I want to run to it, open the trunk and prove him a liar. But customers have started arriving at the restaurant, and I can’t take the chance someone might see. Then I think of something.

“The car keys,” I say, holding them up, jingling them in my hand.

“What about them?”

I show him a smug smile. “You couldn’t have put anything in my trunk. I had the keys with me the whole time.”

He reaches into his pants pocket and tosses me a set of keys on a key ring that looks exactly like mine. I hold them next to each other, starting with my car key.

Identical.

I try my house key.

Identical.

My office key.

Identical.

“Where did you get these?”

“You’d better get moving. Don’t want to be late for the concert.”

“You’ve been inside my house?”

“I’ll see you later tonight, in your garage. One a.m. Don’t be late.”

“What if I refuse? You can’t just make me bury a body.”

“Climb back in a minute, and close the door.” He sees the look on my face and adds, “Relax, we’re just going to have a little chat.”

I do as he says. When I’m settled in, he says, “I didn’t kill your boss.”

“What?”

“I didn’t kill Oglethorpe.”

“So what, this was all a joke?”

“No, he’s dead. It’s just that I didn’t kill him.”

“Who did?”

“A housewife from New Albany.”

“Indiana?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“She wanted to commit a perfect crime.”

“She wished it?”

“There’s a guy from Kansas City, name of Jansen. You don’t wanna know his first name, trust me. Guy’s a sick degenerate, violent, done some prison time at ADX.”

“What’s that?”

“Toughest prison in America. Anyway, we’re in the middle of granting his wishes.”

“So?”

“He wants to barbecue a living man, and eat him.”

I can’t see my face, but I’m sure he can tell I’m concerned. He continues: “We’ve already picked out a victim for him, a homeless guy in St. Louis. But we can easily make it you.”

I’m shuddering as I speak, so my voice comes out weird, and stuttering: “A-a-all I’ve g-g-got to do is b-bury a b-body?”

“Yeah, that’s all,” he says. Then adds, “For now.”

 

Chapter 21

 

Lissie’s enjoying the dinner more than me.

I’m trying to make it a special night, but all I can think about is the fine print and what I have to do in a few hours. I keep looking around the restaurant for Rudy, or Pete Rossman, or even Perkins, the limo driver. But if anyone’s watching us, it’s no one I know. Hell, maybe it’s everyone in the room. For all I know, there could be hundreds of people involved. If the fine folks at Wish List can grant all these wishes and force people like Rossman and Jinny Kidwell to participate, they must be incredibly well-funded and staffed.

They might be invincible.

“Cheers,” Lissie says, clinking my glass with hers. “This is amazing! Dinner at Guiseppi’s, the limo, the concert��tell me the truth: how big was the raise?”

“Huge.”

Her eyes are sparkling. “I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks.”

“No, seriously, Buddy, this is a dream come true. After all this time, you’ve finally made it!”

I wonder if I’ve made it. Specifically, I wonder if the hundred dollar bills in my pocket are counterfeit.

They’re not, I learn, after paying the bill.

Much as I dread the idea of burying my boss in a few hours, I like giving my beautiful wife a well-deserved night on the town, and watching her eyes light up when I pay the tab with hundred dollar bills. I like the way I’ve suddenly become more powerful in her eyes, proving the adage that nothing hides a man’s flaws like success.

In the limo, after the concert, her hands are all over me. She wants to put up the partition, but earlier, when I went to meet Perkins in our driveway to tell him Lissie was running a few minutes late, he’d said, “No hanky panky in the limo tonight,” so I tell Lissie she’ll have to ravage me when we get home.

“Don’t think I won’t,” she says.

We pull up in the driveway and Perkins lets us out, saying, “Lissie, it’s been a pleasure. Might I escort you to the door?”

Tipsy, giggly and adorable, she turns to me and tries to adopt a dignified, snobbish accent: “Perkins wishes to escort me to our abode, Charles.