Getting Set Up

I said "yes" without reservation; somewhat out of compassion. After watching my grandmother and a friend die from pancreatic cancer, I had no reservations concerning euthanasia. Pancreatic cancer has no cure and few escape the final, painful outcome. While some states, such as Oregon, now have a Death with Dignity law, that wasn't true in this case.

It doesn't matter much to me which states have it or not. When my time comes, I'll find a way to take care of myself, if I'm able.

High school was a fruitful time for me. I reconnected with Bob-the-Boss, but in a different way than previous years. I had pocket money in high school, I earned by mowing lawns and selling answers to tests. But, the most I made happened by chance, when a kid in the school came to me and asked to borrow $20.00 for a date. I gave him two weeks to pay it back. After a few weeks, I caught up with him in the hall and asked for my money. He refused. Bad choice.

While I was planning how to get my money, Bob approached me after school. He had both hands out in front of him with the palms towards me and he was smiling. "Hey, bud," he said. "Can I talk to you a minute?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Can you lend me five bucks for gas? I'm broke and payday is Friday"

"Where ya working?" I asked as I peeled a five from the bills in my pocket. At the same time, I had an idea. "You can keep it," I said to Bob as I handed it to him. "I just need a favor."

"What's that?"

"Someone owes me twenty and hasn't..."

"Just tell me his name."

I told Bob who the kid was and also said to get $25.00 back instead of twenty. I don't know what Bob said or did, but I got the money that afternoon. After that, Bob became my enforcer and I was in the money business.

After high school, bob joined the army and I was on my own. By the time I dropped out of college, I had paid my tuition and expenses by offering quiet, short-term loans and had built a healthy cash reserve, stashed in a couple of safety deposit boxes around the northeast. That's why I could walk out on Debbie without worries and also why legal matters meant little to me. I had grown up skirting the law on quite a few issues. Never been busted.

I spent most of the morning, after accepting the euthanasia contract, setting up dead drops for email, where my new benefactor and I could trade information. It's fairly easy to do, if you follow some rules. Both of us can create messages and leave them as drafts; don't send it anywhere. To make it work, log on, read the draft and delete it. No emails come from or go to any account. There are no RFC-822 headers, which are used to trace email.

The header data, of an email, shows every part of a route an email takes to get from its origin to the destination, as it hops from one server to another, but, since our messages are never sent, there is no header, no hops, no destination. I set up a random routing between a dozen or so of these drops so, if one were compromised, for any reason, I had alternatives. Also, I could reach these from any place on the world using Internet cafes, which I used to create these and are available in most countries.

While out, I purchased some clothing, including a suit and tie, and also a travel valise. One final act with the phone was to call a contact number and leave the first login instructions as a voice message. I'd either drop that node from my drops or change the login information later.

To be safe, I broke the phone in a dozen pieces and dropped each piece in a different location. Of course, I wiped the phone down before disposing of it. Can't be too careful!

At noon, I went into the store and told my boss I was resigning, but would work through the day, but he told me it wasn't necessary, gave me some cash, and wished me luck. That was that.

When evening came, I finished a good dinner, at a small Turkish restaurant, and thought I would take a walk; I really had an idea I wanted to pursue. Down the street, on my way back to my hotel, was a cigar shop and I knew I'd find what I need there. After looking for a few minutes, I bought a single cigar, a Rocky Patel, but not to smoke.

After leaving the cigar shop, I opened the wooden coffin, which is the packaging for this brand, and was ready to just ditch the cigar, when I noticed an older man, sitting in a chair and leaning back against the brick wall. What I really saw was the end of a cigar hanging out of his mouth. As I passed, I offered the Rocky Patel. He looked up at me, I just nodded, he took it.

I don't smoke cigarettes or cigars, but the wooden coffin packaging is what I really wanted.

Around midnight, I left my room and walked a mile or two, where I hoped I would find what I really wanted and was not disappointed. This area is known to be a hangout for drug dealers and prostitutes and hidden, way down an ally, is an old tenement, which I guessed to be a shooting gallery, where the addicts go to get their fix.

No one challenged me when I walked inside and, after waiting a moment to let my eyes adjust, I started looking. It didn't take me long, maybe five minutes. In one of the corners I found about a half dozen discarded syringes. I used the sliding top of the cigar package to nurse three of four of these used syringes inside and then closed the box.

A good productive day. Tomorrow, I'd get the name and address of my quarry and start making plans.