Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (29 page)

I could tell that Frank was in a bad mood just by looking at his feet.  Charlie wasn’t with him, but I stayed hidden anyway.  Even though we were happily in love, I still didn’t want to mess with him when he was pissed off.

He tossed something on the mattress above me.  “I know you’re here, I can see your shoes.”

I glanced toward the wall, where one shoe had fallen to its death while Frank was manhandling me.  I wasn’t sure where the other one was.  “How’s Charlie?” I asked from under the bed.

Frank grumbled and sat down.

I crawled out and went to sit on his lap.  I knew how much he liked that.  “What’s wrong?”

“Our mark is a recluse,” he sighed dolefully.

“Not much to see there,” I said, understanding that his melancholy had nothing to do with how long he’d been forced to stay in Charlie’s company.

Frank didn’t have to put so much of his time and energy into most jobs.  There were some, mostly sniper shots from rooftops, that all he would’ve needed was a date, a place and a picture.  But he was a rarity among his peers.  He didn’t go for the quick and easy jobs, and not just because the money wasn’t as good.

More than anything, he liked the pursuit.  He would follow the hit, learning everything about them from where they liked to get their morning coffee to what brand of toothpaste they used, following them so long that he could practically be claimed as a dependent on their taxes.  When Frank was working, their lives were his.

He said that a lot of the time, he could do without the killing part altogether.  He’d be just as happy to be a paid stalker, and sometimes, when the person was exceptionally interesting, he would’ve liked to follow them for free.  But there were some jobs, the ones where the individual really deserved what they had coming to them, and hadn’t just pissed off the potential client.  Frank did get pleasure from ridding the world of them.

It was strange, but I could tell that part of him missed Ernest Goldman.  I wondered whether that was the real reason we moved around so much.  Frank could be very compulsive about things, and maybe after forming the habits of his marks, he’d keep haunting the area as if they could carry on their routine from the morgue.

“Charlie got all the information he could,” he said, and he pulled a very long list from the envelope on the bed.

For not being a real doctor, Charlie certainly had bad handwriting.  It was barely legible, sloppy and smeared, and there were stains from at least one greasy meal.  I read what I could, having Frank look at the words that were completely unrecognizable to my untrained eye.

It turned out that a good deal of it was written in French.  Charlie had known how disappointed Frank would be, and not only had he tried to make it up to him by lovingly butchering his native tongue, he’d gone back to the client to get as much information as possible.  There were things on that list that only close friends, or meticulous stalkers, would’ve known; his great grandparent’s names, his favorite foods, even when he lost his virginity.

“This was sweet of him,” I said, focusing on one line of data in the center of a brown coffee cup ring. 
Kid brother died, struck by car, siblings were close
.

“He knows how I feel about watching,” he said, lighting the last cigarette in his formerly full pack.

I set down the list and dumped the rest of the envelope onto the mattress.  The picture was an old one, a wedding photo with the bride trimmed out.  Our mark was wearing a white seventies style tuxedo that made me physically ill.  He had greasy hair and an even greasier mustache.  I flipped it over so I wouldn’t have to look at it again.  I’d seen enough.

The hundred dollar bills were not much newer, dated long before I was born.  They looked fake compared to design I was used to seeing, but the smell was genuine, and stale like it had been stashed in a mattress or buried in a basement.  This money hadn’t been near a bank since it was printed.  Mob money.

“How?” I asked, turning to Frank with a mischievous grin.  I could feel his cock stiffen under me as our game began.

“Violently,” he said, watching my eyes.  “The client wants him to feel it.  To know why we’re there.”

“Can I shoot him?” I asked.

“That remains to be seen,” he teased.

“
May
I shoot him?” I clarified.

“Yes, you may.”

I flashed him an angelic smile.  “And may I
kill
him?”

His ears glowed red and he nodded.  “Yes, you may kill him.”

I slid off his lap, kneeling between his legs.  “You were gone a long time.  I was worried.”

“Charlie grilled me about my sex life,” he said, leaning back on his elbows.  He liked to watch me while I sucked him off.  He was astounded by my lack of a gag reflex.

“What did you tell him?” I asked before pulling down his zipper with my teeth.

“To mind his own business.”

I licked the head of his cock, looking up at him to see all intelligent thought vanish from his face.  His eyes shut for just a second, like there wasn’t enough room left over from his huge dopey grin.  They flickered back open as I started to go lower, and I smiled at him from around his cock as I took his full length into my throat.

The sounds he made were exactly what I’d imagined when I believed him to be mute; guttural groans, sharp intakes of breath, a complete lack of words in any language.  It pleased me to no end to have this effect on him.

I lifted my head, slowly jerking him off as I asked, “Did you get a lap dance?”

“Eh?”

I froze mid-stroke to repeat myself, speaking slowly in case he’d forgotten English again.  It tended to escape him when his brain was otherwise occupied, and he always spoke French after he came, sometimes for several minutes like he’d blown a fuse.

He shook his head.  “Good,” I said, and finished him off, making him come in my hair because he got so uptight about getting me dirty, and it would force him to shower with me before we went to work.  I’d been too busy pacing to take my bath this morning.

Frank still woke up at four thirty, but now instead of getting out of bed he’d wake me up, have his way with me, and let me go back to sleep while he started his day.  I suspected that he
also
went back to sleep, but I had yet to catch him in the act.

“
Je t’aime
,” he mumbled.  His head had fallen limply to the mattress.  I could see that he’d nicked himself shaving again.  I wondered whether it was from a lack of concentration, or if the blade had gotten dull.  The leather strap he used to sharpen it had recently found its way out of the bathroom and into our bed.

“Am I gonna play bait again?” I asked, holding the list and loudly tapping the appropriate line of data to get his attention.

He lifted his head, blinked a few times, and closed his eyes.  “I don’t know yet.”

“When do we start?”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Frank said crankily, then smiled to show that my attempt at cheering him up had worked after all.  “Charlie says that he gets deliveries twice a month.  Never leaves the house.  There’s no rush.”

“Says you.  I’ve been bored for three hours.”

Frank raised his eyebrows, letting his eyes come open again.  “Did you clean the guns?”

“Yes,” I moped.  I spent more time cleaning them than I did shooting them, and
that
was saying something.  My hands were so sore from repeated firing that I could barely make fists.  It was incredible that Frank could shoot single handed, when his guns weighed almost twice as much as mine and had a kick that rivaled the beatings I used to get at school.  Now
Frank
had strong hands. “And I counted our money.  Twice.”

“You should’ve joined me and Charlie,” he joked.  Frank knew that I had no interest in women.  I hadn’t even taken to breastfeeding.  My poor mother had to bottle feed me from birth.

“Were they pretty?”

“One of them was,” he said, “but she was obviously new at it.  She danced like she was in a nightclub.  She actually moved to the music.  That’s a mistake a lot of them make.  Until they figure out that nobody’s listening.”

I smiled.  Insecurity came very easily to me, but Frank had a way of reminding me just how queer he was.  Nothing said homosexual like critiquing the dancing of a stripper.  I could imagine him mentioning it to Charlie, “Look at her technique, it’s completely amateur, and her g-string is positively the wrong color.”

We were prime examples of the age old debate: nature versus nurture.  I’d been brought up around muscle cars and crescent wrenches, and he’d been surrounded by neon lights and stilettos.  In all likelihood, I should’ve been straight as an arrow, and Frank would’ve ended up as a showgirl.  Yet, he was the top, if only in bed.  We both knew who wore the pants in the relationship, even though they were big on me because they were his.

“Show me what you do with Charlie,” I said.  “Show me what it’s like to have a handler.”

He smiled self-consciously.  He still wasn’t used to anyone being so interested in what he did for a living.  “Okay,” he said, rubbing his face for a second and then gesturing toward the table for me to have a seat.

We always got a room with a table and chairs.  He’d once had to use a miniature ironing board to clean his arsenal, and it was so crowded with all his guns that he vowed never again.  “You be me.”

I gave him my best Frank-like scowl, then put an unlit cigarette in my mouth and broodingly sat down.

“I don’t mean literally.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.  You be Charlie.”

Frank rolled his eyes.  “Fine.”

“Try not to be too convincing.  I don’t want to be repulsed.”

“Be good,” he said, tossing a dirty shirt over the lampshade so the room took on a seedy glow.

“Where does the naked lady stand?”

He pointed halfheartedly toward the bathroom and grabbed the envelope off the bed, hiding it in his coat before sitting down across from me.  He put a cigarette between his lips, not bothering to light it, and cleared his throat.  “Hey, kiddo.  You look like you got laid.”

“Did he really start right in on you like that?”

“Stick to character.”

“Mind your own business,” I said grouchily.  As an afterthought, I pinched my ears until the skin felt appropriately warm.

Frank smiled.  “You look happy as a pig in shit, Frankie boy.  What do you say you give me her number?”

“Ew!” I cringed. 

He winked at me, and started impatiently tapping the envelope against my knee.

I resumed my scowl and took it from him, opening it on my lap and glancing down at the contents I’d already seen.

“Don’t look.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, holding it back underneath the table.  “When do I look?”

“After we’ve chatted for a bit.  You’ll keep that as an excuse to start ignoring me when I’ve gotten too crass.”

“Can we skip to that part?”

“Sure.”

I peeked at the contents again.  “Do we talk about the job?”

“A bit.  I’ll tell you anything specific that you need to know about the client, who they are, what they want, that sort of thing.  Shall we?”

I nodded.  I’d already spoken too much to pass as Frank.  And he wasn’t speaking enough to be Charlie.  The old man talked almost as much as I did.

Frank instinctively looked around to make sure there was no one to overhear, then leaned closer to me across the table, turning his face away from the direction of the imaginary strippers.  I tilted my ear toward him and faced the bathroom, knowing that Frank would watch for eavesdroppers while his handler filled him in.

“The client is with an organized crime syndicate based out of New Jersey.  He and his brother did hard time awhile back.  Your mark had ratted them out, but before they went under he faked his own death, and no one suspected him.  The mark’s
widow
recently received a letter of apology from her un-deceased husband, confessing everything.  As of three months ago he was in Witness Protection, but luckily for us the feds gave him the boot for beating a hooker half to death.”

I made a face without meaning to.  I knew Frank must’ve seen me break character, but he didn’t say anything.

“The guy’s living in a desert fortress ten miles outside of town.  He knows what’ll happen to him if anyone finds him alive and well, and he’s scared shitless.  You’ll have a hard time getting in there, Frankie boy.  But that’s what the client wants.  Think you can handle it?”

“Of course I can handle it,” I said brusquely, knowing that getting defensive would’ve been his reaction.

Frank smiled.  “Good.  Tell him who sent you.  Make him regret squealing.”  Then he waved toward the bathroom.  “You got any cash on you, kiddo?  I’m broke.”

“Did you give him money?”

“Yes,” he said, reaching back and pulling the shirt off the lamp.  The room was still seedy, but I was so used to seeing the level of squalor by now that I hardly noticed.

“Is that how it normally goes?” I asked, taking the damp cigarette out of my mouth and letting it roll his way.  I knew this was an abbreviated, G-rated version.  There would’ve been dirty jokes that Frank wouldn’t repeat to me unless he didn’t understand them, and plenty of time spent ogling.

“More or less,” he said.  “Sometimes he gets it into his head that a particular job is dangerous, and he’ll tell me to be careful.”

“Did he say it this time?” I asked, trying not to let the thought concern me.  I didn’t want him to change his mind about letting me do the hit.  I’d hate to think how it would affect our sex life if he made me stay home.

“As a matter of fact he did,” he said, giving me a look like he knew exactly what I was thinking, and would take me by force if necessary.  Not that I could refuse him if my life depended on it.  “We’ll check out the
fortress
tonight, and I’ll decide how to play it.  If anything I can disable him for you.”

I smiled.  He was right; I did always get my way.

Frank smiled back, then gave me a slightly pitying look.  “You should
see
your hair.”

The mark lived pretty far off the beaten path, ten acres of barren land among hundreds that no one would want, lit up by several generators with enough electricity to run a third world country.  Giant orbs of light were suspended across house and yard like flies caught in a spider web on cables as thick as my arm, illuminating the night from every direction and effectively chasing away the stars in the sky as if we were in the middle of Manhattan instead of the desert.  All the windows were painted over, and there was a towering fence strung with razor wire encompassing the property, a mechanized gate with an intercom the only indication it wasn’t walled up permanently.  From what I could see with the scope of Frank’s rifle, at least two man-eating dogs guarded the place.  They were bigger than I was.