Suicide Jack
“What’s this?” Jack asked in surprise, staring down at the small, brightly-wrapped box on the kitchen table.
Jade smiled, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Open it and find out.”
Throwing a puzzled smile at his wife, Jack picked up the box and tugged against the paper. With a delicate tearing sound, it fell away to reveal a battered pack of playing cards. The smile froze on Jack’s lips and his left eyelid began to twitch. He stared down at the deck in his hands, not daring to dart a glance at his wife across the table.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“They belonged to my father,” Jade said. A shadow crossed her face for a split-second. “He used to play with them all the time, before the accident. I thought they could be a symbol for us.”
“A symbol of what?” He asked, trying, and failing, to keep the note of bitterness from his voice. “How I almost cost us our house?”
“A symbol of what you beat,” Jade said. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “It’s not a reprimand, Jack. You stopped the gambling and we got the debts paid off. It’s something to be proud of.”
Jack forced a smile to his stiff lips and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Thank you. I could never have done it alone. Most women would have left.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Jade said. “This marriage is forever, ‘til death do us part. One of us is gonna have to die to get out of this relationship.”
Jack laughed. “Don’t tempt me,” he said, reaching across the small table to kiss Jade’s full lips.
“I intend to tempt you madly,” she replied. “But not right now. I have to go to work, and you have to go down to your little office and get some research done for your project.”
Jade stood, grabbed her purse from the counter, dropped a kiss on her husband’s forehead and walked out the door. Jack sat there for a moment, waiting for the sound of the Explorer revving, the turning of the gears and finally, the crunch of the chat as Jade pulled out of the driveway. The sound of sweet freedom.
He got up, cleared the table of breakfast dishes, and grabbed the deck of playing cards before heading down the basement stairs to his office. A burlesque dancer winked at him from the screen, teasing him with enticing views of her animated body before he gave the mouse a nudge, instantly dashing the image from the screen and revealing the homepage of his Internet connection. He sat at the desk, thumbing through the pack of cards for a moment.
A symbol. He wanted to laugh. He had been addicted to gambling, so she gave him a pack of cards. What would she have given him if he had been a alcoholic? A twelve pack of beer?
Some time during the course of their ten-year marriage, Jack realized his wife had no respect for him at all. His work meant nothing to her, despite the marginal success he had made of his articles, some being featured in major magazines and newspapers. Her career as an attorney brought in the real money, and they both knew it. He had somehow been reduced to the status of pet somewhere along the line. Sweet, lovable, adoring, and always a failure.
He thought when he confessed his addiction, all the debts he had added up during his Internet gambling sessions, she would finally leave him. But he had been so wrong. It had become stylish to have a gambling addict in the family, it seemed. Like getting a bad haircut as a fashion statement. He had suddenly become a trendy, if ugly, accessory.
He looked at the deck in front of him. It’s a symbol. He could hear her sweet voice in his head, echoing over and over. A symbol. A symbol . . . He turned from the screen in front of him and closed his eyes, indulging in his favorite fantasy.
The detail was so vivid, he could see it all behind his closed lids. The room was dark and smoky. All kinds of characters milled around, but they were nothing to him. There was only one real opponent, and they both knew it. He sat across the table, smiling that crooked smile, waiting for Jack to deal the cards.
“What’s wild Ace?”
The voice shook him. Jack opened his eyes and nearly dropped the deck in his hands. He no longer sat in his basement office. It was all gone, the computer, the desk, even that God-awful painting of dogs playing poker that Jade had gotten him. He sat in the room he had just imagined, down to the crookedly smiling man across the table from him. His heart turned over and his mind raced, grasping for a logical explanation.
“Something wrong there, Mr. Hart? Why’d ya come if you don’t want to play?”
Jack took a deep breath. He wasn‘t crazy. Was he? “No,“ he answered himself. “Just a little excursion from the pressures of reality. That’s all.”
The man snorted. “Whatever you say, Mr. Hart. But deal the cards already. I’ve been waiting for a real game. The rest of these pansy-assed bastards don’t even add up.”
Jack smiled. “I’ve got a real game for you, Mister.”
The man smiled back. “Good, then, son. Let’s begin.”
*
Jade sat at her considerable desk at Crouch, Perkins, and Landon Law Offices, perusing the Brinkley file. It was the kind of account that could make her partner. But that wasn’t what put the gleam in Jade Hart’s eyes. She loved sinking her teeth into her work, it was what made her a success as an attorney.
The phone began bleating out a plaintive ringing and she sat the file on her desk with a sigh. She snatched up the receiver, ready to flay the creature, man or beast, that dared interrupt her precious work. Her secretary’s crisp, efficient voice greeted her.
“Nurse Chaplin on line two, Mrs. Hart.”
“Thank you, Anita,” Jade said, deflating. She hesitated only a moment before pressing the button and allowing her father’s personal nurse into her world.
“Hi Kim,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Hello, Mrs. Hart.” Kim Chaplin's voice sounded as coolly professional as always. “I was wondering if you were going to make it in to visit Mr. Casey this week.”
Jade’s eyes made an involuntary flick to her desk calendar. “Gee, Kim, I don’t know. I’m pretty swamped this week.”
“I realize how busy you are. But he’s been asking for you.”
Jade’s heart tumbled over in her chest. Guilt and embarrassment battled over her soul and for a moment she was torn. He was her father, after all.
“I know I haven’t spent much time with him since the accident,” she said. “It’s just been so busy here.”
“I understand, Mrs. Hart. I just wanted to touch base with you, and let you know that you’re in his thoughts.”
Jade’s knuckles whitened around the receiver. He wasn’t thinking of me much when he shot himself in the head, she thought. The words were on the verge of exploding from her mouth. She bit her lip to hold them in. The situation was humiliating enough without having a confrontation with the personal nurse she hired to take care of him. She could only imagine the rumors whispered behind the hands of her bosses and their friends, much less her coworkers and clients.
She had yanked herself up by the bootstraps to live up to her potential, despite her father’s and husband’s problems. She wasn’t about to let either of them pull her back down now, not when she was so close to making partner.
“Thank you, Kim,” Jade said. “I’ll try for next week.”
She hung up the phone and wiped a hand across her face, trying to block the image of her father, once proud and straight, reduced to the slobbering, broken creature he had become. She shuddered, picked the file up from her desk and began reading.
Her guilt evaporated by the third word.
*
“I don’t hate her,” Jack said, assembling the cards in his hand. He had been here for hours, playing and talking to the man.
The man was smart, a real hard-a** when it came to the game, but friendly, with a wicked insight to Jack’s soul. But that was to be expected. Jack didn’t for a moment doubt the man’s identity. “She’s my wife. I love her.”
The man snorted. “Son, stop trying to fool yourself with that drivel. She drives you nuts. She has for a long time. She would never dream of getting a divorce and the plain truth is she’ll make your life miserable if you try. Not good for her career, don’t you know? Why else did you get that life insurance policy?”
Jack shook his head. “We got that years ago. There’s one on me, too.”
“Good, then they won’t find it as suspect, will they?” The man asked. “And the fact you got it years ago just proves to me that you’ve been planning this for a while.”
“I’m not planning anything,” Jack said. “I couldn’t hurt her. I don’t have it in me.”
The man chuckled. “That’s what they all say, son. The truth is everyone’s capable of murder, provided the proper motivation. Do you think she’ll ever leave you in peace, as long as she lives? She’s making you miserable and it’ll only get worse, ‘til death do you part.”
“I love her,” Jack repeated. “She has her annoying habits, but so do I.”
“Like the gambling?” The man asked. “Do you think she’ll ever let you forget about that? Do you think she’ll ever, for one moment, let you live it down? She’ll drive you to suicide if she can. Or she can wait for the Mafia guys to do that for her. How much are you into them for?”
Jack’s lips tightened as he stared at the cards in his hand. For once, he didn’t see the straight that gawked back at him. His mind was on something else altogether. “Ten grand. Not so much.”
“Son,” the man said. “I’ve seen them break bones for twenty bucks.”
Jack licked his lips. They had already made a number of threats. “I’d get caught,” he said. “They always suspect the husband.”
“Get caught? How can you get caught if there’s no body to catch you with?”
Jack stared at the man for a long moment. “You mean . . .”
The basement office came into sharp focus. In his hand, Jack still held the straight, and the smell of smoke lingered in the shadows. But Jack was unconcerned. He had a plan.
*
Jade was gathering her purse and briefcase when the phone rang again. Anita had already gone home for the night, leaving Jade to do the menial task of answering it herself.
“Jade Hart.”
“Mrs. Hart,” came Kim Chaplin’s thick voice. “I’m sorry to inform you that your father passed away this evening.”
Jade was still for a moment. She waited to feel the heartbreak, the terrible emptiness she felt when her mother had died, two years before. But it didn’t come. All she could bring herself to feel was relief. Relief that she would no longer be expected to visit and sit with the man that fathered her, as he gabbled nonsense about a strange man that told him terrible things, while drool ran down his chin.
“Thank you, Kim,” she finally said. “I’m sure he’s in a much better place now.”
“Would you like me to make the arrangements?” The nurse asked.
“Please,” Jade replied. “A private cremation. Scatter the ashes in his favorite place.”
“Won’t you be attending? I would have thought you would want to do that yourself.”
“No,” Jade said. “I’m afraid I just have too much to get done this week.”
She ran her finger down the empty spaces on her desk calendar. “I’m just swamped.”
*
The sun had set long ago and night had fallen over the street when Jack heard her pull into the drive. He sat in the middle of the bedroom floor, surrounded by plastic.
They had remodeled the bathroom not long ago, and he had meant to throw that plastic away for ages. But it had sat, untouched, in the farthest corner of the garage, out of view. Perhaps the man was right. Perhaps he had been planning this for a long time.
The room was dark. He sat and listened to the familiar sounds of the Explorer pulling into the garage and the door slamming as Jade got out and made her way into the house. The door was unlocked, but the outside light was off, and he knew she must be muttering to herself about his inconsideration. He had told her over and over again to use the door that led from the garage to the utility room, but she would have none of it. It was creepy, she said. Like a place a serial killer might wait. How ironic. She had never been particularly afraid of the bedroom.
She called his name as she walked in. The dark, silent house must have thrown her off-balance. Her heart might even have started hammering in her chest, just as his was. Her pale eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet, but that was okay. Soon there would be no need.
He could hear her footsteps as she walked around the house, and the impotent clicks of light switches being thrown on and off. It was a little chilly, but she would barely notice that. It was still warmer than outside. The cool air didn’t bother him. He had too much adrenaline pumping through his system.
Her panic propelled her into each room, moving faster and faster. He knew her so well, he knew what she was thinking. She didn’t believe he was there anymore. She thought he would have answered when she called. She was confused by the lack of electricity, but not overly concerned. She knew where the breaker box was. That’s why she was running.
If she had been walking carefully, he doubted if she would have tripped. She would have felt the small table he fit into the doorway and stopped in time.
She landed hard, knocking her head against the barely cushioned concrete floor. The plastic beneath her body rustled as she collided with the floor. Jack sat there, unable to move for a split second, wondering if she had knocked herself cold. She moaned and a warm, soft hand reached out and touched his arm. He started and sucked in a breath. It would have been so much easier if she had knocked herself out.
He reached out and touched her hair, crushing the soft tangle of it in his fingers. Her eyes fluttered open. In the moonlight slithering through the window, he could see the sickened comprehension in her eyes. A shudder ran through his body as he slammed her head down once, making her cry out, then again, and again. Over and over, until her skull nearly came apart in his hands, her once beautiful face unrecognizable.
His brain wanted to shut down. He didn’t want to do what came next. He only wanted to curl up in the bed alone. He wanted to undo the atrocity he had just committed. But there was no going back and he couldn’t stop. He pulled out the saw and gulped in the last fresh breath he would have for some time.
“It’s just like quartering a deer,” the man said from the corner. Easy for him to say, Jack thought, he wasn’t the one cutting her up.
“I’ve never been deer-hunting before,” he said. The sweet, metallic taste of blood dribbled into his mouth and he was forced to fight down his gorge.
The man laughed. “You’re in for a long night then, boy.”
Jack grasped Jade’s arm in his blood-slicked hand and raised the saw once again. The sound was almost as unbearable to him as the flying gore. The popping and snapping of sinewy muscle, the grinding of bone. He should have worn a mask, too, he decided as blood shot upward, squirting him in the face, close to his mouth. From the corner the man laughed.
It was easier to think of her as an “it” as the pieces got smaller. When only the head and hair remained to identify her as one of humanity’s lost daughters, he sat the saw down. His upper body was covered in blood. Small pieces of meat from the sloppy job he had just finished hung from his shirt sleeves, but he paid no notice. He looked at the man in the corner.
“What now?”
“Now, son, we got to load her up.”
“’We’ huh?” Jack wiped a bloody streak across his forehead. “What’s your role in this? Supervisor?”
The man barked out a rough laugh. “My idea, isn’t it son? Where would you be without me?”
Jack began throwing body parts into the large, sturdy trash bag. “In bed, snuggling with my wife instead of loading her into trash bags.”
“Yeah, and waiting for the Mob’s next call,” the man said, shrewdly.
*
He cut the headlights and stared at the barn ahead. “I don’t like this.”
“Yeah, but the pigs will,” the man said. “That’s all that matters.”
“What about the hair and fingernails and bones?” Jack said. “You said they wouldn’t eat those.”
“There’s an incinerator just on the other side of the barn,” the man said. “They use it for dead pigs. You can throw those parts in there.”
“What if someone hears? Or sees?”
“No one will,” the man said. “You used to work here when you were young, remember? You know the routine. You know no one will be here. Quit borrowing trouble.”
“’We’ my a**,” Jack muttered, opening the car door. The man grinned at him from the passenger side.
Jack walked around the Explorer and opened the back hatch. The trash bags were laid out, each one marked with a heart or a spade. The hearts went to the pigs, the spades to the incinerator. Jack grabbed the first sack, feeling the squish of something soft inside. His stomach did a somersault and he tasted bitter bile in the back of his throat.
The hogs were mostly asleep, but the scent of something like food woke them. He opened the sacks and dumped the meat parts of what used to be his wife into the pen. In seconds the pigs were on it, feeding greedily. Jack couldn’t watch, he turned away to gather up the bags and walked back to the Explorer. There he gathered up the rest of the bags and bloody clothes and headed to the small incinerator behind the barns.
“Good job son,” the man said, as the rest of Jade Hart burned along with the bloody clothes, plastic, and trash bags he had used. “You’re almost home-free now.”
Jack didn’t answer, staring straight ahead. Almost free, he thought. Almost . . .
*
Even after a thorough scrubbing in the bedroom, the scent of blood was thick in Jack’s nose. He showered, cleaning his fingernails immaculately, scouring the stiff, tight specks of dried blood from his skin.
He settled down in his bed, but was unable to sleep. The empty place next to him felt too cold. He tossed and turned in the too-quiet room, remembering the soft, comforting sounds of Jade’s breathing. Sounds he would never hear again. When the brittle silence got to him, he slid from the bed and padded across the house and down the basement stairs.
The couch in his office was lumpy and uncomfortable, but it felt like home. Many nights he spent there, while Jade simmered alone in the bedroom upstairs. Strange how it never occurred to him to kill her then.
Exhaustion seeped into his bones, causing him to fall asleep instantly, suddenly weary of the weight of what he had done.
His dreams were a tilt-a-whirl of blood and gore, spinning out of control in his mind. The snorting, anxious sounds of pigs feeding lingered in the background. He saw his wife’s face in vivid, white-hot color. The edges were hazy, but the brightness made the image seem sharper than it should. Tears of blood fell from her dilated eyes, and her skin was a sick and clammy pale that seemed moist somehow. As though his fingers would come away with something wet and thick if he touched her.
His eyes flew open. He sucked in a gasp of air, but it felt thin. He couldn’t get enough to stop his head from spinning. He sat upright, but couldn’t move another inch. Something stirred in the far shadows of the room. He was alone. He knew the man was no longer with him, he couldn’t feel his presence anymore. But there was someone else there.
No, his subconscious whispered.
Not someone, something. The room tilted. He could hear the whisper of plastic slither against the hard, concrete floor.
That’s not right. The plastic burned, along with her bones and hair and fingernails. Pigs won’t touch fingernails . . . Something wet slopped against his face. If there had been enough oxygen in his lungs, he would have screamed. But all that came out was a hoarse mewling sound. It made his skin crawl. Nothing human should ever make that sound.
He wanted to swipe at the wet thing against his face, but his arms were too heavy to move. In the shadows of the room, the sound of rustling plastic grew nearer. He felt himself slip into the open maw of madness as a soft, clammy hand locked around his ankle . . .
He struggled, finally freed from the mysterious paralysis that held his body. The world turned upside down as he fell. Several eternities later, he hit the hard, concrete floor. His head throbbed with the pain, but he laughed to himself. If he came out of this with nothing but bruises and nightmares, he would be doing all right.
“Bad dreams, slick?” The man asked from the corner.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Jack replied.
The man chuckled. “If you say so, son, but what’s that on the floor there?”
Jack looked around. Not three feet from where he lay was a bloody piece of plastic.
*
The phone rang in shrill tones, but Jack ignored it. The man sat across from him, waiting for his hand to be dealt. Jack shuffled, soothed by the sound of the cards slapping against each other in his hands.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“No need,” Jack said. “I already know who it is.”
“Mobsters don’t like to be kept waiting,” the man replied. “Just as a general rule.”
“All I have to do is hold them off until the insurance check comes in,” Jack said. “Then I’ll have enough to pay them and live on for a while, even with their crazy interest rates.”
“What insurance check is that, slick?”
Jack threw the man a disgruntled look. “The insurance money from Jade’s policy.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something? No body, no murder. No murder, no death. No death. . .”
“No insurance money,” Jack said, as the color drained from his face.
The window next to Jack’s head exploded in a spray of bullets. The last thing he heard before the first one stole all sound from his world was the man’s laughter, ringing in his ears.
The End
