Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (17 page)

“Women work well in this profession, for instance, because they’re seen as the fairer sex.  Bella could shoot someone in broad daylight, and she’d have to beg them to arrest her.  I imagine for you it would be similar.  You look like an angel.  I, on the other hand, look like a killer.”

“Sometimes you do,” I said, knowing that resembling a criminal bothered him more than being one.  “But it’s more of your demeanor than your face.  If you would smile more often, maybe people would see you clearly.”

“Perhaps,” he said, not letting my words penetrate his mind in the least.  “Did you really kill that poor goldfish?”

“No,” I laughed.  “I was just trying to be tough.”

“I thought not.  But you sounded very ferocious.”

I rolled my eyes.  Now he
was
teasing me.  Although, he
had
told me a good deal more than usual about what it would take for me to be like him.  “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about teaching me?” I asked hopefully.

“No,” he said.  Then he winked at me, and walked back to the car to smoke a cigarette.

I took that as a good sign.

Frank was saying something I couldn’t understand, and Charlie was there, smoking two cigarettes at once.  Charlie smiled, and said, “You’ve got one year to live.”  Then Frank shot him.

I opened my eyes in the darkness, the sound of the shower running the only thing giving me a sense of direction.  His side of the bed was still warm, because I was on it.

Light burst into the room as the bathroom door opened.  I turned my face away, hoping he hadn’t seen my head move.  When I had bad dreams, Frank got bad feelings.  And when he had a bad feeling, chances were good that he’d come to investigate.  Fresh out of the shower, without taking the time away from rescuing me to get dressed.  It was my birthday.  There couldn’t have been a better present.

“You okay?” he called out.

I waited a couple of seconds, then moaned a little.

“Nice try, V.”

Thwarted again.  I pulled the pillow over my head.

“That’s the third time this week,” he said, and shut the bathroom door to get dressed.  It was his fault I was having nightmares.  He’d been especially quiet since the Walter Jones job, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day when usually that amount could last him weeks, and I was picking up on his tension.

Frank came out of the bathroom, his hair wet, his clothes clinging to his damp skin.  “Happy birthday.”

Indeed
.  “It’s our six month anniversary.”

“
Anniversaire
is the French word for birthday,” he said, and he sat beside me on the bed.  “What were you dreaming about?”

“You were refusing to give me any birthday spankings.  It was awful.”

“Be good,” he said, and handed me a small, flat present in blue wrapping paper.

“Oh, Frank!” I exclaimed.  “You didn’t have to get me anything.”  That was true.  I had the same amount of personal belongings now that I had when I was technically homeless.  I smiled at him and carefully removed the shiny blue paper, hoping that while it wasn’t gun-shaped, or gun-sized, or gun weight, that it would still somehow
be
a gun.

When I saw what was underneath, I dropped it.  Luckily, Frank had his hand out in preparation.  He gave it back to me while I gaped at him speechlessly.

One of the first things I learned in foster care was to pack lightly.  By the time I had done a few rounds in the system, I’d been down to a single photograph of my parents.  And now I held it in my hands.

I’d pleaded with Mark for over a year to let me live with him, but he only agreed to it after things got really bad.  Bruises were nothing new at that point, and since my trusted track coach hadn’t done anything to help me in the past, I’d repeatedly gone back to Social Services.  Except that after two homes in a row where someone smacked me around, they were starting to doubt my stories.  Living with Mark was my last hope of surviving in one piece until graduation.

The last home was by far the worst.  Even the other foster kids hated me.  There was a girl, Sarah, who had lived with the family for awhile.  She was a year older than me, gawky and thin.  My new father had been fucking her since she moved in, but when I showed up, all that changed.

Sarah wasn’t much of a looker at all.  She had gross skin and an angry, masculine face.  I was fourteen, and a spitting image of my mom.  Up until the day she died, my mother could’ve been considered the most beautiful woman in town.  Everyone looked at her; men, women, even children, as if seeing a princess from a Disney movie.  She probably wouldn’t have been that impressive with more competition, but for Branford, she was the epitome of a home town beauty queen.

From day one, Daddy started paying me more attention than Sarah, and I became her enemy.  She was in love with him, more so than I’d ever been with Mark.  She played the part of dutiful daughter, while secretly wanting the role of wife, and I was intruding on her fucked-up fairytale romance.  I hated her back on principle, though that was beside the point.

It only took a week for him to make his affections known to me; climbing into my bed in the middle of the night with a beer in his hand, trying to feel me up over my pajamas.  I’d screamed my fucking head off.  Woke the whole neighborhood.  He’d tried telling his wife that I was having a nightmare, but I could see on her face that she knew exactly what he was up to.  And she couldn’t care less.

I’d thrown on my shoes, grabbed the photograph, and gotten the hell out of there that night, walking six miles to Mark’s house in the dark, shaking from head to toe.

The very first time I’d been hit by an adult, I’d gone to Mark.  I considered him my boyfriend, and foolishly thought he’d defend me against the world.  But he hadn’t.  Instead, he asked what
I’d
done, reminding me that I had a tendency to let my mouth get me into situations I couldn’t handle.  It was true, I had a big mouth, and more than once I’d made things worse for myself by neglecting to shut the fuck up.  I’d even considered that he might’ve been right, that maybe if I just behaved I wouldn’t have gotten hit.  But no one asks for rape, especially not when they’re sleeping.  Or at least if I
did
ask him to rape me in my sleep, I didn’t mean it.

When I told Mark what had happened, it did the trick.  Not only did he let me move in, he didn’t try to fuck me again for months, something I couldn’t have been happier about.  Sex with Mark had never been pleasurable for me; I was too young and he was too eager.  Although, it hurt more to know that while he’d willingly let someone knock me around, heaven forbid anyone else try to get their cock in me.

The photo of my parents was the only thing important enough to grab in my rush to escape.  But when Mark decided to go back to his wife and I was no longer welcome, I was in such a state of shock that I left it, and everything I’d accumulated since then, behind.

“How did you…” I started, staring at the newly framed photo in disbelief with misty eyes.  It was the same one; the creases from being folded, the torn corner, the tear stains.  This was impossible.  We hadn’t been in Illinois for months, and since that time he had barely been out of my sight.  Though we
had
gotten pretty close to that part of the U.S., and the man never did sleep.  “I cannot believe you did this.”

I threw my arms around him, trying not to get all choked up.  “You’re wonderful.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.  He didn’t usually blush anymore when I thanked him, but this time he did.  Then I started thinking about how Mark was.  He never got rid of anything.  All the stuff I’d left behind, my clothes, the photo, he would’ve likely had it in a box in his attic.  It might have even had my name on it.

Frank must’ve gone to his house.  But I’d never told him Mark’s last name, much less his address.  “Did you kill him?” I asked.  The other question, how he found him, I could answer on my own.  It wouldn’t have been difficult for a man like Frank.  All he’d need was a reason, and finding me the perfect birthday present would’ve been more than sufficient.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, not sounding too happy with the fact.  “I didn’t touch him.  But I
saw
him, and if I see him again, he’s dead.”

I looked back to the photo, seeing their faces and feeling that if they were watching, they didn’t have to worry about me anymore.  I was taken care of.  “You’ve outdone yourself.” I said.  “You could’ve just let me blow you.”

Frank turned away so all I could see was his bright red ear.  I loved doing that to him.

  “Do you have any pictures of your mom?” I asked, knowing that he was closer to her than I was with either of my parents.  I missed them and all, but only because the wound was fresh.  I’d get over it eventually.  Frank still
mourned
his mother, and she’d died when he was a kid.

It wasn’t that he was a raging mamma’s boy, or had some sort of Oedipus complex, she was just all he had.  They were best friends.  More than that.  She was literally the only person he knew.  When she died, his world crumbled.

We never took any pictures,” he said, the color of his face gradually returning to normal.

“Do you look like her?”

“I did, when I was younger.”

“Is that why you don’t like your face?” I asked.  He’d opened himself up to that one.  But I’d always figured it was something like that.  He’d been so traumatized during childhood that I was amazed he was as well adjusted as he was.  All he’d told me about her death was that it had fucked him up enough to make him stop speaking entirely for two years.  I knew better than to press him on that matter.  He found strength in silence, wielding it like a weapon when needed, and I didn’t want to ever upset him enough to make him stop talking to me.

That had contributed greatly to why I’d thought he was mute.  Charlie had been receiving the silent treatment before I even showed up, so it was no wonder it took weeks to hear his voice.  As it was, the two of them were still barely speaking to each other, though Frank insisted this was normal.  They’d been pissed at one another for at least five months out of the year since they met.

Frank shrugged.  Bad question.

“Well, I think you’re lovely,” I told him, and kissed him on the cheek.  Then I changed the subject to ease his tension.  “Thank you so much for this.  You really didn’t have to.”

“Vincent, I…” He ran his hand through his wet hair.  Fuck he was sexy when he was disheveled.  “You’re seventeen now.  You’re no longer a child.”

“I wasn’t a child when we met, Frank.”

“In age you were.  Look, I’ve thought about this…a lot…if you want to learn I have no business saying no.”

I watched him closely.  Clearly, he was still thinking about it, but he’d made his decision.  “Were you seventeen when you started?”

“Professionally, yes.”

“But you’d killed before,” I said.  That didn’t surprise me, though I couldn’t picture him as an awkward teenager despite how awkward he sometimes was as an adult.  “How old were you the first time?” I asked, as I had many times.

This time he answered.  “Twelve.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.  I didn’t know how to react to a statement like that.  “Shit,” I whispered, unable to think of anything else to say.  “I don’t suppose they count age differently in French?”

Frank smirked.  That was a fucking relief.  I wasn’t expecting to see anything short of a scowl for at least another hour.  When Frank was upset about something, he could freeze water just by looking at it.  “No.”

“Did you shoot someone?  I mean, I
wanted
to shoot people when I was twelve, especially Bobby Wilson, he was my first kiss and he stopped speaking to me when we were about eight, that was after the kiss, obviously, but when we got a little older he started beating me up and I would’ve liked to shoot him just for being a dickhead but―”

Frank put his hand over my mouth.  “Shh.”

“Sorry,” I sighed.  “Fuck, Frank, twelve?”

“I didn’t shoot him,” he said, as if that made it any easier to comprehend.  I could imagine a twelve-year-old shooting someone, but short of that, how could a kid be capable of murder?

“Was it an accident?” I asked, although I couldn’t say why.  If it hadn’t been on purpose, Frank wouldn’t have counted it.

“He killed my mother,” he said, his eyes growing dark.  I would’ve willingly let him change the subject, but somehow I felt this was part of my lesson.  Like understanding that he was ordinary once upon a time would help keep me untainted by the blood I’d soon be shedding.  “I crushed his skull with a pipe, the same as he’d done to her, and I cut him into pieces with a paring knife.  It took fucking forever.”

I stared at him.  He’d done this before, back in Chicago after Charlie had asked him to kill me.  He’d tried to frighten me away from him.  He was going for shock or disgust because threatening my life hadn’t worked.  But I wasn’t disgusted.  Not with him.  And I wasn’t going anywhere.  I wanted him to train me as much as before.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” I said, and then I got up and went to his duffel bag.  He watched me, his expression a tragic mix of victory and helplessness.  But I wasn’t after a change of clothes, something warmer to wear while I ran for my life.  I grabbed my hundred thousand dollars and brought it back to him, dropping it in his lap.  “Here.  You don’t work for free.”

For just a second he flinched, his jaw clenching as he looked at me and not the money.  The last time I’d refuted his attempt to push me away, he’d gotten angry with me.  This time he had more at stake.  He’d reopened an old wound and his plan had backfired, leaving him vulnerable in my presence instead of vulnerable and alone.

Having Frank trust me with his secrets made me feel even more protective of him.  It was funny, because he had that effect on other people as well.  Any information, regardless of how classified, could make a person want to take care of him.  I’d once seen a waitress old enough to be his grandmother get this gooey look on her face like she was ready to adopt him, simply because he told her that he only drank his coffee black.  Frank was, of course, oblivious.  He probably could’ve guessed with ninety-nine percent accuracy how many cats she owned just by looking at her, but when it came to someone having a positive perception of
him
, he was clueless.