The Odds - Jeff Strand Page 0,14
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.