But that didn’t explain the typewritten note, found inside an envelope deep within the pack:
CONGRATS, it read.
The body of Paul Lewis was discovered that afternoon, when police officers arrived at the Lewis home to inform him that his wife was missing. They were surprised to find him dead, with half-chewed pieces of potato salad in his mouth.
Blood screens came back negative; the death was ruled accidental.
Somebody tipped off a reporter. By the end of the week, over forty-seven newspapers were running the short wire story of one couple’s freakishly bad luck.
Names withheld to protect the innocent.
Jamie raced up Twentieth Street, hunting for a pay phone. He seemed to remember one at the corner of Arch Street, near a diner that had recently gone upscale—charging nine dollars for hamburgers and adding seven martinis to the menu.
He glanced back. The top of 1919 was a raging inferno now, with so much smoke pouring from the top, it looked as if all of Center City were on fire. That it all had been sold to the Devil.
Everybody had been so busy, no one noticed that he had just stepped out of the ambulance and started walking.
Toward home.
There was a phone on Arch Street, just as he’d remembered it. The steel line connecting the handset to the box looked badly damaged, but there was still a dial tone. Jamie punched in his calling card number, then his home phone. Three rings, then the machine picked up.
Hi, you’ve reached us. If you’re calling, you know who we are. Leave a message, and one of us will get back to you. If we feel like it.
Jamie, being funny.
Beep.
“Honey, it’s me, if you’re there pick up. I don’t know if you saw the news, but I’m fine, I’m out of the building, so you don’t have to worry. Are you there?”
Nothing.
“Sweetie, if you’re there, please pick up.”
No Andrea.
“Okay … I’m walking home right now. I’ll be there in five minutes. I love you.”
Jamie paused another few seconds, just in case. Their apartment was oddly shaped: hallway, kitchen, living room, and office on one floor, then a semi-subterranean floor with two bedrooms and a small space connecting the two. Andrea could easily be downstairs, changing Chase’s diaper. It happened enough.
But usually she picks up by now….
Forget that. Hang up, walk home, hug your wife and kid. Start to tell her the story you’ll probably be telling her the rest of your lives.
Then tell her—in as serious a voice as you can muster—that you think it’s time you quit your job.
Andrea would crack up at that.
Wouldn’t she?
You think you can just walk away from something like this? You think there aren’t people out there who want to make sure you’re dead? Along with your family?
Stop it.
Jamie quickened his pace, blasting by the Franklin Institute, then the main branch of the Free Library, then Starbucks, then the old Granary Building and Spring Garden and the long-closed bodega and then finally the dry cleaners, which told him he had reached Green Street. The path from Market to Green was a gradual uphill. Most days that Jamie walked home from work, he ended up a sweaty mess.
Today, none of that mattered. Not the humidity. The sun. The fire. None of it.
Jamie reached the front door and remembered: his keys.
Damn it! His keys. In his bag, back on the thirty-sixth floor.
Jamie hammered the button next to his name. Please, Andrea, hear the buzzer and answer. Let me hear that click. Your voice on this cheap-ass plastic brown box. Jamie pressed the button again.
Nothing.
He couldn’t stand this.
He pressed other buttons. His neighbors, whom he hardly knew. It wasn’t exactly a social building. Having a kid didn’t make them very popular, either.
C’mon, somebody answer. Give me a click.
C’mon.
Forget it. Jamie walked back down the front stairs, found a large stone in a square of dirt next to a tree, then walked back up and hurled it through the glass. He reached in, unlocked the door, and proceeded back to his apartment. He’d pay the damage. He’d pay it gladly. Smile as he wrote the check.
Their apartment was down the hall, toward the back. He was about to apply the same technique—kick in it, pay for the damages later—but saw it was already ajar.
Andrea never, ever left it open.
She was afraid of Philadelphia.
I’m going to make sure they rape your wife nice and good! They’ll skin your son alive! Right in front of her!
He rushed down the hall past the kitchen into the living room where the TV was on, and it was local news, covering the fire with helicopters and reporters on the street, asking inane questions about what had happened, but Jamie didn’t care about that. He wanted to see Andrea and Chase now. He hurled himself down the creaky wooden stairs that led to their bedrooms.
It was dark down there, which wasn’t unusual. Andrea kept the lights low while Chase napped.
“Andrea!” Jamie shouted.
He heard something coming from the baby’s room.
A small cry.
A tiny little wah.
Oh, thank Christ.
Jamie rounded the bend and looked into Chase’s room. Andrea was there in the wooden rocking chair, holding Chase in her arms, humming to him. Only Andrea looked different. She was only wearing underwear.
“Andrea?”
The room was dark. He needed to see them. Touch them. Smell them.
His hand found the light switch. But before he could flip it, she spoke.
“You didn’t tell me he looks just like you.”
Jamie turned on the lights.
And he screamed.
Acknowledgments
The creator of
Severance Package
would like to single out the following staff members for exemplary service:
Executive Officers:
Meredith, Parker, and Sarah Swierczynski, Allan Guthrie, Marc Resnick, David Hale Smith, Angela Cheng Caplan, Danny Baror, and Shauyi Tai.
Corporate Benefactors:
Matthew Baldacci, Bob Berkel, Julie Gutin, Sarah Lumnah, Lauren Manzella, Andrew Martin, Matthew Sharp, Eliani Torres, Tomm Coker, Dennis Calero, and the entire team at St. Martin’s Minotaur.
Silent Partners:
Axel Alonso, Ray Banks, Lou Boxer, Ed Brubaker, Ken Bruen, Aldo Calcagno, Jon Cavalier, Nick Childs, Michael Connelly, Bill Crider, Paul Curci, Albin Dixon, Father Luke Elijah, Loren Feldman, Ron Geraci, Greg Gillespie, Maggie Griffin, Paul Guyot, Ethan Iverson, Jon and Ruth Jordan, Jennifer Jordan, McKenna Jordan, Deen Kogan, Terrill Lee Lankford, Joe R. Lansdale, Paul Leyden, Laura Lippman, Michelle Monaghan, H. Keith Melton, Karin Montin, Edward Pettit, Tom Piccirilli, Will Rokos, Greg Rucka, Warren Simons, Kevin Burton Smith, Mark Stanton, David Thompson, Andra Tracy, Peter Weller, Dave White, and all my friends and family.
About the Author
DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI
is the author of
The Blonde
(St. Martin’s Minotaur) and the writer for the Monthly Marvel Comics series
Cable.
Until recently he was the editor-in-chief of the
Philadelphia City Paper,
and almost never wanted to kill his employees.
Visit him at
www.duaneswierczynski.com