Get Into James Shorts - 30. The Bucket List

The Bucket List

"How much longer do I have, doctor?"

"Nine months. A year at the outside. It'll be quick when it happens. You'll know when you start having debilitating headaches. That'll mean the aneurysm is just about critical."

"There's nothing to be done?"

"I'm afraid not. The artery is too deep inside the brain. We would do too much damage trying to fix it."

He sighed deeply and said, "OK Doc. I am going to need verification for my life insurance and to cash out my 401K. I'm sure I'll need to fill out some forms."

Three weeks later:

The private investigator looked like a bum. This was an advantage in his business. No one noticed an old bald guy. He was an old cop with two ex-wives and a boat he liked better than either one. He had just started his second cup of coffee when the client arrived.

"Mr. Smith I presume?"

"Why yes Mr. Jones. Have you got what I asked for?"

"Yes I do. Why you wanted profiles on these bums, I have no idea."

"Remember our bargain: don't speculate, and you've never heard of them or me."

"Done." He pulled a folio out of his threadbare briefcase and handed it to Mr. Jones.

Mr. Jones handed him a thick envelope full of bills.

Both parties did a quick check of their respective packages.

Mr. Smith asked, "The other package?"

Mr. Jones handed him a key. "It's in a gym bag in this locker at the bus station."

Mr. Smith pocketed the key and said, "Then our business is concluded Mr. Jones. It has been nice not knowing you."

Jones was not his name, of course. Neither was Mr. Smiths.

When he picked up the bag from the bus station, the meticulously crafted identity was neither Smith nor Jones.

As the bus made its way on the long trip to Houston he began reading about his new identity. Date of birth, social security number, elementary school, hometown- it was all there. It was as if his former self had never existed.

One Week Later in Houston

His first target was a man named Leon Dalton. Calling him a man was an insult to men. He was what most cops called a career scumbag and finding him had been difficult.

Dalton was a lot of things that cops were interested in: dope dealer, rapist and the sort of man that is a nightmare to fathers of girls and young women. He wasn't just a sex offender. He had done plenty of time for that. Dalton was a sex offender who had slipped the invisible leash of the registry and was hiding in the teeming masses of one of America's biggest cities. For all of his attempts to hide, Dalton wasn't really that hard to find. Dalton was drawn to his vices.

Here though, here in the masses of Houston, Dalton had become a player in the human trafficking business. He had enough cash to rival some drug dealers. It was amazing what some people would pay for, he got to taste the merchandise, and it was time to go to work.

He left his rental house and walked downstairs to his Nissan Altima that he kept in the garage. He used his key fob, unlocked the car and sat inside.

The car did something he had never seen it do before: when he pushed the ignition, the doors locked and the CD player came on:

"Mr. Dalton. You've never met me but I know you. In 1989, you date-raped my stepdaughter at Arkansas State. She was never the same and committed suicide some years later. You did two years and they let you out. Well, karma has come for you. This garage is filling with natural gas. You will know fear."

Dalton started beating on the doors. He bashed the windows with his elbows.

"You will know pain."

Two spring-loaded barbed spikes erupted from the seat and drove themselves all the way through his thighs. Dalton screamed as he was pinned to the seat like a bug in a display.

"...and then you will die. See you in hell scumbag."

The one kilo brick of C4 under the driver's seat exploded and triggered the natural gas that had collected in the building. The explosion and fire was impressive but by design it was contained and did not spread.

Satisfied with his handiwork, the man with a time-bomb in his head turned the ignition of the minivan and pulled away. There were many more names on his bucket list, and he was going to make sure they were all roasting in hell well before he arrived.

By midnight his rental van was returned, and he was on a bus for his next destination.