Their first real windfall came from the Internet. Using their sleek laptops, they purchased worthless stocks under an alias, flooded the chat rooms with false data and rumors, and then, after the stocks had skyrocketed, sold their shares before the security regulators discovered what was going on. The return on that little venture was over five thousand percent.
Every dollar they extorted or stole was put in the Sowing Club account in the Cayman Islands. By the time the four of them had finished graduate school and taken positions in New Orleans, they had collected over four million dollars.
And that only whetted their appetites.
During one of their gatherings, Cameron told the others that if a psychiatrist ever examined them, he would discover that they were all sociopaths. John disagreed. A sociopath didn’t consider anyone else’s needs or desires. They, on the contrary, were committed to the club and to the pact that they had made to do whatever they had to do to get what they wanted. Their goal was eighty million dollars by the time the oldest turned forty. When Cameron celebrated his thirtieth birthday, they were already halfway there.
Nothing could stop them. Over the years, the bond between the friends had strengthened, and they would do anything, anything at all, to protect the others.
While each of them brought his own special talents to the club, Cameron and Preston and Dallas knew that John was the mastermind, and that without him they would never have gotten this far. They couldn’t afford to lose him, and they became increasingly alarmed over his deteriorating state of mind.
John was in trouble, but they didn’t know how to help. And so they simply listened as he poured his heart out. The topic of his beloved wife would inevitably come up, and John would fill them in on the latest horrific developments. None of them had seen Catherine in years because of the illness. That was her choice, not theirs, for she wanted them to remember her the way she had been, not the way she was now. They sent gifts and cards, of course. John was like a brother to them, and while they were genuinely sympathetic about his wife’s condition, they were much more concerned about him. In their collective opinion, she was, after all, a lost cause. He wasn’t. And they could see what he couldn’t, that he was headed for disaster. They knew he was having trouble concentrating while at work — a dangerous tendency given his occupation — and he was also drinking too much.
John was getting roaring drunk now. Preston had invited him and the others over to his new penthouse apartment to celebrate the success of their latest venture. They sat at the dining room table in plush upholstered chairs, surrounded by a panoramic view of the Mississippi. It was late, almost midnight, and they could see the lights twinkling outside in the inky darkness. Every few minutes the sound of a foghorn would hum mournfully in the background.
The noise made John melancholy. “How long have we been friends?” He slurred the question. “Does anybody remember?”
“About a million years,” Cameron said as he reached for the bottle of Chivas.
Dallas snorted with laughter. “Man, it seems that long, doesn’t it?”
“Since high school,” Preston said, “when we started the Sowing Club.” He turned to John. “You used to intimidate the hell out of me. You were always so smooth and self-assured. You were more polished than the teachers.”
“What’d you think of me?” Cameron wanted to know.
“Nervous,” Preston answered. “You were always . . . edgy. You know what I mean? You still are,” he added.
Dallas nodded. “You’ve always been the cautious one in the group.”
“The worrier,” Preston said. “Whereas Dallas and I have always been more . . .”
“Daring,” Dallas suggested. “I never would have been friends with any of you guys if John hadn’t brought us together.”
“I saw what you didn’t,” John said then. “Talent and greed.”
“Here, here,” Cameron said as he raised his glass in a mock salute to the others.
“I think I was just sixteen when we started the Sowing Club,” Dallas said.
“You were still a virgin, weren’t you?” Cameron asked.
“Hell, no. I lost my virginity by the time I was nine.”
The exaggeration made them laugh. “Okay, so maybe I was a little older,” Dallas said.
“God, we were cocky little shits back then, weren’t we? Thinking we were so clever with our secret club,” Preston said.
“We were clever,” Cameron pointed out. “And lucky. Do you realize the stupid risks we took?”
“Whenever we wanted to get drunk, we’d call for a meeting of the club,” Dallas said. “We’re lucky we haven’t turned into alcoholics.”
“Who says we haven’t?” Cameron asked, and then laughed again.
John held up his glass. “A toast to the club and to the tidy profit we just made, thanks to Preston’s oh-so-sweet insider information.”
“Here, here,” Cameron said as he clinked his glass against the others. “I still can’t figure out how you got that information, though.”
“How do you think I got it?” Preston asked. “I got her drunk, fu**ed her brains out, and after she passed out, I went through her computer files. All in a night’s work.”
“You boinked her?” Cameron howled.
“‘Boinked’? Who uses that word these days?” Preston asked.
“I want to know how you got it up. I’ve seen the woman. She’s a pig,” Dallas said.
“Hey, I did what I had to do. I just kept thinking about the eight hundred thousand we’d make, and I . . .”
“What?” Cameron asked.
“I closed my eyes, okay? I don’t think I can do it again, though. One of you guys will have to take over. It pretty much . . . sucked,” he admitted with a grin over his pun.
Cameron emptied his glass and reached for the bottle. “Well, too bad. You’re stuck with the job as long as the women go crazy over those bulging muscles and that movie-star face of yours.”
“In five more years we’ll all be set for life. We can walk away, disappear if we have to, do whatever we want. Don’t lose sight of the goal,” Dallas said.
John shook his head. “I don’t think I can hold on five more years. I know I can’t.”
“Hey, you’ve got to keep it together,” Cameron said. “We’ve got too much to lose if you fall apart on us now. You hear me? You’re the brains of this outfit. We’re just . . .”
He couldn’t come up with the right word. Preston suggested, “Coconspirators?”
“We are that,” Dallas said. “But we’ve all done our part. John’s not the only one with brains. I’m the one who brought Monk in, remember?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, this isn’t the time for an ego tantrum,” Preston muttered. “You don’t need to tell us how much you do, Dallas. We all know how hard you work. As a matter of fact, that’s all you do. You’ve got nothing outside of your job and the Sowing Club. When’s the last time you took a day off or went shopping? I’m guessing never. You wear the same black or navy suit every day. You’re still taking a brown bag for lunch — and I’ll bet you even take the bag home to use again the next day. For that matter, when have you ever picked up a tab?”
“Are you saying I’m a cheapskate?” Dallas countered.
Before Preston could answer, Cameron interrupted. “Knock it off, you two. It doesn’t matter which one of us is the smartest or works the hardest. We’re all culpable. Do you know how many years we’d get if anyone ever found out what we’ve done?” Cameron asked.
“No one’s going to find out anything.” John was angry now. “They wouldn’t know where to look. I made sure of that. There aren’t any records except on my home computer disks, and no one’s ever going to have access to those. There aren’t any other records, no phone calls, no paper trail. Even if the police or the SEC gets curious, they wouldn’t find a shred of evidence to pin on us. We’re clean.”
“Monk could lead the police to us.” Cameron had never trusted the courier, or “hired help” as John called him, but they needed someone reliable, an implementor, and Monk fit the bill. He was every bit as greedy and corrupt as they were and had everything to lose if he didn’t do what they wanted.
“He’s worked for us long enough for you to start trusting him, Cameron,” Preston said. “Besides, if he goes to the police, he’ll take a much harder fall than we will.”
“You got that right,” John muttered. “Look, I know we said that we’d keep going until Cameron turned forty, but I’m telling you I can’t last that long. Some days I think my mind . . . oh, hell, I don’t know.”
He got out of his chair and crossed to the window, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared at the lights. “Did I ever tell you guys how Catherine and I met? It was at the Contemporary Arts Center. We both wanted to buy the same painting, and somehow, during our heated argument, I fell in love. Man, the sparks between us . . . it was something to see. All these years later, and that spark’s still there. Now she’s dying and I can’t do a damned thing to stop it.”
Cameron glanced at Preston and Dallas, who both nodded, and then said, “We know how much you love Catherine.”
“Don’t make her a saint, John. She isn’t perfect,” Dallas said.
“Jeez, that was cold,” Preston muttered.
“It’s okay. I know Catherine isn’t perfect. She has her quirks, just like we do. Who isn’t a little compulsive about something?” he said. “It’s just that she worries about being without, and so she has to have two of everything. She has two television sets, identical ones, sitting side by side on the table by her bed. She has one of them on day and night, but she worries it might break, so she makes sure she has a backup. She does the same thing when she’s ordering something from a store or a catalog. Always buys two, but what’s the harm in that?” he asked. “She isn’t hurting anyone, and she has so little joy these days. She puts up with me because she loves me.” Bowing his head he whispered, “She’s my entire life.”
“Yes, we know,” Cameron agreed. “But we’re concerned about you.”
John whirled around to confront them. His face was twisted with anger. “Hell, you’re worried about yourselves. You think I’ll do something to screw it all up, don’t you?”
“The thought crossed our minds,” Cameron admitted.
“John, we can’t afford for you to go crazy on us,” Preston said.
“I’m not going to go crazy.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dallas said. “Here’s the way we’re gonna play it.
John will tell us if he needs help. Isn’t that right?”
John nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
His friends let the subject drop and spent the rest of the evening plotting their next project.
They continued to meet on Friday afternoons, but they kept silent about John’s mounting depression. None of them knew what could be done about it, anyway.
Three months passed without a mention of Catherine. Then John broke down. He couldn’t bear to watch Catherine suffer anymore, and he told them he was worried about money all the time now, which he thought was ludicrous given the fact that they had millions tucked away in the Sowing Club account. Millions they couldn’t touch for five more years. He told them that insurance covered a pittance of the treatment Catherine needed, but not nearly enough, and if his wife continued to linger, her trust would eventually be gone and he would be financially ruined. Unless, of course, the others agreed to let him dip into the Sowing Club account.
Cameron protested. “You all know how I’m hurting for money, what with my divorce pending and all, but if we make a withdrawal now, without closing out the whole account, we could create a paper trail, and the IRS —”
John cut him off. “I know. It’s too risky. Look, I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’ll figure out something,” he said.
The following Friday afternoon, they met at their favorite bar, Dooley’s. While it thundered and poured outside, and Jimmy Buffett sang about Margaritaville over the speakers, John leaned across the table and whispered his dark wish aloud.
He wanted to kill himself and end the torment.
His friends were appalled and outraged. They admonished him for even thinking such crazy thoughts, but it didn’t take them long to see that their rebukes were not helping. On the contrary, they realized they were adding to his misery and his depression. Their harsh words quickly turned into solicitous ones. What could they do to help him?
Surely there was something.
They continued to talk, huddled around a table in the corner of the bar, putting their heads together to come up with a viable solution to their friend’s untenable situation. Later, near midnight, after hours and hours of discussion, one of them was bold enough to suggest what all of them were thinking. The poor woman was already under a death sentence. If anyone should die, it should be his pathetic, long-suffering wife.
If only.
Later none of them would be able to remember who had voiced the proposal to kill her.
For the next three Friday afternoons, they discussed the possibility, but once the debate had ended and the vote had been taken, there was no going back. The decision, when it was finally made, was unanimous. There were no second thoughts, no nagging doubts on the part of any of the members of the club.
It was as absolute as dried blood on white carpet.
They didn’t consider themselves monsters or admit that what they were doing was motivated by greed. No, they were simply white-collar overachievers who worked hard and played harder. They were risk-takers, feared by outsiders because of the power they wielded. They were known as real ball breakers — a term they considered flattery. Yet, despite their arrogance and their audacity, none of them had the courage to call the plan what it really was — murder — and so they referred to it as “the event.”
They did have balls of steel, considering that Dooley’s was located just half a block away from the Eighth District station of the New Orleans Police Department. While they planned the felony, they were surrounded by detectives and policemen. A couple of Federal Bureau agents assigned to PID occasionally stopped by as well, as did the up-and-coming attorneys hoping to foster connections. The police and the courthouse lawyers considered Dooley’s their personal watering hole, but then, so did the overworked and underappreciated interns and residents from both Charity Hospital and LSU. The groups rarely mingled.