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  The beam of the flashlight played across the floor under the bed revealing what appeared to be a dark blanket with a solid white strip running the length of it. Curious, I lowered myself down onto the floor and shined the flashlight directly onto the object. It wasn’t what I had expected.

  There appeared to be a skeleton, bright white in the light of the flashlight. One of the skeleton’s arms was draped over a large, black canvas bag. Upon seeing the bag, I knew the money was in the bag. I now even remembered him saying the money was under the bed.

  Lying there on the floor, I looked at the bag and then at the skeleton, then at the bag and then back at the skeleton, back and forth, back and forth. All I had to do was reach under there and take the bag. That was it. But I didn’t reach out. I didn’t move. That skeleton was far too close for comfort. I didn’t want to touch it.

  I started to back away only to stop and stare at the bag some more. I really needed the money. I was broke and being divorced. I was days from being homeless and from killing myself, unless I got the money.

  I edged forward until I was right up under the dust ruffle. I didn’t hesitate. This time, I acted quickly and lunged out with my left hand, grabbing the handle of the canvas bag in one go. Not bad for having had my eyes closed. I tugged at the bag, but it didn’t move. I tugged again, harder, and it still didn’t move. So, I yanked as hard as I could, and the bag came flying out from under the bed with the skeleton’s arm still attached. I totally freaked out.

  I danced around the room, flinging the bag this way and that way, trying to get the arm to fall off. Finally, I flung the bag to the end of the handle and snapped it back. The arm dislodged from the bag and flew across the room. It smacked into the body hanging from the wire causing it to swing back and forth on the wire around the neck. On the third swing, a rat dropped out of the hole where the vagina had been. It circled the body twice before racing for the closet. I puked for the second time.

  I took the stairs two at a time as I raced for the front door. I’d almost made it to the bottom of the stairs before I tripped over something and was sent sprawling on all fours. I slid across the foyer and slammed into the front door.

  I lay sprawled on the floor, letting the cobwebs settle, when it occurred to me that I needed to keep going. Psycho man was outside waiting for me to open the door. As I forced myself to my knees, I felt the weight of the canvas bag and wondered just how much money was inside. It was heavier than I thought it would have been. Money didn’t weigh that much, did it? I started to wonder if maybe I was being played and the bag really held bricks or something else equally heavy. Hell, it could be anything. The guy’s a psycho.

  Using the wall for balance, I pulled myself to a standing position where I hung on for dear life as my head spun from the overload of alcohol. As I reached for the door, the lightning flashed again, and I jumped, thinking I saw a shadow cross the sidelight of the door. The mere possibility of there being someone outside convinced me that I had to find another way to get out. I turned and ran to the kitchen where the back door was. I twisted the knob and pulled, but it wouldn’t open. I yanked again. Nothing. My hands flew over the door looking for a lock I might have missed. Finding a small knob under the doorknob, I twisted it and the door popped open. I raced through it, catching myself at the last moment before I did a header into the pool. Seeing it close up clarified it was in the same condition as the rest of the house. The algae and mold were so thick, it covered the pool like a carpet. Of course, the big, dead rat floating in the middle along with the stench of the stagnant, putrid water convinced me I didn’t want to take a swim just now. Once back on an even keel, I skirted the pool to the right. A few steps later, I stumbled through the screen door, which had long ago lost its screen, and ran for my life through the pouring rain, the money bag slung over my shoulder.

  Dripping wet, I slipped behind the wheel of my car and took several deep breaths trying to calm my nerves. My hands were shaking so badly, I dropped the car keys and had to scramble around the floorboard to find them. It took several tries to start the car and several more minutes after it finally started for me to stop shaking enough to drive. As I backed out of the drive, I strained to see through the rain for anyone standing in the shadows, but I didn’t see anyone. Even when the lightning flashed, I didn’t see anything threatening.

  I remembered that I had to turn quickly at the road and managed to stay out of the swamp on the other side of the road by just inches. I jammed the pedal to the metal, and the old Chevy bucked as it chugged forward. Well, it coughed, sputtered and belched smoke from the exhaust, but it started moving.

  When I hit the main drag, I gunned the car to over sixty before I realized that no one was following me, and no one was on the road in any direction. I stopped at the first liquor store that I saw, taking the bag into the store with me, throwing it over my shoulder as I went inside and bought another fifth of Jim Beam, skipping the Coke this time. A quarter of a bottle later, I found myself in the driveway back at my house. I still hadn’t opened the bag when I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was rudely awakened by a pounding on the car window. The Bitch was doing her best to make sure I knew she wasn’t happy. I know she was talking, because I could see her lips moving, but I was so hung over, I did my best to block out the sound of her voice. After a few minutes of her acting like an idiot, I sat up and flipped her the bird, and then I lay back down on the seat with my hands over my ears. She kicked my car a few times and then drove off to work.

  When the trash truck came through the neighborhood later around mid-afternoon, the driver decided he would run a compaction cycle in front of my house. The roar of the machine finally forced me to drag myself into the house. I left the bag on the kitchen table while I took a cold shower, trying to wash away the alcohol funk. While I showered, I kept running the night before through my mind. Did I really go to that house? Did I really see a dead body? How could I have done that? Who was that woman who had been killed? Whose money was it, really? I also couldn’t help but wonder how much trouble I was really in. Hell, I’d taken money that wasn’t mine, but I was told to do it. I had found a dead body that I wasn’t going to report because I wanted the money I’d taken. Just look how far I had fallen in so short a time.

  Sitting at the table, I wondered if I should open the bag. After all, maybe there wasn’t any money in there. Maybe there were body parts from yet another victim of the psycho phone caller. I sat thinking while I drank a glass of milk and ate a bagel, trying to build up my nerve and settle my stomach. Every time a car passed outside on the street, I looked up and listened closely, afraid the police would be breaking down my door at any minute. I dreaded when the phone rang, but it always stopped after five rings, which only made me wonder more what was going on. Finally, I opened the bag.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled out a brown package about eight inches long and nine inches wide. It was taped and bound with string. A neat little package, kind of like a Christmas present, only it was a plain brown wrapper. On second thought, it wasn’t like a Christmas present; it was more like something sent through the mail that wasn’t quite socially acceptable, like porn or sex toys.

  I tugged on the string, and it untied easily. The brown paper popped open with just a slight tug at the taped seams. My breath escaped my lungs so fast, I felt lightheaded as the contents came into view. The room began to spin, and I had to shake my head to refocus my vision.

  Inside the wrapper were two banded stacks of hundred dollar bills. Benjamins, lots of Benjamins. The bank tape said there was ten thousand dollars per stack. I dug deeper into the canvas bag, pulling out package after package. I did it nineteen more times, reaching in and pulling out cash. When the bag was empty, I had more than two million dollars in mixed bills. I puked on the floor next to the table and quickly stuffed all the packages back into the bag. Shit. I knew I was in real trouble.

  After cleaning up the floor, I started on myself—changing my clot
hes, washing my face and brushing my teeth for the second time in under an hour. I sat in the bedroom wondering how I could fix the problem. Someone had to be looking for this money, and now that I had it, someone would be looking for me.

  I sat there worrying myself sick until I took a Valium and a handful of aspirin, trying to calm down and get rid of the hangover which seemed to intensify since I opened the bag. For a brief moment, I thought I could take a short nap and then figure this all out, only to have the phone ring. It rang and rang and rang some more. After twenty rings, I gave in and decided I need to face the music; I would have to deal with psycho man somehow, someway. Maybe I would just go to the police and tell them what I found. That would be the smart thing to do. Yeah, the smart thing, but I wasn’t that smart.

  I picked up the phone and was greeted by a high pitched scream. The Bitch was complaining about my having gone out and tied one on. Hell, she acted like she still cared. What a crock! After she bitched for several minutes, I asked if there was a point to her phone call, which only seemed to fuel her rant, but after a few moments of squealing, she stopped and demanded I leave the house. I made it clear I had nowhere to go and no money to get there. Then I boldly suggested that she give me enough money to get started somewhere, and I would leave. I told her ten grand would do it, and until I had ten grand, I wasn’t going anywhere. She then threatened to take me to court, and I told her to do it. I strongly doubted the judge would force me to leave with me being ill and broke. After all, it was my house, too. She screamed and slammed the phone down. I wondered if her co-workers were watching her performance and if any of them thought she was as nuts as I thought she was. Then, I wondered why she just didn’t move in with her new boyfriend, or maybe she couldn’t because he was married, too. Maybe she’ll get the money from her boyfriend. It would serve him right.

  I sat quietly thinking in circles about the whole situation when the phone rang again. Like before, I let it ring and ring and ring, only to give in and answer it after it rang about twenty times.

  “Yeah,” was all I said in a normal, nonchalant way.

  “I see you found the money! Did you like the trophy I left you?” the voice said.

  “Which one? The dead woman or the skeleton? What is wrong with you?” I blurted out, feeling safe in my house on the phone, forgetting for the moment that this psycho knew where I lived.

  “What’s wrong with me? Well, I hardly know where to begin. The shrink I used to see before I killed him suggested that I should admit myself to a hospital for treatment. He thought I was a cold-blooded, psychopathic killer. But I prefer to think of myself as a man who knows no boundaries. I refuse to live by the conventions of the everyday, mundane world. The difference between men like me and men like you is only money. Money allows us to do whatever we please. If you’ve crossed some imaginary boundary of the mundane world, you simply buy forgiveness. That is, if you have money. Money is the universal Get Out of Jail Free card, once you know how and where to apply it. With money, you are free to move about the planet at your whim. I’ve given you that gift.

  “You now have enough money to do with as you please. That ‘Bitch,’ as you call her, can be left behind without a second thought. You can have new women, exotic women. Women follow the money, you know. They gravitate to it. It has always been that way and always will be,” the voice explained.

  “So, this was a favor? You don’t even know me. Why would you do this?” I asked Mr. Psycho.

  “Why? Because I think you’re more like me than you know, and I wanted you to be able to spread your wings and fly!” the voice stated.

  “Right. You gave me two million dollars, a complete stranger. What’s the catch?” I asked curtly.

  “The only catch is I’d like to be friends,” the voice said.

  “Dude, you live at an old house that is falling apart, and there’s a dead body in the bedroom next to your bed, and under it is a skeleton. Why would I want to be your friend?” I blurted out quite loudly. Maybe too loudly because he got very quiet and whispered.

  “I’m not giving you a choice. I will call you and tell you where to meet me. If you do not meet me, I will be very unhappy, and you have seen what happens to people who make me unhappy.”

  “Don’t threaten me. I’ll go to the police and turn you in. I know what you did and where you did it. So thanks for the cash, and I’m out of here. You can go play your sick game with someone else!” I shouted and hung up. Afterwards, I knew I shouldn’t have acted that way. I should have told him I’d meet him and then catch the next plane out of town. Then it occurred to me that I had better get out of here now—right now—before Mr. Psycho decided he would stop by and chop me into little pieces.

  You would have thought that with two million dollars, I could have found a way to get out of southwest Florida on a Wednesday night with little or no problem. If you thought that, you would be wrong. Since 9/11, you can’t go anywhere without a passport, not even the islands in the Caribbean or Mexico. Hell, even Canada requires Americans to show a passport now.

  Of course, I didn’t have a passport. I was still fighting over child support for my twenty-seven-year-old daughter from my first marriage, so I wasn’t deemed a good risk for a passport. I thought about paying off the bill, but then I realized that it would take the court months to do the paperwork, and that wasn’t going to help. I probably should have given up trying to fight city hall a long time ago, but I can be stubborn at times.

  I then thought I would just hop a plane to anywhere in the U.S., only to be told the only flights out were booked and that I couldn’t get out for the next two days because it was ‘season.’ Season is that wonderful time of year when all the snowbirds come to Florida. They come to escape the winter snows up north, and the business owners here love it because they provide eighty percent of their yearly income in just five months. The rest of us who live here year round hate season because of the traffic, the packed restaurants, the crowds and the fact that you can’t fly in or out of the place without making reservations months in advance. I found a room at the Airport Inn and checked in.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I spent the rest of the day eating pizza (which I had delivered along with a two liter of soda) and watching TV in the hotel room. I kept the blinds closed in case someone was watching. It was all I could do to keep my paranoia in check. I kept seeing the dead woman and the skeleton whenever I closed my eyes. My mind was running in circles, and I was beating myself up pretty good when the phone rang.

  Shit. I choked on my soda and ended up spitting a whole mouthful across the room. The phone rang again; no one knew I was here. Why is my phone ringing? Is it the police trying to talk me out before they came in with their guns blazing? Shit. Shit. Shit. I panicked just a bit. I peeked out from the edge of the curtain at the parking lot but couldn’t see anyone looking up at my window on the third floor. I didn’t see any cop cars or SWAT teams. Who could be calling?

  I stood in the bathroom behind the shower curtain, shaking as I waited for the door to burst inward and to hear the dreaded words, “Police! Freeze!” Only the door didn’t burst open, and the words never were shouted. The phone, however, kept ringing. It rang for a half-hour before it stopped, and I was now in full flight mode. My mind raced over the few options I had. I could maybe take the bus and get out of here. Or maybe I should just drive off in the car, even though I know it wouldn’t get me as far as Atlanta. Maybe I could fake my own death—drive my car out to the Glades and run it off in a swampy area. Yeah, everyone would think I was eaten by the gators. Then, I could just walk back to town and get on the bus. I’d use a fake name with the wrong address. How would they ever know? Then reality sunk in, and I remembered that I couldn’t walk a mile, let alone twenty. Plus, what’s to stop the gators from eating me while I’m dumping the car? I needed a new plan, but I was fresh out of ideas.

  Then I remembered that I needed ID to do anything. Shit. I didn’t know the kind of people who knew how to do that ki
nd of stuff or even people who knew people who did. I couldn’t help but feel I was totally screwed.

  Stepping back into the room from the bathroom I saw an advertisement for a gun show at the civic center that was starting tomorrow. Yeah, that was the ticket. I started to think of a whole new plan. A plan where I was in charge, and if he didn’t like it, tough. I would shoot the asshole if he wasn’t careful. I needed to show him I was just as dangerous as he was.

  I’d heard somewhere that they sold guns at the gun shows to anyone with enough cash without ever asking questions. I had plenty of cash, so I planned on going there first thing in the morning and getting a gun. I knew how to shoot. I just hadn’t done it in a long time, years actually. I remember thinking how hard could it be to get back in the swing of things? I convinced myself if Psycho Man tried anything, I would shoot his ass off.

  The phone rang twice more that night—once around nine and then around two in the morning. It rang for over a half-hour both times, and I just knew it was him. How had he found me? No one other than maybe the NSA can hack into every computer system looking for people. Around four in the morning, my pea brain once more kicked into gear, and I realized that he had followed me somehow. Shit. How stupid was I? The guy followed me and bribed the desk clerk for the room number and the phone number. Probably told them we were old friends, and he wanted to surprise me or something. Shit. I did manage to sleep for a short time, maybe two hours, but all I did was dream about the dead woman, the skeleton, and me hanging next to her, waiting to die. I was a complete mess when I finally went to the gun show.