when, thirty minutes later, he saw a man wearing a red and black cap walking down the sidewalk and up the steps. His physique wasn’t anything like Caleb had envisioned. He was slight, and from what Caleb could see from here, Price couldn’t be more than five-seven or eight.

“Don’t let what he looks like fool you,” Weber said. “Probably has a black belt in karate. Catch him off guard and do it fast.”

Caleb fumbled to light a cigarette. When he felt the buzz of the pre-paid phone, he took it out and noticed the number on the screen was Ron fucking Price’s. Caleb pushed it back into his pocket. Price was probably madder than hell that Caleb hadn’t shown.

It seemed an eternity before he saw Price march out the door and down the steps. Caleb’s stomach curdled; his breathing quickened. Shit. Maybe he should just go home. Take his chances the guy wouldn’t call the police.

“Get tough, cry baby,” Weber chastised.

He didn’t know whether Weber was his friend or his enemy, but he was right in that sooner or later, Price would either ask for more money, or go to the cops. And Caleb’s life as he knew it would end. He would go to prison for the rest of his life, and Ling would eventually find someone else. He envisioned Ling naked, with some other man making love to her. The image made him seethe with rage; the thought of her with someone else was unbearable. She was Caleb’s, and no other man would ever touch her.

Staying a half-block behind, he followed Price west on California Street. Caleb kept his head down, his hands in his pockets, seeing only the shoes and sandals of those who passed.

He let out an anxious breath when Price stopped on Powell and California.
Patience.
He’d thought Price would resemble McKenzie; pale, worn down, tired. But this guy looked like an average Joe. But he wasn’t average, for Christ’s sakes, as he was trying to take Ling away from him and ruin Caleb’s life. Screw this fucker.

Caleb almost fell backward when he hoisted himself up on the trolley, leaving a few people in between him and Price.
Concentrate … concentrate
.

“You can do this, brotha,” Weber encouraged.

As usual, the benches next to the windows were filled. People were squeezed together so tight that Caleb could smell the thick perfume of the woman standing in front of him, and the rancid odor of sweat from the man behind. He wrapped a hand around the metal bar above him, tasting the salty perspiration on his upper lip.