Ethan gave her a kiss on the neck, then reached over and stirred the spaghetti sauce, hoping she didn’t suspect that he was lying his ass off. He was more of a “little white lies” husband—big lies like this were difficult for him.

  Fifteen minutes later, Ethan had taken his first bite of garlic bread when his phone rang. The Caustin family had a very strict policy against using cell phones at the dinner table, so Ethan didn’t take it out of his pocket.

  After the call went to voice mail, it rang again.

  After that call went to voice mail, his phone vibrated to notify him that he had a text message.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket. “Somebody keeps calling.”

  The text message was from Rick Oddsmaker: Answer your phone.

  “It’s work,” he said, getting up. “I have to take this.”

  Work calling him in the evening was completely unprecedented. He didn’t have the kind of job where he was on call 24/7. He walked out of the dining room and into the living room as his phone began to ring again. He answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t ignore my calls ever again,” said Rick. “That’s now the third rule: have your cell phone on and with you at all times. Should be easy to follow in a world where most people might as well have their phones surgically grafted to their hands.”

  “Sorry about that,” Ethan said, trying to keep his voice casual. “I just sat down to dinner.”

  “I know. It smells delicious.”

  Ethan’s grip on the phone tightened.

  “I’m kidding,” said Rick. “I can’t smell the spaghetti.”

  “So what can I do for you?”

  “I’m offering you a chance to win a bottle of Dom Perignon. 1970. I don’t know much about champagne, but this goes for up to two thousand bucks, so it’s probably pretty good stuff.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Well, Ethan, the rules of the game are that you can skip any round you want, but I do recommend that you hear me out first. Are you willing to hear me out?”

  “Sure.”

  “There’s a small playground six blocks from your home. A slide, a merry-go-round, a swing set with one of the swings broken. Do you know the one I’m talking about?”

  “Yes.”

  “A couple of children are playing in the sandbox. I’ve calculated that you have a 75% chance of finding the three hypodermic needles that are buried in the sand before they do.”

  Ethan walked into the hallway and spoke in a whisper. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Think how much you’ll enjoy that bottle of vintage bubbly. Pop it open after you win or save it for a special occasion—the choice is yours. Are you going to play this round? You have as long as you want to decide, but your odds obviously get worse and worse the longer they dig around in the sand.”

  “Yes, I’ll play.”

  “Good luck to you.” Rick hung up.

  Ethan hurried back into the dining room. “I’ve got an emergency at work,” he said. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “What kind of emergency?” asked Jenny.

  “Auditing emergency. I’ll explain everything when I get back.”

  “Ethan—”

  He ignored her and headed for the front door.

  As he drove toward the playground, he kept telling himself that this had to be a prank. No way were there really hypodermic needles buried in the sandbox. The truth had to be that Rick had a very dark sense of humor, and after revealing his joke and having a good laugh at Ethan’s expense, he’d disappear from his life forever.

  There were lots of little kids in his neighborhood, so he drove as fast as possible while remaining fully alert for children running into the street. He managed to make it to the playground without running anybody over. As he parked, he saw that two very young children, probably pre-school age, were vigorously digging around in the sandbox, while their mother sat on the bench that was right next to it, looking at her phone.

  Ethan sprinted over to the sandbox. “Ma’am! I need your kids to get out of the sandbox right away.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Somebody reported a hypodermic needle in the sand.”

  The mother immediately got up. She took the children’s hands. “Let’s go play somewhere else, okay?”

  The kids stood up and walked out of the sandbox without protest.

  Ethan used his foot to gently dig in the sand as the mother led her kids to the swings. A couple of older accompanied kids were sitting on the slide, not actually sliding on it, but aside from that the playground was vacant. After searching for a couple of minutes, he started to think that maybe it was a bluff, but then his toe struck something, buried about a foot deep.

  As he carefully moved the sand away, it looked very much like the plunger of a hypodermic needle.

  He pulled it out with his fingers. Yes. It was a goddamn hypodermic needle, filled with a light brown liquid.

  Ethan kept searching. It took him about ten minutes to find the other two needles. They also had the same liquid in them. He didn’t know his illegal drugs very well, so he guessed “heroin” but really had no idea.

  He walked out of the sandbox with the needles. What the hell was he supposed to do with these?

  The mother walked over to him. “Oh my God. Should we call the police?”

  “Already done,” said Ethan.

  “I guess I can’t take my kids here anymore.”

  Ethan would’ve loved to reassure her that this was a one-time thing, but he had no idea what that psycho Rick had planned for after this. “That might be a good idea for a while, until they get some people out here to thoroughly check for more needles.”

  Were there only three in the sandbox? Should he keep looking?

  His phone rang. Rick.

  “That’s the police calling me back,” said Ethan. “Sorry to have scared you.”

  “Oh, no, I’m so glad you warned me!”

  Ethan walked back toward his car as he answered. “I found them.”

  “All three?”

  “Yes.”

  “Congratulations. I knew you could do it. In the far corner of the playground, on the ground behind a tree, you’ll find a small metal box. Put the needles in there so that they can be disposed of safely, and then immediately return home.”

  “What’s in them?”

  “Use your imagination. Are you headed toward the tree?”

  “Now I am, yeah.”

  Ethan walked across the playground over to the tree. The small tin box was on the other side of it. He crouched down next to it, then hesitated.

  “How do I know this isn’t booby trapped?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ethan, just put the needles in the box.”

  Ethan opened the lid. The box was empty. He put the hypodermic needles inside, replaced the lid, and stood back up. “I’m done.”

  “Go back to your car.”

  “What if a kid finds it?”

  “They won’t, if you go straight to your car and drive home.”

  Ethan decided that he didn’t have much of a choice. He hurried back to his car, jogging now that he didn’t have to worry about tripping and landing on the needles. He brushed the sand off his hands and pants, then got into the car.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” he demanded, after he started the engine.

  “What do you mean?” asked Rick.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. Those kids looked like they were three years old.”

  “I know. Adults don’t usually play in sandboxes.”

  “What if I’d been too late?”

  “You would’ve lost this round. No Dom Perignon for you.”

  “I mean it—stop playing dumb.”

  “Are you asking if somebody would have stopped those very young children from digging through the sand with their bare hands?”

  “Yes,” said Ethan.

  “Absolutely not,” said Rick. “That’s the most important thing to understand about this game. There is no bluffing. If I say I’m going to shatter your arm, I will shatter your arm. If I say that children are in danger of jabbing themselves on a hypodermic needle, I mean it. Every single time I tell you the stakes, I promise you, they are real.”

  “This is so fucked up. When does it end?”

  “I don’t have a timeline for you. Hopefully it ends with your victory.”

  “You know, I had to rush out of the house during dinner. I never do that. I make everybody sit at the table with no outside distractions. So if you don’t want me to tell anybody about what’s happening, how about you not call when I’m having dinner with my family, okay?”

  “I apologize for calling at a bad time,” said Rick. “But guess what? That’s part of the game. I’m not going to make it easy for you to keep this a secret, as you’ll find out very soon. Anyway, go home. You have spaghetti waiting.”

  5

  As he drove home, Ethan did a lot of deep breathing and tried to calm himself down, so that his lie of “Everything’s fine!” would not be so transparent. He could see in the rearview mirror that his face was pale, but since he didn’t have a makeup kit in the car there wasn’t much he could do about that.

  “Sorry about that,” he said as he walked back inside. Jenny and the kids were still at the dinner table.

  “What was wrong?” Jenny asked.

  “Nothing. False alarm.”

  “Since when do they call you at home?”

  “It’s these auditors,” said Ethan. “They don’t have the usual boundaries. They’re a complete pain in the butt. I’d tell them to knock it off, but, y’know, it’s not a good idea to make the auditors mad.”

  “What are auditors?” asked Tim.

  “They’re mean people who spend all day trying to find your mistakes.”

  “Like my teacher?”

  “No, Ms. Neary is trying to help you learn.”

  “Dad,” said Patrick, “you tracked dirt through the living room.”

  Oh, shit. “Whoops.” Ethan walked back to the front door and took off his shoes. The sand had all come off but he’d gotten dirt on his shoes running through the playground. Would that seem suspicious? It wasn’t as if there weren’t perfectly normal ways to get dirt on one’s shoes that didn’t involve sprinting through a playground after saving children from hypodermic needles hidden by a madman.

  He returned to the table. Everybody else was almost finished with their meal. He swirled some spaghetti around on his fork and took a bite.

  “What kind of false alarm?” Jenny asked.

  Her tone seemed to be genuine curiosity and not “I know you’re a lying piece of garbage.” He couldn’t blame her for not ignoring it. Getting a call from work and immediately rushing out of the house was simply not a thing that ever happened.

  “There is something seriously wrong with this auditor,” said Ethan. “When he wants something, he wants it now, and he doesn’t care if everybody else has gone home for the day. He also left a message for Craig, and Craig got him what he needed. It’s crazy. I may have to say something.”

  “Well, like you said, don’t get the auditors mad at you,” said Jenny. Did she believe him, or was she temporarily letting him off the hook? He couldn’t quite tell. If it was the latter, he supposed he’d find out soon enough.

  Normally the rule was that nobody left the table until everybody was done eating, but there were exceptions, and he couldn’t very well make Tim and Patrick sit there and watch him finish when he’d been absent for most of the meal, so he released them. Jenny didn’t leave.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You seem really stressed out.”

  “Audits are stressful. This one way more than usual.”

  “Sorry,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand. “That sucks.”

  “It should be over soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  The doorbell rang. Ethan flinched.

  “I’ll get it!” Tim called out.

  Ethan started to call out, no, he’d do it, but Tim was always the designated door answerer. If Ethan acted concerned about Tim answering the door, that would send up a huge red flag. It would be fine. It wasn’t as if Rick would send somebody to grab his son as soon as he opened the door.

  He was terrified, but he couldn’t let this seem more unusual than it already did.

  Tim opened the door.

  He didn’t speak to anybody.

  He closed the door again.

  Oh, God, did he go outside?

  Tim walked into the dining room, holding a white cardboard box. “This came for you, Dad,” he said, setting the box on the table.

  It hadn’t been mailed. It just said “To Ethan Caustin” in fancy black ink.

  “What is it?” Tim asked.

  “I’m not sure,” said Ethan, even though he knew exactly what it was.

  “Do you want me to get you some scissors?”

  “No, hold on, let me finish my spaghetti first. I’ve got three more bites.”

  As he ate the rest of his dinner, he tried to think of a good cover story. The problem was that he didn’t know what kind of note might be included in the box, if any. He wished he had the kind of living situation where he could open up a package like this in private, but that would never happen in his normal life. Jenny and the kids would want to know what was in the package that was dropped off on their front porch.

  He finished his spaghetti and took the dirty dish to the sink. He opened a drawer, took out a pair of scissors, and returned to the table. “All right, let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  He cut open the tape that held the flaps together, then opened the package. It was full of Styrofoam peanuts. He reached inside, suddenly scared that he might stab himself with a hypodermic needle, but found an envelope near the top.

  Inside the envelope was a card. The front said, “Well played!” in festive multi-colored letters. The interior simply said, “Enjoy!”

  “Any idea who it’s from?” Jenny asked.

  Ethan shook his head. He reached into the box until he touched glass. He removed the bottle, shook off the Styrofoam that clung to the side, then set it on the table.

  It was indeed a bottle of Dom Perignon.

  “Oh my God,” said Jenny.

  “Is it wine?” Tim asked.

  “Champagne,” said Jenny. “Very good champagne.” She carefully picked up the bottle and checked the label. “Ethan, this is from 1970. Who could possibly be sending you 1970 Dom Perignon?”

  “Is that a good year?”

  “I don’t know, but I guarantee you that a fifty-year-old bottle of Dom Perignon is insanely expensive.”

  “Maybe that was the year it tasted like shit.”

  Jenny set the bottle back down on the table and took out her phone. She tapped away at the screen.

  Frickin’ Rick. How was Ethan supposed to explain this? It wasn’t a fair game if he made it impossible to come up with credible lies. There was no realistic scenario where somebody would send him a gift like this.

  “1970 Dom Perignon Oenotheque...however it’s pronounced,” said Jenny. “750 milliliter bottle. I’m showing it here for $2399.” She tapped away at her screen some more. “Looks like the average price is about two thousand dollars.”

  “Who would pay that much for a bottle of champagne?” Ethan asked.

  “The real question is, who would send you that bottle?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe...” He started to say “the auditors” but that was such a far-fetched answer that it was best to not even suggest such a thing. He shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

  “What do they mean by ‘well played’?”

  “It’s probably not even real,” said Ethan. “Somebody slapped a fancy label on a bottle of grocery store champagne.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right,” said Jenny. The obvious translation of her words was “We shall discuss this later, when our children aren’t listening.”

  Ethan gently placed the bottle back in the box. He was far from a champagne aficionado, so this would be wasted on him. He also wasn’t likely to drink a beverage that had been gifted to him by somebody who hid hypodermic needles in a sandbox.

  “It’s from the game you played in Vegas, right?” asked Jenny, after Ethan closed the bedroom door.

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t say you guess. It’s the only possible explanation. You won fifty thousand dollars and they sent you this to congratulate you.”

  Ethan nodded. “Yeah, that sounds reasonable.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Casinos don’t send gifts to your home because you won big.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “The truth would be nice. You come home from Vegas with an extra fifty grand, and then suddenly you start getting phone calls where you have to rush right out of the house. Nobody has to bolt for the door because of an auditor’s request. You’ve been acting tense and weird. I’d really like to know what’s going on.”

  Was Rick listening to this conversation right now? How would he be doing it? Through their phones? Was the house bugged? Was it all a bluff?

  Maybe it was a bluff. But Ethan couldn’t take that risk.

  “I’m sorry you don’t believe me about the auditor, but it’s the truth,” he said. “I’ve never dealt with anybody like him before. If we don’t pass the audit, my job could be at risk, so, yeah, I’m a little edgy right now. The champagne is probably from the people who run the game. They obviously have a lot of money at their disposal. This gift is a good thing, don’t you think? When would we ever be able to get our hands on something like this? You should be excited.”

  Jenny stared at him, as if daring him to be the first to break eye contact. Finally she looked away. “I guess you’re right.”

  Ethan opened his eyes as his phone vibrated. He glanced over at the clock. It was exactly midnight.

 

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