I moved an old pizza box and sat on my couch to try to figure out who’d send me a thousand bucks. The same person who bailed me out, maybe? I want to be real clear; this kind of thing did not happen to me. Getting my car towed, being arrested, facing hard time behind bars were the normal flavors of my life in recent years. Bail? Cash in the mail? There was a different chef in the kitchen. Maybe I’d had a lifetime of bad luck these past few years, and everything from here on would be gravy.
I reached into the package and found a folded piece of paper. Instead of the expected explanation, when I opened it, I saw a web address.
www.96423789.com
I pulled my phone from my pocket and typed it in. After a short pause, the screen went black. It looked like a dead site, but I scrolled down to find a single audio file and clicked play.
“Mr. Collard,” a machine voice said. It was female and reminded me of Siri or Alexa. “I put up the security for your bail. You are in my debt, and your ledger stands at the amount of eleven thousand dollars. I’d like to make you an offer. If you do as I ask, you will become a very rich man. If you don’t, I will take the money you now owe me in other ways.”
Looking back, I should have been more wary. The implied threat should have told me I was dealing with a foe not friend, but hindsight is the fool’s curse, opening our eyes long after the time for action has passed.
“I would like you to kill a man for an additional one hundred thousand dollars. He is a stranger to you. A drug dealer suspected of multiple homicides. His name is Walter Glaze. He owns the Ultima nightclub in Venice. I have sent you one thousand dollars as a gesture of good faith, to enable you to buy a gun. Two shots to the head. He is not to die any other way. Kill this evil man, and the next time you open your mailbox, you will find one hundred thousand dollars in cash.”