The Next to Die

“I see you’ve made a purchase,” Hal said, nudging Tom as they headed toward the restaurant. “Have any trouble? Any sticky legal red tape?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, good. You know, Tom, if people like Dayle Sutton get their way, we won’t be able to buy a gun anywhere—except from criminals.”

They ordered Egg McMuffins. For a moment, Tom harkened back to his glory days months earlier, when— because of his TV commercial—the folks at his local McDonald’s gave him a free apple pie with lunch. He almost told the haggard-looking black girl behind the counter about the ad, but she wouldn’t have given a damn.

The bag with the .38 caliber sat on the table between them. Hal had insisted Tom take it inside the McDonald’s. “You have to feel comfortable carrying it around.”

Hal now folded his hands in prayer over his Egg McMuffin. Some teenagers at the next table seemed to think this was pretty damn funny. Snickering, they imitated Hal, who became red in the face as he crossed himself. He glared at the kids, then picked up his sandwich.

He started to review their itinerary for the next few days. But after a while, he practically had to shout to compete with the loud teenagers across from them. “I can’t talk over these foul-mouthed niggers,” he grumbled.

Tom pushed away his Styrofoam plate and he too glared at the kids.

“What the fuck you looking at, asshole?” one of the boys sneered.

Tom turned away, but his face flushed with bottled-up rage.

“Little do they know,” Hal whispered. “You could just reach into this bag here, couldn’t you? Erase them. What good are they? Look at those ones.” Hal nodded at three punk teenagers at another table. Their clothes were filthy and they had pierced eyebrows and noses. One of them, an Asian girl, had blue hair. “Who would miss them?” Hal asked. “Killing them is just a reach away.”

Tom stared at the bag.

“And check out the two queers over there,” Hal whispered, his eyes darting toward a couple of young men with dyed-platinum hair, pierced ears, and white T-shirts that were a little too clean and a little too tight.

“In a way,” Hal went on, “when you eliminate Dayle Sutton, you’ll help rid our country of this scum we’re now forced to share breakfast with. We’re waging a war against these degenerates, Tom. The queer sodomites, these slant-eyed aliens, welfare blacks, you name it. Would you take your child or grandchild to eat here among these creeps?” Hal nodded at the bag between them. “I mean, without that for protection?”

Tom glanced over at the teenager again, the one who called him an asshole. The kid was arguing with his girlfriend. “They have no idea how close to death they are right now,” Hal was saying. “Doesn’t that make you feel powerful, Tom? Knowing what you could do?”

Tom smiled and nodded.

Carrying a flower arrangement and a small boom box, Avery stepped inside the hospital room. The blinds were open, baking the place in sunlight. A pine-scented air freshener failed to completely camouflage the sharp smell of urine. Someone had cranked up the bed, so Avery’s night-owl wife had no choice but to sit there, squinting in the harsh morning glare. They’d combed her unwashed hair back behind her ears. Her wrists were still bound, but now a padded material cushioned the encircling straps to prevent bruises. As Avery walked into the room, Joanne didn’t seem to notice. She continued to stare out the window, her pale face pinched up.

Setting the flowers and the boom box on her nightstand, Avery tried to smile. “I figured you might want to listen to some of those homemade tapes. You know, the ones you take on the road? Jesus, it’s hot in here. What are they trying to do to you?” He moved to a window, opened it a crack, then lowered the blinds. “Is that better, Joanne?”

She said nothing. She didn’t seem to know he was there. At least she’d stopped squinting. Avery returned to her bedside and kissed her cheek. “Do you feel like talking today?” he asked gently.

No response. She stared at the window.

“How about some music? This is your seventies tape.” He pressed the button on the boom box. Joni Mitchell came on, singing “Morning Morgantown.”

Grimacing, Joanne began to squirm. She sucked air between her clinched teeth. It was as if the music were fingernails on a blackboard.

“Oops, sorry.” Avery switched off the recording. “Joni isn’t cutting it, huh?” He felt so lame. He couldn’t reach her.

Joanne sighed, then went back to gazing at the window.

He caressed her arm, and at least she didn’t pull away. That faint, underlying smell of urine became more pungent. Avery realized that she’d wet herself. He kept stroking her arm. Joanne was gone. He could no longer hope that she was simply “playing to the balcony.” This was real.

After a while, he rang for the nurse. A tall, big-boned, twenty-something blonde came to the door. “Yes, Mr. Cooper?” she said.

“Um, my wife wet the bed,” Avery explained in a raspy voice.

“Oh, well, that’s all right,” the nurse said gently. “We have her in diapers. I’ll change her as soon as you leave.”

Avery hesitated. “Well, I—I’ll take off now so you can do that. Thanks.”

He leaned over Joanne and gently kissed her forehead. “See ya, honey.”

She still didn’t seem to know he was there.

Avery thanked the nurse again. He stepped out to the corridor, then started toward Dr. Wetherall’s office, where he would sign the necessary papers to have his wife transferred to a mental institution.

He aimed and squeezed the trigger. Something was off today. He missed the Dr Pepper bottle on the ranch’s front porch railing. “Damn,” Tom muttered. He was hot and sweaty. The Egg McMuffin from breakfast wasn’t sitting too well in his stomach.

“It’s okay, Tom,” Hal said patiently. He stood behind him, nursing a Sprite from the cooler. He wore sunglasses and a baseball hat. “It’s a new gun. You need to become accustomed to the feel of it. That’s why we’re here.”

Tom fired and missed again. “When am I supposed to do this for real?”

“Next Tuesday morning,” Hal said.

Lowering the gun, Tom turned to gape at him. “My God, so soon?”

“It’s six days away,” Hal said, with an amused grin. “You’ll be fine. It’s all planned out. No room for error. We have a friend in Dayle Slutton’s camp, which gives us access to her schedule—among many other things. On Tuesday morning, she’ll be shooting scene eighty-seven, in which her character addresses an AA meeting with about twenty-five extras. All those people will provide just the right amount of commotion once you start shooting. She’ll be at a podium, an easy target. We’ll give you instructions where to stand.” He gulped down some more Sprite, and stifled a burp. “Get in at least two shots. Go for the head. Before you even fire a third shot, our security guard will turn on you with the blanks, and you’ll go down quick. That’s the tricky part. You don’t want any Johnny-come-lately guards wanting to get their two cents in.”

“This sounds pretty complicated,” Tom said warily.

“We’ll practice. It’s all choreographed and staged, Tom. You won’t have to play dead for more than a minute before the second ambulance arrives. That’ll be us. Remember, everyone will be paying more attention to Miss Slutton, and she’ll get the first ambulance—though it might as well be a Hearse picking her up. Right?”

Tom shrugged. “Well, I can’t guarantee—”

“I have confidence in you, Tom.” He finished off his Sprite, and tossed his empty can on the dusty ground. “An hour after pulling that trigger, you’ll be cleaned up and on a plane with enough money to retire in Mexico or Rio de Janeiro or someplace. Not bad, huh? Can’t you see yourself living out your golden years at a tropical villa— sipping cocktails, a ceiling fan swirling overhead, exotic birds chirping? Take a day to think about where you’d like to go. By the way, we’re paying you a quarter of a million for your efforts.”

Tom stared at him in disbelief. Was this guy on the level? He wiped the sweat off his brow. “I had no idea,” he managed to reply.