Kill Me (7 page)

TWELVE

I introduced myself. He didn’t. Nor did he apologize for not introducing himself.

We didn’t shake hands.

“I hope you’re hungry,” he said pleasantly. “I find this is one of those rare places in New York that consistently live up to the hype.”

I glanced down for a hint. The menu clued me in that we were at Nobu.

Cool.
“I’ve wanted to eat here. Never got around to it.”

“Yes,” he said, as though he already knew that.

How would he know that?

“May I make a recommendation?” he asked. “I don’t get here that often, but often enough to steer you toward a memorable meal.”

“Of course.”
Why not?
I closed the menu. I was thinking.
If I can’t trust you with lunch, why would I put my life — or my death — in your hands?

A waiter appeared. “We’ll both have the tasting menu,” my host said. He looked at me. “Any restrictions?” he asked. “Diet of any kind? Meat a problem? Shellfish?” I shook my head. He turned back to the waiter. “And please bring sparkling water, a Yebisu, and some good sake for the table. Please, you choose the sake. Room temperature, warm — whatever you think will be best. Thanks so much.”

My mother would call my dining companion portly, or heavyset. My wife, Thea, might not be so genteel. On occasion I’d heard her use the word “rhino” in similar contexts, employing the word in a way that was less than flattering. When she did, she unnaturally overstressed the emphasis on the first syllable.

Her occasional lapses in decorum about people’s appearances were one of Thea’s few unattractive traits. In those rare moments fashion critiques rolled over her tongue like adjectives from a wine nut.

The man was about my age, give or take five years. He had a wide nose and unnaturally dark thin lips that reminded me of a matched pair of tinned anchovy filets. His hair, more blond than gray, was shaped into an old-fashioned, longish crew cut, and was thin enough that I could see a mole on his scalp an inch above his hairline. Near his right temple he had a scar that had the size and contour of a bullet hole. I assumed that it wasn’t really a bullet hole — the right temple was one of those places where slugs do enough damage to bone and gray matter that the consequences tend to forever keep people from having leisurely lunches at Nobu, or from making a living as a Death Angel entrepreneur.

The overall effect of his appearance? If you saw this man on the street, you would pay him absolutely no attention.

He was just a middle-aged guy in a business suit doing business in a city chock-full of middle-aged guys in business suits.

Yebisu, it turned out, was beer. Good Japanese beer. I passed on the sake; experience told me that it rendered me sleepy during the day. My host wasn’t drinking anything but Pellegrino.

“So how does this work?” I asked.

“The business?” He made a hey-who-can-complain? face. “Surprisingly, it works quite well. No complaints. Thanks for asking.” He rapped on the table with the knuckles of his right hand.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it’s not what you meant.” He smiled. “This is serious business we do; I was trying to lighten things up with a little humor. It’s a hobby. Comedy.”

Although I appreciated his attempt at levity, his humor was drier than the sake, and the truth was that, with his delivery, he was in no danger of earning a standing O at open-mic night at The Comedy Store. My experience is that if someone has to tell you he’s funny, he’s not.

Over the next few minutes, as we began an extended series of tiny courses of exquisitely presented Japanese food — some familiar, some almost familiar, some absolutely unfamiliar — that seemed symphonic in their careful progression and otherworldly in freshness and quality, he began to explain the nuts and bolts of the Death Angel business.

“Like any good business, we serve an unmet need,” he began.

I noted the “we” and wondered what percentage of the company’s employees I’d met already that day. I was assuming that it wasn’t a two-person operation.

“How many times, by this stage of your life, have you learned of an unfortunate accident, or of a devastating illness that has robbed some dear soul — a friend of a friend, perhaps, or worse, a true friend, or worse yet, a loved one, someone close to your heart — of the capacity to live. When I say ‘live’ I’m talking ‘live’ with a capital
L,
of course. The ability to enjoy the bounty of the world’s buffet.”

He allowed the thought to settle while he sipped from his Pellegrino. I thought of Antonio.

“But say that same illness or injury has not quite robbed the person of what doctors, ethicists, and scientists currently define as life? I’m talking about the clinical definition: the proverbial beating heart, the measurable flow of sufficient electron activity in the brain.”

He had stuttered, just a little, as he said “sufficient.” My brother had stuttered as a child; I was sensitive to it. He sipped at his water again.

“And how many times have you heard a friend or a loved one murmur, upon hearing similar terrible news in your presence, or witnessing that same tragedy while standing by your side, ‘If that ever happens to me, I hope, I pray, that I die instead.’ ” He watched my eyes for an extended moment before he added, “Perhaps … perhaps … you’ve even said words to that effect … yourself.”

In my mind’s eye I saw Antonio again — two images, vibrant at first, vegitized second — and I swallowed. There was nothing in my mouth, but I swallowed. I guessed, of course, how he knew
that
. About Antonio.

“The nature of our work, stated as simply as I can state it, is that we are in the business of answering those prayers.”

Each time a server approached our table — and given the sheer number of small courses that were being delivered to us and then cleared away, the arrival of a waiter was a frequent event — my luncheon companion grew silent and made it clear that he expected me to do the same.

During the next lull in service, while I enjoyed a selection of tiny fruits that I’d never crossed paths with before in my life, he went on to explain that the structure of his business venture was akin to an insurance company that specialized in indemnifying people against an exceedingly rare, but catastrophic event. The clients of his insurance company didn’t require monetary compensation if and when the rare event actually occurred — every potential client of the company had already been financially vetted and had been deemed wealthy beyond any reasonable standard. What the clients required after the catastrophe was that an action be taken.

That action?

“We like to think of it as hastening. Hastening the inevitable,” he said. He was holding his chopsticks near his face in such a way that it would have been possible to convince myself he was doing an intentional impersonation of a rhino.

Had she been there, and were she reading my thoughts as she sometimes could, Thea would have kicked me below the table.

“Hastening the inevitable,” I repeated, mostly because I wanted to see how the words felt in my mouth. They felt, I decided, a bit like the sliver of toro, the fatty tuna that I’d savored so slowly two or three courses before.

Rich, lush.

Just right. Almost perfect. Certainly far beyond merely palatable.

I’d be hiring someone to hasten the inevitable. And what harm,
I thought,
could there be in that?

“Yes. We set things right. We cross the uncrossed
t
. We dot the undotted
i
. Think about it. Literally, we dot the
i
. Once a client has determined that his or her health has degenerated beyond a point where, at an objective moment, that individual had already decided that he or she would choose not to continue living, and —” he paused not only for another sip of Pellegrino, but also to emphasize what would come next — “to a point where that person might reasonably be considered too impaired to make a fresh, measured, objective decision about his or her immediate future, and certainly too impaired to do anything about impacting the duration of that future, we step in.”

I said, “And at that time — when you and your colleagues ‘step in’ — that’s when you … hasten … the inevitable?”

“Exactly.”

“Here’s the part I don’t understand,” I said. I made a point to use an everyday voice to try to shatter the Rod Serling echoes that seemed to have taken over our exchange. I placed my empty beer glass on the table and he immediately refilled it from the sweating bottle of Yebisu. “How, dear God, do you draw the line? How do you pretend to know your client’s wishes in circumstances that are likely to be impossible to predict?”

He nodded patiently as I asked my question, like a State Farm guy waiting eagerly to get a chance to explain the difference between whole life and term to some naive newlyweds about to buy their first insurance policy. “We don’t draw the line. The clients do. Positions on those parameters are totally client derived.”

Positions on those parameters are totally client derived.

It had to say that someplace on the Web site had to be a bullet highlighting that phrase on the inside cover of the glossy brochure.

Positions on those parameters are totally client derived.

“By your own definition, the client is already too impaired to make that judgment.”

“No, no, no, no,” he said, his tone almost jolly. “By then, the client’s decision will already have been made. Long before, at the time that the client chooses to engage our services, he or she is required to identify their wishes on what they would like us to do on a long menu of possible eventualities, not unlike the decisions responsible people make when they sign a living will. By the time the tragic time comes — the time when the client is too impaired, by either health or circumstances, to make the decision objectively — the difficult decisions have already been made. By then, no changes are possible.”

That surprised me. “Why is that, exactly?”

“Should you become a client and should you become impaired — ‘impaired’ meaning that you have unfortunately crossed the threshold you’ve previously identified — the contract you’ve entered into with us is irrevocable. Completely irrevocable. Irrevocably irrevocable. Once you have become impaired, we will consider, by contract, that you lack the capacity to change your mind.”

“That is your policy?”

“No, that is our promise. We commit to our clients that the rational decision, the clearheaded decision, the forward-looking decision, the decision made with a healthy brain and a vigorous mind — unclouded by sentiment — will be the decision that guides us in implementing your wishes.”

“Life is always a futures market though, isn’t it?” I asked.

I could tell he wasn’t sure what I’d meant. “We don’t look at it that way,” he said.

He never asked for a clarification, and I began leaning toward the conclusion that he was the kind of guy who would disagree with anything he didn’t understand.

We ate the next small course silently before he placed his chopsticks down, dabbed his napkin on his lips, and said, “Fees.”

The financial arrangements he proceeded to describe sounded odd, but then the whole damn business model was hovering somewhere north of peculiar.

Enrolling — that’s what he called it — cost one million dollars. “One, six zeroes,” was his precise phrasing of the amount. Next came a three-month “eligibility assessment,” during which the company would do an exhaustive background check on the client to determine, among other things, the feasibility of the company being able to deliver on its ultimate commitment. If, after the background check, the client was rejected for some reason — I didn’t ask for the list of reasons — $750,000 of the initial one million would be returned.

The balance was nonrefundable.

Once the client was accepted — excuse me, “enrolled” — the policy would be “quiescent” until “activated.”

I asked for definitions of those final two words.

By then the next course had arrived. He placed his chopsticks down reluctantly. “Things have evolved over the years. We’ve discovered that during this process, loading the gun and pulling the trigger have turned out to be two very separate acts.”

The metaphor had its desired effect: It reminded me that we were talking about taking lives.

Specifically, mine.

“How so?” I asked.

“When we originally conceptualized this endeavor and started providing services, we didn’t employ a quiescent period, and we didn’t identify a threshold event. The initial fee we charged was good for both enrollment and activation. A separate flat fee covered the costs of the eligibility assessment.

“Our clients, it turned out, especially the younger clients, the healthier ones — like yourself — occasionally needed some time to become comfortable with the idea of our service. They wanted the peace of mind that comes with having this weapon — our service — in their arsenal, but they were not quite comfortable leaving the weapon loaded and placed … in a complete stranger’s hands. Do you understand?”