John Manning - The Killing Room

He stepped out of the car and tossed the keys to one of the old man’s valets. “Be careful with that car,” Philip barked. “Don’t think I won’t check for dings or scratches, and I’ve noted the mileage. No joyrides.”

He strode imperiously into the house. “Hello!” he called impatiently.

A maid appeared, a big stupid grin on her face. Philip told her to let Uncle Howard know he’d arrived. And where, he demanded, were Ryan and Chelsea? The maid said they were out on the back terrace. Philip made a beeline there.

They have got to be careful, he thought to himself. They can’t give anything away.

He found his son and daughter stretched out on lounges sunbathing. Chelsea wore a polka-dot string bikini, and Ryan wore flower-print board shorts. Both of them had music plugged into their ears and so they didn’t hear him approach. He walked up between them, and with one tug from each hand, he extracted the headphones from their ears.

“You idiots,” he spit.

“Daddy!” Chelsea was sitting up, Ryan doing the same.

“You both are complete idiots,” Philip said. “Look at you! Lying around acting as if you haven’t a care in the world!”

“But, we don’t, Daddy,” Chelsea said. “You told us not to worry about the lottery.”

He wanted to strike her. “You stupid girl,” Philip said. “The rest of the household will be overwrought with stress and worry, thinking they might be chosen. And here you two are acting as carefree as jaybirds. Do you want to let your uncle-or worse, your cousin Douglas-suspect that we have an ace up our sleeve?”

“I suppose we should be acting a bit more concerned,” Ryan conceded.

His father glared at him. “I expected more smarts from the appointed heir to the family business. Would you run the company this way? You’re far more shrewd on Wall Street, you jackass, than you are here!”

“Oh, Daddy,” Chelsea said, in that voice she knew always softened his angry moods, “we’ll do better. It was just that it was so nice and sunny, and who knows how many more days we’ll have before winter will be here.”

Philip looked at her. She truly had no idea of the irony of her words. The rest of the family had no idea how many more days they had to live. But all Chelsea was worried about was how many days she had to sunbathe.

“Listen to me,” he told them both. “I want you to go in the house and get dressed. I want you to appear subdued. Quiet. Contemplative.” His eyes burned holes as he turned to glare at Chelsea. “Is that something you can even do?”

“Oh, sure,” she assured him. “It will be kind of like that acting course I took, remember? It’ll be fun.”

She kissed her father on the forehead, then gathered her things and scampered into the house.

“You’re brilliant, Dad, you know that?” Ryan said, preparing to head back inside himself. “When Uncle Howard told us about that room and all that crazy supernatural bullshit, I was like, we are fucked. But I should have know you had it all under control. The old bait-and-switch with the names thing. Brilliant. Truly brilliant.”

He gave his father a little salute and walked inside the house.

Philip sighed, sitting down on his son’s vacated chaise. He felt rotten. Oh, he had no misgivings about the chicanery he intended to work on the lottery. It had served him well, kept him alive. But it had come with some cost. Philip Young could rationalize most things, and most days he lived without any guilt about what he had done. But every once in a while, something would happen-seeing his brother’s children, for example-that would cause a flare-up of conscience. He wasn’t like his brother, so noble, so upstanding. Nor was he like his father, another good man. There were days that Philip Young almost admitted to himself what he really was: a coward.

His children, he realized, were even worse. They took it for granted that they should not have to face the same risks as everyone else. They had been raised that way. Their entitlement knew no bounds. Unlike their father, they suffered not even a moment’s compunction over their trickery. Not once did either Ryan or Chelsea experience even a flicker of guilt or remorse for their cousins. No, to them it was their right, their due, to be excluded from the messy realities of life and death.

Sitting there on his uncle’s terrace, Philip was not proud of his children.

Nor was he proud of himself.

But that didn’t alter the course he had planned.

“Philip,” came a voice.

He looked around. It was Uncle Howard, walking slowly, a little stiffly, onto the terrace.

“Welcome, nephew,” the old man was saying. “I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.”

They shook hands.

“I came early because I knew Ryan and Chelsea would need me,” Philip explained. “They’re very upset after learning about the lottery.”

“Are they?” Uncle Howard asked. “They seemed to take it surprisingly in stride.”

“They are quite good at masking their emotions,” Philip lied. “I suppose I’ve trained them that way.”

Uncle Howard sighed, taking a seat in a large wicker chair overlooking the grounds. “Well, I have much faith in this woman that I have hired. She’s in New York right now making inquiries about possible solutions. I sense she may be able to finally uncover a way to end the curse.”

“Why do you have so much faith in her?”

“Because she’s a woman.”

Philip laughed. “You’ve said that on the phone. But I don’t understand.”

“The spirit that has controlled this family, that has wrought so much destruction, is a woman,” Uncle Howard said, his voice hard with resentment. “No man has ever been able to figure out what she wanted or how to control her.”

“And so Carolyn Cartwright has a better chance, you think?”

“Possibly. The spirit of Beatrice may allow her to see things that she kept guarded from the men. She has a weakness for her own kind.” He moved his yellow, watery eyes to meet Philip’s. “Remember, she didn’t kill Jeanette.”

The mention of his sister’s name stabbed Philip’s heart, as it always did. “One could argue what she did to Jeanette was even worse.”

“Still, she was disinclined to see her die, and that’s something.” The old man looked back across the grounds. Hummingbirds flitted around the rosebushes. The tall violet cleomes swayed in the soft breeze. “I have great faith in Carolyn. I will finally see an end to this madness before I die.”

And when will that be, exactly? Philip’s mind raced with the thought. And who have you decided shall get the bulk of your fortune?

Just then, as if on cue, a hand was placed on Philip’s shoulder.

“Hello, Uncle Philip.”

He turned. Douglas had come outside. As usual, the punk looked disheveled and unruly. His hair was straggly, his face unshaven. He wore an Obama HOPE T-shirt. He looked like a filthy hippie.

“Douglas,” Philip said, shaking the young man’s hand. “And what corner of the world have you blown in from this time?”

“My last address was in Syracuse, but I’m thinking of putting some roots down here in Maine. Come back to my roots, so to speak.”

The little sneak, Philip thought. Douglas was implying that he was to be the chief beneficiary of Uncle Howard’s will. He probably expected to live in this very house.

“My little hoodlum has visions of opening his own carpentry shop in Youngsport,” Uncle Howard said with obvious affection.

Philip stewed. He hated when the old man called Douglas his “little hoodlum.” He had no such special nickname for Ryan.

Douglas sat down on the back step at Uncle Howard’s feet. The old man placed a gnarled hand on his shoulder.