Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (33 page)

Along with his new outfit, and my wig, we’d also purchased a large suitcase that was just big enough for a very flexible or very dead woman.  Because she’d taken the bait in public, she had to disappear when we did.

Frank wheeled the suitcase to Jen’s car, since I was playing the part of Jen and it was only polite for the man to do the grunt work.  I followed him in my wig and her coat, trying to walk like I was in heels because she’d ruined her shoes before Frank could make me wear them.  Then I helped him maneuver the suitcase into the tiny trunk of her convertible, and gave him his car keys.

“Top up, V,” he said, single-handedly taking all the fun out of it.

He followed me out of town in his car.  I kept my eyes on him in the rearview mirror as much as possible, making sure he wasn’t swerving or losing speed.  He hadn’t looked in much of a condition to be driving at night, but by the time we got where we were going, he was doing just fine.

I threw my wig in the backseat of Jen’s car and got out.

Frank sat on his hood and drank what was left of the coffee pot he’d stolen from the room.  He didn’t offer to help me dig, because he knew I’d say no.  He looked trashed, and the last thing we needed was for him to make himself sick from overexertion.

“Did she hit on me?” he called out to the hole.

Poor thing.  He didn’t remember anything, and it was really freaking him out.  “A little.  You told her that you really like blondes!”

“That’s the truth,” he said, and I started smelling familiar cigarette smoke.  “You need help getting out?” he asked, walking over and peering six feet down at me.  The ground was just over my head, but I’d never refuse the offer of physical contact.  Especially not when he looked so unkempt.

I held out my hand and he pulled me up, then he brushed me off a bit and smiled around his cigarette.  “You’re filthy.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I said, and went to get the body.  We’d burn the suitcase in her car, along with her coat and shoes and my wig.  The earrings Frank decided to keep for a little while, because he thought they were pretty.

I dragged her across the dirt and dropped her clumsily into the hole.  Frank stood at my side, looking over my shoulder at the heap of Jennifer.  “She’s not really a blonde, is she?”

“Nope.”

He kicked some dirt in the hole as if the deception had been aimed at him.  “Fill it up.  This job is taking too long.”

I made a comment about him being the one to take a five hour nap, and found myself dangling precariously above Jennifer’s grave.  He held the back of my shirt, the only thing keeping me from falling face first onto the corpse.

“Don’t get lippy,” he said, and pulled me back.  “I’m going to take the car out a few miles to burn it.”  He had another cigarette in his mouth before he’d even turned away from me.  I shook my head and kept shoveling.

Frank let me do the driving on our way out of town.  He spent most of the trip with his eyes closed, though he did open them occasionally to admire Jennifer’s diamond earrings.  It was a wonder Charlie hadn’t figured out that he was gay; he took such pleasure in pretty things.

“My shoulder is killing me,” he said, rubbing the exact spot he’d fallen on.

I shrugged.  “Maybe Jen knocked you against something.  You are a bit awkward to carry.”

“You carried me?” he asked cunningly.

“No,” I said a little too quickly.

“I cannot believe you let me fall off the bed,” he scoffed, pretending to be more upset about it than he was.  He’d gotten worse injuries during sex.

“I’ll kiss it better as soon as we stop,” I promised.

Frank was fast asleep when we crossed state lines, his head tilted toward the window, Jennifer’s earrings shimmering in the moonlight between his fingers.  I brought my hand to my lips and gently placed it on his shoulder, wondering whether this was how he felt after a job where
I
played bait; invincible.  It wasn’t about money.  I’d killed someone who intended to harm the person I loved.  I’d protected him.

Part Three: Fate

The cover of darkness would’ve been welcome.  Even the smallest shadow, a storm cloud passing momentarily over the bright midmorning sun, would set the scene for what I was planning to do.  Deception wasn’t made for daylight.

I stood close to the door, my eye to the peephole, my hand on the knob.  Ready.

The windshield of Frank’s car caught the sunlight and momentarily blinded me as he backed out, as if punishing me for not being in bed where I should’ve been, where he’d left me, pretending to sleep.  He missed the pothole I always seemed to hit, and I found myself counting, giving him time to leave the parking lot, time to turn the corner so he wouldn’t see me go.

It had started as a thought, a spark in my mind that had quickly developed into an obsession.  I couldn’t think of anything else.  But doing something this extreme behind his back was a challenge.  We were inseparable, together every waking moment, and on the rare occasion when he wasn’t at my side, he was watching me, following me not out of distrust, but out of love.

As I snuck from our hotel, on my way to meet a man I’d barely met, to do something I never imagined I’d do, I knew Frank would be angry.  He hated surprises.

I had liked the look of the man the moment I saw him; strong build with kind eyes, and hair that would’ve been as dark as Frank’s when he was a younger man.  He’d struck me as honest, but not so honest that he wouldn’t accept two grand in cash under the ketchup smeared Formica table at McDonalds.

This was the closest I’d ever gotten to an illicit deal, and every bit of the setup screamed amateur.  It didn’t matter.  He’d never done this either.

One of the first things Frank taught me was that cash attracts suspicion.  But that didn’t make it an unwelcome source of payment.  After all, the government couldn’t tax what they couldn’t prove.

Frank never carried less than a couple grand, folded into the embrace of a sterling silver money clip.  It was good for bribery if needed, or dropping in a poor box when he was feeling a particular sense of guilt.  But I was uncomfortable carrying any more than a couple twenties.  I always feared I’d lose it.  Not that it couldn’t be easily replaced.

“You have it?” I asked, displaying confidence I didn’t feel.  I was nervous as hell sitting across from him, two thousand dollars in my pocket, a huge fiberglass Hamburglar at my side.  The location was the man’s idea.  It was walking distance from his work, and he’d taken his lunch break early to accommodate me.

“Of course,” he said with a smile.  My youth had surprised him.  So had my request.

He reached over the table and handed me the small box, careful to keep it hidden between our palms from the prying eyes of suburbanites with their junk-food loving families.  I brought it down to my lap to open it, the black velvet soft as rose petals against my fingers.

The ring had been beautiful in the man’s shop, white gold gleaming from under crystal clear glass, Frank’s name written all over it.  But having it in my hands, in that box, made it magnificent.

“This is perfect,” I sighed, emotionally overcome in front of a stranger, the smell of French fries replacing whatever breakfast substance had just stopped being served.  “Thank you.”

“Thank
you
,” he said, subtly reminding me of our deal.  I slipped him the cash, which he didn’t count.  He had absolute trust in me.  People usually did.

“If you would like it to be engraved, you know where to find me,” he added.

That wasn’t going to happen.  At least not in this town.  As it was, I should’ve gone black market, but I didn’t want Frank to wear a stolen ring.  It was too important.  I nodded anyway.

“Are you hungry?” he asked suddenly, as if I was a poor waif in need of someone to buy me lunch, and not a soon-to-be engaged young man wearing designer clothes with the tags cut out.

I laughed.  I’d known he was a dad the second I saw him.  He’d scolded me for wanting to get married so young before offering a compromise so I could pay in cash without being caught on a security camera.  But he hadn’t even blinked when I bought a man’s ring.  That made me want to invite him to the wedding.

We were in a town that had voted red for the last fifty years, where a person of color was someone with a good tan or the guy mowing the lawn, and the general population was as in denial about homosexuality as they were about poverty.  This man was obviously the exception to the rule, overcharging his customers not only because they could afford it, but because they deserved it.  I’d refused the discount he offered me.

“No thanks.  I need to watch my weight if I ever want to fit in my dress,” I said, and stood up.

He shrugged, half-standing to shake my hand and then sitting back down.  This was his lunch break, but I had a feeling he’d just sit there without eating and watch the rest of the diners until he had to go back to work.  I wondered whether he’d lost his children.  The way he looked at them, screeching while they fought over a miniature stuffed animal that would forever smell like chicken nuggets.  It spoke of heartbreak.  It probably would’ve made his day to feed me, but I had to get home.

I took my time walking back to the hotel, feeling secure with my hands in my pockets, holding the box and practicing what I’d say under my breath.  It didn’t feel so much like I was doing something I shouldn’t be now that I wasn’t carrying that much cash, but when I saw Frank’s car in the parking lot, I broke into a cold sweat.

He was sitting on his hood with a cigarette in his mouth, watching me approach with his eyebrows up, raised over the top of his sunglasses.  I felt so guilty I may as well have just been out sucking another man’s cock.  He knew something was up.  He had to.  Why else would he have that expression on his face?

“I went out to breakfast,” I said awkwardly, stopping a few feet from his car.  His meetings with Charlie usually lasted much longer than this.  I wasn’t expecting to have to face him so soon after I’d made my purchase.  Then I realized that he didn’t look accusing.  He looked sick.  “What’s wrong?”

Frank nodded toward the door.  I hoped he hadn’t been waiting for me very long.  He’d hold a grudge for weeks.  We went inside without speaking.  He handed me the envelope and slumped onto the bed, lying back and staring up at the ceiling.

I was afraid to look.  My eighteenth birthday was right around the corner, and I really didn’t want to lose our bet.  Or my life.  “Is it bad?”

He sighed.  If it was really bad, he would’ve been holding me.  Or getting me out of town as fast as he could drive.  But his silence was disconcerting.

I sat by his feet and dumped the contents onto the bed.  Cash. 
More than usual
.  Familiar photo of a middle-aged male client. 
Photos
.  I picked up the second one, a candid shot of a young brunette woman, smiling with her hair whipping around her face from a breeze frozen in time.  The candid photographs were always taken by Charlie, after he’d tracked down the victim for his grateful client.  Frank wasn’t sure how much he charged for the service, but he certainly never saw a dime of it.  “A double?”

He lit another cigarette.  I set them side by side.  The man was at least twenty years her senior, tan with light hair and a too-white smile, a Ken doll for baby boomers.  The woman had the familiar expression of someone in love with someone else’s husband.  Both photos had open water in the background, his stretched on forever behind him, sparkling and still, hers with a wooden dock leading to a huge white yacht,
Diane
written in gold lettering on the side.

I smiled, the faith in my survival restored as I began to comprehend Frank’s misery.  He wouldn’t even follow me to the beach, and I was his favorite quarry.  These people looked like they spent most of their time there.  For as much as Frank was going to get to see, they may as well have been as reclusive as the late Mr. Bianchi.  “Who’s Diane?”

“The mark’s wife.  Our client.”

I leafed through the stacks of cash.  New bills.  A lot of them.  Infidelity certainly was good for business.  “How?”

“Murder-suicide,” he pouted.  Then he closed his eyes and rolled onto his side, curling up in the universal shouldn’t-have-gotten-out-of-bed-today pose.  “On the yacht.”

I lay behind him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and bringing my knees against his.  There was no discussion as to who was the bottom in our relationship, and even if he was ever open to it, I wouldn’t be.  I didn’t see the point of having a boyfriend if I had to do all the work.  I was whole when he made love to me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  But it felt special to be behind him, holding him in a way I knew no one ever had, and having him trust me enough to do so.

“Am I right in assuming that Charlie’s unaware of your water issue?”

He didn’t bother answering.  Of course Charlie didn’t know.  Frank didn’t even like the fact that
I
knew.

“Teach me how to swim.”

With as many times as I’d offered, tried to tempt him toward the swimming pool with sexual promises of a newfound love for all things aquatic, Frank had always turned me down.  I could barely get him in the tub with me without sweet talking him for hours, spending a near fortune on bubble bath so he wouldn’t have to see the water.  If he thought I’d give in so easily now, he was mistaken.

“Tell me a story, Frank,” I said.  Over a year together, and I still had no idea what his phobia had stemmed from.  It was the one thing that still really haunted him, and he refused to tell me about it.

“Are you giving me an ultimatum?”

“I need to know what I’m up against.”

He grumbled, curling up tighter to move away from me.  “I nearly drowned when I was little.”

“Congratulations, sir, you’ve just earned treading water for beginners,” I said sarcastically.  “If you’re good, I might give in and teach you how to float.”

Frank said something in French that I was glad I didn’t understand.

I moved close to him again, entwining my fingers in his and resting my head between his shoulder blades.  He smelled like Charlie’s cigarettes.  Hanging out with his handler was the only time he seemed to pick up the scent, as if even smoke wanted nothing to do with the old man, and would cling to any passerby in an attempt to escape.