Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (20 page)

“You’re not much competition,” he muttered distantly, and he sat on the bed without looking at me.  That was it.  He’d made me angrier than ever.  I punched him in the side of the head, and before I could even reflect on how much I’d hurt my knuckles, Frank had backhanded me to the floor.

It was a good, solid hit.  I saw stars.  He’d never smacked me that hard.  I held my face, and found myself smiling.  Frank was rubbing his skull, staring at me not out of rage, but out of pride.

“That’s better,” he said.  “Who taught you to hit like that?”

“You did,” I laughed.

He smiled.  “Did you hurt your hand?”

“A little,” I said, flexing my fist.  Now that I was developing a black eye, the pain in my hand was negligible.

He went and got me two icepacks anyway.  He normally carried a couple, the chemical kind you play with until they get cold, but he seemed to have upped his supply.  Along with cash, about two week’s worth of clothes, an economy size box of latex gloves, knives aplenty, and enough guns to properly arm a Texan, Frank kept a pretty impressive first aid kit in his oversized duffel bag.  Mostly it was bandages, though in keeping with his tough guy persona it contained a few miniature bottles of scotch for the pain as well.  But that was too conventional for a man like Frank.  He also had Dior foundation to cover up any facial damage, because “if a cop saw me looking like I’d been in a fight, they’d tail me until they found a body.”

I noticed that in addition to increased medical supplies, his cosmetic collection had grown by another shade: Ivory.  He’d have to give me more than a black eye if he thought I was wearing makeup, though I readily accepted the icepack.

“How’d you learn all this, Frank?”

“Practice,” he said.

“Who’d you practice on?” I asked.

“Anyone who was around,” he handed me the ivory foundation.  “You will wear this every time you leave the hotel until that heals.”

“Anyone?” I prompted.  If I had to wear makeup to get my way, I wanted every detail of this story.

“When I was younger, around your age, I never slept.  It was worse than it is now.  I’d wander about all night long by myself, in the worst neighborhoods, and the people there are animals.  Being awake for so long leaves you numb.  I wasn’t frightened of them, and I wasn’t afraid to die.  They would attack me, and I would defend myself.  Sometimes I’d get hurt, and other times I’d hurt them.”

“When did you stop?”

“I didn’t. 
They
stopped,” he laughed.  “I think I’m taller now.”

“And you carry guns.”

“That, too.”

“I’ve always been so afraid of going out alone at night.  If I got kicked out after dark, I’d hang around in diners and twenty-four hour drugstores until someone felt sorry for me and took me home.”

“Well, you have a sense of self-preservation that I never had, V.  You’re a survivor.  I think that’s what Charlie saw in you.”

“Not that I could kill?”

“That you
would
kill, if needed.”

“What do you suppose he saw in you?”

He smiled bitterly.  “That I was tractable.”

“No, you’re just loyal.  You’d die for him.”

“He thinks I would.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I almost did, once.  I’d killed a woman in Prague, robbed her, for Charlie.  It turned out that the woman had a professional hit out on her, and I made quite the mess of things for them.

“Charlie had pawned her rings, and the people I now work for tracked him down.  My boss, Silva, decided I might be worth his time, and waited for me to come rescue him.  His men gave me the worst beating of my life.  Nearly killed me. 
Silva
offered me a job.  And I said I’d only work for him if Charlie was my handler, so he spared him.  Now he’s responsible for his own life.”

“He doesn’t deserve your loyalty,” I said, trying not to sound as jealous as I felt.  And now for the sixty-four thousand dollar question: “Would you do all that for me?”

“Silva would’ve returned you to me willingly.  You talk too fucking much.”

I came pretty close to hitting him, and even closer to having my nose broken when I landed face down on the carpet.  Frank set his boot under my ribs and lightly kicked me onto my back.

“When they took Charlie from me, I considered it my duty to retrieve him, and I did, without causing considerable harm to his abductors.  Now, if someone were to take
you,
” he paused, the way adults do when a kid walks into the room and is in danger of overhearing a discussion not suitable for children.  Then he smiled and helped me up.  “I’m very fond of you, Vincent.”

“You’d die for me?”

“Slowly.”

“But we’re not friends.”

“We
are
friends,” he grumbled.  “I was making a point.  It just means that I’m not going to say I’m sorry for hitting you, even though I will be.”

“Are you gonna hit me some more tonight?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Can I take a bath first?”

“Want me to run it for you?”

“Always.”

“We need to work on anatomy,” he said as he filled the tub.  I could have pushed him in, shown him what I’d learned thus far, but I knew it would freak him out.  Water was his enemy. He didn’t even trust puddles.

“I like anatomy.”

“Do you remember where you stabbed your man?”

“In the kitchen,” I said, hopping in the tub.  Frank could run a hell of a bath.  It was about one degree and some chopped veggies short of Vincent stew.  All this fighting was really giving me an appetite.

He smiled.  “That is very true.”

“I remember where he stabbed
me
,”
I said, playing with my scar.  I used to see scars as flaws.  Not anymore.  Mine weren’t sexy like Frank’s, but I was fond of them nonetheless.  Especially the one from being stabbed.  The skin was raised and smooth, and whiter than the rest of me, a reminder of how I’d nearly died, only to be given a new life.  But even though my knife scar was one of my favorite features, I didn’t like anyone except for Frank to see it.  It felt sacred because he’d been the one to patch me up.

Frank knelt by the tub, placing the heel of his hand below my ribs, like I’d seen them do on TV when someone wasn’t breathing.  I debated holding my head under the water to see if he’d complete the exercise and give me mouth to mouth.

“Was that good?”

“Apparently,” he said dryly.  “That’s your diaphragm.  If you
hit
someone hard enough in the diaphragm, you could kill them.”

“How close did he come to killing me?”

He moved his hand across my stomach, drawing a little line to the right of my scar with his middle finger.  “That would’ve killed you.” Then he did the same just above it. “And that.”

“I really
was
lucky,” I said, flicking water on his hand.  Frank had such beautiful hands.  You wouldn’t think by looking at them that he used them as weapons.

“The French word for luck is the same as the English word
chance
.  Did you pull the knife out, or did he?”

“Me,” I admitted.  I could already hear him scolding me.

He ran his finger over the length of my scar.  I could feel it in my heart.  “If you had left it in, and you’d slipped or fallen in all that snow, if that knife had been nudged out of place even a little bit, you would never have made it to Charlie’s hotel.”

“You see?” I said excitedly.  “The TV said to leave it in.  That’s why I never do as I’m told.”

“If I tell you to leave the knife in, you had better do as you’re told.”

That took the smile off my face.  “You’re not gonna stab me, are you?”

“Not tonight.”

I splashed him, and I swear to God my life flashed before my eyes.  It was a wonder that Frank’s victims didn’t jump off buildings or swallow bullets at the sheer sight of him.  I was ready to drown myself to save him the trouble.  And save
me
the pain.  I had to sit up and bring my knees to my chest to hide my erection.

He stood and wiped off his face, then shook his wet hand at me.  “Finish your bath.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, watching him leave the room and knowing that maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but some day when I least expected it, Frank would hurt me very, very badly for what I’d done.  And under that threat, I had the best orgasm I’d had in years.

For nearly a month, we did the same thing day in and day out.  We started off with a morning run, had a couple of hours of driving lessons, and spent the rest of the day beating the shit out of each other.  Frank was right about it not being fun; I was sleep deprived, in a constant state of pain and discomfort, and I felt like I was living with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

If I stepped out of line for a second, let my attention wander away from what he was saying or even blinked at the wrong moment, he’d go off on me.  I was only allowed to speak when spoken to, which was the hardest part of my training so far, and if I so much as
looked
like I was enjoying myself during my anatomy lesson, locating bullet and knife-worthy organs over his clothes, he’d shove me away and threaten to call the whole thing off.

I’d never been more exhausted, but I was content.  We were together twenty-four hours a day, and even though he was deliberately cruel to me at times, he still showed me affection.  He’d carry me to bed if I was too sore to walk after we finished fighting, and he’d hold me while I slept, his hand protectively over my scar, a reminder of how fragile I once was.

During the day when we were at the hotel, the results of our hours of aggression were evident; I looked like a child being abused, and he looked like an opponent had somehow gotten a hit or two on him before he’d massacred them.  This was fairly accurate when I thought about it.  But whenever we went out, we’d get dolled up, covering all the scrapes and bruises with over-expensive designer foundation.

I no longer slipped off for quickies with strangers.  I would still look their way when I felt their eyes on me, and I’d smile out of habit, leading them on, but I’d never leave Frank’s side.  Having ten extra minutes that I could spend napping was worth foregoing a blowjob.  I couldn’t even stop myself from dozing off while he took his second shower of the morning, missing that blessed opportunity in lieu of a few precious moments to rest before my driving lessons.  How he was able to operate on less sleep than I was getting was beyond me.  Frank was constantly plagued by insomnia, and he functioned just fine.  I forgot my name when I dropped below the five hour mark.

Luckily for me, he knew my limits better than I did.  If I looked like I needed it, he’d
forget
to wake me when I conked out, or he’d purposefully incapacitate me during our hand to hand combat, so I’d have no choice but to take the night off.  We didn’t have a safety word.  I trusted him to know my breaking point, and never pass it.

We were on our third car since my birthday, the others banished to unsightly retirement, regardless of their perfect working condition thanks to yours truly.  Charlie had stopped taking Frank’s calls.  Working expenses, cars and guns and even the Dior foundation, came out of Charlie’s cut of the profits, not Frank’s.  And to make matters worse for the old man, it was almost tax time.

This was something he had to do every year; pay a visit to his supervisors in Eastern Europe and fork out their percentage of what Frank made.  They were the highest earners in the company, because Frank was the only one who didn’t stay put and wait for the jobs to come to him; living a normal life with utility bills and grocery shopping until the call came to kill somebody.  Charlie proactively sought jobs, meaning that not only did Frank work when Charlie wanted him to, but also when the boss was contacted by American clients directly.

This led to the occasional double booking, which his handler wasn’t supposed to allow.  But Charlie’s scheduling skills were lacking when there was money to be had, so Frank had been known to work two hits simultaneously, tailing mark X Monday through Wednesday and mark Z Thursday through Sunday, sometimes even killing them both on the same night.

It was nearly impossible for his supervisors to keep track of how many people Frank killed in a year, so they billed Charlie half a million dollars every fall, and unbeknownst to him, funneled most of it back into real estate for Frank, because his boss knew that Charlie didn’t pay him as large a take as he deserved.

There were jobs that Charlie charged the client several hundred thousand dollars for, only to give Frank his normal seventy grand, one hundred minus Charlie’s standard thirty percent.  My cut was to be half of Frank’s earnings, not to mention that I was still getting an allowance.  I didn’t even count it anymore.  I didn’t have the time.

“This one’s dead,” I said, letting the hood of Frank’s car fall down.  It nearly fell
off
.

Frank sneered and took out his phone.  “I need a new car,” he declared to someone I assumed
wasn’t
Charlie.  “Yes, I am aware that Charlie warned you not to give me one.  What does growing on trees have to do with anything?  No.  Fine.”  He hung up, and promptly threw his phone.  I caught it, the first time I’d ever caught a flying object in my life.  Then I handed it back, proud of my manliness.  “Stop grinning.  This is
your
fault.”

“
You
told me to crash it!” I scoffed.  It was okay to argue with him when we were outside.  There wasn’t anyone around, but he wouldn’t hit me if there was even a possibility of witnesses.  “Who’d you call?”

He glanced at his phone, sizing it up like it was an opponent.  “My boss doesn’t like leaving his people stranded.  Normally I only work with Charlie, but the U.S. is large so he keeps a few associates on retainer.”

“
Associates
,” I repeated.  I wondered if they were really kept on retainer because of the size of the U.S. and not because Frank could be so high maintenance.  “What are they like?”

“This one used to do what I do.”

“What
we
do,” I corrected.

“
I
do.”