I pulled out my gun, aiming with my left hand supporting my right just as he taught me, feet shoulder width apart. I stayed where I was until Frank got to my side, then we walked onto the property, guns raised.
His level of focus on a job was incredible, each step instinctual, each breath full of purpose. He was so alert it made me look like I was in deep sleep.
The dogs had come to investigate, sniffing at their still squirming owner. “Sit,” Frank called out to them without glancing their direction. They did as he commanded, sitting attentively. He tossed them some treats.
I could see that the gun in Bianchi’s pants was misshapen. Frank had shot it, and now he took it from him entirely, unloading it and setting it on a small table beside a stack of never to be opened mail.
“You want to take the lead?” he asked.
“May I?”
He nodded, never taking his eyes off the dying man’s hands.
I shot him once in the leg for practice. It didn’t bleed much, just a slow oozing from the hole. I definitely didn’t get that reaction from a dinner plate. “Do you know why we’re here?” I asked.
“Fuck,” Michael garbled, spitting blood all over his face as he coughed. My injuries looked more realistic than his did.
I tapped a clean spot of his torso with my socked foot. “Hey, you dirty rat. I’m talkin’ to you,” I said, imitating what I remembered from every De Niro movie I’d ever seen. My act would’ve been lost on Frank, even if it had been a respectable impression.
Bianchi squirmed on the floor. “Fuck you!” he yelled, trying to spit at me but only managing to make a further mess of his chin. “Fuckin’ finnochio!”
“Oi!” Frank said, his voice raised in a way that made me fear for the dying man’s safety. Then he shot him in each knee, and the guy screamed in pain.
“What does finnochio mean?”
“What do you think?”
I shot him again, though my bullet didn’t affect him nearly as much as Frank’s had. Knee wounds were supposed to really hurt. “Finnochios are cigarettes, jerk.”
“Not quite,” Frank said.
I shrugged and fired twice, widening the gaping holes in his knees. I could see fragments of bone, pink with blood. “This is for Bobby and Guido.”
“Tony and Bernie,” Frank corrected.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I turned back to Michael. “Were you really in the mafia?” He ignored me.
“Are we going to be here all night?” Frank asked.
“Give me a break, it’s my first time,” I said. I knew he was just teasing me. We could’ve stayed all night if I wanted to. There was no one around to call the cops.
Our mark groaned, my lack of expertise adding insult to injury. I shot him in the throat. That bled, spraying into the air and then bubbling from his neck all over the tile like a broken drinking fountain. He still wasn’t dead, though it was coming for him soon.
“Should I shoot him again?”
“If you’d like.”
I aimed a little higher and fired at the center of his forehead. It was the most accurate shot I’d ever taken, and I watched speechlessly as his pupils dilated. Frank was right. Seeing the life leave their eyes was amazing. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt almost as alive as I did after sex.
One of the dogs whined, but didn’t get up. Frank threw them more treats. “Nice shot,” he said, setting his hand on my back.
I released the next bullet from the chamber like he’d taught me, putting on the safety before pocketing it. “Should we go?”
“I want to check on something,” he said, and he shut the front door with his foot, tapping his hand at his side and making the dogs follow him.
The hallway had taken on the unpleasant smell of bodily functions like middle of the night rest stops; piss and shit and a noticeable absence of cleaning products. I headed after him, avoiding the spreading puddle of blood.
Frank walked to the kitchen, glancing at the calendar on the wall and heading toward the garage. He returned with a bag of dog food nearly as tall as he was, which he tossed out the back door onto the shaded porch. Then he turned on the hose, throwing it into the kiddy pool that was obviously their water dish, and he came back inside, locking them out.
“If they eat their owner, they’ll put them down,” he said, and he grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, scribbled call the police in what I doubted was his normal handwriting, and led me out, shutting the front door behind us. I should’ve known what he was up to. He was making sure the dogs were going to be taken care of. The calendar showed the next delivery date.
Frank put the note on the intercom and pulled the gate closed. There was something about seeing a man take care of the pets of someone we killed that made me want to marry him, too young or not.
“That was quite the performance, little Vincent,” he said with a smile.
I smiled, grabbing my shoe on our way back to the car.
The dynamic of killer and bait worked well for me and Frank. Whether I was playing the part of young and helpless or young and lascivious, there were few marks we couldn’t manipulate into taking their place on our chopping block. I’d even lured a forty year old woman to her death, simply because I resembled someone who’d written have a nice summer in her high school yearbook.
We didn’t have to do jobs this way. A lot of the time we could’ve just shot them at their homes or offices. But this was more fun. Frank liked seeing me toy with them, and I loved the things he’d do to me when my game of cat and mouse got him hot.
I’d never imagined that sex could be like this between two people in a steady relationship. I loved being watched and Frank got off on the chase, so instead of walking side by side the way other couples did, he would stalk me, following me for miles while I drifted through the streets, getting high off the anticipation.
Sometimes he wouldn’t do anything to me, keeping me on edge by making our contact innocent, approaching to have me light his cigarette or ask for directions like we were strangers. Other times he’d attack, pulling me roughly into secluded stairwells and alleyways with his hand over my mouth, and he’d fuck me on the ground hard enough to make me walk funny on the journey home.
I was his fire, one look boiling his blood and turning him from a man who’d blush at a dirty word to one who’d make me feel like a virgin again, shying away from the scandalous things he whispered in my ear while he made me lick my come off his fingers.
We’d taken up my previous practice of quickies in public places, jerking or sucking each other off in dark parking lots and the men’s rooms of his beloved diners. I found that a simple check of the bathrooms would more than likely make up his mind on whether or not we were going to be eating there. He was never picky before; as long as it was open late and the food was cheap, it suited him fine. Now it had to not only have hours of operation that adhered to us, but the bathroom door had to have a lock. Or at least something heavy enough to block it.
Sex had gotten rougher the further along my training went, and I’d gotten into the habit of wearing scarves to cover up the strangulation marks. That had been my idea, something to spice up our already fiery relationship. Now we did it almost every time, reserving a pale, cream-colored silk scarf for my throat and a black one to bind my wrists.
Frank had an amazing level of self-control, and he’d never caused me any injuries that couldn’t be fixed with a little ice or more bed rest. I trusted him with my life on a daily basis, at work and at home, and I knew he had nearly the same trust for me. But I wasn’t to the point where he didn’t have to worry about me while we were on a job.
He never let me out of his sight, and after a mark had nearly gotten the better of me during a failed garroting, he wouldn’t allow me to perform any hits where physical contact was involved. As much as I wanted to be capable of doing exactly what he did, I knew I wasn’t there yet. Besides, watching him snap someone’s neck as easily as lighting a c
igarette made me dizzy with desire for him. And when he stabbed someone I could barely see straight until we’d made a successful getaway, and he’d trace a blade across my skin, making me come. I’d received more scars from acts of lovemaking than I had from my whole childhood, and I wasn’t even eighteen yet.
But it wasn’t always violent. There were times when we’d make love in the truest sense, hours spent caressing each other, our bodies one. He had told me he loved me in every language he knew, laughing when I tried saying it back, and I’d even gotten him to take a bath with me, holding him tight and putting bubbles in his hair, making sure his head stayed above water while I jerked him off.
Frank had met with Charlie earlier that day, and now he presented the job to me, expecting not only my assistance, but also my input. I took a deep breath, wanting to do this right. “Who’s the client?”
“Middle aged woman. Very wealthy.”
The clients were generally women when the target was female. If a man wanted his wife or girlfriend killed, they’d usually do it themselves. “Motive?”
“The woman’s lover died at the hands of our girl. She drugged him, emptied his wallet and left him there. Unfortunately, he’d had a bit more to drink than he could handle, and he choked.”
“That sucks.”
Frank smiled. He always got this warm, paternal look when I said something that revealed my age. Then he’d stick his hand in my pants.
“So that’s what she does? Drugs men and rips them off?”
“Correct.”
“Good for her,” I said. A woman after my own heart if ever there was one. I’d had a few stints doing practically the same thing. But instead of drugs they’d get blowjobs while I stole their wallets from their lowered pants.
“Not anymore it isn’t,” he said, giving me a stern look because he could read my face if not my mind. The worst I’d ever gotten during my stint as Vincent the not quite prostitute was a black eye and some sore ribs. This woman was about to lose her life. “Any ideas?”
I sighed, hesitant to give him my answer because I didn’t know how well he’d take it. Witnesses, even drugged ones, were not an option. We couldn’t kill her in front of her intended victim, unless we were going to kill him, too. Or he was in on it.
Frank had taught me that sometimes playing to your strengths wasn’t enough. You had to play off the victim, and no matter how expensive the costume, I wouldn’t look like an overpaid businessman. I was too young. That meant he would have to be the bait for once, and somehow I couldn’t see him sit by and let someone slip him a roofie.
“Out with it,” he said with a smirk. My other dilemma was that Frank already knew the solution to our quandary. He was testing me to see if I’d come up with something different.
“You get to be the bait this time.”
“Correct,” he said proudly.
“So I’m going to be the one to kill her?” I asked. I wasn’t superstitious, but this woman would be the thirteenth corpse I’d met, and doing a job without having him available for backup was disconcerting.
Frank handed me a thick envelope full of cash, silently confirming my question. I leafed through the bills. I didn’t like the idea of letting someone other than myself take advantage of him, but he’d come up with the same conclusion, so it had to be the only option. If this woman had been doing her present gig as long as we suspected, there’d be no way she’d take Frank out of the bar before he finished his drink. And we couldn’t exactly kill her there.
“What’s next?”
He handed me a couple of photographs of our girl in a silver convertible, all with different hair colors but the same sly smile. She was well made-up, but I wouldn’t say she was beautiful. She was plain looking if anything, but that didn’t stop her from being sexy, and even in a photograph she looked it.
Frank also gave me a picture of the man she’d killed. Now he was pretty. Late twenties, in a three piece suit, with slicked back dark hair, and a watch that cost more than a car. He looked like a man who had no reservations about letting a woman old enough to be his mother provide for him.
“So, what’s next?” Frank said, handing me full control of the reins.
I smiled at him, even though I wasn’t sure I was ready for the responsibility of leading a job. This could be fun. “Wardrobe.”
I’d never been in a boutique shop. The nicest clothes I’d ever owned were hand-me-downs from Frank, and even then, they were a hell of a lot nicer than the clothing I could afford growing up. This store was practically a museum, shirts and pants hanging like artwork, and a salesgirl who looked like a fashion model. Frank went immediately toward the back. I went right to the clerk.
“Do you sell ass-less pants?”
She snickered, looking Frank up and down while he tried to disappear out of embarrassment. “Sorry, darling. Wrong shop,” she said with an accent that sounded more affected than European.
“Thanks anyway,” I told her, leaving her side to get Frank to come out of hiding. “I feel like Pretty Woman in here, Frank.”
“A pretty woman,” he corrected.
“Nevermind,” I said, holding a black button-up shirt against him and smoothing it over his chest. “What do you think?”
“What do you think? It’s your job.”
I smiled and grabbed a white one. He’d probably kill me if I chose something colorful, so this would have to do. And boy did it. Frank looked sexy as hell in white. It made him look darker by contrast, but his green eyes stood out so much I couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Do I look rich enough to drug?” he laughed.
“I’d definitely drug you in this,” I said, keeping my hand against his chest as I held the shirt. “Go try it on, hot stuff,” I said, and smacked him on the ass as he walked away. He wouldn’t hit me back in front of the clerk, and by the time I finished dressing him, he’d hopefully be so humiliated from all the attention being paid to him that he’d forget all about it.
“We’re going for businessman, right?”
“Right,” he said from behind the dressing room door. He’d probably be in there as long as humanly possible, moping at the fact that I was making him wear something that could stain.
I grabbed a suit jacket and pants to match, then spent a ridiculous amount of time picking out the perfect tie. The scarf he bound my wrists with was getting a bit worn, so I grabbed a black one. It would do nicely as a replacement.
“You have to show me, Frank,” I said after handing the rest of his outfit over the door.
“Why? You’ll see it later.”
I put my hands on my hips. He might not be able to see me, but he’d know he was in trouble by my silence.
Frank reluctantly stepped out, cementing his image in my mind as husband material. Never in all my life had I seen someone look better in a three piece suit, and I watched a lot of television.
He smiled and straightened his tie, actually looking confident in public for once. I stood there at a loss for words. And here I thought seeing him naked was the highlight of my life. That suit was better than sex. I couldn’t wait to get him into a tuxedo.
“Well?”
I nodded speechlessly, the phrase Bond, James Bond running through my head. If he wore that to work, he’d have more secretaries than he could handle.
“I’m going to get you for smacking me, little Vincent.”
“Well deserved.”
He looked in the mirror, spending more time looking at the way the clothes fell than his reflection. “You have good taste.”
“Do we have to burn it when we’re done?” I whined.
“Absolutely,” he said, and went back to the dressing room to change. I debated pulling the fire alarm. Anything to get him to stay dressed for a little while longer.
“Did you find everything to your liking?” the faux European asked.
“Yes.”
“Will that be charge?”
“Cash,” I said, glancing back at her as if to say he’s
mine, bitch. Back off.
She just smiled. “Of course.”
On the day of the job, I was all nerves. I felt like an amateur, pointlessly worrying about things I could control, and downright panicking over the things I couldn’t. Frank was the opposite. In fact, he seemed to find it amusing that he got to play the bait. He kept bringing it up as if my being responsible for his safety that evening meant I had to do things for him that day. When we went out to breakfast, he made me pay. Same with lunch. But he didn’t eat anything at dinner.
“Are you nervous?” I asked once we were back at the hotel. In a few hours he’d be heavily drugged, and I’d be adding one more to my list of kills.
“Should I be?” he teased.
“What if something goes wrong?”
“You can handle it.”
I sighed. Frank put his hands on my shoulders. I loved when he did that. It made me feel like I belonged to him.
“I trust you, V. And you should too. Besides, if all else fails you can shoot her. Just don’t make a mess.”
I nodded. The plan was to strangle her. It was nice and clean. But I’d only tried choking someone once, and it was just about the best workout I’d ever had. Frank had to take over because the guy was flinging me all over the room. People showed surprising strength when their lives depended on it, and this woman would be no different. Hell, I’d seen women struggle more than their male counterparts when Frank was behind them with the intent to asphyxiate.
Choking really was his favorite method of murder, whether it was barehanded or done with a device. It was more personal. That’s why I’d suggested he try doing it to me.
The first time we’d tried strangulation during sex, we both had the best orgasms of our lives. He hadn’t even tied me up, which we’d since found out could make it even better. He’d just lightly wrapped one of his shirts around my neck like he’d done during sparring, and pulled it tight each time he thrust into me, catching the gasps of pleasure in my throat. He said he could see the same stars in my eyes that I did.
Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder Page 24
