No Working Title Ch. 2 The Grinch who knew the Mob

I would like to make it clear that I understand now, and understood at the time, that this was quite possibly the most ridiculous idea one could ever come up with. How the hell is an individual supposed to put out a contract on themself? It would really defeat the purpose to know who was going to execute the hit, because if I knew when and where it was coming I'd avoid it. That's what got me in this situation in the first place, I don't have the strength of will to die at a specific place or time. The point of putting out the contract is to end it, but not to know how, where, when, or who is going to end it.

Finding a way to put out a contract on my own life, without actually knowing anything about where the information was going was a far more difficult challenge than I expected. Much like the Grinch I puzzled three hours, till my puzzler was sore. Then I thought of something I hadn't thought of before. Maybe, I didn't need to get the information directly to hitmen at all. If I just got the information in the hands of people with connections in the criminal underground the information would spread itself, right? I mean I am wealthy enough that I can make the incentive worth anyone's time. My grandparents had died long ago, cancer got two, heart attack another, and the last was a severe complication due to diabetes. My parents had died in a car crash two years ago. So I had it all, all the family wealth was mine. My family had enough to motivate any criminal.

So I got a friend to tattoo some text on my thigh. This text included an address, a locker number, and a combination. My friend knew me to be just eccentric enough that some crazy explanation of the tattoo got him to stop asking questions. I don't really remember what it was because part of the explanation was being drunk when I made him do it. I'm also pretty sure that paying him ten times his normal rate was a pretty solid reason to shut up and do the ink.

Then there was the matter of getting the information to someone who could pass it along to the criminal underground. This was the hard part. Until I remembered the pastor at my church was doing prison ministry and had asked the congregation if there was anyone willing to go and pray with inmates.

So the following Sunday, I spoke with my pastor. That Tuesday we went to the prison, and my pastor reminded me that the guys in here were in for some pretty big crimes. The guys I'd be praying with were murderers, big time drug dealers, and some of the top dogs in their gangs. "Perfect", I thought to myself.

So I prayed with a few of these guys, doing my part to serve to downtrodden. But there was one guy the pastor had told me was new to the ministry, and new to the prison. I figured his connections were fresh, and he would be my best bet to get a message out of this prison. So when I prayed with him, I passed along the word. "Kill James Kremer and you'll find a tattoo leading you to the location of his will on his thigh, and that will passes everything along to the person who possesses it after his death. The first to kill James Kremer gets all the Kremer wealth, and the wealth would all be passed along with complete secrecy."

Now I had done a good job of not being photographed by the press for years, so this guy had no idea that I was James Kremer. But he knew who that was, and knew I was passing along a big piece of information. He made it clear that the word would be spread.

Now I knew that word would be spread to his crew first, and might take some time to get out to other gangs. But I knew it would, with time. People who are willing to kill for the right price, are willing to share a secret for the right price too. But more importantly, people who won't kill at any price who got this information could only profit by selling the information at any price. And every gang has it's sissies, or at least that's what I was banking on.

So now all I had to do was wait. I didn't know how long, nor who I was waiting for, nor what I was waiting for. Perfect, exactly what I wanted.

Now as you may or may not know, those in the throes of anxiety and depression aren't really apt to think all that clearly, nor are they apt to really think through all the possibilities. I was aware of this and thought I had done a damn good job of running through the possible scenarios which could result from this action. I missed one very important thing. This detail would in fact change the whole game, this perfect world that I had devised got flipped on its head due to this one missing detail.

Paranoia is a common symptom for those with depression and anxiety. My depression had never manifested itself this way, I never had any delusions of persecution, nor was I irrationally suspicious. However, now I didn't need to be delusional. I had given myself cause to feel persecuted, and suspicious, and those chemicals in my head took those feelings and ran with them. I became extremely paranoid, which I should have expected because extremes beget extremes.

My paranoia got so strong that I became suspicious of everyone I saw, everyday, everywhere. Waiting for the first attempt, the paranoia only grew. It grew to the point that I actually started planning how to thwart attempts on my life.

Never was good at planning things...