Sherman Kingsborough had barely finished submitting his bid when his offer was trumped. The original bidder had upped the ante to $1.5 million.
“Son of a bitch!” he said to an empty room. Or not so much empty, as filled with garish trinkets designed to flaunt his wealth, including a life-size replica of Michelangelo’s David. The truth was Sherman hated art. But an older woman he had lusted after a year earlier convinced him that all men of wealth and power covet great works of art. “It’s a measure of one’s place in the world,” she had said with an air of certainty. Sherman never really got it but indulged the woman’s passion for sculpture and painting. She seemed worldly and wise, and for a brief time he thought he was falling in love. He wasn’t.
Not to be outdone on eBay, Sherman immediately raised the going price for Jared Stone’s life to $2 million. “Take that, bi-otch,” he said to an original member of the Terracotta Army, smuggled, or so he was told, out of China on a rickshaw. (If his paramour—with whom Sherman had grown bored and dumped—had done her homework, she would have known the clay soldier was a fake by the decidedly angled features on its face, and the “Made in Taiwan” scrawl etched on the sole of the soldier’s left boot.) Sherman didn’t know that his competing bidder was a woman, and he definitely didn’t know she was a nun. He just called everyone “bi-otch.” It had become his thing.
He, too, watched, and he, too, waited.
***
Sister Benedict Joan said five Hail Marys and crossed herself twice as she increased her bid on Jared’s life to $2.5 million. The Sister had deluded herself into believing that she would prevail with the Cardinal and that Jared Stone would be hers. The irony of it was lost on her completely.
“Ha!” she cackled when she saw that she was once again the auction’s new top dog, immediately covering her mouth and giggling, looking around to make sure no one was there to witness this act of hubris.
***
When Jared woke up, he was lying on the floor of his office, covered with a blanket. Sunlight bent around the edge of the curtain, leaving two long, white stripes on the carpet.
“The White Stripes,” Jared said aloud. Seethe with trips. He looked around the room. “Deirdre’s gone, if she was ever here.” He couldn’t be sure. Trebuchet was gone, too, and he realized he was alone and talking to himself.
Jared had been dreaming about something, but he couldn’t remember what. It might have had something to do with his first kiss, but as he sat on the floor and racked his brain, or what he feared was left of his brain, he couldn’t remember any details. At that moment, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever been kissed. But then the memory of the previous night came flooding back. That, at least, was still intact.
Stretching his back and neck, Jared eased himself up and over to his computer. The high bid was now $2.5 million, still from SisterBJ143. “Are there really one hundred forty-two other SisterBJs?” he asked the computer screen.
When he looked at the bidding history, Jared saw that one other bidder—the man who had submitted the unsettling questions about his physical and mental acuity—had come in at $2 million.
A bidding war was exactly what Jared hoped would materialize. He hadn’t answered the man’s letter, and now thought it wise that he had not. To Jared’s way of thinking, this was an “as is” purchase. He didn’t need to give anyone a leg up.
Then a strange thing happened.
Jared refreshed the page, hoping to see the two bidders egging each other on, but when he did, his auction disappeared. At the same time, he saw a flag on the page indicating that he had a new e-mail message in his account. Figuring there was a connection, he opened his in-box. This is what he found:
Dear Seller—We regret to inform you that your auction, “Human Life for Sale,” violates eBay’s usage policies against listing humans or human remains as sale items, and as such, the listing has been removed. All bidders have been released from their obligation, and you are hereby prohibited from listing this or similar auctions in the future. Should you have any questions, please address them to Customercare. Any subsequent violations of our usage policies could lead to your immediate suspension from eBay. Thank you for your time.
Jared didn’t know if he should laugh or cry, if he was relieved or distraught. It’s not that he was caught between conflicting emotions—though he was—it was that the tumor, at the very moment, happened to be sampling the part of Jared’s brain responsible for emotional comprehension. It was both amused and touched by the conflict going on around it. Synapses were firing and misfiring like a bad cell-phone connection. To Jared, it just registered as more confusion.
Either way, his eBay experiment was over and he was none the richer. He let out a long slow sigh.
And that is exactly when Jared’s cell phone rang.
PART TWO
A Deal Is Offered
Friday, September 18