ST1.12 | "Pay the Ferryman"

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PAY THE FERRYMAN

by Libby Cudmore

Hen wondered if she would miss the taste of vending machine coffee. Every afternoon the ritual was the same: two sugars, two non-dairy creamers, take the cup to her husband’s room and tell him about her day. She wished there was a barista, a friendly face to recognize her amidst so much machinery. The attendants were not supposed to be friendly with the clients. Everything at the Slumbr Center was purely transactional. No one could be accused of favors or favorites. Even after six months, the attendants refused to acknowledge her beyond a head nod when they came to check Robert’s vitals. Always the same. He was still alive. And he would stay that way until she could come up with $250,000.

***

Hen’s mother died sick and screaming in her bed. She was eight when her mom began vomiting blood, 10 when she finally succumbed to the war inside her body. By contrast, when her father drunkenly shot himself in the garage six months later, she imagined he hadn’t felt a thing. That was as close to a peaceful death as she knew.

***

When visiting hours were over, Hen threw out her empty coffee cup and got in her car. She drove two towns over to the lone gas station that still had an attendant. Most of them were automated now; a few gas pumps and a room-sized vending machine where you could order Slim Jims or Diet Cokes or No-Doze for the road. She was sick of machines. She needed to see a person.

She found a new use for the nylons she’d put in the back of the drawer when Robert got sick. She still had her father’s revolver – the rifle he’d put in his mouth was incinerated long ago as evidence. She took these both into the store as soon as she saw the last customer leave, when she was sure no one else was inside.

“Everything you have in the register,” she said, “and no one gets hurt.”

***

When Robert got sick, the caseworker at the hospital told them about Slumbr. When he was ready, Denise explained, they would put him into a medicated sleep so Hen could say her goodbyes at her own pace. No screaming. No blood or chest pains, no suffocating as fluid filled his lungs. A perfect death, as deaths go. They signed the form, picked a date, and spent one last evening together. They went to that Michelin-starred restaurant they always said they’d try. They held hands at the movies. He fell asleep in her arms, and she lay awake, stroking his hair, savoring his scent, wondering how she would put her life back together without him. In the morning, they drove to the Slumbr Center, and held hands as his eyes closed and his breathing relaxed.

That was five months ago.

What Denise did not tell her was the cost. To turn the machines off was $500,000, a bargain, really, for control over death. Their insurance would pay half, but that left her on the hook for the rest of it. If she didn’t pay the $250,000 in six months, the cost would double. Then double that at the end of the year.

She’d tried GoFundMe, spaghetti dinners and raffles. Her friends and his co-workers had given what they could, but they had spouses and families, too. She was $5,000 short. She might as well have been $250,000 short. There was nothing left to pawn, nothing left to sell. She didn’t have a choice.

The first time she robbed a store, she threw up with nerves. Her hands trembled on the revolver as she told the teenage clerk to put the money in the bag. He didn’t seem threatened. The store had insurance, after all, and it was only $43. In the morning, he would tell his friends of his bravery in the face of danger. The gun wasn’t even loaded. She was too afraid she might actually have to use it.

***

Five down.

Hen had carefully mapped her targets. 50 miles or less in radius; liquor stores, gas stations, small groceries. The liquor stores always had the most cash, but they were used to hold-ups, and often had cameras. There were more gas stations on her list, but they emptied the register every time they hit $50. The food co-ops were a sweet middle ground; they were too passive to fight back, even if sometimes they only had $25 in cash. Once, the cashier even offered her a scone. Eat, she’d said. You wouldn’t have to do this if someone took care of you. She had tears in her eyes as she took the scone and $200 from the register. She wished she could explain why she was doing this, that she wasn’t a bad person, that she was just trying to take care of someone she loved. The scone was the best she’d ever had, a three-cheese blend with almond flour, nutty and savory all at once. She wished she could go back for another. It wasn’t worth the risk. The papers reported the robberies in small columns, but none of them ever made the connection between the towns. That’s where the 50-mile radius was important.

She frowned at the list. There were no other stores to hit. She was $500 short. In another week, her rent would be due. Three days after that, the electric. She was almost out of cup noodles and lentils. Everything she could spare was gone; she was in a sleeping bag on the floor, watching TV on her phone with internet she pirated from the McDonald’s next door. She needed one big score, like they said in heist movies. A casino, or the mob, or an armored car.

Or a bank.

***

The Neighbors Bank branch near her house had plenty of cameras and a retired cop as a guard. She assumed there was an under-the-counter button system to alert the cops. She strolled through the lobby, picking up a pamphlet and smiling at the clerk so as not to look suspicious. She and Robert had always used Wilshire Bank, the original location of what would grow to be a regional chain. In spite of their name, Neighbors Bank had been aggressive in pushing out other operations, opening branches on all four sides of town. A bank you can walk to, their advertisements read. That’s a good Neighbor. She hated those advertisements. They even offered savings accounts for Slumbr. The pamphlet in her hand featured a smiling elderly couple walking through a lush fall scene. Put some aside for peace of mind, the copy read. She had to fight the urge to rip it to pieces right there. A bank job just wasn’t possible. There were too many variables, too many witnesses. She’d have to find the $500 elsewhere.

Then she noticed the ATM.

The ATM was in the vestibule outside of the lobby. There were only two cameras, one on the machine itself and one off to the side. A hoodie would obscure her face from the one, and the stocking she wore for the other robberies would obscure her face further. She could arrive after the bank closed and before the bars opened and wait for some pre-gamed college student to come collect some cash for his tab. She could put her gun in his back and demand he withdraw $500, the limit. The next morning she could go to the Slumbr Center, pay Robert’s bill and kiss him goodbye one last time. It was fail-proof. And even if she did get caught in the end, what did it matter? Prison might be an upgrade to the way she was living now.

***

Hen didn’t get vending machine coffee this time. Didn’t want to waste her hard-earned cash, not when she was this close to paying off his debt. “I’ve almost got the money,” she said, patting Robert’s hand. “You’ll be out of here soon. I promise.”

She tried to imagine what it would feel like to finally say goodbye. Slumbr had lived up to its promise. She got more time with her husband. There was never going to be enough of it. 35 years of marriage. They’d built a home, first in a basement apartment, then in the Cape Cod-style she sold at far below cost three months ago, to a smirking woman who stripped out all Robert’s woodwork and replaced it with cheap décor designed to impress AirBnB guests. Hen and Robert had laughed together. They’d cried together through three miscarriages. They traveled to Tokyo and Prague, they were going to spend their retirement years in a RV crossing the country. In the end, they both knew one of them would have to go on without the other. That time was coming up soon. She had to be ready. She couldn’t afford not to be.

***

Hen waited. It was nearly midnight. Plenty of people had come through the ATM, but they had come in groups. It was too risky to try and hold up three or four young men. There was a cluster of girls, in tube dresses and sweatshirts and sneakers, but they didn’t go inside. She couldn’t help but smile. When she was that age, she never had to pay for drinks either.

A man came up the street, away from the bars. He threw down his cigarette, took out his wallet, and went inside. She followed him and scanned her card backwards, once, twice, a third time. She pounded on the door, smiled, and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think something’s wrong with the magnetic strip.”

“They’re more trouble than they’re worth, aren’t they?” he said. There was cheap beer on his breath. “But I guess that’s what we get for coming after closing. Ladies first.”

“Oh no,” she said, reaching into her purse and wrapping her hand around the gun. “You go ahead.”

He turned his back to her. She eased the gun out of her bag and stuck it in his back. “$500,” she said, letting all the honey drip from her voice.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t press any buttons. Then he turned around and punched her. She fell, smashing her back on a sharp corner of the wall. The gun clattered to the floor. He put his hand through the door, triggering the alarm. “You think you can rob me?” he screamed, climbing on top of her. “You think you can steal from me?”

He grabbed the gun. She tried to run, grabbing for the door handle and pushing with everything she had until it gave. She fell on her knees on the sidewalk outside. She couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t until she saw the blood pooling beneath her that she realized she had been shot.

Bystanders swarmed from cars and bars. Someone restrained her assailant; she heard him insist she tried to rob him. It was a good thing I didn’t wear my stocking, she thought. It would have given her away instantly. A man laid her out flat, applying pressure to the wound. Every breath hurt, fire and ice wracking her body. Blood spurted up through his fingers. She could hear shouting and sirens in the distance. Everything was too bright. She closed her eyes.

Until death do us part.

If there was no one to pay the cost, Robert’s machine would be unplugged. He would finally get to die. He wouldn’t know that he was alone, wouldn’t know that she had predeceased him by hours. Would they meet in the afterlife? Would their lawyer retrieve her body from the city morgue so they could be buried side by side, as they dictated in their wills? There wasn’t time to find out. She couldn’t wait another minute.

She swatted the man’s hand away. She willed her heart to beat harder, to pump out as much blood as she could before the ambulance arrived. It wasn’t the most honorable death. It wasn’t the most peaceful death.

But it was hers.

And it was free.

Libby Cudmore (@LibbyCudmore) is the Shamus-winning author of Negative Girl (Datura 2024) and The Big Rewind (William Morrow 2016.) She is a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and her stories have been published in Tough, The Dark, Monkeybicycle, Had, Reckon Review and others.