“Yeah, she doesn’t care much for people, though she seems to like me.”
Callie shook her head. “You ever hear yourself talk?”
Chapter 58
Myron Goldstein was already parked at the rest stop at mile marker 177 just outside his home town of Cincinnati when I pulled up. I got out of my car and made a wide circle around his, checking for possible snipers. As I approached his passenger door, he unlocked it, and I got in.
“Sal says you want to die,” I said.
“You’re Creed?”
“I am.”
“I thought you’d be younger.”
“I thought you’d be older.”
Myron Goldstein nodded. He was a gaunt, sad-faced man with thick lips and sagging jowls. A thatch of wiry black hair protruded from each of his nostrils. He kept a wet, mucus-soaked handkerchief in one of his shaky hands, and used it to dab at the slimy fluid that steadily dripped from his nose. He wore thick horn-rimmed glasses.
I said, “The way this works, you tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll tell you what I think.”
“Have you always been a healthy man, Mr. Creed?”
“Can we just get to it?”
He smiled a thick-lipped smile. “Yes, of course,” he said. He paused for a moment to dab at his nose, and then said, “Are you familiar with ALS?”
“Lou Gehrig’s Disease?”
“Yes, that’s the one. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease that slowly but steadily robs your body of voluntary movement. The disorder causes your muscles to weaken, day by day, until they are unable to function. You can see it already in my hands. That’s not Parkinson’s, it’s called fasciculation, and it signals the beginning of the end.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said, and meant it. Looking at Myron Goldstein made me ashamed of myself. For the past seven weeks I’d been hosting a pity party over losing Kathleen and Addie, while this poor son of a bitch has been dying by inches. Of course it hurt to lose the people I’d wanted to grow old with—but Myron Goldstein wasn’t going to grow old at all. Maybe Kathleen and her fiance would someday break up, allowing me to slip back into her life. Or maybe not. But at least I had a future to dream about, which was a hell of a lot more than Myron Goldstein was going to get.
“So what you’re saying, you want me to kill you, put you out of your misery.”
“Yes.”
“Why not just commit suicide? You’d save fifty grand.”
“I have insurance policies worth much more. But they don’t pay for suicide.”
“I have to say no,” I said.
“Why not?”
“This money, fifty thousand dollars. It’s money your wife and kids should have.”
He tapped the envelope on the console between us. Beyond this, I have no other money,” he said. “The insurance will pay off most of my debts and allow my wife to keep the house, the car, and have a comfortable life. It may not be enough to put my kids through Dartmouth, but there are state schools available if they can’t qualify for scholarships. More than anything, if I go now it will spare my family having to care for me the last year of my life. I don’t want them to go into debt, have to put their dreams on hold, watching me die a slow and horrible death.”
“What’s so great about Dartmouth?” I said. “Their football program sucks.”
“Don’t get me started,” he said, laughing. “I might wind up killing
