The exit man, p.21
The Exit Man, page 21
Not only did Zoe pay close attention to my instruction and ask pertinent questions throughout training, she offered viable solutions to a couple of problems she foresaw – issues that hadn’t even dawned on me. Issues like how a woman of her petite stature would lug a 25-lb duffle bag to clients’ homes without drawing unwanted attention or rupturing something. I had always been the one to tote supplies, and had barely managed to avoid a back injury or hernia myself. Zoe solved the overweight duffle bag problem by suggesting I start stocking some small tanks for her at Jubilee. I had always ordered medium- and large-sized ones, since small tanks can inflate only about 50 balloons. Most clients want at least that many, and you have to account for the five to ten percent of balloons that pop while being inflated even by an expert like me.
A few dozen balloons-worth of helium may make for a lackluster celebration, but it’s more than enough for a stellar suicide – provided the client isn’t the size of an NFL lineman. So, the next day I ordered five small tanks – enough for Zoe’s first two months in the field.
Once Zoe was all trained up, once I had imparted to her all my exit knowledge and experience, it was time to talk about the money. As ready as she was for her new job from a skills standpoint, she wasn’t prepared for the raise she was about to receive. To her credit, she had never stopped to ask – or apparently even think about – what her elevated role meant in terms of dollar signs.
I let her know what it meant while we were lying in my bed following our final training session.
“We are going to split all the earnings from our combined exits. So I hope you are prepared to conceal a lot more money than before.”
“Split the earnings? No way. This is your operation. I’m just an employee, certainly not a full partner.”
“This isn’t up for discussion. You’ll now be assuming as much risk as I assume, performing the same tasks as I perform. You deserve equal payment.”
“I don’t know if I can handle that much money.”
“Let’s keep things in perspective. I mean, we’re hardly talking lottery kind of money here. It ain’t Mega Millions.”
“Eli, I clear about thirty-five grand as a music teacher in a year… in a good year. Now you’re telling me you’re going to give me, what, that much money or more every couple months? That is lottery kind of money, to me anyway.”
“I’m not giving you anything – you’ll be earning every penny.”
“Whatever. It’s a ton of cash, and I don’t know how comfortable I am with it.”
“You’ll learn how to become comfortable with it. You could always anonymously donate a chunk to a foundation that provides musical instruments and classes and whatnot to economically disadvantaged kids.”
Zoe’s frown and knitted brow slowly gave way to a smile.
“Actually, I like that idea, Eli. I like it a lot.”
“And I like that you like it. It’s important you aren’t in this solely for the moolah. As I’ve said before, once you start to get greedy, it’s time to take yourself out of the game. Once you start to swear under your breath whenever a client offers little payment or none at all, you’re done. Now, it doesn’t mean you’re a monster if your eyes light up a little at the sound of a twenty grand offer – that’s only human. But if you find yourself viewing each client as a revenue source rather than a suffering man or woman who trusts you with their final breath, it’s time for you to exit.”
“I agree, but does a greedy person ever really think they’re being greedy? Greed is too easy for one to rationalize. If I start to covet the money, there are all sorts of things my mind can do to convince myself I’m still a good person doing the right thing.”
“Perhaps, but I’ll be around to keep an eye on you, and I’ll organize an intervention if I catch you making plans to buy an island.”
Zoe fell asleep a few minutes later, too exhausted from all the training to continue her half-hearted protest of my payment plan. I, on the other hand, was wide awake, entranced by the supine silhouette beside me. This woman with whom I’d shared everything but hardly knew. This lovely creature now proficient in my deadly art. This dangerous angel. This beautiful executioner.
CHAPTER 23
I sat in my parked Pathfinder reading a paperback copy of The Fall, pausing every few sentences to check the rearview mirror. I had purposely picked a book I’d read several times before. I knew my mind would be focused on other things, unable to fully absorb any new narrative. Not even Camus could compete with the story unfolding five houses down.
A few minutes later the distant image of a woman wearing a large knapsack appeared in the rearview. Objects may be more deadly than they appear.
I placed my book on the dashboard and turned the key in the ignition, all the while watching the woman grow bigger in the mirror, trying to see if her face would give me an early read on the result. I wasn’t able to detect any telling expression, nothing that said mission accomplished or aborted or obliterated. Whatever had happened five houses down, the woman knew how to keep her cool.
While I’m sure she was walking at a normal pace, my memory has her moving in slow motion. A dark heroine passing dramatically through a movie scene. The director distorting the speed. Remove the special effects and the nostalgia and what we really have is a woman with a backpack too big for her body, looking more like a schoolgirl than a suicide specialist.
When she reached my blind spot, I leaned across the passenger seat to open the door.
Welcome to the club, my dear.
Zoe contorted her torso and arms to remove the 15-lb backpack and placed it on the floor of the passenger seat before climbing into the car. To give her more legroom, I reached over and, at an awkward angle, lifted the backpack and heaved it into the back seat, lucky not to strain an oblique muscle in the process.
I had offered to chauffer Zoe to her debut, concerned that her pre-exit jitters and post-exit emotions might adversely affect her driving. We couldn’t have her inaugural show as a soloist missed or marred due to a head-on collision. Zoe was responsible for only one body being sent to the morgue that evening, and it wasn’t her own or that of some unknown motorist.
“So?” I said as Zoe reached for the seatbelt, her poker face still on. She looked at me and took a deep breath before releasing a wide-eyed sigh.
“Let me just get my bearings,” she said, rubbing her cheeks with her hands. “Wow. Just wow.”
“Pretty intense, huh?”
“Intense? Intense doesn’t quite cover it.”
“Did everything go according to plan?” I asked as I pulled away from the curb.
“For the most part. I mean, yes, the most important parts. No apparent witnesses, no problem putting the hood together, and no problem with using it to proper effect. It’s just, I hadn’t expected there to be so much laughing.”
“Laughing? Who was laughing, you or the client?”
“Mostly her, but, you know, it was infectious.”
“What the hell was so funny?”
“She asked me to read excerpts from her favorite play – Waiting for Godot.”
“Mrs. Bradstreet is… was a fan of Beckett? I knew I liked her for a reason. Damn it!”
“What are you angry about?” asked Zoe.
“Cancer has enough people to choose from – can’t it spare the few who still know how to read?”
“How very elitist of you.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Anyway, back to Mrs. Bradstreet. Laughing together with her like that… it was wonderful. We really bonded, but that of course made my job a little more difficult. I had to fight back the tears when it came time to let her go.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I got through it fine. But next time, maybe try to set me up with somebody less delightful and interesting.”
“You’ve got Mr. Geigel in two weeks. He used to be the editor of a quarterly newsletter for model train enthusiasts.”
“Thank God.”
Zoe sat back in her seat and gazed out the windshield. “So tell me, how does it feel?” I asked.
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“No, I mean, how does it feel? Are you invigorated? Anxious? Remorseful?”
“More than anything, I’m relieved.”
“Were you worried something was going to go horribly wrong?”
“No. I mean, I guess that’s always in the back of your mind, but I wasn’t really worried about messing up. I’m relieved because I’m not remorseful, or anything like that. I’m relieved because, because–”
“Because Mrs. Bradstreet is relieved?” I asked.
Zoe looked at me and nodded.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” she said. “There’s something very empowering about being able to offer such relief. As much as she was laughing, there was such pain and sadness behind her eyes. I never once second-guessed why I was there, what I was sent to do. What she wanted me to do.”
I felt like a father who had just watched his kid get his first little league hit. A homerun off a nasty fastball pitcher twice his size. Mixed in with the immense sense of pride, however, was a sexual charge that blew the father-son analogy to bits. There’s nothing more arousing than a beautiful girl who knows how to handle a suicide. Helium and humanity make quite the aphrodisiac.
As badly as I wanted Zoe at that moment, there was just enough blood flowing to my brain for me to realize the risk of pulling over and succumbing to base urges. Not that getting caught thrashing about in the backseat of a parked vehicle would instantly rouse suspicion of involvement in a nearby assisted suicide. Still, you can’t leave anything to chance in these situations. Helping me to resist taking Zoe right then and there was the way she angrily slapped my hands away as they reached across the passenger seat for the buttons of her blouse.
Over the next month and a half, Zoe and I successfully set free six clients between the two of us. That’s the same number of clients I had released during my entire first year as an exit man. Here we had an exponential increase in production, one that I knew couldn’t possibly be sustained over the long haul.
Not that Zoe showed any signs of slipping. Each subsequent exit outshone the one preceding it. I stopped chauffeuring her after her third – partly because she had fully bloomed and no longer needed me, and partly because she was tired of fighting off my sexual advances in the car. She made me stay behind and told me I would just have to wait until she got home before making any amorous moves. But by that time the scent of the exit was usually so diluted it did little to incite me. Nevertheless, it was exciting to see my protégé performing so admirably in the field.
It was actually my performance that wasn’t quite up to par during this period. At least that was how I felt; my clients, however likely didn’t notice any glitches or hiccups. Not having Zoe by my side on the job meant no “couple cover” whenever entering and leaving client’s houses, apartment buildings or condo complexes. I had started to grow accustomed to the comfort level that being a pair in the field afforded, not to mention Zoe’s special touch during the actual exit process. This is not to say I botched or butchered anything after going back to working the hood without Zoe in the room, but I did sense a slight dip in the temperature each time I turned the nozzle.
Such dips were more than tolerable when considering the overall impact our increased efficiency was having on our clients’ quality of (ending) life. The queue for our services was slashed in half. With waiting periods dramatically reduced, do-it-yourself exit incidents dropped off completely. Everything was going according to plan. Granted, Zoe and I were walking a tightrope, but we were too inside the experience, and elevated by it, to look down.
Plus we both enjoyed having livelier things to chat about during meals together. With us working independently now, we’d spend dinners filling each other in on our latest release, keeping one another up to date on any new hood tricks or tactics we had successfully employed, captivating one another with dramatic accounts of client courage, close calls, and last words. Breakfasts and lunches were often peppered with “Oh, I forgot to tell you about” type anecdotes – intriguing additions and addendums to recent exits. It beat the hell out of chewing our food in all too comfortable silence or making insipid comments on how well the chicken had been prepared. Splitting up the euthanasia duo gave us stories, fostered curiosity. It added wonder to ward off the homeostasis hovering over our relationship. You’d be surprised how quickly the thrill of carrying out mercy killings as a couple can wear off.
One of the biggest challenges of Zoe’s and my “divide and conquer” era was making sure the increased helium usage went undetected at Jubilee. It was tricky enough keeping Carl in the dark before Zoe and I had switched into overdrive. Now that we were taking on twice as many clients, concealing the gas embezzlement had become a rather daunting task, even with me being in charge of inventory control.
Not that I was panicking over the possibility of Carl noticing a missing tank or two. It’s not like we worked in a nuclear missile production plant where items unaccounted for were cause for serious alarm. If questioned, I could always just confess to Carl that I’d been bending the rules and “borrowing” tanks for assorted celebrations of personal friends and family members. I would slap myself on the wrist in his presence and promise to pay back what was owed. If Carl insisted on raising a fuss, I’d simply fire him for insubordination.
There was little to worry about – a few missing tanks would be completely explainable. Less so, however, was a receipt that I found for a few extra ones.
After awakening one night and failing to fall back to sleep, I got out of bed, walked into the living room and turned on my computer. When I went to check my email, I saw that Zoe had forgotten to log out of her email account. She had done this a few times before, but in each instance, being the honorable man I am, I clicked “log out” without hesitation – after quickly scanning the list of senders and subject lines, of course. I never once opened a single message or exchange.
This time, however, the name of one sender caught my attention and begged me to investigate. The email was from “Party Down Express.” The subject line read “Thank you for your order.”
I clicked on it and read:
Dear Zoe,
Thank you for your express delivery order. Your item(s) should arrive within two business days at the address you provided. (See below for a summary of your order.)
Sincerely,
Party Down Express
ORDER SUMMARY
3 disposable helium tanks (110 cubic ft. each) = $240.00
Express shipping = $20.00
Tax = $13.08
TOTAL = $273.08
Shipping to:
Zoe Blake
17 Cardinal Lane
Blackport, OR 97997
After staring at the screen and scratching my head for several seconds, mouth agape, I went back and searched Zoe’s inbox more extensively. I found another order confirmation from Party Down Express dated three weeks earlier. This one was for just a single tank. I again returned to the inbox and typed “Party Down” in the search box, but uncovered no additional entries.
I reread the two order confirmation emails, trying to arrive at some logical explanation. I had provided Zoe with all the helium she needed for her next several exits, and couldn’t fathom why she would secretly order – and pay top-dollar for – extra tanks. All the anxiety I had endured months earlier when I first suspected Zoe had gone rogue on me came flooding back.
But if she was, in fact, doing extra hood work on the side, who were her clients? Not a single support group member on the schedule had died prior to their appointment in over six weeks, and it had already been confirmed that each of those other clients had used a family member or close friend to vacate the premises. Was Zoe going out on her own and actively lining up customers? Had she started frequenting support groups for the terminally ill that I didn’t know about?
Whatever she was up to, it hadn’t been going on for long and appeared to be ramping up.
CHAPTER 24
When you suspect somebody dear to you of devious behavior, the easiest way to get to the bottom of things is through direct interrogation. However, direct interrogation takes all the fun out of things. It leaves little room for sketchy detective work and absurd inferences. If you ask somebody point blank what they are up to after stumbling upon peculiar evidence against them, you ruin the intrigue, shatter the mystique, deprive yourself of weeks or even months of the kind of excitement that comes with trying to subtly uncover what the fuck is going on.
When Zoe first found my bag full of exit supplies a few months earlier, she opted to immediately confront me. That was her prerogative and I don’t fault her for her actions. However, had I been in her shoes, I would have taken at least a day or two to try to dig up the truth on my own, to perhaps even endeavor to catch me in the act rather than extract a confession via hostile questioning. I guess she and I were just different that way.
Sure, I was eager to find out why Zoe had taken to stockpiling her private supply of suicide gas and keeping it from me, but I wasn’t about to do something as predictable and unimaginative as asking her.
My strategy was simple and featured a two-pronged approach: 1) Keep a close eye on her daily activity without her noticing; and 2) develop several far-fetched hypotheses with little evidence to support them.
The latter activity was easier, as it could all be done in my head and involved no stealth movement or spying. Hypothesizing, when done with a closed mouth, is very safe. It was just me thinking. Just me examining what few facts were available and then extrapolating. I could partake in such activities with no risk of infuriating or alienating Zoe enough for her to leave me or withhold sex.
My most plausible hypothesis – the one positing that Zoe was lining up her own set of clients and administering exits on her own – has already been touched upon and will be addressed again later.
A second theory of mine was far less damning, but also less likely. This scenario had Zoe ordering helium from an outside source to protect me. It had her worried about botching a job, about the police somehow picking up on a tank and linking it to Jubilee. She certainly had enough money now to fund her own gas supply, and it was satisfying to think she cared enough about me to inspire such noble actions, but I wasn’t at all prepared to bank on this one.
