The D List

The first thing Sam Kessler heard when he got to work Monday morning was a

high-pitched, bubbly, and enthusiastic, "Congratulations, Sammy!"

Maude from accounting was crowding his cubicle with her round, tomato red face and flower print dress.

"Uh, thanks. I guess. What for?" he said.

"You won the D List. Lenny Liebowitz kicked the bucket over the weekend." She

tossed a rubber-banded stack of ten dollar bills on his desk.. "That's your cool G,

Sammy." She giggled like a rabid cartoon rabbit.

Sam was astonished. He never gambled, and had only played the morbid game at Maude's persistent insistence.

"Oh, come on Sammy," She had said on Friday, her voice like an excitable child

in kindergarten. "You're the only one that doesn't play. People think you're weird. Why don'tcha get in on a little of the action?"

The game was simple. Office workers paid ten dollars and gave Maude the name of a celebrity. The list went live at the end of the business day, Friday. The first celebrity on the list that died paid the player who played them the pot. That player then had to buy pizza from the gourmet place down the street. If nobody died by the end of the following Friday, the pot rolled over and a new list was created. Once it hit a thousand, they donated the overage to a worthy charity. He wanted nothing to do with gambling on death, but Maude refused to relent.

"It'll give you something to talk about at lunch with that receptionist girl, what's her name, Lisa? She's really into the List."

Sam blushed at the mention of the homely-but-gorgeous receptionist that he was working up the guts to talk to. But still he resisted, claiming moral grounds, and that he was opposed to gambling as a general rule, whatever the object or contest in question.

Still Maude pressed on, and in the end, faced with her gleeful determination and assurance that all was for a good cause, he agreed. He said, "it's more of a general guideline than a a rule" and put a ten-spot on the aging dramatist, Lenny Liebowitz, the first name to come to his mind.

"Just leave me alone about it" he said.

"I hear he's having thyroid trouble," he added.

"An excellent choice, Sammy" Maude chirped. She put too much emphasis on "excellent" as if trying to draw the word out as long as possible.

Today, Monday, that meant he had one-thousand dollars worth of found money, the accrual of many weeks worth of his office mates betting on the weakest links of pop culture's chain of faces. Following quick on the heels of his elation was the realization that this profit came at the expense of a human life.

"I can't take this, Maude," he said. "I love Lenny Liebowitz."

"Well, it's not his money, and even if it was, he wouldn't need it anymore,

anyhow." She giggled. "Relax, I'll see you at lunch." She turned to leave.

"Wait, how did he die?" he asked.

"Petunias," she said.

"Petunias?" He was confused.

"Yep," she said. "Big pot of petunias fell off the roof of a building, right on his noggin as he was walking his dog. Broke his neck. Deader than disco."

"That's crazy," Sam said.

"Yep," she said. "Buh-bye, now, hun," and she disappeared in the maze of cubicles.

"Crazy," Sam repeated to himself.

The next four hours passed swiftly as he busied himself with the business of adjusting medical insurance claims. Sam was a master of the fine art of shaving charges and denying frivolity.

Liposuction? Denied.

Two hundred dollars for a vitamin C shot.? Try seventy-five and like it, bitch.

Need a hundred and twenty days of hospital stay? You're getting 30.

Re-constructive breast surgery, including implants? Sounds reasonable enough. But wait, no history of cancer or trauma? Denied. Sorry, thanks for playing.

Sammy wasn't happy, and the fact that he could make other people unhappy and get paid for it, even if it didn't really make him happy, per se, definitely took the edge off.

He was so lonely that paying the exorbitant fee for the privilege of eating Dean-

O's gourmet pizza with his co-workers, who would have him to thank for the feast, made him almost smile. He still had plenty left from his winnings.

At lunch, when he reached for the last slice of salmon, spinach, and feta, he touched fingers with Lisa.

"Go ahead and take it," he said.

"Oh no, I've already had four pieces. I really don't need another." She chuckled.

"Fine then," he said, with mock offense, "I shall eat it, and I shall enjoy it, without

the slightest trace of guilt."

She laughed harder, and he bit a hot mouthful of Salmon off the edge of the slice.

It was a flavor explosion of rarely paralleled delight, he noted.

"Congratulations, by the way. Lenny Liebowitz, iced by a flowerpot. Who'd-a

thunk it, eh?" she said.

"Yeah," he said. "Who'd-a thunk it." His mouthful of pizza became bland. He

swallowed and took another bite.

"It's been a long dry spell, too," she said. "We haven't had a proper pizza day since Jimmy Cash bit the big one."

"I didn't work here, then." The crust was getting blander with every bite.

"I know." She kept talking. "Of course we had a couple near misses, off by a week or two. Hell, I played John Burns for a year, and the week I switch to Alex Griffin, bam, Burns buys the farm and nobody's playing him."

"I guess constancy pays off, then, huh?" he said. His next bite of pie started off tasting exactly like warm, wet cardboard, but he struggled through it to keep up appearances.

"But not with you, eh? Talk about beginner's luck!" She laughed. "That's the first time, ever, that anybody's hit the jackpot on their first try. Well played, sir, well played, indeed."

"Thanks," he said through a mouthful of sand.

"How'd you do, it, huh? How'd you know he was gonna bite it?" she asked.

He swallowed and looked at her. "I don't know." He put the last bite of the slice in his mouth. "Just lucky I guess," he said through a mouthful of pie that tasted like pine straw and dirt from a freshly dug grave. He choked it down without gagging and wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin. "You sure know a lot about the D List."

"It's kind of my hobby," she said. She blushed.

"Don't you think it's kind of creepy, making a game out of people's lives like

that?" he said.

Lisa looked at him as if concerned for his mental health, "But, they're not real

people, Sam," she said, as if telling a toddler about why cartoons can fly.

"Lisa, they aren't robots," he said.

"Well, yeah, you got me there. They're human beings, underneath it all, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what we know. What the public considers Lenny Liebowitz to be. It's a construction with no real bearing on the reality. We remember his roles and the news clips about his ex-wives and what they wore to the award shows. He's an avatar of our envy, and we own him. We can do what we like with his life, without us, he wouldn't have one to begin with." She flashed Sam a completely non-sociopathic grin then, perhaps to mask the absurdity of her logic.

The rest of the lunch hour, and week, passed without much to take notice of, but one thing. It may have been his imagination, but Sam thought people that week were more apt to look up at him from their work and flash a friendly smile as he passed their desks.

Then it was Friday, and Maude was confronting him with her D List notebook and handful of ten dollar bills.

"So who do you like this weekend, Sammy," she said with her toddler's voice.

"I don't want to play this week, Maude," he told her.

"Oh, but you have to, Sammy. You have to give us a chance to win our money back."

"Oh, Maude, I just don't want to, really."

"Sorry, hun, you gotta. Them's the rules," she said, smiling.

Sam could tell she was prepared to stand there and smile at him till he relented, so he caved, again.

"Fine, how about Clint Westwood?"

"Oooooooh," she said. "That's a GOOD one."

"Thanks," Sam said as he handed over the money. He straightened a little at the compliment.

"K, then, I'll see you Monday. Have a great weekend." She placed the emphasis in weekend on end instead of week. Sammy thought this made the word seem lopsided.

"No, you have a great weekend," he said, but he pronounced the word properly.

An hour later, he was sitting in traffic when the radio station broke for news and the lead story caught his attention with a familiar name. Aging actor Clint Westwood had been admitted to Lourdes Hospital at 5:10 this afternoon complaining of chest pain, at 5:30, he was pronounced dead due to complications arising from cardiac arrest.

Fortunately, for Sam, the D List list went live at 5 sharp. He'd won again.

"Crazy," he said.

Lisa was beside herself at pizza lunch on Monday. "Oh my God," she said.

"Two plays, two wins. How do you do it?"

"Just lucky, I guess." Sam's venison, artichoke, and lentil pizza tasted like the rotting arm of America's favorite gruff-voiced cowboy.

"Dr. Death!" Terry, from accounts receivable, had caught sight of Sam and made a beeline. Sam squirmed.

"Hi Terry, have some pizza," Sam said. He gestured towards the nearest pie, an octopus and pineapple with provolone that lay mostly untouched.

"Don't mind if I do. I love me some octopus and pineapple." Terry grabbed a slice and started noshing. "I could get used to this every Monday thing. Who you gonna kill for the three-peat this weekend?"

"Terry, I don't-," Sam started.

"That's impossible," Lisa interrupted. "He's already the first to get a hit on the first play, and the second to pull a deuce, ever, if he swings the three-peat right off the bat, well." She appeared shaken. "I just don't want to think about it." She looked Sam up and down as if examining a piece of prize livestock. "We'd be talkin' hall of fame material."

That was when Sam decided to throw the game. He wasn't comfortable with the extra attention he was getting. All week long instead of just friendly smiles, he'd had to endure astonished chuckles and the occasional, "Dr. Death, my man!" from the braver, and hipper, young employees. When Maude came around to "get her money back" this Friday, he knew exactly who to pick to get off this crazy thing.

"Leonardo DeJour," he said, holding out his ten dollar bill with a cocky tilt to his chin and one raised eyebrow.

Maude did not appear amused. "That's not a very good pick, Sammy."

"Whatever, my pick is my pick," he said.

"But Sammy, Leo is barely twenty years old."

"And..." Sam said.

"Well, he isn't even old enough to drink himself to death, now is he? Not that he would, he's squeaky clean, never so much as smoked a joint or sucked a dick."

"And..." Sam said.

"Well, it's just. I mean, you can't pull off the three-peat with a pick like that, Sammy," she said.

"So what, it's my pick, and my money to lose."

"Listen, Buddy," Maude picked up an edge to her voice that Sam had never heard before. "You've got to think about the big picture, here. It's not just 'your money' anymore. Some people have some big numbers riding on your three-peat."

This statement took a moment to diffuse through Sam's consciousness.

"Do you mean you're running side action on the D List?"

Maude cackled like a coked-up hyena.

She cleared her throat and said, calmly, "my darling, the side action is the point."

She paused to let this sink it and said, "the pool payoff is peanuts, kid, peanuts."

Sam had never noticed any previous signs of instability in his co-worker, and this new development made him fear what she may be capable of, but he stuck to his guns.

This looked like a much deeper rabbit hole than he'd first thought, and he had no inclination to play Alice among the dank cubicles of Stafford and Kline Insurance Underwriting Agency, LLC. Better to cut his losses now than get further entangled with a rough bunch of typists and indemnity clerks.

"Leo DeJour, period, the end," he said. "My pick is my pick, and I pick Leo Dejour."

"Okey-dokey," she said. "Leo it is. But people might think you're trying to throw the game with a pick like that. Healthy young man in the prime of his life. Maybe they'll think you got a side bet against yourself."

"But, I didn't even know about the side action. I don't have any money on anything but the pool!"

"Hey, I know that, and you know that, but they don't know that, do they? They'll just see the picks and draw their own conclusions based on what they want to be real."

"But you can tell them...," he said.

"Sorry, hun, bookie-bettor confidentiality. I can't go spilling that kind of info without losing the trust of some very powerful people."

"Look, whatever, I'll take the heat, just, I want out. Take my pick."

"Okey-dokey, smokey, I'll take the bet. You can't blame a girl for trying to help. I

was just trying to say that kid better fall off his skateboard or something by next Fridayor you're gonna be wishin' you picked Milton Matthau to at least make it look like you were trying."

Sam was speechless at this sudden discovery of the sinister side of Stafford and

Kline.

"Thanks," he managed to mutter.

"You're welcome," she said, as if addressing a homeless person.

That night, he dreamed he was riding in the back of a dark bus. A single tiny speaker was playing the theme from Bonanza on an endless loop. He could tell that there was a driver, but couldn't make out any identifying details.

In the dream, he got up to find out who was driving and started walking towards the front, saying, "Hello," and "excuse me," but the driver wouldn't acknowledge him. He reached forward to tap the drivers shoulder and then he noticed the drop of the cliffs in the headlights. He woke in a cold sweat. He had the same dream every night that weekend. Monday morning, he arrived at work late, with a wrinkled shirt and dark circles under his eyes.

"Good morning, Sunshine," Maude greeted him. "You look like shit."

"Thanks," he said. "I haven't been sleeping well."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she said. "I bet little Leo DeJour is sleeping pretty soundly in his big fancy mansion, though, isn't he? All safe and snug as a bug in the rug. Nothing to worry about harming him in the foreseeable future at all to keep him awake at night, eh?"

"I guess not," Sam said.

"Oh well, no money for you this morning. See ya later, Sammy."

That morning, Sam thought that he processed a greater than average percentage of accident claims. Ladder falls, head injuries resulting from desks and tripping hazards.

Sam felt inclined to snip a little less cash off of the claims of these unfortunate souls. A little karma never hurt in times of need.

At lunch they had no pizza, but Lisa approached him and said, "I didn't bring anything, wanna get a sandwich?"

At Boxcar subs, she popped the question. "Leonardo DeJour? Do you realize he was one of Person magazine's top ten fittest celebrities?"

"Number six if I'm not mistaken," he said.

"Are you stupid, or just crazy?"

"What are you talking about?" he said. He felt like the only one not in on something colossal.

"You've got the chance to make serious history here, and you just want to throw it away with a stupid pick like Leo DeJour because you're not comfortable with the attention!"

"Look, I didn't want to play this stupid, morbid game to begin with. It makes food taste like grave dirt."

It was Lisa's turn to be confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," he said, "Look, I just don't want to be a part of it. I don't want anything to do with it."

"Well then," she said, "I guess you don't want anything to do with me, then, either."

She wiped her mouth and crumpled her napkin into a ball and threw it to cover her half-eaten sandwich. She pushed back her chair, stood, and said "you just don't know what you're messing with, Sam. I'll see you later."

Sam watched her walk away across the food court and couldn't help but become aroused. She stepped like a model, the front foot crossing over the centerline to make her thighs appear slimmer and intensify the swaying of her hips and the jostling of the perfect twin globes of her ass that bounced and rebounded like two puppies playing in a rayon pillowcase.

"Que cirra," he said. "easy come, easy go." At least this week, his food didn't taste like a mausoleum floor.

Sam had underestimated the repercussions of his D List pick. The general passive indifference which he had become accustomed to and which had given way to cheerful acceptance during his winning weeks, now became an aggressive conspiracy of silence.

Only Terry from accounts receivable greeted him with a smile and a thumbs up, daps, even, if within range.

Sam was no expert, but he suspected that Terry perhaps had a side-bet against him in this week's action.

"You know," Terry told him one day. "When the odds are good, you only need to risk a buck or two on the underdog to make out like a bandit."

"Yeah," Sam said, "that's crazy."

As the week wore on, the tension in the air thickened, and under the thin layer of aggressive indifference, Sam felt a palpable buildup of barely contained, seething anger.

His dreams also became gradually more intense as each night he got closer to discovering the face of his driver, and the edge of the cliff face.

On Monday, he could make out long hair and only the barest edge of the headlights circular glow had disappeared into the flat nothingness that represented the drop to bottomless depths when he woke, screaming, shaking, and sweating in the night.

Tuesday, he saw dainty hands and a good third of the circle was gone. Wednesday, he could see it was a woman, and half the light was gone. Thursday, Ken from accounting called him a "selfish little prick" and in the dream, he could see that it was Maude, just as the front tires left the road and he began to float, weightless, in free fall.

Friday morning, he looked like he'd been beaten in a cage fight and prison raped.

"Good morning, sunshine," Maude bubbled at him."Looks like you still got the touch."

She threw him another stack of tens and the morning news. He read the front page. In preparation for his upcoming role as tragic Southern Rock Icon Gary Almond, Leo decided, like the consummate method actor he was to, like Almond, try tripping on magic mushrooms. A very private man, he declined to arrange a sober, sensible sitter and then decided, like Almond, that riding his motorcycle while peaking was perfectly safe.

He then, like Almond, ran into the back of a stationary produce truck while going sixty miles an hour and died instantly.

When Lisa asked Sam, over pizza, how he'd managed to pull it off, all he could say was, "just lucky, I guess."

In the following weeks, he picked Milton Matthau, Jennifer Jovovitch, Kenny Osmond, and Stewart Seagall. They all met their maker within the allotted time. Several of Sam's co-workers, despite losing the pool each week, started showing up with much flashier jewelry and clothes. Lisa even began sporting a Lebret and Martini handbag that had to have cost at least six hundred dollars.

"You absolutely had to have the diamond monogram, huh?" he asked her over a slice of shrimp and eggplant with brie the morning after Kenny Osmond landed on a flagpole while skydiving.

"It's pretty," she said. Sam thought this was a thin defense.

That night, when he dreamed of the bus, and the long, slow walk, and reaching his hand out, it was Lisa's face the bus driver wore as they sped off the cliff into darkness.

After that, he dreamed of a different co-worker each day, Ken, Terry, Ted, Mary from HR. Each of them in turn, in rotation, and many more, drove him over the edge of the cliff in that big yellow bus, deaf to his cries for help. He woke every night in terror. Around the office, he was a hero. Everyone stood up to great him with a hearty "Dr. Death!" and a handshake. "Who you gonna kill this week?" they'd ask him.

If he was feeling frisky, he'd say "your momma," but most times he laughed off the question like it wasn't a question at all, but rather a clever witticism he'd just heard for the first time.

"That's crazy," he would say, then.

Ever since the day Leo died, a crowd followed Maude to Sam's cubicle on Friday afternoon to hear Sam make his prediction. "Milton Matthau," he said that first Friday, and a frantic flurry of side action burst into life. There were bets on whether he would be right or not, on which day it would happen, whether morning or night, natural causes, accident, or intentional, then murder or suicide, acquired disease or genetic condition, and any other factor Maude could squeeze in to make the action more interesting. Business was booming. Every week the crowd got bigger, and by the time he announced Stewart Seagall the phenomenon had become so large that he had to come to the stairs at the top of the food court and offer his prediction in the manner of Zarathustra prophesying the coming ubermench.

It was a royal pain in the ass. His productivity fell, but nobody cared. His manager, Ted, bought a new Mercedes with his piece of the side action, and so long as Sam kept picking winners, he didn't even have to show up. The checks would keep on coming, as far as Ted was concerned. The problem was that Sam liked doing his job, and this morbid game was interfering with that.

He was losing weight, and people noticed. "Looking good, Dr. Death," they would say. "Have you been working out?" they would ask. "You have to share your diet secrets with me," they would demand.

He'd always answer the same, "It's easy, don't eat," and they would laugh, but he was serious. It was the true secret to his diet success. It wasn't intentional, though. Everything tasted like a little piece of death to him now, and he took no joy in consumption, any more.

The only good part of his success with the pool was the time he spent getting to know Lisa. She seemed to have quite the taste for winning, or the winner. Sam wasn't sure which, exactly, it was, but he didn't care. As soon as she heard about Leo, she came to his office to apologize.

"I'll never doubt you again," she told him.

That was Friday. Monday, Milton Matthau was missing, having fallen over the side of a cruise ship while sleep walking, it was suspected. Lisa bought him a lunch he didn't eat at Boxcar subs. Wednesday, Milton's body washed up on a beach in Cuba and Sam drank coffee while Lisa ate tuna and asparagus with swiss pizza. Afterwards, they shared their first kiss. The pizza didn't seem to taste too bad on her lips. They made out after lunch all that week.

"How do you do it?" she would ask him.

"Just lucky, I guess," he would reply.

When Jennifer Jovovitch collapsed and suffocated to death from anorexia related complications, Lisa put Sam's hand on her ass cheek and squeezed it. When Kenny Osmond landed on that flagpole, she let him touch her breast, through her shirt. The Friday after Stewart Seagall shot himself and his sister in response to allegations he'd sexually molested his nephew, he touched her naked breast for the first time, and suckled at her tender pink nipple and tickled it with his tongue. It was a rush the likes of which he couldn't remember in recent years. He was light headed and bulletproof. It was in this euphoric state of mind that Sam met Clyde Dressler, Investigative Reporter at large for the Tri-County Tattler.

"Hey Dr. Death," Clyde said. "Who you gonna kill this week?"

Sam didn't like the tone of Clyde's voice, and felt this was a perfect time to respond with a "your momma".

"But she's not famous enough, is she Mr. Kessler?"

Sam liked this guy less by the second. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"I think you do, Sam. What can you tell me about the D List?"

"What? It's just a stupid game. I don't even like it. It's morbid."

"But that doesn't stop you from playing, does it? It doesn't stop you from winning. Every week that you play. That's the interesting part, really. How do you do that, Mr. Kessler?"

"Just lucky, I guess," he said.

"Yeah, pretty lucky."

"Look," Sam said. "I don't want to keep playing. They make-" he cut himself off.

"Oh-ho! What's this?" Clyde beamed. "You're under duress, huh? Did they kidnap your sister?"

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave, sir," Sam said.

"That's a great headline, 'DR DEATH'S SISTER PRISONER OF D List MAFIA.'

They'll eat that up with a spoon, baby."

"No, you can't print that," Sam said.

"I can print whatever I want, Clyde said. That's journalism. Now, would you like to deny these allegations from sources close to you that your sister is the prisoner of the office mob, or would you like to tell me what's really going on?"

"Look, stop, just..." Sam fumbled for words. "I have to keep playing as long as I'm winning. Those are the rules. I tried throwing it by picking somebody I never thought would die, but he died. So now, I just go with it and try not to feel too bad. There, are you happy?" As soon as he finished talking, Sam regretted saying so much.

"Outstanding. So how do you pick your victims?"

"They aren't victims, dickhead. It's not like I'm killing them. I like them. I don't want them to die. Maude just asks me for a name and I give her the first one that pops in my head. I can't help it if they decide to land on flagpoles or fall off cruise ships."

"Very interesting," Clyde said. "So who is it this week?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen Maude yet."

"Oh, so you need this Maude for it to work, huh?"

"No, I dunno, just, look, okay, go to the food court downstairs at 5 like everyone else, okay?"

"Why is that, son, why the secrecy?"

"Interview over," Sam said, "Buh-bye now."

Sam forgot all about the annoying reporter by 5, and he was completely unaware of those beady, prying eyes amidst the tables of Boxcar subs when he ascended the staircase to announce proudly, "Brad Smitts," which gave Clyde an even better headline for his shocking expose. "DR DEATH CONDEMNS BRADIFER" ran first thing Saturday morning in the Tattler, got picked up by the AP syndication service, and was on the Entertainment Extra pullout of every major Sunday paper in the nation the following day.

Bradifer was pissed. He read the Sunday paper over breakfast and scanned the

Entertainment Extra pullout for his name each weekend religiously. The headline made him spit oatmeal on little brown baby number four. He called his agent and had arranged a press conference before his coffee was halfway cold.

"This Dr. Death, as the papers are calling him, is a sick, sick man," Brad said on all three networks in a commercial free live simulcast extra. "Jennifer and I are appalled that this is some sick bastard's idea of a game." Brad started to turn red, and sweat a lot. "I can't stand the fact that some jerk is getting his cheap jollies by putting this kind of ugliness on me and my family." He got visibly angry and began yelling, "And if I ever get my hands on you, Mr. Sam Kessler, I'm gonna strangle you until you stop kicking and-" and just like that, Brad Smitts died of an aneurysm on live TV, and Sam became the most famous person in the world in an instant.

Lisa came over as soon as she saw the broadcast, wearing nothing but an overcoat and a garter belt.

"I always wanted to fuck a famous person," she told him.

They made love all night, and both called in sick of the flu on Monday morning, and made love all day instead.

"There must be something nasty going around," Maude said at the office.

If they'd been less preoccupied with each other's bodies, they might have turned on the TV and found out about the repercussions of Brad's spectacular demise. By the time they got around to going to work Tuesday morning, the parking lot was completely blocked by protesters. The fan clubs of each of Sam's celebrity "victims" had banded together in the common cause of putting an end to the D List and Dr Death's sinister predictions.

They chanted "Down with Dr. Death" and "Don't gamble with our lives" and flung DVD copies of the late actors' work at Sam. The bodies were so thick that they prevented him from opening his car doors or backing out of the lot until the police showed up to restore order and safety. The officer escorting Sam into the building clamped a steel vise grip on his tender bicep and yanked him up by the arm.

"C'mon," he said.

"Thank you officer," Sam said.

"I'm only doing my job, here, you know," the officer said in a voice loud enough for Sam's dead mother to hear. "You disgust me, and if I had my choice, I'd leave you for the mob to finish." This announcement brought cheers of "Do it! Do it! Give him to us!" from the assembled masses.

Sam noticed the officer had a Clint Westwood tattoo on his forearm.

"Thank you, officer," Sam said.

"Fuck you."

The rest of the employees trickled in and regarded him with spite. The greetings of "How's it going, Dr. Death" sounded more like threats. And he couldn't help but feel that everyone was sneering at him when he wasn't looking, mainly because, every time he turned around, he caught them sneering, and they didn't bother to change their expressions. Even Lisa, the woman he'd spent the past 36 hours fucking said only, "Hi, Sam," before rushing off to her desk.

Life seemed pointless, and then his desk phone rang.

"Hello," Sam said.

"Is this Sam Kessler?" barked a gruff voice.

"Speaking, can I help you."

"This is the government, Sam," said the voice.

"The government?"

"Yes."

"The whole thing or any particular part?" Sam asked.

"Don't get smart, Sam, you don't need to know that. What you need to know is that your country needs you."

Sam didn't like where this was headed, "What do you mean?"

"We need you to put a name on that little D List of yours. There's a certain celebrity we don't want causing any more trouble."

"Sir, I can't do that, it's not how it works," Sam said.

"How it works is I tell you how it works. Play ball and we'll make it worth your while."

"I can't do that, sir, I'm not an assassin."

"We're not asking you to kill him, we're just asking for a little help from whatever you got going on, there."

"Same difference."

"Alex Hairloss must die!" the voice screamed.

Sam hung up the phone, shaken, and went to his supervisor, Ted. He said he needed to go home for the rest of the day.

"Yeah," Ted said, "That's probably a good idea for you."

Sam went home and went to bed. He didn't ask for this, all he wanted was to deny frivolous insurance claims and shave charges. He didn't care about celebrities and wanted nothing to do with this morbid game from the beginning. His eyes watered at the unfairness of it all, and he cried himself to sleep on his big, soggy pillow.

The phone rang a few times, but he ignored it. He merely slept and felt sorry for himself on his wet mattress. Wednesday morning, he got up long enough to call in sick.

Lisa answered and said, "thank you, Mr. Kessler. We all hope you'll feel better tomorrow." The phone only rang twice that day. Thursday, he didn't even bother to call in, and the phone was silent. Friday, he didn't call in, either, but the phone rang once in the late afternoon, around a quarter to five. He felt compelled to answer.

"Hello," he said.

"Well, well, well, Dr. Death," Maude beamed into the phone. "I'm so glad to reach you, I was afraid we'd have to send someone round to collect your pick this week."

"I'm not playing this week," he said.

"That's nonsense, of course you're playing."

"I don't want to play anymore, Maude, and you can't make me. I quit." he said.

"Oh, Sammy, you know that's not an option." The steel edge was in her voice again.

"I can't do it anymore, Maude. I just can't."

"Cut the crap, Sammy, gimme your pick."

Inspiration gripped Sam in its hairy, sweaty hands and shook him until he regurgitated genius. "Fine," he said. "You want my pick, Maude?"

"Yes, please. That would be nice."

"Okay," he said. "Fine." He cleared his throat, and remembered Lisa's words after they first made love. "Put ten dollars on Sam Kessler."

After all, he was an international celebrity, wasn't he?

"Sam, you can't-" Maude said, but Sam heard none of it, as he had hung up the phone.

Sam felt as though a weight had been removed from his chest, and for the first time in weeks, he could breathe. He felt hungry. He made himself a roast beef sandwich and settled down in front of the TV.

At 5:15, fifteen minutes after the new D List picks became public and set-in-stone, there was a knock at the door.

"Probably Lisa," he said to himself. She was certainly fast. She must have driven over as soon as Maude put the new list up.

Sam opened the door and did a double take. Instead of his homely-but-gorgeous ex-girlfriend, there stood a scrawny teenage girl with braces and a Kenny and Cherie Osmond Fan Club button. With little photo cut-outs of their heads superimposed on tiny cartoon bodies playing guitar.

"Are you Sam Kessler?" she said.

"In the flesh," he said.

"Then die," she said. She raised a .45 to chest height and pumped three shots into Sam's face and chest before he fell, dead, to bleed out on his living room carpet.

Monday morning, Maude accepted Sam's winnings on his behalf, bought pizza for everyone, and put the rest back in the pot. Lisa bet ten dollars on Jack Greene.

"I'm feelin' lucky," she said with her fingers crossed.