Harry's Choice

$20,000.

There it was, the same amount as always, written clearly in that neat, impersonal script Harry had come to know so well.

$20,000.

A small fortune by any standards, Harry had once thought. He had since come to realise that, in fact, while $20,000 was indeed a vast sum to him and the vast majority of the population, there were those, would always be those, to whom it was a mere trifle, pocket change, no more than the expense of a good night out.

Was it someone like that who was behind the little black book? Some bored, idle socialite seeking vicarious thrills by playing with the lives of poor, working-class schmoes like Harry who couldn’t afford to say no to the chance at such a princely sum, no matter the other costs involved?

Harry didn’t know, and by this point, he no longer cared, either. Twenty grand was twenty grand, and these days, to him and a multitude of others like him, it was the difference between scraping by or living on the streets.

$20,000.

As always the lines beneath the numbers were blank, though Harry knew by now that a name and address would soon appear there, fading into existence seemingly as if by magic. While he waited for the writing to materialise he set about his usual preparations, determined that his reward would not shrink by too much this time around. Off came the lounge pants and the fluffy novelty slippers shaped like cute, brown puppies, to be replaced by dark trousers and solid, heard-wearing boots. The cheap vest, no longer strictly speaking white, was peeled off and thrown into the trash, making way for a non-descript grey t-shirt and a heavy padded jacket, large enough to conceal all manner of mischief.

Harry paused for a moment, his eyes flicking back to the waste bin in the corner of his cramped, lifeless kitchen. Once he would never have discarded an item of clothing simply for being old or stained with splashes of coffee and flecks of kung pao sauce. No, he would have washed the damn thing and re-worn it, over and over again, until it disintegrated from over-use. He, like millions of others left destitute by the wave of pandemics in the twenties and thirties, could not have afforded to waste anything that still had even the barest hint of life left in it. Now he had thrown it away simply because washing it would have been an inconvenience when he could buy another pack of five of the damn things for three lousy bucks online.

And what was three dollars when there was twenty thousand more for the taking?

How things had changed in just a few short months, he mused, as he took the single step which took him from kitchen to living area, another four of his long strides transporting him through the dingy hole he spent his days in to the surgical fluorescent glare of his bathroom. Actually, bath-room was a stretch. Bathing cubicle, perhaps. Shower cupboard, maybe.

Inside the cramped wet-room he met his own gaze in the cheap, wall-mounted mirror, a small smile of approval appearing as he took in his own reflection. Yes indeed, what a difference a few short months and a hundred thousand dollars had made.

Once straggly hair was now neatly trimmed to frame a face that was no longer gaunt, designer stubble having replaced a patchy beard and giving a roguish, dangerous edge to the man looking back at Harry with a playful glint in his eyes. The look of hopeless despair he had come to expect when seeing his own reflection was a thing of the past, and soon this pathetic hovel would be too.

All because of the little black book.

Thinking of it made him want to check it again, so he took the three steps to his apartment door and looked down at it, this neat little item of stationary, so innocuous, so ordinary, and yet so utterly life changing.

$20,000.

The same number, as it had been every time so far, black figures on a creamy white background, and yes, yes now they were appearing, the characters beneath the numbers beginning to fade into being, as yet still too faint to make out, but soon they would be legible and then the clock would begin ticking.

The first time the book had appeared Harry had been teetering on the brink of destitution, working eighteen hour days from the tiny apartment he had been terrified of losing at the time. Six months behind on his rent, no mail arriving that didn’t have the words Past Due stamped on the envelope, fondly remembering the days he had lived on ramen noodles and cheap soda. Unable to afford the Universal Vaccine he had been stuck indoors doing online jobs that barely paid for the electricity he used to complete them. He had been maybe days away from being evicted and becoming just another statistic.

And then, the miracle. The little black book.

He had no idea where it had come from, this small, leather-bound lifeline, one day it had simply been sitting on the rickety table by his door, looking elegant and out of place amidst the grime and clutter his life had become. He had picked it up and opened it as if hoping to see his own handwriting within, to fire some forgotten neurons in his brain to life and remember putting it there himself, but instead he had found nothing but blank, creamy pages, as empty as his bank account. All except the very first page, which had just the one entry.

$20,000.

Just that, and Harry as he had been then had looked at this unattainable figure, imagining for a masochistic moment all of the things he could do with such a sum. As he had been staring numbly at the page new words had begun forming beneath the number, simply materialising on the page before his very eyes.

Magic? Some sort of time-released ink? Whimsical money fairies having a good laugh at the expense of the impoverished and downtrodden? Harry had long since given up caring how or why the words in his little black book appeared, knowing only that they did, and that money appeared as if by the same magic in his bank account. As long as he obeyed the book. As long as the names that appeared to him on those creamy white pages promptly appeared in the obituaries the following day.

$20,000.

That was the only figure which changed after the name and address had appeared beneath it. From that moment on the number decreased as time went by, the figures fading and re-forming in lower and lower amounts. The first time it had gone as low as $15,000 before Harry had been driven by compulsive curiosity to find out what the hell was going on. At that point he had known only that a little black book had appeared in his apartment showing a name and address and a huge amount of money that was steadily decreasing, hour by hour. He had never been a greedy man, but now Harry had been desperate, and the sight of that virtual money disappearing had been more than he could bear.

The address had not been far from the shabby building he lived in, close enough that he felt he could risk a quick dash over there and not run too much of a risk of being caught outdoors without a valid Universal Vaccination tag. That first time he had not known what the book wanted, had been driven more by desperate curiosity than anything else, and certainly hadn’t been expecting to be involved in ending a life. In fact, if Theodore Hawkins of Apartment 4c Crown Heights hadn’t bolted in panic at the sound of Harry pounding on his door, slipping on his wet fire escape and plummeting three stories to his death, there was every chance that the number in the book would have reached zero dollars and Harry would never have realised that it was the demise of those named in its pages that halted the countdown and deposited the money directly into his account.

Teddy H had taken that fall, though, and suddenly Harry had been able to stave off the once seemingly inevitable collapse of his life. His windfall had been a stay of execution, and an opportunity. He could have afforded the vaccine, could have gone back to work in the outside world and earned a decent wage, could have begun rebuilding the life he had thought was gone forever.

His eyes strayed now from the book to the over-sized flatscreen TV hanging on his wall above a state-of-the-art entertainment system, both facing his genuine leather couch and all of it grossly out of place in the cramped shoebox of an apartment with its threadbare carpet and greasy, stained walls.

In hindsight perhaps he could have spent that first windfall more wisely, he now admitted to himself ruefully, but what did it matter? The book had provided again…and again and again and again.

$17,500.

$18,100.

£18,800.

$19,100.

Four more paydays, four more names, four more deaths. And each easier than the one before.

The guilt Harry had felt at ending these strangers’ lives had been fleeting, soon swallowed by the immense relief of escaping a life of poverty and want. And he had indeed paid for the Universal Vaccine, wearing his wrist tag as if it were a diamond-encrusted Rolex, a gaudy badge of honour. He had rediscovered the joys of life outside his own four grimy walls, of having someone cut his hair for him, of drinking in a bar with newly found and soon to be forgotten friends. Though somehow, amidst the clamour and glamour and hustle and bustle of his new life, he had not quite managed to find himself that gainful employment as yet…Harry shrugged mentally as he turned his eyes back to the creamy pages of his little black book, promising himself yet again that this time would be different, that this would be the windfall that he used wisely.

$20,000.

With a sharp intake of breath Harry realised that he would be able to claim the entire prize as he recognised the name and address that had finally formed on the page before him.

Jonathan Carmichael, Harry’s neighbour across the hall, a man he had drunk with, partied with, laughed with. A friend who had shared food with him when times had been hardest, had commiserated with him when life had been at its darkest, had always had a smile for him even on the bleakest of days.

A friend and neighbour who was now a walking $20,000 payday less than fifteen feet away.

Harry picked up his phone, ready to dial his neighbour’s number, when it began to vibrate in his hand. CARMICHAEL, J flashed up on the screen, and a wolfish grin found its way onto Harry’s face.

‘Jonny, hey,’ he said as he answered, while reaching into a drawer and pulling out the long-bladed hunting knife that had become his favourite weapon. ‘I was just thinking about you. Yeah, I’ve got some you can borrow, come on over. No, no problem at all, I’ll see you in a sec.’

Like a goddamned lamb to the slaughter, he thought to himself as he strolled back to his door, the deadly blade held out of sight behind his back. Perhaps he would go for dinner in that fancy new restaurant uptown that night, as a reward to himself. He was smiling at that thought as he opened the door to see Jonny’s gaunt, bearded face, framed by straggly home-cut hair, the smile freezing in place as Harry looked at Jonny and saw the gun in one hand, the little black book in the other.

Oh fu-.