Dirty Hitman

by Vivian Connelly

  Sammy, smiling at me, with teeth that are a special shade off eggshell yellow. And when he smiles, that fucking scar on his face lights up and almost looks neon. He’s got a gun in his hand. It’s a big gun and somehow, just by the way it’s sitting in his hand, I know it’s clean and it’s not going to jam. He was right next to Vince and they’re both coming towards me, and I’m not sure who’s going to strike first.

  I hear a laugh. It’s Ruby’s laugh. I used to think she sounded so sweet when she laughed, but this laugh sounds more like a spastic cackle. She’s closer than either of those two assholes and she’s laughing as she goes to help hold me down. Ruby, hands that used to love me, now trying to help kill me. But I’m not going to let it happen. Not here, not now—and I reach out in the dark and grab her…

  “Ouch!”

  I blinked my eyes and the darkness was gone. There was a girl standing over me but it wasn’t Ruby. She had eyes that Ruby would have sold her stilettos for, and soft dark hair framing her sweet dimpled face. She was in white. The room was all white and I was having trouble seeing because of the bright white light.

  Oh my God, they killed me. They killed me and by some colossal mistake I’ve made it to heaven and I’m looking at an angel.

  Wow. I’d never been a religious man but now I could have…

  “For fuck’s sake, you’re hurting me! I was only checking your bandage, let me go!”

  Or not.

  I started to sit up and realized that I still had the angel’s wrist in my left hand. I let her go and she put her palm in the center of my chest and pushed me back down.

  “Just where in the hell do you think you’re going?”

  It didn’t make sense that she was speaking to me like that. I was pretty sure I hadn’t been spoken to like that since my mother reprimanded me as a teenager. I blinked my eyes again and the contents of the room went from fuzzy to just a little bit clearer. Television on the wall, IV bag hanging next to me, sterile table on the other side of the bed. I was in a fucking hospital.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in County General, Mr. Rodriguez. You were brought in yesterday for a gunshot wound.”

  Gunshot wound—only doctors and cops called it a gunshot wound. The people I worked with called it a fuck up. It meant the person with the wound wasn’t dead. This was the second thing to go right for me today after seeing the nurse. The inside of my mouth felt like an asphalt driveway in summer and I put my lips together and licked.

  “You’re probably thirsty, right? You’ve had an IV in, but you’re probably still a little dehydrated. Hang on a second and I’ll go get you something to drink.”

  She turned to leave, giving me the backside view of my angel of mercy. It looked like she might have had Ruby beat in that department too. I might have still thought I had died and gone to heaven if it wasn’t for the fact I was starting to feel the throb in my shoulder from the bullet. I straightened myself up and looked around the room.

  Still dark outside—good. Hopefully, I still had time to get the fuck out of here before the sun came up. I spotted my leather briefcase sitting on the table by the window.

  Fucking cops. They were like overpriced bellhops sometimes. They were so stupid, God bless them.

  I was just starting to get over the elation of seeing my money on the table in the room when Florence Nightingale came back in with my drink. I was going to reach out for the cup but I opted to let her get a little closer and hand it to me, which I realized meant that ol’ Micky was slowly coming back to his old self.

  Three gulps later and I drained the nurse’s cup dry. Icy water down my throat, and I was slowly starting to feel my energy come back.

  “Thanks, love.”

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Rodriguez.”

  “What do you keep calling me?”

  “Mr. Rodriguez. The police registered you as Carlos Rodriguez when they brought you in yesterday.”

  Carlos Rodriguez…

  The name sounded familiar to me because half of that name was on a tattoo that was on the lower half of Ruby’s dead body. The cops thought I was the guy on her apartment lease. They didn’t know who I was yet. But I knew they would start to figure it out once they identified Vince’s corpse. They were probably down at the station with a new pack of crayons playing connect the dots right now.

  No time to waste.

  “You were having nightmares, Mr. Rodriguez.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t sleep very well. You toss and turn a lot. And say things.”

  She paused when she said it and I knew whatever I said in my sleep had been some harsh shit. Ruby used to say that too. But the nurse looked a hell of a lot cuter trying not to say it than Ruby was when she told me.

  “You obviously have nightmares when you sleep.”

  “How long were you watching me?”

  “Oh, not long. An hour maybe. It’s been a quiet night. Other than needing to help a guy down the hall with his catheter…”

  Ugh—too much information. I raised a hand and she stopped.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s about 4:45am. Almost the end of my exciting night shift.”

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  “Jackie.”

  “Nurse Jackie.”

  “Yep.”

  “Well tell you what, Nurse Jackie. Can you do me a favor and just hand me my pants I see laying over there?”

  “You can’t just walk out of here, Mr. Rodriguez.”

  I could see she wasn’t helping me, so I swung my feet out of the bed and to the cold linoleum hospital floor. My body was still achy and sore but it wasn’t the first time for either feeling. I grabbed the pants that had been hanging on the chair and started to put them on.

  “You need to be seen again by the doctor this morning. You were shot yesterday. They’re going to want to check the wound before they discharge you.”

  Pants on—check.

  I started to look around the room for my shirt because the open hospital gown wasn’t going to cut it for a top. A moment later, she was in front of me, putting her hand in the center of my chest again and pushing.

  Strong for a little thing. I landed back on the hospital bed, not anticipating the strength from her lily white hand.

  “Not to mention the police mentioned they were going to be back here this morning. They’re going to want to speak to you too.”

  She wanted me to stick around and talk to the cops. She was so cute…

  “Where’s my shirt?”

  “The doctor needed to cut it off you. It had a bullet hole through it and it was covered in blood.”

  “Oh, right. Fucking figures, that was my lucky shirt.”

  I eyed the briefcase on the table by the window and she saw me and moved there first to cut me off.

  “Mr. Rodriguez, listen, I seriously can’t…”

  “Look Jackie, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I really do. But for reasons that I can’t really go into with you, I need to grab that briefcase and get the hell out of here. If I stick around here much longer, I probably won’t live to see the doctor again.”

  “Well, what about your friends?”

  “Friends? What friends?”

  “The two guys that were here yesterday. We needed to shoo them out of here while the police were still here but they said they would be back.”

  She was talking to me but she was looking out the window.

  “There they are now, they’re just getting out of their car. I don’t know why they came back so early, though. I told them we couldn’t have anyone here before eight o’clock.”

  Chapter 3

  Jackie

  I was standing with my back to the door, just like he told me. Holding the clipboard, looking only at the rumpled form under the sheets on the bed.

  Don’t turn towards the door, Jackie, don’t turn to look at them.

  The door at the end of the hallway opened. They had
come up the stairs and were now heading this way. Just like he said they would.

  Don’t turn, don’t look at them.

  As long as I stayed to the side and didn’t look, this thing didn’t concern me and I wouldn’t get hurt.

  The steps were getting softer now as they approached the doorway. Two men walked down the hall but only one came through the door. I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to. Even in my peripheral vision, I could see the long muzzle of a gun made longer by the silencer on its tip.

  Three bursts of energy from the end of the barrel, and three holes in the pillows that were buried underneath the sheets on the bed. The sheets rose and fell from the impact, but there was little noise and there was no blood. There was only a split second of silence as the man stood there, confused, and then Mr. Rodriguez pounced on him from behind the door.

  I pushed myself up against the wall, just like he had said, and it was the only thing that keep me from going down with them. The first blow he delivered was to the hand holding the gun, and the man howled as the weapon clattered to the floor. There was an immediate flurry of hands as the two men started to grapple and Mr. Rodriguez pushed him against the wall.

  The assassin was big, nearly twice the size of Mr. Rodriguez, I had guessed. But my hospital patient was strong—his muscles had been clear as he had gotten out of bed just a few minutes earlier to start getting dressed. All he wore now was a pair of jeans and a hospital gown that was unbuttoned but that didn’t seem to be hindering him in the least. The big man managed to land a punch and block a couple more, but Mr. Rodriguez started to work on him like a heavyweight working on a punching bag.

  For an odd second, I thought about the wound to his shoulder. The bullet had passed through his left side but he appeared to be punching the big man mostly with his right fist so I figured that was helping him. The big man landed a shot to Mr. Rodriguez’s left shoulder and I saw him wince in pain as a small ribbon of blood started to appear in the gown. It wasn’t enough to save the big guy, though, and as I watched the flurry of fists, I started to think it only made Mr. Rodriguez madder.

  For a moment it looked like the two men might have gone spilling over the hospital bed. But Mr. Rodriguez kicked the big guy in a place even the toughest guy was going to feel, and he followed that with a blister shot to his jaw. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard the sound of bone breaking as the big man sunk to the floor and the momentum of the swing carried Mr. Rodriguez down with him.

  The fight was officially over, at least between the two of them.

  I wanted to go help him. I could see the blood spot on the gown getting bigger as he struggled to get up. But I also saw the second man come in. Dark suit, arm rising towards him, and a gun in that hand that was big and wasn’t pointing at pillows covered in sheets this time. It was pointing at dead center mass less than six feet away. I was going to watch him be killed right before my eyes.

  I reached for the table. Anything big, anything metal—and grabbed the first thing that my hand fell on. He had told me not to watch and he had said not to get involved, but it was a knee jerk reaction that I couldn’t have stopped if I tried.

  Protect him, keep the second asshole from killing him.

  So I picked up the object and I swung at the gun hand.

  “Carlos, watch out!”

  I felt the contact of metal on bony wrist right as his finger was starting to squeeze the trigger. A howl of pain followed by the unfiltered blast of a gun and a bullet sailing into the wall over Rodriguez’s head. The gun went flying as the man grabbed at his hand and Mr. Rodriguez was on a knee, starting to rise from the floor. The man I hit spun on Italian leather soles and in a flash, he was flying out the door.

  I realized suddenly that I was gasping for air. I was gasping because I had been holding my breath after the gun went off. Somewhere at the end of the hall, the stairwell door was ripped open and the assassin was running on his way out of the building. Mr. Rodriguez was in front of me—open gown, rippled midsection, eyes that were blue and looking at me intently.

  “Jackie, did you hear me?”

  I hadn’t noticed how blue his eyes were before, but all the time I was watching him he had been sleeping, so…

  “Hey, did you hear me? Are you OK?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, I’m OK, just a little shaken up I guess, I’m OK.”

  I felt my breathing starting to get back to something close to normal and I looked around the room. Big guy unconscious on the floor. Bullet hole in the wall. Three hospital pillows with bullets in them under sheets on the bed…

  “Hey, listen to me, we can’t stick around here. Do you have a car? Did you drive yourself to the hospital?”

  He was no longer in front of me. He was hurrying around the room grabbing things. His briefcase from the table, the wallet from the guy on the floor, back in front of me again.

  “Hey, did you hear me? Do you have a car? We should get out of here.”

  “We?”

  “Listen, Jackie, like it or not, you should probably be coming with me. You just kept Sammy the Scar from killing me with a fucking bedpan. He’s going to want to kill you just to keep that shit from making it onto Facebook.”

  Sammy the Scar?

  “Do you have a car here, sweetheart? I just need a ride. If you can just drop me off at my place then I’ll make sure you’re safe. I’m only about thirty minutes away from here, but we need to move fast, OK?”

  I had the affair because you’re boring, Jackie…

  “Hey, Jackie, you there? Come on, sweetheart…”

  Blue eyes pleading with me. Open hospital gown over blue jeans, the blood spot on his shoulder getting bigger…

  “My purse is at the nurse’s station. Let me go grab it.”

  Chapter 4

  Micky

  I was standing with her at the bottom of the stairs, keeping her behind me as I peered around the corner. Sammy had taken off, I was reasonably certain about that. The lot was still mostly empty and the place where his Lincoln had been parked was now clear. He was already on the phone though, surely calling in the rest of his goon squad.

  “Which car is yours?”

  I turned to look at her. She was thinking clearly enough now that she had grabbed her sweater on our way off her floor. Pink sweater over white nurse’s scrubs—it was a good look for her.

  “That one.”

  I followed the path of her pointing finger. Yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Swell.

  “Oh good. I was afraid we might be conspicuous.”

  “I’ve driven Beetles since I was sixteen years old. Consumer Reports says…”

  “Uh huh. Stay close to me, OK? We go right to the car. You drive, my shoulder is still a little sore.”

  I reached down to grab her hand. My hand was either very cold or hers was very warm. Or both. It didn’t matter, her hand felt good in mine. The hand that saved my life a few minutes ago by swinging a bedpan.

  “Let’s go.”

  We ran across the parking lot together and she unlocked the car. Two minutes later she was out of the lot and pulling onto the expressway. It was still early enough that traffic was light, which meant it was easy to see if we were being tailed.

  We weren’t.

  “Take the expressway to the exit for Hillshire. It should take you about fifteen minutes.”

  I used the first mile to ease back into her German leather passenger seat and try to figure out what the fuck to do.

  “Who were those men, Mr. Rodriguez? Why are they trying to kill you?”

  “Look, Jackie, I don’t really want to tell you more than you need to know, because I’ve already put you at risk. Or you put yourself at risk when you hit Sammy with that bedpan. But you might as well know that my last name isn’t Rodriguez any more than yours probably is. My name is Steele. Micky Steele.”

  “But the police said…”

  “Yeah, I know what the police said. They aren’t always so bright, though. They couldn’t identify me yesterday so the
y think I’m the owner of the apartment they found me in. Probably by this point they are figuring out they fucked that one up.”

  “Are you running from the police?”

  Her voice was sweet. She sounded so innocent, hard to believe she just saved my life.

  “No, not exactly. Believe it or not, I’m running from the bad guys. Here, take the exit for Harborside. We’re probably safer to get off the expressway.”

  I watched her put on her blinker and look into her blind spot as she made the turn. Hands at ten and two o’clock on the steering wheel, checking her mirrors and slowing to take the exit. A straight up law abiding citizen…

  “Well, if you’re running from the bad guys, aren’t you better off just going to the police?”

  “Not exactly. Technically, I am a bad guy, Jackie. But I’m a bad guy trying to buy my way out, which I think is why Scarface back there is trying to kill me. Corporate America isn’t the only place where people stab each other in the back while they’re trying to climb the ladder, it’s just in my business, they are doing that literally. Take a left on Emerson.”

  I didn’t give her enough notice to take the turn and she broke hard, reminding me to put on my seatbelt. I eased it in until I heard that satisfying click.

  “What is it you do that makes you a bad guy, Micky?”

  She was so sweet—pink sweater over nurse’s scrubs driving my getaway car. She was about as far removed from my world as she could get. It made me realize why I was trying to get out in the first place.

  “I kill people, Jackie. You’re going to find that out sooner or later. Once the police realize they fucked up, they’re going to come back to the hospital looking for me. I kill people for the person I work for. Bad people mostly, but I’ve had enough. Turn right on Cooper.”

  I gave her more time this time and she took the turn gracefully. A glance in the side view mirror told me we were probably still OK.