Chapter Twenty Three

Death is fortunate for the child, bitter to the youth, too late to the old. - Publilius Syrus




Chapter 23

At three thirty in the morning on a Tuesday, James was unexpectedly sober in an unexpected location. His sobriety was unexpected because thirty seconds prior, he’d been drunk like depressed sailor in a rum warehouse. He was in his Lotus Elise, which was not unexpected. His Elise, however, was in the dining room of a house, forty feet lower than the road he’d been driving on.

This was most unusual.

He had enough time to admire the tasteful photo of a sailboat on the wall, and to feel relieved he hadn’t hit the china hutch when it occurred to him that right now would probably be the best possible time to get the hell out of there. He could hear someone, possibly several someones, elsewhere in the house stirring and crashing around. He pulled off his seatbealt, opened the door, and ran out the gaping hole in the back of the house he’d just crashed in to.

There was a fence around the yard, incredibly intact. I must have jumped over it in the car, James thought. Why can’t I remember that?

On the far side of the fence was a steep hill. On the top of the hill was the road he’d been driving on. He could see the barrier he’d driven through, some torn up foliage coming down the hill, and then tire tracks leading through the grass into the hole in the back of the house.

The gate for the fence was next to the house, so he ran that way, fumbled with the latch and finally pulled the gate wide open. He took off running, leapt the short hedge in an incredible feat of adrenaline-fueled strength, and heard the gate shut behind him as he reached the street that went past the house.

As he ran away, he faintly heard a man’s voice yelling, “What the fuck is this?”

A few minutes later, he heard sirens getting closer. He dove into the ditch on the side of the road and waited until the police cars were past, then clambered to his feet and started running again.

About a block away, a bus approached and pulled to the side of the road to let off a passenger. James broke into a sprint and reached the bus before the driver closed the doors. He fumbled in his pockets for the fare while the driver looked him up and down. The bus driver was used to seeing crazy people during the early morning hours, but this guy was something else.

James was quite a sight. His Armani suit was covered with dirt, gravel and bits of grass from when he’d jumped into the ditch. Sweat was pouring down his face and there were some wet patches under the arms of his jacket. There was a strong smell of liquor about him, and he was gasping for air.

“Rough night?” the driver asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” James answered. He told the driver where he was going.

“Well, you’re going to want to get off at the Rose Street stop. That’s still a couple miles from where you want to end up, but there aren’t any connections this time of day.”

“Fine,” James said, and took a seat. There was one other passenger on the bus. He looked to be about eighteen years old, and was listening to his headphones while rocking back and forth in his seat. He looked very troubled.

James closed his eyes and fell asleep.

It seemed only seconds later that the bus driver was calling back, “Hey, buddy! We’re at Rose street. This is your stop!”

James blinked a couple of times and stumbled out of his seat. “Thanks!” he called to the bus driver as he left the bus and stepped into the night again.

He walked the last two miles home, and was very glad he didn’t see anyone he recognized along the way.

The driveway to his home seemed a lot longer than it usually did as he walked up it. Soon enough, his front door welcomed him home. James went straight to the bathroom, where he took a shower and vigorously scrubbed the evenings accumulated grime from himself. He stuffed his suit in a garbage bag and resolved to dispose of it after he’d slept.

James went straight to bed after all that, and fell asleep before he’d managed to get the blankets pulled up over himself.

Around noon, the repeated ringing of his doorbell woke James up. He pulled on his robe and went to the front door to see who was making all the racket.

Outside stood two police officers. They did not look like they were selling tickets to a fundraising ball.

“Good afternoon, Mr. King,” one of the officers said. His nametag read “Kibble,” and James had to bite his tongue to keep from giggling. The officer had brown hair, brown eyes and what James and his friends in college had called a “Cop ‘stache.”

“Good morning, sir,” James said. “What can I do for you?”

“We were wondering if you know where your car is, Mr. King,” the other officer said. He was taller than Officer Kibble, and had blond hair cut so close to his scalp that it was barely noticeable. His nametag read “Stone.”

“Well, in my garage, I’d expect,” James said.

The officers looked at each other, then back at James.

“Would you care to check?” Officer Kibble asked James.

“Uh, sure,” James said. “Meet me over there, I’ll go open the garage.”

James hustled through the house to the door to his garage. He knew damn well the car wasn’t out there - it was in somebody’s dining room. He stepped into the garage and swiftly reached over and unlocked the door that went from the garage into his backyard. Then he yelled.

“What the hell?”

James hit the button that started the garage door opener, and went and stood where he usually parked the Lotus.

“Where the hell is my Lotus?” James said. He looked at the officers then.

Officer Stone said, “Parked in the dining room of 6721 Acacia Avenue.”

“What?” James exclaimed.

“Yes, it seems late last night someone crashed your Lotus through the back of the house, and came to a stop in the dining room,” Officer Kibble said.

“Oh my God! Was everyone OK?” James said.

“Well, the occupants of the house were all fine. Whoever was driving, however, ran away from the scene.”

“That’s crazy!”

“You wouldn’t know anything about this would you?”

“No, not at all,” James said.

“Because, you see, there were no signs the car had been stolen. In fact, the keys were in it. Any ideas on how that could be?”

“Well, I always leave the keys in my cars at home,” James said. This was true. His Porsche and Land Rover both had keys dangling from their ignition switches at this very moment.

“Any signs that your garage has been broken in to?” Officer Stone asked.

“No, not really. The only way they could have gotten in was through... Oh shit,” James said.

“What?” Officer Stone asked.

“The back door. I leave it open for the gardener,” James said. This was not strictly a lie. He did leave the back door open for the gardener. Of course, the gardener hadn’t been by for several days, and he was very good about locking up after himself. “Maybe he forgot to lock up when he was done.”

The three of them walked over to the back door of the garage, and sure enough, it was unlocked. James opened the door and stepped through.
“It doesn’t look to me like anyone tried to force their way in,” he said. “I guess it was just really bad luck for me.”

“So it would seem,” Officer Kibble said. “OK, well, we’ve got everything we need for now. Your car is going to be removed from the house shortly, you’ll be able to pick it up from the impound lot tomorrow.”

“Impound?” James asked. “Is there any way you guys can deliver it here?”

“We’re not a towing service, Mr. King. It looked to me like you’re going to need to take it straight to a body shop to get it repaired anyhow, if it’s not completely totalled. If I were you, I’d call your insurance company right away. Have a good day.”

“You too, officers,” James said. He watched them get into their car and driveaway.

“Man, that was close,” James said. He went back into his garage and shut the main door again, then into his house to get dressed and face the day.

The call to the insurance company was pretty straight ahead. Yes, his car had been stolen. Yes, the keys had been in it. Yes, the garage had been left open. No, he didn’t have any idea who could have taken it. They told him to get two quotes from different body shops.

Now he just had to hope that no one would look any deeper into the cause of the accident. He was pretty sure his insurance could cover the damage to the house, if it was somehow decided it was his fault. He could handle that, he just hoped to avoid any criminal charges.

He also decided that, maybe, he’d stop driving home drunk at three in the morning.

Later that afternoon, he lit his grill in the backyard, and stuffed the suit he’d been wearing into it. The flames licked around the edges of the cloth until suddenly, so it seemed, the suit was rapidly burning. It gave off a surprising amount of heat as it burned. After a few minutes, there was nothing left of the suit except for ashes, which would be easy to mix in with the ashes of the charcoal.

It was best to be careful about such things, James felt.