Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (23 page)

I practically skipped to the convenience store on the corner, buying him the largest cup of coffee they had and a dozen dying roses that smelled like old hotdogs.  Even the virtually blind Korean woman at the counter could see that I was desperate to get into someone’s pants, but then, why else would a place like that sell flowers?  They should’ve come with a complimentary box of condoms.

Frank was sitting on the bathroom counter when I got back to the hotel, keeping his feet dry while he shaved.  Our shower leaked all over the peeling linoleum whenever it was turned on.  There was no tub to take a bath, though there was enough water on the floor that I could’ve gone swimming.

He smiled widely when he saw the roses, nicking himself in the process.  In all the time I’d known him, he’d never gotten as much as razor burn.  I should’ve known he’d have a thing for flowers.

I tossed the bouquet into the empty ice bucket and took the razor from him.  I didn’t have a lot of experience with shaving.  Most of the men I’d been with would kick me out by morning, and my dad never really had to shave either, so I could look forward to a life of easy grooming.  If I ever stopped spending so much time on my hair, that is.

“Haven’t you done enough damage to my face?” he asked, though he let me proceed, his hand firmly around mine, guiding the blade in the areas that could cause the most damage until I got the hang of it.

“Did Charlie teach you to use this?” I asked.  I’d always been curious as to why he went through so much trouble when he could’ve bought a disposable razor and a can of shaving cream, but I was so fascinated watching him that I kept forgetting to bring it up.

“My father did,” he said.  He really must’ve trusted me to talk while I had a miniature guillotine against his jugular, but I didn’t have nearly as much faith in myself.  I pulled the blade away until he was completely still again.  “Thank you for the flowers.”

“You talk too much,” I teased, handing him his coffee and then hopping up on the counter beside him.  “I guess Charlie was right about me corrupting you.”

“How do you mean?” he asked, taking a sip and then proceeding to pay more attention to his roses than his coffee.

“I’ve turned you into a homosexual,” I lisped.

“You did no such thing.”

“You’re still attracted to women?” I asked.  I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t converted him.  I’d never been with any gay men before.  Only confused straight ones, and they tended to only like boys as a side dish.

“Some of them.”

“Like Bella?”

“Vincent, you’re beautiful and I adore you,” he said.  For not talking very much, he certainly had a way with words.  I enjoyed my verbal petting as much as a physical one.  “You have no need to be jealous of any woman, least of all Bella.  She’s practically my sister.”

“Why didn’t you say that before?” I pouted.  All the time I spent worrying about his unrequited love for her, and it was more platonic than our relationship.

“If you hadn’t noticed, I was trying to discourage your interest in me,” he said.  “You have to admit, you do come on a little strong.”

“Did you think I was being insincere?”

“I wasn’t sure what to think.  I’ve never met anyone like you.  You intimidated me.”

I laughed.  “
I
intimidated
you
? 
Me
?”

“You came out of nowhere, V.  I was completely caught off guard.  I wanted to hate you for turning everything upside down, but I couldn’t because it wasn’t your fault.”  He smiled bashfully and smelled his flowers.  “You know, I thought I was courting you.  Once you moved in with me.”

“Frank!  You did not!”

“I did.  And then you went off to shag someone else.”  He hit me with the flowers, using enough force for it to be somewhat painful, and nearly knock me off the counter.  Only Frank could manage that.  A bouquet was one of the things he’d pointed out as a potential murder weapon when we played scavenger hunts at roadside service stations.  Luckily these were too wilted, and the stems too weak to pierce through my eye sockets.

I could tell from his body language, and from getting hit with flowers, that I was in as much trouble as I’d been six months ago when the crime was originally committed.  I’d heard horror stories about a woman’s scorn.  Frank was worse.  To think he’d only given me the silent treatment for three hours.  I was lucky he hadn’t killed me.  “I wasn’t
shagging
anyone,” I said.  “Just blowjobs and stuff.”

Frank had gone back to caressing his flowers.  They were looking worse for the wear, and half the petals were in my lap.  “Stuff?” he asked with his head slightly cocked.

How could I explain the sort of twisted fantasies I’d had to play out to Frank?  Most of them I didn’t even understand myself.  Like being drenched in maple syrup and having acorns thrown at me by a guy wearing nothing but hiking boots.  “Nevermind,” I said. “My point is, it’s not like I’m the town bicycle.  Well, not really.  Just my mouth.”

“You lost me at ‘stuff.’”

I sighed.  “I’ve only shagged Mark.  Or he shagged
me. 
Anyway, you’re supposed to say fucked.  Or screwed.  Shagged is too British.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” he said.  He looked like he was about to be sick.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.  I know you get embarrassed.”

“I
meant
about Mark.  Jesus, Vincent, if I’d known you hadn’t been with anyone in that long…I was so rough with you!”

“You were perfect.   I told you that,” I said, hoping to stop the guilt before it caused permanent damage to his newfound self-esteem.  “You know my limits, Frank.  You would’ve stopped if you were hurting me.”

“It didn’t hurt?  Not even that last time?”

I shook my head.  That
last
time was the best time.  I got dizzy just thinking about it.  Frank was truly skilled in the fucking department, and highly patriotic, being that he had the Eiffel Tower in his pants.  Mark had nothing on him, even before Frank cut it off.

“Did you
sodomize
your girlfriend?” I asked.  Frank was already teaching me tons of fancy new words, like sodomy and fellatio and analingus, when I thought blowjob and butt-fucking were technical terms.  And he described everything so romantically, sharing my body and tasting me instead of just saying he wanted to fuck my brains out or eat my ass.  My favorite was
la petite morte
.  Little death.  Orgasms.  It was no wonder the French had such a reputation for seduction.  What he could do with his tongue alone was worth storming the beaches.  And that was without being able to breathe out of his nose.

“You bet your ass I did,” he laughed.

“Did she teach you how to do it the right way?   I mean, fingering me and stuff.”

“Stuff,” he smirked.  “No, she didn’t teach me.  She just laid there.  Apparently women aren’t too keen on anal sex.  That’s how I knew she was up to something.  She was too compliant.”

“I’ll
never
be too complaint,” I said, though I doubt if it gave him any reassurance.  “But you haven’t been with a guy before, right?”

“I’ve seen a lot of things, V.  I watch.”

“You watch people have sex?” I gasped.  That seemed so unlike the introverted Frank I knew.  I would think he’d close his eyes or run away when clothes started to come off, not bring out the popcorn.

“Occupational hazard.”

“Did you jerk off?” 

“No,” he scoffed.  “It wasn’t like that.  I never thought about sex at all until…well…”

“Is
that
why you take so many showers?” I asked.  Frank smiled, his ears the color of what was left of his roses.  “Why
are
you dressed, anyway?”

“Charlie called,” he said as he hopped off the counter.  Boy did that kill the mood.  “I have to take him to the airport.”

“To see your boss?”

“Yes,” he said, tenderly arranging the flowers in the ice bucket and filling it with water.

“He’s gonna take one look at you and know you got laid.  You’re glowing.”

Frank took my hand and pressed it to his lips.  Considering that my knuckles were bruised from punching him in the face, it should’ve come with the romantic gesture of the year award.  Or a restraining order.  “I’ll be back soon.  Behave yourself.”

“Don’t blow anyone while I’m gone, V,” I said.  He smacked me.  Hard.  “Ow! I was kidding!”

“That’s not funny.”

“I would never cheat on you, Frank,” I said, but the truth was that I didn’t know what I’d do if he wasn’t there and some stranger smiled at me, and that made me feel so incredibly worthless that I couldn’t even look at him.

“That wasn’t why I hit you.” He hugged me, his hips between my legs.  I tensed.  I knew exactly why he’d hit me, but having someone know the difference between my big fucking mouth and me talking shit out of insecurity was still taking some getting used to. And all this training was starting to pay off.  I’d picked up his razor without even realizing that I was feeling threatened.  “I trust you to take care of yourself when I’m not here to take care of you.  Okay?”

“Do you think they have room service?”

“I just said that I trusted you to take care of yourself, V.  How would eating in this place be taking care of yourself?”

I laughed.

He kissed the top of my head.  “Don’t blow anyone while I’m gone, V.”

“I won’t.”

“I know you won’t,” he said.  And I didn’t.  Of course, there wasn’t anyone
to
blow between our room and the vending machine, but you have to crawl before you can run, and two Snickers bars and a can of Diet Coke held me until Frank came home.  With breakfast.

I had narrowed it down to being punished for splashing him the day after my birthday, or for the time four and a half months ago when I put a smiley-face antenna ball on his car.  Either way, retribution was reached and breached about a hundred stairs ago.  “Tell me again why you’re mad at me,” I panted, my legs like Jell-O as I climbed yet another step.  My footsteps echoed off the cement of the stairwell.  Frank’s were silent.

“I’m not mad at you,” he laughed.  “Why would you think that?”

“I know Europe is a little behind the times, but here in America, we use elevators.”

“Elevators display where you’re headed,” he said spitefully, as if every elevator had been designed specifically to betray his location to his enemies.

“That’s why you press
every
button to throw them off the trail,” I said.

Frank pondered that for a bit.  There were times when the solution was so simple that he never even considered it.  Like turning his phone
off
when he didn’t want to hear from Charlie, instead of smashing it to pieces.  “I didn’t know you
could
press more than one.”

“Stick with me, kid.  I’m an expert at pressing buttons.”

“That you are,” he said, but he didn’t follow when I made a beeline to the exit.  “You climbed more stairs than this the night we left Chicago, V.  And you’d just been stabbed.”

“Yeah, but the night
before
we left Chicago I hadn’t had my feet behind my head for three hours.”

He smiled at me.  “Would you like me to carry you?”

“Yes,” I said, letting his eight thousand pound duffel bag fall to my feet.  I loved being in Frank’s arms.  It felt special, being that the only other people he ever picked up were dead.

“We’re almost there.  You can handle it,” he said, and continued up the stairs.  I sighed and lugged his bag back onto my shoulder.  Fucking me hadn’t converted our relationship status from non-friends, but at least he hesitated now before being mean to me.

“Where are we going anyway?” I asked.  Wherever we were going, I had a feeling we
weren’t
almost there.

“I need to get some cash.  I’m broke.”

“What are you talking about?” I scoffed.  We had so much cash that it was slowly pulling my shoulder out of the socket.  “We have plenty.”

“That’s yours.”

“I can lend you some, baby.  You want to buy a new dress?”

He stopped.

Adrenaline is a funny thing.  I forgot all about my rubbery legs and put a full flight of stairs between us.  Of course, going down was easier than going up, and now I’d have to go up them a second time.

Frank didn’t actually find it offensive to be called a girl.
 
He hadn’t even understood what I found demeaning about wearing a pink shirt until I spelled it out for him.  He just wasn’t governed by the same laws of nature as me.  He was completely secure with his feminine side.  He never tried to overcompensate for being a little prissy by ogling women’s tits or driving like a jerk to show how big his balls were.  And let’s face it, Frank
was
a little prissy.  He had no qualms about rubbing a perfume sample from a magazine on his wrist in front of everyone in the Laundromat if it smelled nice, and he used women’s shampoo.

But he wouldn’t hesitate to kick my ass for being cheeky, and besides, he was trying to break me of my habit of seeing femininity, and being effeminate, as a bad thing.  The first, and
last
time I’d said the word
fag
around him, I’d gotten my face slapped.  “Fags are cigarettes,” he’d said, and banished it from my vocabulary.

“I love you,” I said.  Those three words were the single most effective way to disarm him.  And they worked every time.  He picked up the bag and waited for me to return to his side, taking my hand in his.  If I’d said it in French, like he taught me, he’d be carrying me the rest of the way.  But we
were
close.

“Is there a bank here?” I asked as we exited the stairwell on the ninth floor.  The building was cold and unwelcoming, monochrome colors and rows of closed doors.  It felt like a bank, except without the candy dish on the manager’s desk, slowly making its way into my pockets while my mom pleaded against overdraft charges.

Frank pulled out a key.  “You live here?”

“No,” he said.  That was evident once the lights were switched on; bare walls, blinds that looked like they’d never been opened, cobwebs all over, and absolutely no furniture.  The apartment itself was exquisitely spacious, with hardwood floors and what had to have been great views of downtown.  I couldn’t imagine how much a place like this cost, and he was just letting it sit there while he stayed in fleabag motels.