by Jack Porter
It was done with quiet efficiency, and few of the other patrons seemed to notice. They kept eating and talking as if nothing had happened, and such was the ambient volume that the screams coming from out back were all but drowned out.
But I heard them. Maybe a few others did as well. I didn’t know what they were doing to the man, but it can’t have been pleasant.
“What am I doing here?” I muttered to myself.
“If I’m not mistaken, you called it reconnaissance,” came Azrael’s response. He was right. That was what I’d called it. But at the same time, I figured if I saw my chance, I would take it.
If I’d been ready to act when the guards herded the greasy-haired thug away would have been just the ticket. But I didn’t have a solid plan of attack and didn’t know how soon they’d be back. So I just sat where I was.
Marionetti was seated against a wall and had watchful, alert eyes just like his men. It had to be next to impossible for someone like me to get close enough to hurt him.
Perhaps if I had some sort of gun–or rocket launcher, perhaps–then I could have done what I needed to do. But even that would have been somewhat uncertain. All Marionetti would need to do to avoid getting shot from a distance was duck down under the table. And while a rocket launcher might do significant damage, and while Megadeath#4 might have gone with it as an option, it was a little too random for me to want to use.
This was my first contract. I didn’t want to risk making a mess only to have Marionetti crawl away, his legs blown off, or maybe an arm, but still very much alive.
And besides, I didn’t have a rocket launcher. In fact, as far as weapons went, I had very few. I hadn’t even taken my kitchen knives with me, the ones I had used to chop Chad into pieces.
All I had on me that could be used as a weapon were my keys, and maybe my belt. Not the best choice for going up against trained bodyguards and what appeared to be a wily, dangerous man.
But here’s the funny thing. In my observation, I had noticed a weakness. The guards were very diligent when it came to most people in the restaurant. They watched everyone as if looking for a threat to their boss.
Except for the wait staff, who could effectively wander around as if they were invisible.
I didn’t look like a contract killer. I knew that. But I figured I could pass for a waiter easily enough.
I hadn’t finished my meal. Not even close. My stomach was tied up in knots of anxiety, and I couldn’t eat another bite. So I paid my bill, got up and walked out the front door. But instead of catching a cab back to my apartment and trying to come up with a better plan, I just walked straight back through the service entrance as if I belonged, much to the satisfaction of my partner in crime.
For most of my working life, I’d been a gamer. But sometimes, when I didn’t have enough clients to cover my bills, I had to resort to finding other ways to make ends meet.
Restaurant work was easy to get. I’d worked as a waiter before, often in the same sort of place as Marionetti’s Bistro. So I knew just what to expect in the back end of this one and wasn’t surprised in the least to find a rabbit warren of offices, a staffroom, and more, including a professional kitchen and cleanup station.
It was busy, with people hurrying to and fro, doing all the things that needed to be done to keep a restaurant running. I kept my head down and pretended like I belonged, and perhaps conjuring Azrael really had changed my luck. I managed to find what I was looking for before anyone asked me why I was there.
A storage room. A quick glance left and right told me I wasn’t being observed, and I ducked inside before closing the door behind me.
I stood in pitch blackness for long seconds, my heart beating hard in my chest. What was I doing? I asked myself. Did I really intend to go through with this?
Yes. I did.
Because I had a plan. It wasn’t much of one, relying hugely on the element of surprise, but I was almost sure it would work.
I didn’t look like a contract killer. That fact alone was the key. I didn’t look like a threat, and as such, I should be able to get far closer to my target than a real professional might.
Sure, that was a big-ass ‘should,’ but I was tired of being a nobody. I was tired of being a low status loser, and I had to do something.
And Azrael had enhanced my strength and reflexes enough to give me an unexpected edge.
So I fumbled around in the dark for a bit until I found a light switch and turned it on.
The storage room of a restaurant can contain all sorts of different things. Everything from pieces of art for the walls to balloons and candles, plates, glasses and cutlery to be rolled out to replace any breakages or loss, an old microwave that was kept just in case, pens, paper, stacks of toilet paper, Christmas decorations, and more. This one even had a desk set up with a PC, which suggested they had someone work here occasionally. But none of that was why I was there. I had one objective, and one only.
Any restaurant of this size would have significant staff turnover. Waiters, waitresses, cooks, busboys and more would work for a short time before moving on or getting fired. Sometimes even the management would be transient.
All these people would have to be replaced, often at short notice. And that meant it made sense to have spare uniforms on hand all the time.
They weren’t difficult to spot. There was a whole row of them, hung on a rack as if this was a clothing store. With a quiet, self-congratulatory grin, I headed over and picked out a white and gold waiter’s shirt and a pair of black pants in my size, and quickly pulled them on over my regular clothes.
If anyone looked too closely, they might think I was a little untidy, but that was the point. I didn’t look like a killer, and people didn’t look very closely at waiters in a restaurant.
Within less than a minute, I was ready. Time to put up or shut up. Do or die.
I acknowledged to myself that the latter was a real possibility.
Unless…
“Hey, Azrael,” I said. “You’ve been alive for thousands of years. Does that mean you can keep me alive as well? Like, if something was to happen?”
“At my strongest, I was close to unkillable. But now? If I had the power, I could increase your durability to the point where bullets would bounce off your skin, or improve your healing to the point where you could regrow a lost limb. But we are as yet a number of seductions away from that point. If someone cuts you, or if you get shot, you will bleed.”
Well, that was disappointing. “And if I should die?” I asked.
“Then my essence will remain bound to you until such time as I gain the strength to move on, or someone else resurrects me as you have done.”
Judging from his tone, he didn’t like the idea very much. “So, your best hope is that I survive, and survive for long enough to make you strong again. Correct?”
I could sense Azrael’s simmering anger. “Correct.”
I smiled at myself one more time. “So, if there’s anything you can think of that might help to keep me alive, now would be the time.”
I wasn’t sure if Azrael would have anything to add, but he surprised me. “If you can manage it, approach your target from his left. Act quickly. This will give you a direct route to the exit. Act quickly enough, and you might even be able to get out in one piece.”
It wasn’t bad advice. And in truth, I hadn’t even considered how I might make my escape. My planning had gone as far as how I might kill Marionetti, and no further.
“Thank you,” I said, genuinely appreciating his answer. “Got anything else?”
“Next time, bring a gun.”
I couldn’t argue with that either. Marcel Marionetti’s guards searched everyone who approached him, but not the waiters. If I had a gun tucked down the back of my pants, I could basically walk right up to him and blow him away before they even realized it.
Depending, of course, on if I could even fire a real one. And that was an open question. Not counting my games, I’d never held
a gun of any type in my hands.
I figured that was something to rectify if I was to be in this business long term.
For this job, however, I had to resort to something more familiar. After a couple of minutes of searching, I found my weapon of choice. A chef’s knife, with a blade almost as long as my forearm, pointed and sharp. But I couldn’t very well wander out into the restaurant brandishing it as a weapon, so I wrapped the blade in a makeshift sheath I made out of a rolled up placemat, and tucked it into my trousers at the side so I could reach it with ease.
As I turned to go, I asked myself one more time if I was really doing this.
Could I, Simon Kingman, really go out into the restaurant and do my best to kill Marcel Marionetti?
I’d already killed my roommate. That, combined with a lifetime of low-status living, where even the kids I trained looked down on me, meant I had my answer. I damned well could kill Marionetti. And anyone else who got in my way.
The only thing that could stop me was a lack of physical ability to do it, and with Azrael’s help, I should have had that covered.
I stood for a few seconds with my hand on the doorknob, and took two quick, deep breaths.
“You got this,” I said to myself. “High status living, here I come!”
Chapter 19
I made my way through the back-end rabbit warren to stand for a few moments next to the door leading to the main restaurant. Once there, I took a deep breath and started to repeat motivational quotes I’d seen or heard in an attempt to give myself some courage.
“It’s now or never,” I said. “You can do this. Fear is the mind killer. Do or die, the time is now, just do it.”
As far as motivation went, I figured those quotes would work better when my life wasn’t literally on the line. And yet, as I repeated them to myself, a strange thing happened.
I should have been terrified. Like a toddler at the Olympics, I was out of my depth, by a wide margin. I’d never been the kind of guy strangers would point at and say, “I bet he is a natural born killer.” I was more like the kind of guy they might point to and say, “I bet he screams like a girl when he sees a cockroach.”
And, really, they would have been right.
This was by far my biggest ever challenge, and I had no real right to expect it to go well.
“You don’t look like a killer,” Azrael had said. And dressed as a waiter, I looked even less like one.
But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t a killer. I’d already done it once, hadn’t I? I had my knife and was ready to go.
I should have been terrified. Too scared to act. Marionetti’s guards were the sorts of guys who’d sneered at me all my life. Who was I to even think of getting past them to my target?
And yet…
As I stood behind the door, gearing myself up for action, I started to grin.
So what if I was out of my depth? Who cared that those guards could have torn me in half without trying? None of that mattered a damn.
All that mattered was I had a job to do, and I was damned if I was going to die not knowing what it was like to try.
The two guards could suck my dick. They didn’t matter. Only my target mattered, and if I had to break through a wall to get to him, then that’s what I would do.
For a moment, I actually considered that as an option. Maybe I could just drive a car through the wall against which Marionetti was sitting?
But again, if I did that, I couldn’t be certain that I’d finished the job. And besides, I was already inside, ready to go.
“Use what you’ve got,” I muttered to myself. Maximum effort. You miss every shot you don’t take. You got to know when to hold them–no, that wasn’t a motivational quote. Oh well. I was as ready as I ever would be.
I just needed one more thing to go with my knife, and I figured I knew just where to get it.
It was time to man up or shut up. Time to shit or get off the pot.
Time to make a real difference to my life.
And, of course, to Marionetti, but that didn’t matter. He was a bad guy. He worked for a crime family, and it was his job to make life miserable for anyone but him. In my mind, the world would probably be better off without him.
And, anyway. Everyone dies, and it’s rarely at a convenient time.
I realized then I was stalling, and tried to shake myself out of it.
“Come on, man. You can do this. How many times have you ambushed an unsuspecting target in a game?”
At the same time, I knew full well that there was a difference between games and real life.
“Use what you’ve got,” I repeated.
What I had was the element of surprise, enhanced strength and reflexes, and a certain gleeful sense of anticipation that was just strong enough to counter my fear.
Marcel Marionetti wouldn’t know what hit him.
With that thought in mind, I pushed the door wide and strode out into the restaurant floor as if I had every right to be there. A quick glance around, and I saw what I was looking for. A pot of fresh brewed coffee sitting unattended at the bar.
That was the last piece of my puzzle, and I strode toward it as if in a dream, reaching out and picking it up by the handle.
Then I turned and focused on my target.
I could sense the anticipation rising and couldn’t immediately tell if it was my own or if it was that of my demonic passenger. Not that it mattered much either way. All that mattered was that as I approached, the guards barely paid me any attention at all.
It was just as I had expected. I strode up to the guard on the right, noting that he was a good eight inches taller than me and probably outmassed me by about double. Yet even as I stopped in front of him and gave him my best grin, he didn’t see me as a threat in the least. His eyes roamed the restaurant for another half a second before turning toward me with an almost bored expression.
“Yes?” he said, still expecting no threat.
With the blood surging in my veins, I flipped the top of the coffee jug and hurled the scalding hot liquid straight at the guard’s face.
He reacted at once, raising his hands and letting out the first part of a scream of pain. But I’d already turned to his companion, who was just starting to focus on me, and hurled the half empty coffee pot in his direction.
This guard was quicker. He managed to bat the coffee pot aside and half duck beneath the scalding liquid. At the same time, he began reaching for something under his jacket. Something that I couldn’t let him reach.
Fortunately, the pot was just my first move. I had no intention of standing there, watching the havoc it caused. Instead, I’d already drawn my knife, and followed up on my threat with a lunge at the second guard.
I stabbed him once in the stomach, mostly to distract him from everything else, and took the knife back away before he could react. Instead of continuing to reach for his weapon, he instead clasped at his wound, grimacing in new anger as he let out a bellow of pain and rage.
I was still grinning wildly. So far, everything had gone so much better than I could have hoped. The first guard was still screaming, clawing at his face, and wouldn’t be of any further use in this fight. The second guy seemed to be unsure if he should keep fighting, or if he should just try to stay alive.
But I’d already turned to Marcel Marionetti, who no longer looked like the arrogant mid-level boss he had seemed all morning. Instead, he looked as white as a ghost. Nor did he seem to be reaching for a weapon. He sat there, stock still, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
I didn’t look like a killer. I looked like a pudgy, normal guy in a waiter’s uniform, and I was moving more quickly than I should.
Azrael’s strength boost was serving me well. On any other day, I would already be panting for breath, and maybe that would have been enough to end my attempt. But because of Azrael’s intervention, I was still feeling strong. Strong enough to leap onto Marionetti’s table and take a quick step toward him.
In al
l the action movies I’d ever seen, the hero always took a moment to look down at the bad guy before they delivered the final blow. They would say something witty that also showed the bad guy that he had lost.
If this was such a film instead of real life, I might have grinned at Marionetti and said, “The Syndicate sends its greetings,” or something. Maybe, “You might like to know that you’re my first official kill. But you won’t be my last.”
Something threatening, but decisive.
But this was real life, and I had no time for that sort of thing. Instead, I just slashed at him, aiming for the big artery on the side of his neck.
That’s when Marionetti started to move, and it was more of a natural reflex than anything else. He stuck up a hand to protect himself, with the result that three of his fingers went flying.
He managed to deflect my slash enough that it opened a huge gash under his eye. He let out a scream, and I glared at him.
“Hold still!” I demanded, and had another go.
This time, he couldn’t stop me. My blade bit through skin and flesh, and Marionetti’s blood started to spray.
I figured there wasn’t any chance of him surviving for more than a couple of minutes, and knew my job was done.
Time to get out of there.
A quick glance around showed I was in no danger. The accountant-looking guy was staring at me in real fear, shaking his head as if he thought he would be my next victim. The first guard was still wailing on the floor, and the second had given up any thought of drawing his gun and had sunk to the ground with a growing stain of red spreading out over his shirt.
For no reason other than I saw it sitting on the table, I picked up one of Marionetti’s fingers, saw he had been wearing a ring, and tucked it away in my pocket. Then, to the tune of the restaurant staff and customers starting to panic, I hurried to the main exit.
