The Hitman: Dirty Rotters (13 page)

I sat on the bed then and pictured a
set of six foot wings attached to my back.

A moment later, I tried to figure out
if they were black or white.

Chapter 10

Sally found a note.

She woke me up in the morning around
eight. She had cleaned off all traces of blood through the house
and had went out to wipe down the El Camino. There it was. A small
piece of white paper under the driver side wiper. Unusual as hell.
She was frantic. She ran inside and woke me right away. She spoke
quickly.

She handed me the note. It
read:

GET ME MY MONEY BY NOON OR
ELSE!

“
What is this?”

“
Someone was here last
night in my driveway. That creeps me out, Michael. Is there
anything that you haven’t told me?”

“
No. Nothing. I don’t know
who would do this.”

The handwriting was different than the
shopping list. This was a person who spoke English, who was well
practiced writing it. The letters were neat too. As if the person
took their time writing it. No hurry. It must have been written
someplace else, before the drive over here, I thought.

“
Give it to me,” Sally
said.

I handed her the note. “Maybe it was
intended for you? Do you have-”

“
It was you they wanted. It
has something to do with yesterday. I’m going to have someone check
it for prints. They’re not going to get away with this.” Sally
paced back and forth. “We’ll lift some prints and find out exactly
who was here last night.”

I thought about it for a few seconds.
I had very little interaction with people yesterday. One of them
was dead already. That left two others. And one of them had given
me the money. I ruled out Andrik right away. It wasn’t his style to
begin with. That left the hustler at the basketball court. None of
it made sense though. For all we knew, it could easily have been
just a prank.

“
Don’t think about it,” I
told her.

“
You have very dangerous
individuals believing that you are a hired hitman. This very well
ties into that. Maybe the hitman owed someone money. They saw you
with the Russians, followed you here. You have no idea what kind of
trouble you could be in. Think about what sort of person it takes
to be in association with Andrik and The Bear. Now think about how
many other types of scum this hitman would be dealing with.” She
looked fearful. But it was more than that. And it wasn’t for her.
It was for me. “So please do not tell me to not think about
it.”

“
You’re right, Sally. This
is serious.” And I knew it was. I could blow through life without a
care of what happened to me next, but I couldn’t do that to Sally.
She was just a friend trying to help. This business was mine and
mine alone. “I’ll take care of it, Sally.”

She didn’t seem to hear. Her eyes were
fixed on the note, staring through it to someplace else. “Prints
shouldn’t take that long. I can have them by the end of my shift.”
She turned to me. “In my bedroom there’s a gun cabinet. Just in
case.”

I nodded, meaning that I understood.
She said she had to go to work. She took the paper with her as she
walked out of the bedroom. I heard the front door slam shut, then
lock. I sat upright for a few minutes feeling vulnerable. I heard
Sally’s Hummer roar to life, then pass by the house traveling the
driveway to the street, leaving me alone, puzzled and slightly
paranoid.

Someone had followed me yesterday.
Someone was watching.

It bothered me.

Noon
.

I had about four hours
before anything was going to happen. And even if I did know who it
was, I still had no idea where I was going to meet with the other.
And I had no idea what
or else
meant. Was there more to this than I knew? Sally
was right about the ideas of the hitman’s lifestyle and his
associates. Hardcore types. Criminals and killers, no doubt.
Soulless Rotters preying on the helpless.

Rotters who had just met their
match.

I stretched my wings. Black
ones.

I got out of bed. I cooked eggs and
bacon and drank all the pulp free orange juice. I distracted
myself, if only for seconds at a time. There was much on my mind.
Angelo Garboni. Andrik. Ponytail. The note. The money. The other
note. Sally Rhode. Little B. Pamela.

Pamela
.

I sat at the table for a while after I
was finished eating and just listened to the silence. The note was
intended for me. For the hitman. Someone knew I was here. Knew my
car. Maybe even knew that I just ate eggs and bacon.

A quick shiver raced over me. Just the
thought of someone hiding someplace nearby watching me, waiting out
his time to end my life made me want to get away from the windows.
Sally’s house had plenty of windows.

I stood then. I was going to forget
the entire morning right then and there. Panic wasn’t going to take
root. The stupid note was not going to own me. It wasn’t going to
insert any fear in me, or any helpless feelings. I would deal with
the person when it was the right time.

Let the dead bury the
dead.

I got dressed. I began thinking right
away of my plan for The Bear.

Before I went to bed last night I knew
I was going after him. He was the man responsible for Pamela’s
murder in the first place. Probably many, many others. The
discovery of the shopping list sealed the deal. I wasn’t going to
let it slip by. I wasn’t going to play by the rules. I wasn’t a
cop. I was a hitman.

A Dirty Rotter.

And I wasn’t going to put Sally in a
bad position. I was going to keep her out of it. Keep her safely
behind. I left her a note on the table, set the envelope full of
cash in a safe place, and walked out the front door with a loaded
nine millimeter in my jacket pocket not knowing whether I was in
someone’s crosshairs or not.

I reached the El Camino SS alive. I
started it up. Still alive. I threw it in reverse and backed down
the drive to the road. I saw no one. If they were hiding, they were
doing a great job of it. I drove back to the old neighborhood. It
was in all likelihood the very last time I would be doing so. I
swept past the park, nearly empty that early, and kept on past
Little B’s old place without a glance to it. A few blocks later, I
turned left, heading right into the Red Square.

Russian territory.

I had never dared to venture
before.

And it was nothing like what I had
imagined. Nothing at all like the gruesome stories that flooded out
like spook stories for children.

The Red Square looked like it had been
plucked out of a fairytale. The town went from poor to rich in just
a block. It was amazing. Everything was clean. Houses were tall and
wide and immaculate, though most were painted in wild colors like a
rainbow fell and smothered the Square. But it was nice. It was
friendly. There was no litter. There were no gang members in
matching Adidas outfits squatting down playing dice or cards or
anything. No vagrants sharing cheap vodka with crows. Cars looked
new and expensive, all imports, all fast and flashy. Apartment
buildings looked like upscale New York high rises. Elegant, five
star restaurants on each block. The streets were made from old
bricks, which gave everything an old world feel to it. Costly, I
assumed. It was all money well spent. It was all very
unusual.

I remember Little B once told me that
they take care of their own. I knew what she meant right
away.

I found the address Sally gave me and
parked in front of the building. There were three buildings
altogether. All of them were a forest green color having the
universal recycling symbol on them. The one closest to the street
was a one story, probably just the main office branch full of
white-collar Russians. I could barely manage the image. It had a
series of tinted windows around it and a single door leading in and
out. Beyond it were two huge pole barns, towering above. This is
where the labor was done, no doubt. I could see glimpses of giant
bulldozers and dump trucks driving around, moving heaping piles of
plastics. The entire premises behind the front office building was
fenced off, ten foot high with razor wire dressing the top.
Somewhere around back would be a gate for the garbage trucks to
enter through, but other than that it was well sealed.

I took a deep breath. I was going to
barge in, find The Bear and drag him out at gun point, and make him
confess to everything.

Simple plan.

I liked everything simple.

Simple truth was though, I wasn’t
smart enough for anything else.

I stepped out of the El Camino. I kept
my right hand fixed around the gun stuffed inside my jacket pocket
and walked the sidewalk straight towards the front door. I kept a
normal pace. I wanted to look simple to everyone watching from
their offices. I kept my thoughts on Pamela, to ward off any
nervousness that should have crept in, any common sense that should
have sent me back the way I had come. A week ago this would have
been unmanageable. Unthinkable. My mind was a different ball game
now.

I reached the door and pulled it open.
I had planned on raising my gun at that point, storming in through
a small set of office spaces, finding someone who would grant me
access to where their boss was, and getting back out within a
matter of seconds. No one would challenge me. No one would be
expecting a gun barrel to the face. It was all going to go
smoothly.

Simple.

I stepped into a very small room and
saw a receptionist at her desk doing nothing. My right hand was
inside the pocket holding the gun where it remained. I was baffled
right then. She smiled in greeting and asked me who I was there to
see, but I said nothing. I was stunned. She looked like a Barbie.
One that a child had colored with a box of crayons and then stuck
into a microwave for a few seconds. Her lips were overly injected.
I pictured her plastic surgeon to be laughing hysterically while
standing on a bicycle tire pump jacking it up and down while
orderlies wrapped him in a strait jacket. She had straight platinum
blond hair that fell down onto the two balloons under her shirt,
and teeth so white it hurt to look at them. And skin so tight that
she was only allowed one facial expression: too happy.

Money well spent.

They take care of their
own.

“
Sir?” the Russian doll
asked again.

I snapped out of it in time to watch
her check me out and judge me on the spot. For a split second she
had a look of suspicion in her crystal blue eyes. She sensed that
all was not right. After all that plastic surgery, I assumed her
senses were finely tuned to things amiss.

“
I’m here to see the
owner,” I said quickly.

Her head cocked to the side like a
peacock. She gave me a look like I had just asked to see a
leprechaun—the one riding the unicorn. She held it together. She
played her role.

“
Appointment
time?”

“
No. I need to see him
right now.” I changed the tone in my voice. “It can’t
wait.”

“
Sir, what appointment time
did you say?”

I noticed the black cylinder object
over her head on the ceiling. I was being watched. The wall behind
her had a single door at the right. It had a small numerical pad on
the wall beside the handle. All stainless steel. Another camera was
mounted directly above it.

“
Sir what is the purpose of
your visit?”

So much for simple. I was getting
anxious. I rarely made good decisions while being anxious. I was
feeling the pressure. I was getting hot. Sweat began to race down
my back. It was taking too long.

“
Get me the owner right
now.”

“
Are you-”

“
Just do it!” I
growled.

“
Sir, relax, let me call my
manager and you can talk to her.” She stole a quick glance to my
right pocket, putting one and one together. Her movements were a
bit more conservative then. She didn’t want to get shot.

I looked into the black cover above
her. They were watching. She needed to act in a certain manner, I
knew. She needed to stall me. Either for them to call for help, or
for someone else to come and deal with me.

“
Andrik sent me,” I lied,
if only to speed things up a bit, if only to gain some sort of
trust. Andrik would have some pull here. His name would mean
something.

She recognized that name real quick. I
guessed that it chilled her to the bone, as she fumbled picking up
the phone. She was struggling to keep it together now. I guessed
that she had a run in with Andrik before and it wasn’t so
pleasant.

“
Just make it
happen.”

“
Hold on one
second.”

She picked up the phone and pressed a
single button. A second later and all she said was “Da,” and then
hung up. Not exactly unsuspicious. I looked back up to the hidden
camera.