The Client Page 0,3
woods. He saw Mark emerge under the rear bumper, place a hand for balance on the taillight, and slowly ease the hose from the tail pipe. The grass crackled softly and the weeds shook a little and Mark was next to him again, panting and sweating and, oddly, smiling to himself.
They sat on their legs like two insects under the brush, and watched the car.
“What if he comes out again?” Ricky asked. “What if he sees us?”
“He can’t see us. But if he starts this way, just follow me. We’ll be gone before he can take a step.”
“Why don’t we go now?”
Mark stared at him fiercely. “I’m trying to save his “life, okay? Maybe, just maybe, he’ll see that this is not working, and maybe he’ll decide he should wait or something. Why is that so hard to understand?”
“Because he’s crazy. If he’ll kill himself, then he’ll kill us. Why is that so hard to understand?”
Mark shook his head in frustration, and suddenly the door opened again. The man rolled out of the car growling and talking to himself, and stomped through the grass to the rear. He grabbed the end of the hose, stared at it as if it just wouldn’t behave, and looked slowly around the small clearing. He was breathing heavily and perspiring. He looked at the trees, and the boys eased to the ground. He looked down, and froze as if he suddenly understood. The grass was slightly trampled around the rear of the car and he knelt as if to inspect it, but then crammed the hose back into the tail pipe instead and hurried back to his door. If someone was watching from the trees, he seemed not to care. He just wanted to hurry up and die.
The two heads rose together above the brush, but just a few inches. They peeked through the weeds for a minute. Ricky was ready to run, but Mark was thinking.
“Mark, please, let’s go,” Ricky pleaded. “He almost saw us. What if he’s got a gun or something?”
“If he had a gun, he’d use it on himself.”
Ricky bit his lip and his eyes watered again. He had never won an argument with his brother, and he would not win this one.
Another minute passed, and Mark began to fidget. “I’ll try one more time, okay. And if he doesn’t give up, then we’ll get outta here. I promise, okay?”
Ricky nodded reluctantly. His brother stretched on his stomach and inched his way through the weeds into the tall grass. Ricky wiped the tears from his cheek with his dirty fingers.
THE LAWYER’S NOSTRILS FLARED AS HE INHALED MIGHTILY. He exhaled slowly and stared through the windshield while trying to determine if any of the precious, deadly gas had entered his blood and begun its work. A loaded pistol was on the seat next to him. A half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s was in his hand. He took a sip, screwed the cap on it, and placed it on the seat. He inhaled slowly and closed his eyes to savor the gas. Would he simply drift away? Would it hurt or burn or make him sick before it finished him off? The note was on the dash above the steering wheel, next to a bottle of pills.
He cried and talked to himself as he waited for the gas to hurry, dammit!, before he’d give up and use the gun. He was a coward, but a very determined one, and he much preferred this sniffing and floating away to sticking a gun in his mouth.
He sipped the whiskey, and hissed as it burned on its descent. Yes, it was finally working. Soon, it would all be over, and he smiled at himself in the mirror because it was working and he was dying and he was not a coward after all. It took guts to do this.
He cried and muttered as he removed the cap of
the whiskey bottle for one last swallow. He gulped, and it ran from his lips and trickled into his beard.
He would not be missed. And although this thought should have been painful, the lawyer was calmed by the knowledge that no one would grieve. His mother was the only person in the world who loved him, and she’d been dead four years so this would not hurt her. There was a child from the first disastrous marriage, a daughter he’d not seen in eleven years, but he’d been told she had joined a cult and was as crazy