Garlic fumes were filling my garage as I stepped out of the Camry. Susan was a fabulous
cook and I had been practically tasting dinner since calling home ten minutes earlier to let Susan
know that I was on my way. She knew of my late meeting after me telling her that afternoon to
expect me home at 6:30.
When I walked into the kitchen, Susan was looking into the pantry for something while
Tom was at the kitchen desk typing away at the computer.
They didn't deserve to have this Czech crap dumped on them - I was fairly certain that
the Czechs were watching our house at that moment – but Oleg and his gang didn't care about
what was fair or right. Our street was dark enough for them to be lurking around. I had walked
back out of the garage after parking the car moments ago to see if they were out there.
During the drive home from the church, I couldn't shake the negative thoughts that
popped up while talking with Father Michael. Who was I kidding? I couldn't defend my family
against these guys and if I stupidly tried to go down that path, I could end up getting us all killed.
Buying a gun was not the solution. There had to be a way to head Oleg off at the pass, though,
well before he could try to kill me and my family.
Then it hit me. What if I let the Czechs know that I knew that they plan to kill me no
matter what? Throw that little nugget back into their lap…see how they reacted. Of course, they
would deny it…try to calm me down…but it would surely screw with their heads. I would love to
do that. I needed so desperately to feel as if I had at least some control of this horrid situation, and this plan might just have done it.
This latest thought sent me into the best mood of the day, so much so, that I might have
even let on a little smile. While looking out onto the street, my plan if they were spotted, was to Timothy Gilbert
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shout out to them that I had translated our car conversation - so I knew their plans for me - but no such luck.
I moved in for a hug and kiss from Susan.
“Hey, Johnson Family. How are you all?”
“Hey, Dad, I've got to write a paper for US History by next Monday and I'm getting an
early start.”
Susan looked at me, shrugging her shoulders. “Dinner's almost ready, hon, you had a
long day. Did your late meeting go okay?”
I really didn't feel like lying again today, so I tried to change the subject to avoid her
asking with whom I met.
“It was a long day. Dinner smells great; Tom, no soccer practice today?”
Tom looked up from the computer. “No, Coach wasn't feeling well, so he gave us the
afternoon off.”
Most nights during soccer season, Tom didn't get home until after 7:00. He seemed to be
better at juggling the school work and the soccer demands this fall than last fall. I decided not to ask Tom why one of the assistant coaches didn't run the practice, mainly because it was nice
having him home early.
“What's up with Stanley?” I asked Susan.
“Not much…he wants to put a screened in porch off of his kitchen and he's got a guy
coming over next week to talk about his plans.”
“Okay, I guess. I didn't think he liked being outside too long though. Wouldn't a porch,
screened in or not, have the same effect on him?”
My handle of the many of Stanley's quirks after all of these years was pretty strong, but
Susan liked to point out to me my lack of effort with her brother. Resentment is a bitch.
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“That's what I said to him, but he ignored me and acted like this would give him great
tranquility at night.”
“We can give him tapes of nature sounds, if that's what he wants – whatever, he's an
adult, he can do what he wants. Lord, he's got a whole lot more money than we do.”
Susan and I were guessing Stanley had amassed over $15 million over the years given
that he was a pretty savvy investor. He wrote Warren Buffet once about an idea and Warren
actually wrote him back, which was when Susan had always said that Stanley stopped worrying
about money.
“Yeah, that's how I always seem to come out on with his projects,” Susan stated.
The phone rang.
“Hello? Susan said as she opened the oven door to check on the chicken.
She looked up at me.
“Honey, it's Father Michael from St. Anthony's?” Susan puzzled expression told me I
needed to think of something quick.
“Oh, he's trying to line up a squash tournament.”
And the lying continued as I picked up the handset and walked into my office.
“Hey, Father, what's up?” I sat down at my desk, hoping that I hadn't caused Father
Michael any trouble with my talk.
“Nick, I have to tell you that I told a member of our parish about somebody coming to
talk to me about guys that were threatening him over some information that they wanted. Also,
going to the police was not an option.”
My heart jumped at first, but it sounded like Father Michael kept it very general.
“Why would you do that, Father? We need to keep this quiet…”
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“Nick, this guy is a former detective for Morristown….he might have ideas for you.”
I leaned back in my chair and scratched the back of my head.
“And that's all that you told him?”
“Yes, there's no way he can make the connection. But he does want to meet with you.”
“Father Michael, I told you that I'm not looking for any solutions from you…I only
wanted to talk about it with you.”
I tried to say this as gently as possible, but my family couldn't afford to bring anybody
else into the loop here. For one thing, the Czechs were watching, so they might get suspicious. I
certainly didn't want to spur anybody to run to the police on my behalf.
I looked over my shoulder to make sure Susan wasn't listening. She was talking with
Tom in the kitchen.
“Nick, I trust this fellow and I know that he can help you. He does understand that getting
the police involved will put you and your family at risk.”
All afternoon, I had a growing sensation that there was a solution out there for me that
kept Oleg away from us. I just hadn't thought of it yet. Maybe a former Morristown detective
could help with that.
Susan poked her head into the office.
“Honey, dinner's ready.”
Looking back at her, I nodded.
“No, I understand that Father Michael, I do, let me think about it, okay?”
“Of course. Nick, you have a great night, alright?”
“Thanks, Father.”
I hung up the phone and walked back into the kitchen where Susan and Tom were sitting
at the table talking about US history. Grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, I joined them.
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The dish smelled wonderful.
“So when does he want to have the tournament?”
I forgot to ask Father Michael to only call me at the office.
“We haven't decided on a date yet,” I asserted.
“You know Jason Waters? He's trying to start a squash team for us. Jason's a bit of a
loser, though.”
“Thomas Johnson! That is no way to talk about anybody, and you know that young man,”
Susan chided him.
“Sorry!” Tom said with a mouth full of chicken.
Susan didn't quit, causing me to roll my eyes. She had a way of belaboring her point
some times.
“And just who is a loser in your eyes? Someone who doesn't party or play your kind of
sports? Is he too smart…”
“Well, you won't let me go to any parties, so I wouldn't know anything about that, would
I?” Tom interrupted.
At this point, there was a need for me to jump in. Tom could get pretty emotional when
his mother laid into him like this.
“Alright, you two…let's stop this, okay? I think we should have a peaceful dinner.”
Susan looked at me and sighed loudly, placing both hands on the table. We recently
bought a new kitchen table which came in two pieces: a round piece of glass that served as the
table surface and a cylinder metal stand for the glass. I was still hesitant to place too much weight on the glass. Susan assured me, though, that unless someone sat on the edge of the table, the glass
would stay in place.
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“Let's do High Low,” I announced.
The High Low game was something that Tom brought home from school in second or
third grade. It was not really a game, but a „talking about one's day' aid. Each member of the
family had to talk about the High and Low point of their day. In recent years, Susan and I had
found it to be the only way Tom would talk about his school day with us, but this fall, we'd only
been able to do „High Low' two or three times a week.
I realized, of course, that I could not be real honest about the low point of my day - they
wouldn't exactly take my learning of Oleg's plans for me all that well.
Susan smiled and announced that she would go first.
“Well my High today was talking with my cousin Linda this afternoon. Nick, she and
Dave are expecting their third child in May, it was a real surprise, since I think she is in her early 40s.”
“Wow…Kevin and Peter are in middle and high school now, right?” I asked.
Linda and Dave lived in Buffalo, NY - I'd met them six or seven times over the years.
“Well, she did mention that Kevin was a freshman, so Peter would be in sixth or seventh
grade. Okay, now my Low was Stan not liking the Starbucks surprise I brought him this
morning.”
I looked over at Tom, seeing that he wasn't paying any attention to us.
“Now, let me think here…Tom, do you have a High Low?”
“Yup…my Low was not being able to ask Ashlee Bates to the dance next Saturday, while
my High was hearing from Coach that I am a big reason my team is doing so well this season.”
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“That would awesome, bud!” I reached in for some knuckles. “My High is having dinner
with my family. I love you two so much. My Low was learning about the workload I needed to
put into this drug trial.”
Susan slid her chair over and held my right hand.
“It's worth it, Nick.”
******
“Damn, that's a nasty problem,” Tiger87 typed.
This was the first person to respond to my ChatNet post which laid out how thugs were
demanding sensitive information from me and planned to kill me afterward. I also said that going
to the police would only worsen the situation.
“I would get the hell out of dodge if I were you,” Tiger87 continued.
“I've thought about that…but I have a wife and child. It's not so easy to pick up and
leave.”
I really had given this much thought, even drawing up a list of reasons why we all
couldn't simply disappear into the night.
1) Susan can't be trusted to stay quiet or even mentally focused if I sprung this kind of a
plan on her. I'd read John Grisham's The Firm, recalling how the character played by
Tom Cruise in the movie version regroup whispered to his wife that their house was
bugged….how they were in big trouble with his law firm. The wife ran out to the street in
hysteria. But she was able to, keep quiet, and execute a capable plan to solve their
problem. Susan couldn't do that.
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2) Susan would never leave Stanley, and, going back to #1, she would most certainly tell
Stanley about the Czechs. Stanley was too much of a loudmouth. I had thought about
possibly taking Stanley as well, but that was way too complicated.
3) I gave Oleg more than a reasonable chance of tracking us all down if we were to re-
locate. There was no telling how big their organization was, but they seem very organized
to me. I still didn't know how the Czechs found me to begin with. Yet, they did, and that
alone led me to keep a healthy respect of their criminal abilities. Three people leaving in
the middle of the night always leave a trail.
“Why not?” Tiger87 wrote. “I don't understand why the police couldn't help, but it seems
that the only other choice is for you all to leave town.”
I offer up a condensed version of my list to Tiger87.
“Why are you convinced they will kill you no matter what?” Tiger87 wrote.
“I overheard them talking about it.”
“Let me chew on this…I'll get back to you.”
Tiger87 logged off from the chat room.
No one else had responded. I was not sure how popular this chat room was, though it
seemed to be one of the few where you were completely anonymous.
“What are you doing?” Susan leaned and kissed my neck.
After quickly closing out the ChatNet window, I looked up at my wife. She didn't ask
about the website – how on earth could she could have missed it – which was beautiful because it
was so nice to feel her love at that moment.
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“I'm good, hon. You going to bed?”
“Not quite yet. I'm warming up some cocoa. You want some?”
Susan loved to serve some kind of warm liquid after 9pm, usually hot chocolate or
coffee.
“I'd love some. Where's Tom?”
“He's on the phone with Ashlee. Your son has hormones, so I guess we should be happy
about that.”
I stood up from the computer and walked with Susan into the kitchen. Tom was laughing
in the living room.
Susan had some kind of beef in the crock pot which she was planning to roast until
tomorrow afternoon.
Tom came into the kitchen.
“Ashlee can go with me to the dance,” he announced.
“That's great, honey!” Susan yelled out.
She gave Tom an awkward hug.
Our black lab, Zeke, started to make a loud wheezing sound from underneath the kitchen
table. As Tom got down on the floor, he called the dog. Zeke looked up at Tom and came out
from under the table. He sat down, looked at the three of us, and then began to wheeze violently.
“He's trying to cough something up!” Tom yelled.
Susan started to massaged Zeke's throat before prying open his mouth to see if she could
find anything by reaching in his mouth.
“I can't feel anything,” she asserted.
Susan returned to massaging Zeke's throat but the wheezing was getting louder.
“He probably ate a bird,” I said. “Was he out most of the day?”
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Susan looked up from the floor, giving me a snotty “Yeah!”
Tom grabbed Zeke's bowl, then filled it with water.
“Here Boy!” Tom yelled. “Drink this water.”
Zeke stood up and walked over to the bowl, but, before he could bend his neck down to
the bowl, Zeke collapsed on his side.
I rushed over and reached into his mouth like Susan. There didn't seem to be anything
blocking his airway. Dog CPR is a lot like human CPR: it requires firm pumping on the chest
directly beneath the dog's elbow. This I promptly did for about a minute.
Susan was hysterical and Tom looked to be in shock. Zeke was Tom's dog for his first
few years, but, lately, Zeke was spending most of the day with Susan. She usually walked him
over to Stanley's around mid morning. Stanley adored the dog.
Zeke made a gurgling sound…blood started pouring out of his mouth. When his eyes
rolled back, I realized that Zeke was dead.
“Guys, he's gone.”
Tom looked at me, not saying anything. Susan couldn't stop bawling. I assumed she
heard me so I stood up and gave her a hug.
“Honey, we tried. I don't know how this happened,” I whispered into her ear.
I found the Veterinarian hotline number on a refrigerator magnet. It was the paging
service.
The odds were very good that the Czechs poisoned poor Zeke. The Veterinarian would
tell me how Zeke died, though I already had a pretty solid idea. The majority of black labs don't
keel over like this at age seven.
“What are we going to do, Nick?” Susan asked me as she stopped crying.
She walked over to me and put her hands on her hips.
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“Well, I'd already called for the Vet, so I'll get Zeke down there tonight.”
“That's not what I meant. Zeke was a big piece of this family and now he is gone.”
Tom was petting Zeke's head.
“He had a good life,” Tom told us.
“Yes he had, Tom,” I asserted loudly. He was taking this much better than his mother.
“Stan is going to freak out,” Susan mumbled to herself.
She walked into the powder room to blow her nose.
“Is he going to lie here until morning?” Tom asked.
I put my hand on his shoulder.
“No, buddy…The vet will send someone down to his office tonight to meet us with
Zeke.”
Susan emerged from the powder room.
“All right, Johnsons. Let's do this right,” she declared. “Let's go into the den and talk
about our great memories of Zeke, he'd want a eulogy.”
She strutted out of the kitchen in a Mick Jagger kind of way. Tom looked at me for
direction so I motioned my head toward Susan and we walked into the den. Susan was already
sitting on our leather couch, while Tom sat on the floor. I sat next to my wife who went first with
a Eulogy thought.
“I have walked and run with Zeke for over five years…he has befriended everybody in
this neighborhood. He was loved.”
I put my head against hers and kissed her cheek, amazed that Susan was able to pull it
together at this moment of crisis. Maybe I was selling her short. Maybe Susan would be able to
handle the Oleg problem with the steadiness it required.
“You go, Nick,” Susan said, stroking my right knee.
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“Okay…I'm…going to miss his snoring.”
My mind had momentarily slipped away from the eulogy and toward the list that Tiger87
had been discussing with me. The Zeke snoaring comment was more kneejerk than anything. But,
it did come from the heart because Zeke slept at the foot of our bed every night…very loudly. I
always wondered what kind of dreams Zeke had given the groaning and snoring pouring from his
snout each night.
Susan turned to me with a glaring look, apparently thinking that I was making light of
this moment.
“I'm serious…in a weird way, I'm going to miss that side of him.”
“Well, my friends all adored him. He was very avable,” Tom stated.
I put my arm around Susan.
“Honey, do you mean „affable', which means friendly?” Susan inquired.
Tom was trying to build up his vocabulary as he didn't think he did that well on last
month's PSAT.
“Yeah, that's the word…affable.”
The phone rang and I shot up to answer it.
It was the Veterinarian telling me that his assistant would meet me at the office in 30
minutes.
“Tom, I'm going to need your help with Zeke, I'll put a blanket down on the back seat of
my car and you can help me carry him.”
It was at moments like this one that I wished we owned an SUV or Minivan. Susan ran to
find a bed sheet or a few towels that she didn't mind throwing out. We couldn't imagine using a
towel or sleeping on a bed sheet previously used to help with the transport of a dead dog. Poor
Zeke.
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“Here, use this,” Susan said as she came down the stairs. “This bed sheet has had it.”
Tom ran out to my Camry and laid the sheet down onto the back seat, while Susan
grabbed a towel to clean up Zeke's discharge. I could hear her crying softly as she wiped the
floor.
“Okay, how do we carry him?” Tom asked upon entering the kitchen.
“You know, I'm not sure…why don't you hold onto his front paws and I'll hold onto his
hind legs. We can carry him upside down.”
Susan followed us out to the garage. “Tom, you were nine years old when Zeke joined
our family,” she said.
“Yup,” Tom replied. “This really sucks.”
I hit the garage door opener and we climbed into the Camry. We got about halfway down
the driveway when I noticed somebody standing directly across the street. He was smoking. As
the Camry angled in reverse, my headlights hit him…it was Oleg. I put the car in forward drive,
thinking for a second of slamming the car into him. Instead, I moved slowly passed. He looked
directly at me, dropped his cigarette and got back into his car.
“Who's that?” Tom asked.
“Uh…I'm not sure, buddy.”