The Hit Woman's Assassination Handbook

by Jane Brooke

  After a half hour, of more rounds, gathering this and that, he moves back to his cruiser, sets his big Texas behind down on the hood, staring at a problem that for him no longer exists.

  Sitting there, many things are gnawing at his mind.

  He smiles, turns, walks to the open door, slumps down into the front seat, simply staring straight ahead. For several moments, sharp eyes roam, wander, wonder and appreciate the perfection of the moment.

  Having placed most of the pieces together, he lowers his eyes to his passenger seat. His twinkle blue eyes focus on a grey metal attached case he had retrived from the diner.

  Staring at it for a moment, he takes his freckled hand and opens it.

  Happy fingers dance over the one hundred thousand dollars neatly stacked in hundred dollar bills in it.

  On top of the stack is a business card along with a small note, printed from a computers printer.

  He begins to read, his lips softly moving as he does.

  “For all the brave cops, especially ONE, who risk their lives every day keeping us safe from the garbage of the world. ENJOY.”

  Knowing that Ranger Keats Jr. and his two youngest daughters have their college secure now, he looks at HIS business card, the one he had given to a pretty thin blond gal not to long ago.

  “I’ll be damned.” He whispers.

  Shaking his head, he smiles, lays the card on the stack of money, snaps the case shut.

  It’s just enough, not that he would anyways, to keep him from digging around any further than he must about the blond.

  Drug deal gone wrong; that’s his opinion

  One more sweep of the compound, no pretty little blond girl. No Jason Cox. No horses. No convertible Caddilac.

  Every puzzle has an ending and he is pretty sure how this one finally terminated.

  “Yer pretty smart, wasn’t ya? Good luck, little lady.” He whispers as he turns around.

  “Buckle up Doc.”

  Doc Earl, head revolving on his neck, jerks his head, gawks at the Ranger, says. “When the moon falls, Doc Earl will work.”

  “That’s great, doc.” Keats giggles, almost breaks out laughing, reaches back and snaps the seat belt, turns and fires up the cruiser.

  Laughing, he pulls onto the highway, gives her some fuel and, then roars down the road.

  He’s a knowin’ it’s just another cowboy’s story

  It’s just another cowboy sheriff tale, in so many old west tales

  A story as old as time, tellin’ an epic story of the hero sheriff:

  Who done got his man one way or another.

  Epitaph

  LAS VEGAS, 53 miles, the sign read.

  Driving down the desert highway and as the cool night desert wind chilled her, her eyes flicked at the rear view mirror and she began to remember.

  LAYING IN the dirt of their past world, Jason Cox had died that morning within the arms of her new life.

  Shortly after he had taken his last breath, several Indian men had come. Showing great respect for their Shaman, trusting no white man, nor woman, they showed her reverence though, for they had known that he had loved her.

  Still though, there was silence as they reverently took his body, wrapped it in an Indian blanket, secured him to one of his beloved horses. With still no words shared between those that loved him they rode off, his other stallions loping not far behind them.

  Barely able to stand, feeling pain from her wounds, her heart, she had stood, and simply gazed off at the trail of dust the horses threw up behind them. Straining her eyes, wanting every last bit of him, she had watched as they had magically disappeared into the desert.

  It was quiet and finally there was no more violence about.

  As she gazed at the end of such matters, she understood time was precious and that there was still much to be done.

  Finishing her work in the barn, she had loaded the Cadillac with everything she would need within her new life, except a simple photograph.

  She wanted to remember him as she had loved him.

  After finding Mava’s stash of money in one of the Lincoln Town Cars, retrieving her own bounty, she had walked to the Cadillac, parked near the corrals, took one last look around, entered into the car, slumping painfully into the front seat.

  Earlier, she had found Sue, eyes stark, dead, and she had wept.

  Sue had died for her too.

  Placing her ball cap on, she swept her good eye towards the barn and the corrals. Tears fell down her cheeks as she took one last moment to remember.

  After many moments of remembrance, she placed the car in gear, liked the feeling of the smoothness of the engine beneath her. Arvan had made her perfect.

  She then drove from the complex, hit the road.

  As she drove west she peeked once into her rear view mirror at a life she could barely remember being a part of at all.

  Many miles past the Las Vegas sign, she turns her head, stares at Angel, who with bandaged head, lays on her puppy pillow, silent, nose wet, twitching, enjoying the feeling of the wind, safety, her partner being next to her as midnight begins to surround her.

  Reaching out, Mandal, scarf on her neck, heavy bomber jacket pressed along her aching frame, reaches over and pets her, whispers. “You okay, girl?”

  Angel, perhaps more grateful than any creature on earth to finally be safe and away from her worst doggie nightmares looks at her, whimpers as she licks her saviors hand.

  Closing her eyes, Angel falls to dreams, safe now, like the driver of the car, perhaps for the first time.

  Smiling, Mandal involuntarily grips the steering wheel, winces, moans, look’s at her bandaged two broken fingers.

  She struggles on a pair of black leather gloves and winces in acute pain.

  Leaning forward, she looks into her rear view mirror at her broken nose, cut eyebrow, bruised lips, and swollen eye. Groaning, she smirks, giggles, looks at Angel.

  “We’ll get everything fixed in Vegas, right girl?”

  “Pant, pant, pant.”

  silence except for the sound of the purring engine, and wind whirling past her face.

  Then off on the horizon, something draws her attention.

  Her eyes lift at the beginning of a city glow stretched off against the stars set before her.

  Pushing her bomber jacket closer to her neck, she shudders, for she feels as if she is entombed in her car, safe, compartmentalized. She moves for a cigarette, winces in pain, she has forgotten about the broken rib.

  Digging out a smoke, she takes her Zippo out, stares at the Red Dragon insignia, remembers everything, as if the chrome lighter is an echo, returning every thing from ten years to the present to her.

  Nodding her head, she flames it out, lights her smoke, inhales and, then ASSASSINATES the lighters flame.

  As Las Vegas nears and millions of neon lights twinkle in the clear desert sky, she feels a renewal sweep into her body. That vanishes, as she thinks about Atlantic City, is it over, or is it just beginning, what will happen?

  At the moment she neither-cares or can fathom any of it. The snake has had his head cut off and in her mind the chances that anyone could ever really piece any of it together were slim to none.

  She had been wrong before, and she would be wrong again, though it would take some time for her to know that one can never really run from ones past.

  Unable to know the future and with a glowing mystery materializing in front of her she drives on, not knowing that one day there would be more killing and more murders and more wonder and she would be apart of every moment of it.

  In the morning it would be another day and the world’s future as it was known would change for ever, as would hers.

  Finally

  YEARS after Al-Queda had done its grueso
me work, New York, though traumatized was thawing from winter, returning to it’s business of being the center of the world.

  Though the skyline was forever changed and the great buildings were dearly missed, Manhattan was bustling. Shoppers were grazing in its trendy boutiques and the usual crowds were fulfilling business, doing commerce for wealth as well as pleasure and were filling the sidewalks.

  As the two black limousines snaked their way through Manhattan, no one paid them much heed.

  Their opulence, in a city of opulence was as anonymous as grinding poverty was to most other parts of the world.

  Passing Central Park, the limos cruise past The Plaz, passed that grand edifice as the driver continued tooling further along the street.

  After another block, the chauffeur finds the street, pulls to the curb in front of tall sky scrapper, parks, as the other limousine parks behind him.

  Having requested large men, that did not mind heavy lifting, of course accompanied by a large tip, the passenger in the lead care sits silently in the back. She peers out the tinted windows through sunglasses at the crowds of finely dressed people passing bye.

  After some moments of reflection, the door opens, held by the burly driver.

  She stands and as she passes, he is in awe by her beauty, though many faded white scares trail down her aquiline face. Standing, hesitating, she peeks up at the forty stories, nods to herself, knowing now that everything will be fine.

  Dressed in an impossibly expensive Giorgio Armani black business suit, set off by a silk, white T-shirt, and with a pair of black Manolo Blahnik leather tie ups gracing her small feet, all tied together by a heavy black pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, she appears exactly how she wants to appear.

  She looks chic, gorgeous, classic, and very, very, very rich, which she of course is.

  Already having given explicit orders to her two chauffeurs, she stands patiently as the two men go to work.

  As she stands there like a white, thin, tall egret dressed in black, men and women cannot but help stare at her, sharing whispers about her as they pass.

  She notices none of them.

  The two men work diligently as they stack box after card board box onto two, sturdy, steel dollies.

  Loading both dollies to the top, both men turn and almost in reverence stall, waiting for the sophisticated, very generous knockout to give them further orders.

  They stare at her. They can not help themselves.

  Faded white scars, as well as a small, misguided nose, which she had a plastic surgeon repair, not for cosmetics, but so that she could breath, simply adds to her stunning beauty.

  Beauty with out flaws is flaccid, always devoid of any character. She knows that now.

  Like a band leader of a marching band, she waves for them to follow her into the building, which they do.

  Gliding through the ornate lobby, she turns to the bank of gold letters of the business directory, behind glass, staked into the green marble walls.

  Finding the number, along with her men, she smiles her way through a checkpoint, lying as she does.

  Men are men, everywhere.

  New York, Paris, Rome, Inferno Flats, they all are the same in the end.

  They are susceptible to astonishing class and beauty and the guards at the detectors are no different.

  They smile, blush, whisper as she and the men with the dollies pass through.

  She could have walked into the lobby of The Central Intelligence Agency carrying an AK-47 and no one would have prevented her from doing so.

  Once in the elevator, she presses her body against the wall as she had done so long ago when she was a thief sneaking around the Cox compound. Several men stare at her, which of course she ignores.

  Up and up they go.

  People fall away as others join them on their way to the top floor of the building.

  The door pings open. She and her crew exit walk up to a pretty young receptionist sitting at a desk. Around them, people are bustling, some staring at her and the men; the office is richly furnished, quite rich and ornate.

  Beauty as does style forever disarms the most leery of people.

  Staring at the young, stylish receptionist, she smiles, gets right to the point, strong, elite, almost demanding in her words. She holds such grace and élan, perhaps that only the rich can muster; the girl is in awe of her.

  The girl alerts, as the most beautiful woman she has ever seen demands to see who is in charge.

  She protests, but that fades quickly.

  Fanned across the desk, ten one hundred dollars bills sweeps all protest from her voice.

  A smile from the woman melts her and though she loves her job at The Fortune Five Hundred Company, she is not well paid. She knows in this business, there are girls dying to get into an entry level position, pay their dues, until they can climb the ladder into a prestigious job, which what the place is all about to begin with.

  Remembering a little slip of a Betsy Johnson outfit she has been dying to buy, she peeks right, left, sweeps the money into her drawer.

  She stands, assures the beautiful woman that yes indeed she can help her, turns and clicks down the hall in her sling back, low heels, black leather pumps.

  After many curious stares from some very chic workers milling around and a few minutes later, the girl walks towards her.

  She is followed by a distinguished, graying at the temples, Pierre Cardin black suit, white shirt, black tie, black leather loafers, late fortyish man. In her mind, though a bit taller, the man reminds Mandal of Bobby Ugo.

  She charms the bejesus out of him.

  They chat, he is in her web, of course can not say no to her, for why should he.

  He is as prone and weak to wealth, opportunity, as well as to the most stunning woman he has ever seen.

  He is just like the like any sap she has ever met.

  Being charmed by a habitual liar, he rbeing anything but what she represents, never even enters his mind. Like most men, he just wants to be near her and if breaking some silly rules means he can, why the heck not.

  Peeking at the burly men dressed in black, the dollies and, then her, hidden behind those Jackie O sunglasses, he bows slightly. He asks her to please follow him; which she and her merry band of men do.

  Past many cubicles and, then the offices, the VP leads her along the hall. Once through the door of his office, which we’re made of plate glass windows, with a full view of the city, he pulls a leather arm chair out for her. She sits.

  He moves around his desk, settles in an even bigger brown leather chair, smiles, feels his toes curling and, then the grift begins.

  They exchange pleasantries about how they love Paris, Rome, skiing in the Alps, blah, blah, blah.

  For good measure (over kill is preferable when a girl wants what she wants when she wants it) she try’s Italian.

  No! He does not speak it.

  She plumbs out some French from her full lips, nope. She smiles and reverts back to English.

  Already he is so very enamored with her.

  That’s a good thing.

  Deciding already before meeting him, that the truth of the matter would never do, she has, as always, a new plan ready at her lying lips.

  A genius, she only needs half of her brain to know that a story about a mad poet living in a barn, surrounded by Indians in the desert, with visiting killers from the Mafia, while this crazed family of murderers ran an amphetamine empire, was a no no.

  She will tell him a new, better story.

  As preposterous as her new story will be, she is still the perfect liar, having honed that craft being a heartless, thieving prostitute in a nude club in her other life.

  That is a minor fact that she will skip in the telling of the tall tale also.

  Her
story goes something like this.

  A widow to a Swiss Banker and in between grieving, she is tooling along the slopes of Bariloche, in The Lake District of Chile, skiing, doing S curves when suddenly she veers off path.

  An avalanche had broken and she had barely steered clear from it, alive. It had closed all the passes, and at that time she did not know it.

  Finding herself in a remote valley, completely lost, she sees a lone cabin in the deep snow, smoke spiraling out of a grey stone chimney. Cross country skiing over, she knocks at the door and thus a life changing experience appeared from the most unlikely of places.

  The man, who answered the door of the wooden cabin, was an artist, horrible disfigured from burns from an airplane accident.

  He spoke little of it.

  He was reclusive, had horses, dogs, cats and very little to do with the outside world.

  Surprisingly, he had graciously allowed her to enter his world. (She loves this story).

  Mandal thinks about throwing in a planet destroying asteroid.

  She does not.

  With jaw agape, he stares at her face in awe.

  The slick VP has no questions what so ever why any man would send HER away, ever.

  Time passed and she had fallen in love with him, as he had with her.

  As she spins her story, he keeps staring at the boxes, back to her lips, a yard of bare legs which he cannot tear his eyes from.

  Then sadness engulfs him, for she tells him the year she spent with the artist was the most amazing time in her life.

  She assures him, peeking at the boxes that her Man, Jason that his writing is in the boxes is nothing short of pure artistic genius.

  Tears fall under her Raybans as she tells him the rest of the tragic, horrific fairy tale.

  He had been sick, very ill for a very long time. He then dies in her arms, telling her that he loves her.

  OMG.

  The VP almost starts to weep wondering where he can get a Cracker Jack screen writer so he can whore the story to Hollywood.

  Within the moment of his final death, she promises him that she would cherish the legions of his unseen work in her memory forever.