Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [20]
For land’s sake. What is going ON?
Hudson watched, mute, as she ground her teeth a few more times, winced, then headed for the door.
“You’re-you’re under no obligation, by the way,” she said, her back to him. “I’m-I’m-I’m ssssss-upposed to tell you that, and muh-muh-make it clear.”
“What is this Senary stuff!” Hudson barked.
“But if you’re . . . interested . . . Fuh-fuh-follow the instructions,” she feebled, and then she walked out of the apartment, leaving Hudson dumbstruck, painfully aroused, and smelling olive oil.
Did any of that really happen? He stared at the closed door for five full minutes. Perhaps he’d dreamed it; perhaps he was sleeping. He pinched himself hard and frowned. But if you’re interested . . . follow the instructions.
Only then did he realize he was still holding the envelope she’d initially given him.
He opened it and pulled out, first, a plain sheet of paper on which had been floridly handwritten:
YOU HAVE WON THE SENARY. ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED IF YOU CHOOSE TO PROCEED. SHOULD YOU DECIDE THAT YOU ARE INTERESTED, CARRY ON TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS AFTER SUNDOWN WITHIN THE NEXT SIX DAYS.
An unfamiliar address—24651 Central—was written below, which he believed was somewhere in the downtown area. Hudson read what remained.
YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO ACCEPT, AND WHETHER YOU DO OR NOT, YOU MAY KEEP THE REMUNERATION.
Remuner—
Hudson dug back into the envelope and discovered another envelope.
It felt fat.
He tore it open and found—
Holy SHIT . . .
—$6,000 in crisp and apparently brand-new one-hundred-dollar bills. The bills were oddly bundled, however, in paper-clipped divisions of six.
CHAPTER TWO
(I)
“You gotta be shitting me!” Gerold muttered when he wheeled up to Worden’s Hardware Store. He’d always liked the place because it reminded him of days past—days when recessions weren’t strangling the economy and changing the way people shopped. Now everything was malls, Internet shopping, and Home Depots the size of naval vessels. Whatever happened to mom-and-pop shops? Modernity, that’s what. There was no place for them these days, just as there was no place for small, family-owned hardware stores like Worden’s where the people working there actually knew what they were talking about.
Hence, Gerold’s displeasure, after wheeling three blocks in the sun from the bus stop. The sign was a sign of the times: SORRY, WORDEN’S IS NO LONGER IN BUSINESS. THANK YOU FOR FIFTY YEARS OF SUPPORT.
Gerold had specifically come here for something, but now he’d have to bus to Home Depot. Shit.
He’d come here to buy about twenty feet of decent gauge rope so that he could hang himself. “Not today,” he mumbled and wheeled off. He wasn’t up for the extra bus to Home Depot right now. Looks like I’ll have to go to work tomorrow after all . . . ’cos I won’t be dead yet.
He’d already figured how he would do it, but it would have to be late. Gerold’s apartment was on the third floor (the only inexpensive apartment building in town with an elevator). He’d wait till two, three in the morning, tie one end of the rope to the balcony rail, then fling himself off. If anybody even woke up in the apartment below, Gerold felt sure he’d be dead before they could do anything, and he didn’t like those people anyway—a snitty retired couple who always ignored him and frowned when he was doing his laundry. He guessed they thought a paraplegic’s dirty laundry was grosser than theirs.
Maybe when I hang myself, I’ll do it naked, with my catheter bag hanging. When those assholes come out in the morning for their coffee—surprise! The idea made Gerold smile.
Months ago he printed a how-to sheet off the Internet: the precise way to make a hangman’s noose.
The sun’s heat drummed into him, but in the time it would take the next bus to come, he could be home anyway. Several rednecks in a dented hot rod grinned at him when the WALK light came on. “It says walk, not roll!” one of them laughed. Gerold said nothing; he was used to it. His rolling trek continued, down the main road. Eventually,