I reach the address and scan for any red flags. I hate aborting a job once I’ve started, but I don’t take unnecessary risks. Ever. No curtains move in any of the windows with sightlines on 1311 State Street. Everyone is watching TV or fucking. That or they’re not home. Either way, I’m good to go.
I take a closer look at the house. Number 1311 is a rundown bungalow. I guess you could call it white. It’s dingy gray now. It’s two decades overdue for a fresh coat of paint. The shutters are busted, and anyone with a putty knife could break into the house in a few seconds. A rusty El Camino with no wheels sits on cinder blocks in the weeds in the side yard. This is not a happy place. The roof is a mess. Dozens of the Spanish tiles are broken. The ridge is marked by two hefty bags duct-taped in place. Yeah, there’s not a lot of joy here.
Just get in. Do your thing and get out.
I remember this is my last job. I wonder if I ought to do something to commemorate the event.
Are you out of your mind? You’ve played it safe for eleven years, and now, on your last job, you want to change your routine?
That is true. I’ve always avoided risks. The idea of getting caught has zero appeal to me.
I will do this job just like all the others; no need to change things on my last day.
In twenty-three hours, I’ll be in Tijuana. I’m leaving and never coming back. No more Chicago winters, traffic, and crime for me. Ever. I’ll fuck and drink and swim in the ocean or walk on the beach. But there will be no schedule, no alarm clock, no secret meetings, and no dark web.
My stomach drops a few inches. There’s something wrong here, but I can’t identify what it is. I scrutinize the scene. It hits me with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the head.
It’s the house. It’s all wrong. For one, I’d bet every dollar I have that house is empty. I can feel it. Call it a professional’s instinct, call it what you will, but that house is empty. There’s no point in going in if I know it’s empty. Is there?
It’s a gray day. The neighborhood is a dingy dead end, a place where dreams come to die. The horizons are so close that I feel choked. The air is stale and steamy. If it gets any thicker, I will be biting the air to breathe. A dome of steel gray skies leaves me anxious and unsure of anything. Is the sun still up there? Somewhere? I don’t know. The cactus in the front yard looks washed out in the gray light. Even the grass looks gray. It’s like I’ve entered a sketch. Things look rendered, not alive or constructed. The house is full of sharp angles that remind me of a children’s drawing of a house. None of it feels real.
I slip into the shadows like an alligator into a swamp. I circle the house and make my way to the backyard. I use everything. A breeze blows. A set of brass pipes next door chime. I sync my steps to their rhythm and slip up the creaky back stairs in four fluid steps. A horn from the street gives me all the cover I need to step to and open the screen door.
Wedged between the screen door and the wooden door is an envelope. Just as I’d instructed. I take a quick peek inside. It looks to be my second payment of fifty-thousand dollars. I stash the envelope in my jacket and close the screen door. As if on cue, the crickets in the dusty, humid woods beyond the backyard fire up and cover any noise the screen door makes.
I slip down the stairs again and turn and consider the house again. It looks empty.
That’s because it is empty.
You don’t know that.
I have nothing in response to that.
So go check it out already.
But it’s empty.
You already said that.
For an instant, I am back in Afghanistan. There were kids there, too. I never enjoyed the work when it was a kid.
Who does that?
The fence that divides the backyard from the alley sits in shadows from the low-hanging branches. A single-car garage squats in the dim light. The door must be on the alley side.
How did I miss that?
I’m moving too quick. My groundwork for this job was sloppy.
My last job.
Do it. Go inside, do the deed, and get out of here.
I want to do that, but the deep shadows and the eerie cricket song draw me toward the little jungle of dim shadows by the alley. I need to see what’s in the garage. I get halfway across the yard when the crickets fall silent. They do that. Shy, I guess. I feel sweat rolling down my back.
I shouldn’t have worn black. I only wear black for the night jobs.
I’m acting like a rank beginner. Hell, I wasn’t this sloppy on my first job after the Marines.
Good thing it’s my last job.
A tour in Afghanistan showed me I had the temperament for this work. But back then, it was just a means to an end. I never wanted the 9-to-5, work until you get the gold watch or have a heart attack, then try to eke out a little happiness in the time you have left. That’s no way to live. I didn’t care about mortgages, marriages, or children. People love those things, but I don’t; I never have. More power to them, I say. But that was never my way. I always felt drawn elsewhere. Until Afghanistan, I never knew what I wanted. Now I do. I want money. Real money. I want fuck-you money. Money that allows me the power and opportunity to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I want the freedom to say yes or no as I wish. You can have freedom, or you can have commitments. I’ll take a double serving of the former, please.
I make my way to the garage. The path is overgrown. There was no car on the street. And the El Camino on blocks hasn’t been operable in a long time is my bet.
The contract is for an older man who lives alone. So what? Maybe he doesn’t drive. Or perhaps my first instinct was correct; the house is empty.
Stop saying that!
One thing is certain, this path is not subject to frequent traffic. The garage is likely empty. That or full of junk on its way to somewhere else. A few crickets start to sing again, but soon fall silent. Several geckos slither away from me as I slip through the weeds.
There could be snakes in these weeds. Wouldn’t that be a shame? On my last contract, I get bitten by a poisonous snake.
I wrack my brain for details about snakes in this region but come up empty. The garage walls go all the way to the grass, so I squeeze against it and make my way to the alleyway.
There’s a car in the garage. A 1967 Chevy Impala.
What the hell? I shiver.
I have no idea where that thought came from. It is so abrupt that I don’t even question it. I won’t be surprised when I see an Impala inside the garage. I find myself wondering what kind of options I might have for brain scans in the village outside of Tijuana, where I now am the proud owner of a beach bungalow.
“What the hell?” I croak. I glance around, hoping no one heard me.
This garage, unused as it is, would be a great place to stash a body.
I hear a child’s laughter from either inside the garage or near the garage door. I’m still several feet from the alley.
I told him, no children! There better not be any kids here.
But I heard laughter. I heard a child laughing.
It’s never fun with the kids. Money is money, but a man must have limits.
I try to head off the thought before it arises, but I’m too late. Way too late.
Yeah, well what about Ray Winstone?
That was different.
How exactly? Tell me. This ought to be good.
My conscience still hadn’t let this go.
It was eight, nine years ago. It was three kids. Four technically, but the oldest was the mother of the three kids. My customer had wanted Ray to suffer. I’m sure he did. I was retained to take care of Mr. Winstone too, but by the time I got the green light on contract five, Ray had slipped into the wind. He vanished into the night.
I remember all my younger marks. Those were strictly business. I hustled for twelve years, and fortune shined on me. Twelve years? Of this kind of work? And not once was I arrested? That streak of luck along with some timely investments in high-risk funds have made me a multi-millionaire. After today, no more contracts, no more dark web, no more nerve-wracking first meetings, and no more marks-old or young.
For a long time after Ray disappeared, I was spooked. I was sure he was coming after me. He either would seek me out and exact retribution or hire a professional of his own. The latter scared me, but the former did not. I’m a professional. I don’t spook easily. But the way old Ray had disappeared did spook me. It still spooked me. I mean the guy left no trace. It was like he left the planet.
I pause at the corner by the alley. I drop to my knees and draw out the tiny mirror on a stick I’d picked up years ago from a dental supply firm. I angle the mirror and slowly push it beyond the corner. Empty. No one is there. No adults and no kids.
Good.
I step into the alley and face the garage. I wipe the grime away from one of the glass panels in the door. Pressing my face to the window, I am not surprised to see a Chevy Impala.
A shiver runs down my spine.
Man up. There’s no time for that now.
I pick the lock on the door and am inside the garage inside of five seconds. I lower the door under the cover of a dog barking at me from the yard across the alley.
There are cobwebs everywhere.
No one has been in this space for a long time.
I peer into the backseat expecting to see a corpse there. I am so certain of it that I am disappointed when I don’t see one. Not that finding a body today would’ve been a welcome surprise.
Quit fucking around in here and go inside the house.
Shut up.
It’s your funeral.
Shut up.
I buff the rear driver-side window with my jacket sleeve and take another look. I flinch when I see a ghost open its eyes.
I jump away from the car.
Calm down, man. You’re seeing things.
I lean in tentatively.
There’s nothing to see here. There’s nothing to see here.
The backseat is empty. No corpse, no ghost. Nothing.
I think about aborting the job. But that thought doesn’t sit well with me. It’s not like I’d have to worry about my client leaving me a bad Yelp review. That’s not how the dark web works. But I have my code, my integrity and I took money for the job, so I brush aside the temptation as easy as anything.
###
I’m tired of this. This hesitating isn’t me.
I leave the garage, relock the door, and wipe away any prints I might’ve left. I head to the house. I’m going inside. If it’s empty, I will leave and be done with this. Done with this city, this state, this country. I’ll go check myself into the Ramada at the airport. I’ve got my fuck-you money. I don’t need any more.
I slip back up the back stairs and look through the kitchen door. Empty.
I slide into the kitchen. The scents of breakfast from a few hours back introduce themselves, one at a time.
Hello Bacon.
What’s up eggs…scrambled? The eggs confirm that this was indeed the case.
I clear the kitchen and make my way toward the front door. If I find nothing on the ground floor, I’m out of the front door, back to my rental, and on my way to the airport.
In the living room, I see him.
He’s naked and facing away from me, but I’m certain I know who it is. It’s the only contract I never completed.
Ray Winstone.
But why is he naked?
“Scott, come on in. We’re ready to get started.”
Was he expecting me? He didn’t even look at me.
Something in his voice pulls me into obedience. I try to shrug it off, but the effort leaves me tired, almost exhausted.
“Yeah, it’s better if you did as I ask. Fighting it will wear you out.” He has yet to look at me.
I step into the center of the room. Ray looks at me. He makes a series of complex hand gestures, drawing figures in the air. My grip on reality weakens as the figures take shape in red light. The pulsating figures float away from his hands and orbit around the room.
Ray has pushed all the furniture towards the walls. The center of the wood floor has been destroyed by the gigantic pentagram naked Ray carved into it. There are candles, jars of some kind of oil, and ceremonial daggers lying on the floor, near where he sits cross-legged. I see he has painted some symbols that hurt to look at, painted on his chest. I would bet money they are in blood.
“Yes. They are rendered in blood. Relax, it’s not from a human. Thought you wouldn’t have much of a problem with that, would you, Mr. Child Killer? Right?”
All of this is wrong.
Has he hypnotized me? And can he read my mind?
“I can. But your type makes it a pretty easy trick to pull off. You’re not as deep or as inscrutable as you’d hoped it would seem.”
Shoot him. Stop fucking around here and end him. He’s obviously why you’re here. I never ask the name of my marks.
“Now, now. I don’t think you want to do that.”
Oh, but I do. I very much want to do exactly that. This guy spooks me. He spooked me years ago and he’s spooking me now.
“Oh, okay. Well, let’s see how that works out,” Ray says with all the gravity of a man answering the “plastic or paper” question at a supermarket.
I feel my right hand draw the familiar 9mm all on its own.
This isn’t right. I’m not doing this.
But it’s too late for that.
Stop! Stop now!
The silencer is already in place. I watch in awe as my right hand extracts the gun and aims it at my left.
Don’t!
My hand squeezes the trigger three times. The sounds are sad, little “pffts” in the empty living room.
When my right hand returns the warm Glock to the soft leather shoulder holster under my jacket, my left hand is missing three fingers.
The pain floods in. Ray’s hypnosis isn’t good enough to preclude my feeling the pain.
“Oh, now that’s just mean. Do you think I’m opposed to you feeling pain, Mr. Koch?”
Now that was unexpected. Only a handful of people know my last name. Since leaving the military, I’ve done all I could to bury my identity deep.
“I know a hell of a lot more than just that, Scott…oh, look. The kids are here. Right on time,” he says, checking his wristwatch.
The pain is making me hallucinate. When I look up again, Ray is hugging three see-through children.
Run, get out of this place. Go now!
Ray looks up from hugging his grandkids. He looks like he forgot I was there. He shrugs and says something I can’t hear. He flicks his right index finger towards the fireplace.
My legs are running, but not in the direction of my choosing. They run me right into the brick wall.
I sense Ray turning towards the front door.
“Oh, and here’s Emily. Darling, you get prettier every time I see you. You remember Mr. Koch, I assume?”
I fall, bleeding, to the brick floor in front of the fireplace. My forehead is split open, and warm blood is running into my eyes.
When I look up again, I see them.
Ray, still naked, and four ghosts. One is his only daughter, and the other three are his beloved grandchildren.
Ray sees the blood gushing into my eyes. With his left index finger, he makes a complicated gesture and a slashing gesture towards my forehead. I feel a white-hot heat cauterizing my wound shut.
I fight back the urge to vomit.
I guess I’m not going to make my flight.
Ray laughs. I wish he couldn’t read my thoughts.
“I saw you sniffing around the garage earlier. You’re right about it being a great place to stash a body.”
He means mine.
Ray laughs again, louder now. It is a happy laughter. One that I want to never end. When his laughter ends, it won’t be good for me.
“The ghost you thought you saw earlier, Mr. Koch? Any guesses?”
“My…ghost?”
Those eyes were familiar.
“Sort of. That’s where you will be later. But we have a lot of things to get through first. Don’t we, kids?” he says, guiding the ghosts towards a table stacked high with shiny and sharp implements. I feel my mind snap when I see each of the see-through children picking through the pile to find the perfect knife, scalpel, sickle, hatchet, or hammer. Each of them laughing. Each of them looking for the perfect tool to fit in their tiny hands. Hands that would’ve grown into adult hands if it weren’t- for me. I’m nauseated. I deserve this. Whatever they do to do me and more. I lean over and puke on the brick floor. The children stop laughing and go to work on me.
Stories by Shawn 