Target 84 (2 page)

“I think I'll always be good news for people who love bad news. It's my fate...” – “Bad News,” Misser

“That's not the way this works,” Clint Douglas, my boss, grunts at me while digging through paperwork piled high on his desk. His salt-and-pepper hair is shaved down to just stubble to try and hide the fact that he’s balding. It’s not working. It looks like he has a tiny bowling ball head now.

“It is tonight. This isn't my first time at the rodeo,” I say.

“I have good news for you,” Clint starts. The lines at the corners of his eyes make him look friendlier than he is.

“What'd I do now?” I say with a smirk. Clint pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose and studies me. He hates my flippant attitude. I don’t blame him. I’m not exactly good at “going by the book,” but I am good at my job overall.

“I already told the task force you'd assist them,” he says, pushing papers around again.

“Why'd you go and do that? Seeing as I'm still undercover I hardly think I'll have time for that,” I clip angrily.

“You're pulled from the Serpentine case. You have more useful ties to this one,” he informs me without regard for my opinion on the matter.

“Explain. I’ve busted my balls to get where I am in that case,” I grind out. I’ve put in six months undercover. I’ve risked my neck time and time again to finally put a big-time arms dealer behind bars. “We’re so close, pulling me now will kill the case,” I state. I like to see things through.

“Dominic Napoli has been approached with a lucrative business offer to open a slew of new clubs by Torren Delanti. The chatter is that this is a front allowing Delanti to ship and store smuggled guns all over the U.S. We've instructed Dominic to take the deal.”

“How am I helpful?” I ask, confused.

“Pepper Philips works for Dominic. Sawyer Crown is the father of Dominic’s stepdaughter. Anything sounding a little too coincidental to you?” He looks up from his cluttered desk. His words roll around in my head.

Pepper. Pepper. Pepper. Stuck in yet the middle of something else she should have never been a part of.

“Fuck,” I growl, suddenly feeling very territorial over someone who’s no longer in my life. This is not good. If shit goes bad it could mean Delanti going after Napoli’s family in some way, which would kill Pepper. Or this whole thing could be
about
Pepper herself. If Delanti knows Pepper works for Napoli, this could be a set-up. I scratch the stubble on my cheek, thoroughly irritated now.

“Ah. He does have a brain,” Clint replies smugly. “I’ll have the rest of the details tomorrow. Swing by then.” He waves his hand, dismissing me as he dives back into his piles of paperwork.

“See you tomorrow,” I call over my shoulder as I step over a pile of file folders near the door. Clint grunts his response.

As I’m leaving the building, a feeling of being watched grips me. I discreetly take in my surroundings while heading for my truck. Nothing unusual. Still, the feeling lingers. I hop in and lean back against the headrest. When will Pepper ever be out of harm’s way? Guilt washes over me. I shouldn’t have kept who I was a secret from her in Arkansas. Everything could have been so different if I had played my cards better. She could be safely tucked away with Cane somewhere.

Now, though, if something happened to her, a world of people would be left behind in her wake. Her fiancé, his daughter, friends. As much as catching the guilty--the deserving--thrills me, it seems that with those kinds of people come the innocent, too. It’s always the innocent who are left to pick up the wreckage of the effected lives afterwards. The innocent carry the burden silently with them forever. I run a hand over my face and let out a groan of irritation. I’ll need to fly to Christiansburg this week to meet with the Napolis and to bring Pepper up to speed.

I turn the key in the ignition. My truck rumbles to life beneath me. Humans. We like to think we can solve things. Doing something feels better than doing
nothing
. Life feels insufficient because there isn’t a damn thing we can do to change the horrible truths of the world. The world is not a Rubik’s cube to solve.

What a fucking mess.

In thirty minutes I’ll be home. Not that it’s a home, really. It’s a vacant house that I crash in. I drink beer, eat shitty take-out food, and watch TV there. It does not feel like a
home
in the traditional meaning.

It’s quiet. Always silent. Haunted by the ghosts that live inside me.

The blaring sound of the TV never seems to truly drown out the resounding silence that follows me. Silence. I had believed when I left school the deafening silence would magically go away. I was young and foolish, though. I associated the emptiness and silence with the school and neglected to realize it was
inside
me from being there. My guilt over my choice to leave behind a friend has never receded. Counseling’s been brought up before, but I’m just not a counseling type of guy.

It had dulled when I was with Magnolia. Yet still it was there. My ex-wife, Rachel, didn't make it go away. I thought Magnolia--Pepper now--would be the one to cure it, to bring my monochromatic world back into full color. I should have known better. The ghosts of my past don’t have cures. The sins I’ve committed will never be forgiven. They crawl inside me like worms, writhing in the dirt of my soul.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I pull the blade across his throat in a quick, precise motion. “Please forgive me.” I shiver. Not at the sight of the blood spilling from his neck but because the sight of it doesn’t faze me. It should. I know that. His body slumps to the side. Dead.

I inhale a deep, calming breath and rummage through his pocket for his wallet. License and Social Security card, jackpot. James Benny. Sixteen. Perfect. It’s a shame I can’t take the car but it would be a dead giveaway. I tuck his wallet into my pants. Yanking off his sneakers, I check the size. They’ll do. I slide them on and carry mine with me as I walk away from the car. I’ll need to burn mine. I’m slightly giddy that everything went so easily. The planning was painstakingly slow. I have what I need to create someone else. Names, names, something similar but different. Bentley. Bentley James is a fine name. Just enough of a change to keep me hidden for a while longer. I hum my mother’s tune as I walk away from the sins I’ve just committed.

Sometimes I still have moments where I wonder if I should go back to the woods, to the shack, and live like a feral animal once more. I wonder if I’d be happier there. No social graces, no work, no silence. Just another monster on the prowl.

The woods are full of noise if you listen carefully. Nature never sleeps. Something is always awake with you. I’ve wondered over the years if my own irrevocably changed life could somehow be redeemed if I could just find the right combination of things. Money, power, love, a good hobby. That somehow I’d solve the puzzle to my lingering silence and fit into society as if the atrocities of my youth never happened.

“They wept tears in blood, black blood of pain. They wept tears of love, love insane” ASHES – “AND THE ANGELS WEPT”

Sweat drips down my cleavage. Hoot stares. He looks like one of those cartoon dogs with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting. I ignore him. Pepper’s jab is quick and catches me square in the jaw. Shit. That hurt.
Bitch
. I growl and lunge at her. We go down, one on top of the other, onto the mat. She stares up at me and starts laughing. Those damn eyes. Caramel and warm. A direct shot straight to the soul. My eyes, on the other hand, are impenetrable, blue icicles. Critical eyes. Always taking things in. Judging, gauging the situation. She nudges my chest from underneath me. I look down.

“You bitch,” I snarl in good humor.

“You were distracted!” she says and laughs, bringing me back to the real world. I sigh and smile at her. She’s right. I was. I push up off the mat and Pepper and offer a hand out to her. She takes it and I pull her up.

“Again,” she quips and takes a step back. And so it begins. I’ve never met anyone like Pepper before. She’s the closest thing to real friend that I have. It’s pathetic actually. She knows almost nothing about me. That’s my own fault. I keep the whole truth on the inside. I share nothing but half-truths with the people in my world.

My first kill was at sixteen. One might think that’s young but I'd been trained for years before I was allowed to execute a human target on my own. I won’t ever forget him. Jackson Manning was testifying in a human trafficking case and someone didn’t want him to be heard. They’d contacted Dee to hire a professional to make him disappear. I’d learned all that
after
the kill. I’d only been awarded the pleasure because unlike many of our targets he wasn't a dangerous man. He hadn't been trained to defend himself so it was unlikely I’d be hurt during the job.

He’d cried. I’d found that odd at the time. He didn’t fight back; he just cried and asked why before his eyes went from lifelike to lifeless. I'd been sloppy and careless but excited, and, if I'm honest, a little excited. I’d found myself rather curious, staring at his unmoving body. How much did it hurt when I executed him? What were his last impressions? Was he introspective? Rage filled? Is there a more efficient way to end someone’s life?

Strange, sick thoughts for a sixteen-year-old girl to have. I suppose that was a result of my years of conditioning. Dee had had to come in and clean up the mess I’d made. I’d been scolded but it didn’t matter. I’d had a taste of the real thing and I thirsted for more. My desire, my obsession, took on a new form that day. It wasn’t a goal I was working towards anymore, it was tangible then. It was my life. I was meant to succeed. I
had
to. Survival is a powerful motivator.

Sawyer arrives to pick up Pepper while we’re mid-spar. He tries to keep a conversation with Hoot going but can’t tear his eyes from my friend. The way he looks at her can only be described as adoring. It’s sweet actually, if you like sweet. Sometimes I have this nagging feeling that I’m missing out on certain aspects of life, that my
upbringing
stole my chances of having any semblance of normality in my life. Then I remember my seven-digit bank account and realize that in a few more hits I will be able to retire and not ever worry about money. I will have my normalcy then. For now I concentrate, focus, and wait for my next assignment.

Sawyer had something planned for Pepper so we skipped our normal routine of grabbing a drink after our workout. I used the afternoon to drop clothes at the dry cleaners, pick up some groceries, check my ever-growing bank account, and clean the apartment.
Riveting
, I know. Mostly my days are fairly boring, filled with menial tasks that pass the time. Reading, drinking, and working out help with the monotony while I wait for my next target.

The TV in my living room is set to the news. The anchorman natters on about business, which I ignore as I prepare an early dinner. My apartment in Christiansburg is cozy, the top floor of a typical two-family home. I’d rented it two days after meeting Pepper. Something about her put me at ease. I’d wanted to stay near her. She had a sadness, too, deep down—it seemed to be a part of her, always, yet her warmth and softness was comforting. I imagine it's what a mother feels like.

I open the kitchen window to let out some of the steam as my soup warms. Besides the television, there isn’t a single light source on in the apartment.

The dark is a quiet place. A place I’m intimately acquainted with.

Shutting the burner off, I get lost in the steam billowing off the liquid in the pot. I stare at it, in a trance, wondering how it would feel to just be free.

The door opens just after the first light of day has started to light up my room. I can see things more clearly now. My bed is plain and the blankets and pillow are thin.

“Up!” a shrill voice commands.

It startles me. I roll to face the door. A slender woman who looks like my third grade teacher last year stands in the doorway. She looks a lot meaner than Ms. DeMarcus, though. Her hair is pulled back from her face really tightly in a bun. Her eyes are dark brown. I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and sit up. My feet hit the cold floor and I scoot them back up into the air.

“You’ll find clothes in the closet as well as a brush, hair ties, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. Your hair is to be up and out of your face at all times. You have five minutes to meet me in the hall. Wait to the side of your door.”

The lady turns and leaves. I hear another door open just down from mine. I leap out of bed, scramble to the closet, and tug the heavy door open. I’ve never seen rooms that have such high ceilings before. Our trailer didn’t look anything like this place. The walls were thin and you could hear everything happening in the house. If I jumped on my bed just right, my head almost touched the ceiling. Not here.

Grabbing the packet on the bare shelf, I turn in a semicircle. There is a toilet and a sink opposite my bed. No walls surrounding them, just part of the room. I think this is what Uncle Joe said his room was like when he had to go away to prison. Mama had cried a lot. Oh God. Am I in jail? I want to be free.

I scrub my teeth quickly even though the water is only barely cool and it’s cloudy. I leave my toothbrush on the ledge of the sink and drag the plastic comb through my snarly knots. It takes me three tries to get my hair into a ponytail. Mama always does my hair for me. It looks messy and lumpy when I do it.

Returning to the closet, I see only a pair of sneakers, two pairs of short socks, two pairs of underpants, and two outfits. One is a skirt-and-shirt uniform and the other is army pants and a tee shirt. Which one am I supposed to wear? I grab the uniform and hope that I’ve chosen correctly.

I tug on the socks and jam my feet into the sneakers. They pinch a little but everything else seems to fit fine. I think the clothes are even new. They don’t smell like my clothes at home did and they don’t have any tears or holes in them. I stand outside my door against the wall and wait.

Snapping out of my trance, I pour my soup into a bowl and grab another bowl with my dessert--popcorn and tamales mixed together--and sink into the couch. Flicking through the channels, I stop on
Definitely, Maybe
and let myself indulge in someone else’s fictional love story.