The Hitman: Dirty Rotters (14 page)

“
One moment,” she said. Her
attitude had changed considerably. She was afraid. Her hands were
trembling. She kept looking at my jacket pocket.

Andrik.

I stared at the door to my right. Any
second it was going to open, and when it did, the gun was coming
out and I was going through the door. There was no turning back
now. This was it.

Pamela.

My grip tightened around the handle. I
breathed in nice and slow. Steady. Calm. Waiting. Watching. I
wasn’t tired. I was alert and ready.

The door behind me opened
suddenly.

I turned quickly. Panic must have
washed the intense look right off my face. A tall, lean Russian
woman was staring back at me. Hard. I could feel her gaze slice
through my head.

“
Anna…” the doll gasped.
She looked apologetic. Fearful.

Anna cut her short by a single
dismissive wave. A silencing motion. That’s enough. Say no
more.

“
Come with me,” she
demanded to me. Her breathing was quick. She must have rushed in to
deal with me.

She brushed past me, making no attempt
at all to move in a polite manner. She was all business. She walked
to the door and pressed a series of numbers on the lock pad, then
she opened the door.

I gave the Russian doll a look, then
followed the other. She was taller than me, straight and narrow.
She was in a business suit, black with red pin stripes. A good
look. And after looking at the melted crayon behind the desk, she
wasn’t hard on the eyes. Her black hair shimmered, as if it were
silk threads.

“
This way,” she said
again.

She held the door open for me and I
passed through it into a hallway full of closed doors and other
corridors. Offices. Important people behind doors making big
decisions. Smart, well-educated people running a business. I’d be
in the kitchen washing dishes.

“
Andrik sent you?” she said
as she walked. A bitter tone. A forced smile.

I nodded.

I kept her pace, her long legs made me
walk with more of a stride than I was used to. She looked me up and
down, decisions being made. Probably smart ones. She was most
likely better educated than I was. It was in her dark eyes. Get
past the suspicion, and there was a brain at work. She moved with
poise and confidence. Great posture, too.

“
Almost there.”

I kept quiet.

Simple.

We walked for a bit longer than I had
anticipated. We turned several times into other hallways, until
finally we headed for another stainless door. From ten yards away I
could see the numerical pad. On this side of the door there was no
camera though. I guessed there was on the other side.

“
You are a tall man.”
Another forced smile. Her eyes were not so friendly.

I kept quiet.

Anna reached the door and pressed a
series of numbers faster than I could follow, then yanked hard on
the door. It opened free, out into a small cemented area between
the two giant pole-barns. The stench was brutal. I held my breath
for long moments at a time. The sounds of giant machines at hard
work jammed into my ears. A man in a filthy uniform with a yellow
hard hat was directing a city garbage truck as it backed further
into the pole-barn, out of sight.

The look in Anna’s eyes could have
killed me.

“
This way,” she said. I
followed.

She led me to the building on the
right, to a small side door. No touch lock system. She put her hand
on the handle and looked me in the eyes. “Are you a
cop?”

“
No.” I said incredibly. It
caught me by surprise. I was beginning to become offended by the
suggestion. I made a mental note to buy a new jacket and get a
different hair style.

She looked at me as if she wasn’t
certain. Either way, she didn’t trust me, or like me. My hand held
the gun pointed at her in my jacket pocket the whole time. I didn’t
trust her either.

Anna looked at my pocket,
smirked, then stared into my eyes. The look said
good luck.

She opened the door and walked in. I
followed. We were in a small room full of maintenance tools. Dirty
brooms and shovels hung on the wall. Trash barrels and folded up
tables and chairs lined the walls, save for one. Maybe it was a
break room for the men working in the garbage. Just on the other
side of the wall I could hear the giant bulldozer hard at work. It
was loud. Painfully. I could have shot all nine bullets and no one
would have been the wiser.

Then it dawned on me.

“
Right this way,” Anna
said. I didn’t care for the tone. She knew something that I didn’t.
Something I was surely going to hate.

We were walking for another door when
I felt something hard jam into my back. I knew right away what it
was. I turned. A blond woman was pressing a hand gun into my back.
She was walking close to me. Her look was uncertain.

I turned back around. They had
me.

We reached the door and Anna opened
it. All three of us entered. I wondered then how many of us would
be exiting.

The room was dark. The woman behind me
hit a light switch. It was a small room. It smelled of must. The
cement floor was damp. Anna stood in front of me, the other behind
me. I didn’t feel the gun any longer, but I knew it was there,
pointed at me.

“
Who are you?” Anna
demanded. “Andrik should have known better!”

“
I just want-”

“
Zatknis!”

Shut up
is what she told me.

“
Take off your
coat!”

I did. I kept the gun in the pocket
though. I set it down on the cement. I saw a drain in the floor at
the center of the room. The room was very small. It wasn’t even
finished. The light bulb hung from the ceiling by the electrical
cord. There was no drywall. A few buckets here and there. A garden
hose wound up in the corner.

Then Anna had a sword. It was a long
and sharp Katana, shining in the dim light. It looked like it could
slice through a cinder block. I couldn’t think of where she had it.
Maybe it was in the room and she pulled it out when I set my coat
down. She motioned to my body with it.

“
The shirt too.”

I gave the blond a look first, then
off with the shirt too.

Anna motioned to my new jeans. “Down.
Shoes too.”

Another look to the blond with the
gun, then I obeyed. First my shoes, then my jeans. I stood between
two angry women in nothing but my new black boxer-briefs and brand
new white socks.

“
I’m not a cop,” I
reassured.

“
Too bad.” Anna smiled. She
set the Katana down and put her luxurious hair back in a ponytail.
“I am going to ask you questions. You get one wrong, you get one
cut.”

I understood. The sword. The drain.
The garden hose.

“
You’re making a mistake,
Anna.”

“
Working for Andrik makes
you have the mistake.”

She picked up the sword again. She
moved closer to me. The Katana would slice through me like a hot
knife through warm butter. If I thought I was fast enough I would
have dropped to the floor, pulled my gun out of my coat pocket and
fired a round before being decapitated. But I wasn’t fast. Plan B
was to talk my way out of it.

“
Put down the sword,
Anna.”

“
Andrik sent you to kill
me. He should have chosen better.” Anna was about two feet away, in
striking position. She knew the sword well. “I am more capable than
the pig thinks.”

“
I’m not here to kill you.
Put the sword down.”

Anna wasn’t the compromising type. I
wasn’t going to be able to talk her out of it. I decided on a new
plan. One that didn’t involve that sword turning me into spaghetti.
It was going to get ugly real quick.

I turned to the blond behind me. I
gave her a dry smile. I had planned on attacking her right then.
Kick the gun out of her hands and get it before that blade sliced
me up. Plus I’d rather be shot than sliced and diced. Lesser of two
evils, if you ask me. A bullet to the head and you don’t feel much.
But a sword cutting skin through flesh and bone stings, especially
if Anna is the type to take her time. A cut here, a cut there. I’ll
take a bullet over that any day.

I backed up slightly, shifting my
weight, preparing myself. I had to be quick. One shot was all I
would get. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Anna raise the sword
and prepare to come at me.

But the door burst open and another
blond entered. Her face was flush with concern.

“
Anna, wait!”

Anna pulled back, the sword inches
from my exposed neck. She looked like a wild beast. I never would
have made it out alive. My life would have poured out and been
washed down the drain.

All three of us turned to face the
newcomer. The other women stood down. The new one came right to me.
“I am sorry. I did not tell them yet.”

She turned to the others and spoke
quickly in Russian. I knew what she had said. And she was wrong. I
wasn’t the hitman they had hired. She was basing it on a photo she
was shown by Andrik of me inside the Corvette. But he had been
wrong. Then her. Now the other two.

Anna put away the Katana. She let her
hair down. She looked at me differently. The other blond put the
gun away. She had a worried look about her. I knew she had every
reason to wear it. I wasn’t the Hitman.

But I sure the hell was turning into
him.

The new woman turned to me. “I am
Palo. Nice to finally meet you.” she said. Her accent was heavy.
She was a pure-blooded Russian who probably had not lived in the
States for very long. “Please, put the clothes on.”

I did.

I think they could see my heart
pounding against my chest.

Palo wore a black business jacket,
short matching skirt, and high heels. Her blond hair was up in a
bun, very professional like. Her skin was milky white. It looked
odd against her dark clothing and the charcoal eye shadow. Her eyes
were large and alert and ocean blue. Her pouty lips were shaded a
vibrant pink just like her well-manicured fingernails. Her fingers
were thin, delicate. No rings. Palo gave me the impression that she
was a woman of wealth and taste. A woman whose taste was
wealth.

She was my age. Yet the look in her
eyes said she was far older than her years. And those years were
much, much harsher than mine. I stared at her.

“
Apologies, Mr. Hitman,”
Anna began, “we know better than to trust Andrik. Especially this
close to a pick-up date. You understand our concern. We trust no
one, Mr. Hitman.” She walked past me, still holding a bit of
suspicion in her dark eyes, and spoke in private to Palo before
walking out.

“
Understood.” I
said.

Palo turned to me. Her eyes were not
as penetrating as Anna’s. “I am so sorry. I did not plan for this
to happen. These are my friends, Anna and Ivana. We are as one in
this decision. I did not think I would see you so soon though. I
worry that maybe Andrik plans for us to be taken too. But we are
not on his list, correct?”

“
No. There were no
names.”

She paused, then smiled and said, “Let
us go inside and talk.”

Ivana, the silent blond, opened the
door and we left together in a line with Palo in front and me in
the middle. Back through the noise and stench. Past the brief open
sky and back into the office building. Palo led the way, choosing a
different route than what took us outside previously. We went into
a room with a desk against the wall and a small round table in the
center. Four chairs were circling it.

Palo motioned for me to sit. I did.
She sat beside me. Ivana sat directly across from me. The door
opened and Anna walked in, filling in the empty seat. She looked
somewhat relaxed.

A hell of a lot more than I
was.

“
Andrik told me what you do
to his collector. Good move for you. Makes him less suspicious.”
Palo said.

I felt my stomach churn. I swallowed
hard. I was going to let them fill me in on the details.

Keep it simple.

“
Andrik is very dangerous
man. He is devil, like The Bear. He makes the people obey him.” She
looked at Anna for a second, then down to her own smooth legs.
“There was another, before you. But The Bear defeated my killer.
Now they are suspicious. But I don’t wait. I find you next. I find
you before more girls are taken.”

I nodded. I understood. We were
allies. I could trust them. “Where is The Bear?”

“
He is out of town until
tomorrow,” Anna said. “We had planned on waiting until Saturday
when Vladimir arrives.”

The three women nodded in unison. I
followed.

Palo turned to me and stared into my
eyes for a long minute. She was reading me. She seemed to shrink
then, as if she were a young girl, a child wishing to be held.
Though she stiffened, her despair shifting into defiance, I could
detect a trace of fear in her voice. “Second thoughts,
Hitman?”