INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS

by Jack Ketchum

  “Has that all been decided?”

  “Well, there’s no reason for her to keep the Watson Street house now, is there? And I’ll be glad to have her home. I don’t believe she was very happy in London.”

  “The poor girl. I remember her as being so lively before she married. So sweet and vivacious in those days.”

  “Marriage can change a person.” Lady Durham went to the mantle, where there stood several small, framed photographs arranged in progression. The change in Evelyn, from rosy-cheeked bright smiles to a wan, withdrawn reserve, was slight ... but it was there to be seen by the discerning eye.

  “For better or for worse, as they say,” said Gertrude. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “And not all husbands are created equal, are they? Not all marriages are the same from within as they might appear from without. Sometimes, years can go by before even one’s nearest and dearest realize the whole truth.”

  “I do hope she won’t face too much trouble in the settling of the Inspector’s affairs.”

  “No, I don’t expect so.” Turning from the mantle, Lady Durham sat again at the tea-table. “He was very organized. Meticulous and thorough. I’m sure it must have annoyed him dreadfully, dying in the midst of such a baffling, unsolved case.”

  “He certainly kept to himself, didn’t he?” Gertrude helped herself to another dainty scoop of jellied salad. “Close to the vest, as I believe the young people call it.”

  “And impressed upon Evelyn to do the same. Most firmly. I doubt she had a soul to confide in; he worried she would spill a vital secret or some clue or another. Even so simple a detail as that matter of the postmark, for instance.”

  “As if anything so small as that could do any damage.” She tutted and fed Leopold a morsel of fish.

  “Why, even his personal physician was unaware of that dangerous mango allergy,” Lady Durham went on. “His own wife wouldn’t have known, had he not fallen ill in her company on that trip to India.”

  “Indeed ... speaking of something so small doing such damage ... who would have suspected that even the tiniest amount could cause a fatal reaction?”

  They paused for a quiet moment to reflect upon the fickle and capricious nature of life.

  “What I do wonder, though,” said Lady Durham, stirring her tea, “is ... who was the man in the swan-pond? The one upon whom those post-marked papers were found.”

  “Just some drunkard, some vagrant, they tell me,” Gertrude said. “No one of consequence. These cakes are superb, by the way. Do give my compliments to your cook.”

  “Oh, I certainly shall. You must try the scones as well. A new recipe. Which reminds me, I heard there was a most interesting pork roulade served at Woadcastle the other evening. With an apricot and bread-crumb filling?”

  “Normally, yes, but I understand certain substitutions can be made to spice it up. With, oh, say, a nice fruit chutney, for example.”

  “That does sound exotic. More tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She refilled the cups, musing. “And that man ... no one of consequence, you say?”

  “Quite.”

  “So, then, there won’t be any additional charge?”

  Gertrude reached across the table and patted the other woman’s hand, Leopold purring in her lap as she did so. “My dear Lady Durham, don’t be silly. Our arranged-upon fee will more than suffice.”

  AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN’

  BY DOUG RINALDI

  The old man set down the sundried bones on the small stone altar.

  He pounded the worn and battered mallet down upon them in a controlled rage and didn’t stop until nothing but dust remained. “With these bones, I now do crush!”

  He swept the mound of bone dust with his craggy hand into a small burlap bag and turned back to the ancient symbol he had scrawled in chalk onto the cold wooden floor. In the four corners surrounding the sigil, the ceremonial black wax of the candles melted and dripped, hardening into a pile around the candlestick bases, securing them in place. The man drew another circle in the center of the symbol in the powder before reaching into the satchel and pulling out a dusty photograph.

  “There has been unfairness done to me ... I summon the elements ... I invoke them ... I conjure them to do my bidding!” He chanted in his native tongue as he placed the photo of a man in the center of the bone dust circle. Then, reaching into the satchel again, he retrieved a bound locket of hair. “I call upon the Ancient Ones from the great abyss to do my bidding!” On top of the photograph, he placed the hair, before grabbing one of the candles, letting the wax drip to seal the pieces into one effigy.

  Behind him, a young boy rang a bell three times.

  The old man pulled a crude blade from the floor beside him and sliced his left palm open. With the blood dripping from his wound, he extinguished the four flames around the sigil while chanting. “The four watchtowers shall lay their eyes and minds ... there shall be guilt and fear and bad blood ... there shall be submission and no pity.” Each candle sizzled, releasing their final plume after he read each line.

  “Bones of anger, bones to dust, full of fury, revenge is just ... I scatter these bones, these bones of rage ... take thine enemy, bring him pain ... I see thine enemy before me now ... I bind him, crush him, bring him down,” the old man recited while dumping the remains of the dust onto the effigy. “With these bones I have crushed, make thine enemy turn to dust ... torment, fire, out of control ... With this hex I curse your soul.”

  He raised his bleeding hand over the pile, letting the blood flow freely to mix with the dust to create a ruddy sludge. In a sudden blaze, the candles reignited, casting dancing shadows over the room. “I point the threefold law against thee ... against thee it shall be ... threefold, a hundredfold, is the cost for my anger and pain. Thou shalt be blinded by the fear, blinded by the pain, blinded by me ... bound by me ... cursed by me ... So mote it be!”

  The candles flickered out and the room fell completely silent and still.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’m the epitome of perfect health!”

  “Are you absolutely sure about that, Mr. Wright?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Healthy mind, healthy body. And please don’t call me Mr. Wright. Every time you do that I think my father’s in the room.”

  “Very well, Jacob. You’ve always been our best asset, yet ... you seem ... off lately.”

  “Bull! I’m on the top of my game,” Jacob blurted before taking a sip of his drink.

  “Tell that to our Haitian clients. They are none too pleased with us at the moment.”

  “Screw them. The job got done, didn’t it? So what if it lacked some of my usual finesse. They were gonna kill that other guy anyways. I did them a favor. Was just a matter of time.” Jacob poured the rest of the bitter liquor into his mouth. “Shit happens.”

  “Yes, you are probably right. Apparently shit does happen. Please realize that your actions, whether just or not, have deadly repercussions in our industry. The quality of your work is the unseen face of this organization. Your finesse, as you put it, is an equally important part of our business model.”

  “With all due respect, spare me the lecture, alright? Do you have another job for me or not?”

  “Of course we do. It’s a two for one for a new client. It’s yours as long as you don’t plan on mucking this one up as well.”

  “Like I said, chief, top of my game.”

  The “buy-one-get-one-free” gimmick usually didn’t pay well in this line of work.

  In an effort to bring in more prospective clients, the bigwigs upstairs at The Collective sometimes rolled out these bargain hits. Jacob hated when they screwed with his paydays, but in light of his screw-up down in Haiti, he sucked it up and took the job with a smile. Being the consummate professional, he always talked a big game but never downright disrespected or challenged the bosses. Just wasn’t good for business, or breathing.

  Nestled in his meager safe hou
se in town, he laid out all the files from the dossier on his kitchen table. He slowly sipped away at his three fingers of scotch, the good stuff, aged three times longer than he’d been alive, given to him years ago for a job well done, a job that put The Collective in the murder-for-hire arena.

  The clients had printed out vague notes, explaining how each hit should go down. The first needed to be from a distance, preferably in public with plenty of witnesses. The second needed to feel personal, no witnesses, just a brutal mess that would send a precise message.

  The client left the details up to him. As long as he met those two nonnegotiable terms, he had free reign. Explosion or sniper shot, garrote or blade, he had ultimate say in his victims’ demise. And he liked it that way.

  He studied the information, the photos, and the files. He didn’t care who they were or what they had done to be put on his list; they remained faceless and he remained detached. That’s how he did the job and, to be successful, objectification was key. His brain worked over the details, building the schematics of the kills in his mind. After he had set everything to memory, he tossed the dossier into the sink and doused it all with the remainder of scotch from his glass. He lit a match and tossed it in, setting the file aflame.

  As he watched the paper smolder, he felt half-guilty for wasting such expensive hooch. Fuck it, he conceded, I hate scotch anyway.

  Jacob had decided that killing the first mark in public would be a solid way to start the day. It had been months since he got a chance to play with his Dragunov SVD. Lightweight and durable, the sniper rifle was a Russian masterpiece. His plan went off flawlessly, as he knew it would. Lunchtime in the city would give you some goddamn witnesses—witnesses covered in brains, but witnesses nonetheless.

  He knew the second half of the job would be a little trickier—up close and personal. With timing and opportunity being essential, he chose the only logical option to make sure he met his client’s strict demand—a hammer.

  So, in the hallway closet he waited, with hammer in hand, for the next poor soul on his list to get home. As much as killing didn’t bother him, he never really liked the messy ones. Just the mere thought of ruining his clothes and shoes on some chump’s blood and guts gave him anxiety, never mind the chance of it getting into his mouth. Thankfully, he always had a set of scrubs and booties at the ready to go along with his gloves and face mask.

  Keys jingled in the lock.

  The doorknob turned and the hinges squealed.

  Time to work.

  The mark entered his home, mail and a bag of groceries in his hands. He walked right by Jacob’s hiding spot; shadows momentarily blocked the light shining through the breaks in the door. Jacob slowed his breathing, timing it with the creaks of the man’s footfalls on the hardwood floor. He gripped the weapon tight in one hand and slowly turned the doorknob with the other.

  Out in the open now, Jacob stalked the man who stood at his kitchen counter, thumbing through his mail. Poor guy had no idea what was about to happen. As much as Jacob disliked getting this close to his kills for pure sanitary reasons, he still enjoyed seeing that final look of disbelief in his victims’ eyes before the strike. And that almost made ruining some clothes worth it ... almost.

  “Psst.”

  Jacob slept soundly on his twin-size mattress with his head squished against the soft pillow. The deeds of the day behind him, he rested without a care in the world, satisfied with a job well done.

  A noise roused him—a bell chiming. He sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. In the dark of the bedroom, he saw nothing. The bell chimed again. This time he could tell it came from nearby, but he still couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

  He reached for the lamp on the nightstand but grabbed nothing but air. Confused, he swung his legs off the side of the bed to get up. When his feet touched carpet, he grew concerned. Not only could he not find his lamp, his hardwood floor somehow grew a rug during the night. Knowing full well, at this point, that his gun would not be where he kept it, he felt for it anyway. “What in the hell?”

  A bell rang again, the third time.

  Jacob didn’t scare easily; still, uneasiness crept across the back of his neck. He got up and started walking slowly in the direction he thought the sound came from. As he bumped into the doorframe, inhaling sharply from the sudden pain, he found the light switch and flicked it on. Incandescence chased the darkness away and Jacob stood frozen.

  He wasn’t in his apartment.

  Someone started pounding against the front door so hard he thought the banging was in his head. Jacob steadied himself to gather his senses. He looked out into the hallway. At one end he saw the front door that someone still mercilessly beat upon and at the other he saw the familiar kitchen that he used as his office earlier in the day when he bludgeoned a man to death with a hammer.

  “What the—”

  He crept to the front door, feeling naked without a weapon. In the center of the cheap board door, he saw a peephole just below his eye level. Thankful that the pounding seemed to stop for at least a moment, he put his eye up to the cold, fish-eyed lens. Standing on the other side, a man in a bloody three-piece suit with a head that looked like an M-80 went off in it reeled back and slammed both fists violently onto the door.

  Over and over, banging and pounding on the front door.

  Jacob’s head snapped back into his pillow as if someone just cold-cocked him; his eyes jolted open from the incessant pounding on his front door. The fright sweats broke out, exuding cool perspiration all over his body. His eyes watered as he reached for his gun under his pillow. With the weapon gripped tightly, he just stared up at the ceiling unsure about what was happening.

  The banging persisted.

  Someone’s at the door, asshole. Snap out of it!

  He sat there and collected himself. When his feet touched the familiar coolness of his hardwood floor, he knew that he had been dreaming. A nightmare was more like it.

  The knocking tested his patience. “Hold on, for Christ’s sake!” he yelled. “I’m coming.” Still in a bit of a daze, he kept the gun primed as he opened the door as far as the chain would let him.

  “Hello, Mr. Wright.”

  Jacob sighed in relief and undid the chain lock. “Jesus Christ, man! You scared the crappola out of me. I was having—” He paused, details of the dream flooding back into his memory, the man with coleslaw for a head and the American flag pin on his lapel that he now remembered seeing through his scope the day before. “—the weirdest dream. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” Jacob asked as he gestured the man to enter.

  “I know, Mr. Wright,” the man started. “It’s very ear—”

  “No, really. What time is it? My brain is still in a fog.”

  “It’s five o’clock in the morning, Mr. Wright.”

  “Ugh. That’s too early to be alive,” Jacob said between yawns. “And what did I say about that mister crap?”

  “Apologies,” the man said. “But it couldn’t wait until a more reasonable hour. We have an issue to discuss.”

  “Okay, great. But I’m gonna need some coffee first. Want some?”

  “No thank you, Jacob.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug.

  “I’ll just begin, if you don’t mind,” the man insisted. “I have a very busy day ahead of me in light of this new situation brought to my attention.”

  “Alright, no problem.” Jacob fiddled with his fancy coffee machine before turning around. “Go ahead. Shoot.”

  The man groaned before he began, not once moving from his spot on Jacob’s floor. “It appears that you left a job unfinished, Mr. Wright.”

  “Bullshit!” Jacob blurted. “That guy’s face looked like a bowl of Spaghetti-O’s after I shot it.”

  “Not him,” the man started. “The other job. The one in the Village that needed to look personal.”

  “With all due respect, that’s impossible, sir.”

  “Yet, the fact remains. He was seen
late last night walking down the main strip. A little worse for wear, but alive and walking, nonetheless.”

  Jacob, caught off guard at the revelation, put his palms to his face and slowly shook his head. He stretched and opened his eyes wide as if to retune himself. “There’s gotta be a mistake. He was deader than ... dead ... when I left him on his kitchen floor with about ten extra holes in his head. Are you pos—”

  The man unceremoniously pulled out a high-resolution photo of the target and handed it to Jacob, who studied it in dismay. “Yep. That’s him,” Jacob admitted, almost embarrassed. “He looks like some bad hamburger helper, but that is him.”

  “As if I would come all the way over here at this ridiculous hour if I were wrong,” the man spat. “Upstairs is not very impressed with you at the moment, and I mirror their sentiments.”

  “I guess that’s understandable.”

  “This needs to be addressed immediately, Jacob,” the man said. “That is, if you enjoy your current position and the livelihood afforded you by The Collective.”

  “Yes, sir. I do. And I’ll get right on it.”

  “Final chance to win back their trust,” explained the man. “Don’t make me regret sticking my neck out for you.”

  He stood at the counter, contemplating his predicament as he sipped on his third cup of coffee. Yet, the prior night’s dream gnawed at his guts. Jacob didn’t dream much, if at all, let alone about work or his targets.

  “I need to get my shit together,” he announced as he stared ahead in a daze. With a big sigh to calm himself, he dropped the mug into the sink and headed to his bedroom to get ready for the long day ahead. At the mirror over his dresser, he looked at his reflection, studying it for any signs of coming apart at the seams. “This is the last thing I need,” he said through another round of yawns and stretches, still exhausted from his troubled sleep.