Panting Dogs Will Lie

“What actually is a… reinsurer? I bet you get asked that a lot,” the young woman chuckled as she fanned the beading dribbles of sweat with a voter’s pamphlet to no avail.

I offered a tight smile as I cursed myself for having my beamer taken in for maintenance. I hardly ever take the metro to work, and today was agonizingly packed, as to be expected during rush hour in D.C., but I hadn’t thought of the time when I told my assistant that the date would be fine as I was half listening while going over the next week’s schedule. Even with AC, the packed car was at least as hot as outside, which was breaking a record for the longest heat wave in D.C. history. Having suffered from heat stroke a year ago, I was starting to feel anxious as my suit was becoming rapidly drenched. I took a swig of water that was cold when I had left the house, but now was a rising lukewarm temperature.

“Reinsurers insure insurance companies. I’m basically an actuary, but I cover life insurance, critical illness insurance, and income protection. In a nut shell, insurance companies or clients come to me to ask what the risks are of taking out certain policies, like a life insurance policy, and I give them the quote for the cost of taking on this risk,” I said, actually becoming grateful for the chatty woman distracting me from the idea of my imminent doom due to another heat stroke.

“Oh, literally involved in risky business, huh?” she said with a giggle.

The little gratitude I had for the distraction was quickly replaced with an uncomfortable longing to teleport as far away from this cramped metro car and this delusional woman as possible. Did she really think she was going to meet the love of her life while flirting in a packed sardine can filled with the scent of sweat, faint drifts of urine, and desperation?

I gave her a tight smile, pretended my phone had just buzzed (it quite obviously had not), and randomly scrolled through my CNN app, which was filled with more doom and gloom to broad over. The headline read this was the sixtieth day in a row with temperatures over 95 degrees hitting D.C. Got to hand it to those die hard anti-global warming enthusiasts – they are literally melting away in the heat outside while protesting its very reason for existence. Common sense aside, you had to admire their die hard loyalty on their stance to some extent.

“Hey, do you know that guy? He’s been staring at you the whole ride,” the melting husk of a Barbie doll said as her make up was starting to unravel in her sweat.

I looked in the direction she nodded her head and did indeed see a guy in a black tee shirt and fedora (how nerve gratingly hipster) staring at me from behind. He tilted his head and smiled a full on grin when he saw me make eye contact.

“Must be mistaking me for someone else,” I said, somewhat shaken by his brazen reaction to my attention.

“Must look like a good friend or something,” she said and then went off on a story about how she was once mistaken for Cameron Diaz (someone must have been pretty deep into happy hour) for the next twenty minutes until I finally arrived at my stop and thanked God for perhaps the first time in my life that this abhorrent ride had ended.

I stepped out onto the platform and threw away the empty water bottle and torn piece of a voter’s pamphlet with Jocelyn’s number on it. I mean, why go through the trouble of writing it down when we all have cell phones attached to our limbs at all times? It was about as cute as her overwhelming perfume that still stuck to my soaked shirt.

“Another scorcher for the books, wouldn’t you say?”

I looked to my left and saw the fedora touting grinner standing a little behind me to my left.

“Can I help you?” I said, trying my best to dance the line between assertive and unfazed.

“I like the heat myself. Has a tendency to bring out people’s true colors. Anything uncomfortable does,” he said, spreading that unnerving smile that would certainly make anyone uncomfortable.

I decided any more attention might be taken as a welcome for more commentary, so I just turned to leave.

“Better make sure to grab another bottle of water. I hear once you have a heat stroke, you are more susceptible to another.”

I froze and fumbled with my phone to turn on the camera to turn around and take a picture. The split second it took me to pull up the app was long enough for both the cryptic man and his fedora to disappear in the crowd before I turned around to capture his face. 

Very few people knew about my heat stroke a year ago. The ones that did were a handful of coworkers who were on the hunting and camping expedition with me when it occurred. I still remember the hallucinations that vividly still haunt my dreams. Hunting trips are meant for you to be the predator, but I was sure I was being stalked by someone when I had left on an early morning hunt by myself, not realizing the heat had already been affecting me, leaving me parched, nauseous, and a few hours hike away from our camp and supplies, when the dizziness and cramps started to take over with my rising temperature.

I was confused and disoriented when I was found barely conscious and delirious about thirty minutes from the campground as I had tried to make my way back. I barely remember getting to the hospital, but I will never forget bartering for my life with the man whose breath smelled like chewing tobacco and Listerine. Delirium is a common symptom of heat stroke and I was lucky that I hadn’t suffered any internal damage. I still won’t ever forget the conversation my mind conjured.

“You are one of the lucky ones. You have a choice to continue as the virus or be the antidote. Not many people in your situation get this chance,” the blurred man had said about an inch from my face as I lay there on the ground, eyes closed, barely able to whisper back to him.

“Antidote,” I whispered, trying to turn my head away from the Listerine and chewing tobacco filling my nostrils.

“Alright then. I’ll be seeing you,” he said as he parted.

I never spoke to anyone about my hallucination. What was I going to say – there had been a man stalking me, who then threatened me as I lay on the ground barely conscious from a heat stroke, who’s face I couldn’t give a description of, talking about me being a part of a virus? Once I knew delirium and hallucinations were possible due to heat stroke, I kept my mouth shut about it. The mind is capable of bizarre things in extreme circumstances and I was lucky I hadn’t ended up in a coma or worse.

I made my way to my office in the Ronald Reagan building, stopping for more water on the way. I was still feeling clammy and a headache was thumping away at my cortex as I threw a few Advil into my mouth from a bottle I managed to find in a desk junk drawer.

There was a sticky note on my computer from my assistant telling me that the AC repairman would be in right after lunch.

Just my luck.

I turned on the fan on top of the filing cabinet that blew the hot air around and sat down at my desk. Sweat was dripping off my nose as I unbuttoned my shirt and rolled up my sleeves before drinking more water.

I turned on my computer and logged in with my password.

Hmm.

Weird.

My home screen was loaded, but frozen, and my mouse wouldn’t move.

A picture of a young Black girl of about seven popped up on the screen. She was dressed in a white button up shirt and it appeared to look like a school picture that would be in a yearbook.

At the bottom of the picture was the name Kamilah.

I pressed control, alt, delete, but another picture appeared on the screen.

A small boy that appeared to be even younger than the first girl in the same yearbook style photograph.

This name read Oba.

Then another of a girl of about twelve named Ramla.

I went to go turn off the computer when I heard the door to my office open.

“Excuse me, Bill, but I don’t think we had the pleasure of proper introductions earlier.”

I looked up to see that familiar grin attached to the fedora as the door clicked shut behind him.

“Better lock up. You never know who might try to come busting in.”

I eyed my cell phone lying at the corner of my desk.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I’m just here to fix your technical troubles. I thought there might be something wrong with your computer – it would be a shame if it had a virus.”

I stared at his smile and realized why it bothered me so much. It reminded me of the smile you see from politicians (I’ve known far too many) or from the villain in movies as they are reaping joy from catastrophic situations. The far too wide, sparkly teeth demonstration of a sociopath.

“The thing about the heat is that when it’s affecting you, it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. Wouldn’t you agree?”

He walked to my desk in two confident strides and sat down opposite me, tilting his head as if analyzing my stance before I answered.

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

“Well, Bill, straight to business it is, I see. Do you know what I used to do for a living, Bill?”

“If you don’t tell me what you want, I will call security.”

“No, no. I don’t think that would be wise, Bill.”

The fedora gently laid out a knife and a gun with a silencer.

“As this is America, you have some choices for how this plays out, although there will be only one ultimate outcome. You scream or pull any stunts, you will have opted out of the peaceful option to go and will have decided on the unseemly end by the tip of this blade.”

“Listen, I am sure we can work this out, do you want money? I have a cash safe right over here in the corner –”

“Oh, Bill, if I had wanted your money, you wouldn’t have any right now. As I was saying, my previous position was an eliminator by hire. I started off young and am ashamed to admit that I really didn’t give any thought as to who’s life I was taking as long as the money was good, but that changed when I became a father and decided to retire early. Now, as a father, I feel it is my duty to come out of retirement only for the cause, with my daughter’s future generation in mind.”

I stared at the post it on the computer that my assistant had left about the repairman coming in and glanced at the time. It was a little after twelve and I could hear jazz coming from the Woodrow Wilson Plaza courtesy of their lunchtime concert series. While this normally made me want to harm myself or someone else, today it was literally music to my ears. If I could stall him for another forty minutes or so, I might stand a chance.

“And what cause is this exactly?”

“Eliminating the virus across America to give our future generations a fighting chance.”

“What virus is this exactly?”

“Bill, isn’t it obvious? We live in a country that has profited off of blood, corruption, and filthy politics from the start, but I can turn a blind eye no longer. Our greed and selfishness in the freedoms we seek at the expense of others is destroying us. There is no cap set up to cut off the endless obsession with more power and money. The rich get richer and it is never enough. Morality drowns in the sea of green our Lady Liberty has provided us. It’s time to turn over a new leaf. Give this country and this planet a fighting chance before it is too late, if it isn’t already.”

“Look, I am just the risk guy. I have nothing to do with anything else but crunching the numbers. I deal in probabilities.”

“Which is exactly why I thought you would have assessed this situation better, Bill. Tell me, do you know what those children on your computer have in common?”

“They are all in school photos?”

“Bravo, Bill! I certainly see why you are paid the big bucks. Yes, they are all school children. Actually, they all went to one boarding school in particular. St. Andrew’s Academy for Boy and Girls. Ring any bells?”

“Of course. Myself and some clients have invested in that particular boarding school.”

“Oh, I am very aware. It certainly is a very small private school. Only about twenty to twenty five students at a time. I’m sure you aren’t aware of the, how shall I put this, internships that these students participate in?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“No, no, of course not. Well, I am so sorry to inform you that our dear Kamilah here recently passed away at one of them. She was reported missing after being seen with a group of men leaving the school with the vice principal. They found her body a month later in a meat packing freezer.”

“That’s terrible. I really had no idea, I swear –”

“Dear little Oba was found a month after that in a shallow grave about fifty miles from the school. Again, seen with a group of men leaving the school.”

“I really don’t see how I could possibly be connected with any of this.”

“Ramla was found alive, however. She was thrown in a ditch and left for dead, emaciated and with only one of her feet intact. The other had been cut off. She was able to tell authorities that the school principal had told her she would be going on a field trip and would be gone for some time. After she was taken, she was being trafficked until she was caught trying to run away.”

“I promise I will call the authorities myself, if you just let me. I will do it right now.”

“Have you heard of an Ade?”

“No, never.”

I glanced at the clock. I just had to keep him talking.

“He’s not one of the dozens of children that are on your computer. He is one of the principal’s good friends it seems. He also claims to know you quite well. It seems that your investments are made directly to him. He seems to think that you help recruit the students to the school and then he says that you receive quite the large sum of your investment back after certain transgressions are made.”

“I know absolutely nothing of this, I swear. Why would I offer to call the authorities if I had anything to do with this? Please. Name what you want. I can get it for you.”

“It seems you and Ade have a lot in common. He also was pleading and lying straight to the end. Not an ounce of truth flowed through his blood or out of his mouth.”

I glanced at his knife and gun. I was running out of things to say to keep the conversation going.

“You know, I actually have something in common with you, I am ashamed to admit. I also profit off of two professions.”

I thanked God for the second time today and in my life. This could keep us talking for some time.

“In addition to being a professional eliminator, I also dabble in AC repair. I believe my next appointment is right after lunch.”

I stared at the post it and then at that impossibly wide grin that shook with laughter.

“You think this is going to change anything? It changes nothing. There are far more people more powerful and richer than me who will keep things exactly how they have always been. Corruption is a virus that can never be tamed, no matter who you are or how many people you kill trying to stop it.”

Fedora picked up the gun.

“No, Bill. Corruption is just a word. You are the virus. You had the chance to be the antidote, but the currency of the virus was too seductive.”

I spat on the desk between us and felt dizzy at the exertion of the act.

“I changed my mind.”

Fedora gently put the gun down, picked up the knife, and trailed over with the faint scent of chewing tobacco and Listerine.

“The dog days are over, Bill.”