TO DIE FOR

by Sandra Ruttan

  That last one fought. Hard. Couldn’t keep hold of her hands. It wasn’t until I’d pulled the blade across her throat and she’d turned, trying to stem the blood loss by covering the gash with her hands, that I’d seen those eyes.

  MacDougal’s wife. He was always on about family and loyalty and all that shit but his wife picks herself up a bad habit and he sends me to get her while Dack takes out her dealer across town.

  He told me it was one of his girls. Minute I saw her from the back it should have hit me something wasn’t right. She was too… healthy, good shape to her, clean, new clothes. I’d never seen one of MacDougal’s girls who didn’t look as used as they were. But the way I work there’s no time for second-guessing. Grab ‘em from behind and stick ‘em, screams muffled against my gloved hand squeezing hard on their mouth.

  Those eyes… That look. In that moment I’d earned myself a wad of cash and a nightmare. I could see still see those eyes. The surprise, as MacDougal’s wife mouthed my name before she fell to the floor.

  I drained my glass and stood up.

  “Hey, what am I supposed to tell the boss?” Dack fished his cell phone out of his pocket. Calling MacDougal to report in, no doubt.

  “That we talked and I’m fine.” Trying to come off sounding more confidant than I was. My boss wasn’t someone I wanted to piss off, any more than I already had.

  “Bullshit. You’ve gone soft.” I heard him mutter the words under his breath as he punched the keys on his cell, but I kept walking.

  You ever have one of those moments where you block out what’s happening around you and zero in on one thing? The bar, the people, the noise of the balls sinking into the pockets of the pool table and the bad country music churning out of the jukebox all faded away as she walked in the door, looking around, needing to be nudged further inside because she stood blocking the door, arms wrapped across her chest, clutching her bag.

  Under the rain-soaked overcoat I could barely see the shapely legs that disappeared too soon beneath a skirt too long for this place.

  But those eyes. Crystal blue and wide, sparkling in the dim light as she glanced around, still hesitating by the door.

  Reminding me of Mrs. MacDougal. Before I’d killed her. The kind of eyes you could get lost in.

  “Something tells me you aren’t here for a drink.”

  Her mouth opened and for a second she paused, before smiling back. “My car broke down up the road, and my cell phone died.”

  Jesus. First the eyes, then the hint of her body. Now the voice. Smooth and low and hypnotic, reminding me of that jazz singer I kept hearing compared to Billie Holiday until I went and bought the album.

  “I can take a look at your ca-”

  She shook her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her delicate ear. “That’s okay. It was on its last legs anyway. I just want to get home.”

  Her eyes scoured the bar, presumably for a pay phone. I reached out and touched her elbow. She spun around, grabbed my arm with unexpected force and twisted it hard.

  “That’s a helluva grip you’ve got.” I was trying to keep from showing just how much it was hurting.

  “Sorry. I’m a teacher. Junior high.” She gave me a small, apologetic smile as she let go. “I started including self defense exercises last year.”

  “Those hands might qualify as deadly weapons.” I rubbed my arm. “Look, all I was going to say was you can’t stop shivering. Let me buy you a drink to warm you up. After that, your choice. You can let me give you a ride home, or you can call a cab.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my cell phone, as proof of my sincerity. “What do you say?”

  ***

  The next morning I dug around in the trunk in the living room until I found the Madeleine Peyroux CD and put it on.

  “Tough guy like you listening to this kind of music?” She practically purred the words as she wrapped her arms around me. No sarcasm, no criticism. All I got from her was the sense that she liked it.

  Like I’d just shown her I was deep. Sensitive. You know, all the catch phrases for women looking to settle down with a malleable guy.

  The kind of guy who can be housebroken.

  That was never the kind of guy I’d been, but that moment I decided I could get to like being that kind of guy.

  I didn’t have to be the kind that had a bunch of boxes scattered around, a high-priced stereo perched on top of a crate instead of on a stand because I’d been living one day to the next for so long I’d never even bothered to replace the cheap futon I’d cracked with the last woman I’d brought back to the bungalow I slept in, on an acreage on the outskirts of the city.

  And it had been a while since I’d broken the futon.

  It was time for something more. The way the job had gone, the things I’d been thinking when Dack was trying to talk to me in the bar…

  Time for something better.

  I turned around and looked down into those guileless blue eyes. “You busy?”

  “This morning?”

  “I mean this week.”

  That was how it started. A couple quick phone calls and the tickets were waiting for us. Waikiki. Surf, sand, sun and sex. Didn’t even need to pack bags, I told her.

  “We’ll buy everything we need when we get there.”

  Looking around my house, with its scanty furnishings and barely-lived-in feel, she’d hesitated. I’d crossed the room, tossed a box off the safe, opened it and pulled out one of the dozen stacks of hundreds three inches thick.

  “I’m not putting you on. I’ll pay for everything.”

  ***

  I managed to forget as one lazy day turned into two, and before I knew it I’d spent a few weeks in paradise with a woman I didn’t just like fucking. I actually liked her.

  She seemed to have the street smarts to take it for nothing more than a fling, sex going nowhere but enjoy it while it lasts kind of casual attitude. None of this, “What does this mean?” crap, analyzing our relationship and shit.

  Nope, that was all down to me. She was checking out the pool boy while I was drawing a line down her bikini strap with my eyes, thinking every inch of her was perfect, wondering if she’d laugh at me for saying so.

  She did.

  Didn’t make me stop, though. And by the end of the second week she wasn’t watching the pool boy, or the surfers or anyone else. We didn’t get out of our room enough for her to see them.

  “How is it,” she asked during a candlelight dinner, “that you can afford to take all this time off?”

  The shimmer of flames glowed on her flawless, bronzed skin, on the silk dress she wore.

  I shrugged. “I had a lot of vacation time due.”

  She paused, her wine glass dangling from her fingertips, a playful smile on her mouth as she looked at me coyly. “And your boss just lets you leave on short notice? Or are you the boss?”

  “No, I’m not the boss. But you could call this one of the perks of doing dangerous work.”

  “Hmmm. Dangerous? Not sure what I think about that.” She kept her gaze locked with mine as she took a sip of wine before asking, “What is it that you do?”

  “Well, to be honest, I work on contract. Sort of a trouble-shooter, you could say.”

  “Ah.” Her eyebrows rose as she nodded. “You get paid to solve problems.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  She set her glass down, the smile gone. “Why do I get the feeling you don’t like your job?”

  Because I don’t. That’s what I wanted to say. Not anymore. There was a time when it was nothing but what I did and once it was done I forgot all about it.

  Until now. A split second seemed to be on permanent slow replay in my brain every time I thought about that job, the last job. The look of surprise…

  “Huh?”

  She smiled. “You were a million miles away.”

  “Just a few thousand.” I reached for my glass. “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “If you don’t like your job anymore, w
hy not do something else?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. You ever get that in your head, the thought that maybe it’s your last chance to have a whole different life?”

  Her smile widened as she propped her head up on her hand, elbow resting on the table beside her plate.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “A bit melodramatic, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just, I’ve been having this feeling, like I should get out. Do something different. You know, have a house with furniture, some place to call home. I’ve been thinking this could be the last shot I have at a normal life.”

  “And is that what you want? Something normal?”

  The candlelight flickered in her eyes, which had the gentle curve of a smile to them. No mocking, no doubting, just questions.

  “Maybe it is. Maybe something normal would be good.”

  ***

  “You did what? Ran off to Hawaii with the first piece of ass you set eyes on? Jesus.”

  “Look Dack, I’m thinking about getting out. Starting over, you know?”

  There was a bit of static on the line and nothing more for a moment until he started to laugh. And it wasn’t a, “Hey man, I’m happy for you” kind of laugh. It was a, “You’re out of your fucking mind” kind of laugh.

  “Whadd’ya think you’d do? Just call up the boss and say you’re done?”

  There it was. The question I hadn’t been asking. There were others who’d done the same, been in the game, then cashed out. All a bit before my time, part of the reason I’d climbed as far up the ladder as I had, but MacDougal spoke well of them.

  Always said he understood. Said the life wasn’t for everyone, not forever anyway.

  “There are others…”

  “Stevie Blackmoore? Russ McLean? You know what they’re doing these days? Holding up a shopping plaza over on West 32nd.”

  “How…?”

  “You start getting ancy when the boss has you kill his wife and some broad shows up and it ain’t that hard for you to get laid, days on end, other side of the fuckin’ country? How d’you know that bitch doesn’t work for MacDougal?”

  I checked my watch, a gift from Jules. She’d given it to me the night before. The blue crystal backing made me think of the way her eyes reminded me of the sea, how I’d been thinking about maybe buying a place up north a bit, on the coast. Maine. Someplace quiet.

  “…you all fucked up over the boss’s wife, like she meant somethin’ to ya…”

  The image of a house and Jules and kids and a boat was evaporating in my mind as I tried to block out Dack’s words, but couldn’t help wondering.

  We never had gone back for her car. She hadn’t borrowed my cell, and I don’t have a phone at my place.

  “…not careful he’ll be sendin’ someone around the minute you get back.”

  That night. In the bar. Dack, with his cell phone, calling MacDougal. Jules, walking in just then, as I’m about to leave. All too easy to get her to go away with a stranger. No need to worry about staying longer and longer and changing her plans.

  ***

  I nudged Jules in the airport, nodding at the cell phone shop. “We can get you a car charger for your phone.”

  “Oh.” She waved her hand. “I left my cell at your place, in my bag.”

  Which didn’t prove anything, except I found my neck stiffening, just a bit.

  As we pulled out of the airport I took a detour. She’d only been to my house the one time, weeks before, and had driven there in the dark so I didn’t think she’d notice.

  But she did.

  “Thought we’d drive past where you left your car, check on it.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything. And when we approached the bar where we’d first met I asked her, “Where did you leave it?”

  “Hmmm…” She strained at the window, studying the road ahead, which was wooded on both sides through this stretch. “Right around here.”

  “Looks like they towed it.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You don’t seem too worried.”

  Jules shrugged. “It was an old piece of junk, anyway.”

  When we got back to my place she walked straight across the living room, to the bag she’d left behind and pulled out her cell. I went to the bedroom, to set my bags down.

  There was a sharp knock on the door, and I stepped back into the living room. Jules made to answer the door but I snapped, “Stay there.”

  She backed up and squatted down, dropping the dead cell into her bag.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, man.”

  Dack. What had he said on the phone, when he was telling me not to even come back if I was thinking of getting out of the game?

  He’ll be sendin’ someone around the minute you get back.

  Shit. Dack. I reached back, cautiously pulling open the top drawer of the dresser and my fingers felt the cold steel.

  The door opened. “What the hell did I tell you?”

  “So you warn me off and then take the job?”

  “What?” Dack held his hands up. “Look, it was me who said if you tried getting’ out the boss…” He looked at Jules, and then his hand moved to his pocket.

  “Don’t do it.” I pointed the gun at him.

  His eyes bugged out of his head. ““You’ve known me how long and you’re pointing a gun at me? It’s her you should be worried about.”

  Jules was crouched low, hand just inside the opening to her bag.

  “It’s like I said on the phone. You’re thinkin’ about gettin’ out and what comes along right then? Some broad who doesn’t think twice about runnin’ off to the other side of the country with a stranger. Use your fuckin’ head! MacDougal knew you were upset. He knew you were vulnerable.” Dack swallowed. “He knew you were at that bar, because he sent me.”

  I stood there, staring at him, wishing it didn’t all make sense.

  “You know how we talked, about if we ever needed to get out, because of the cops. That’s why I’m here. I’ve got your ID, got everything. The only thing you need to worry about is her.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Jules murmured.

  “Yeah? What’cha reachin’ into your bag for? You got a gun in there? Did you even see her car? Don’t tell me you were so fuckin’ stupid that you believed her without even seeing her car.”

  There was a blur of movement from the corner of the room, a glint of light on steel as Jules stood up, turning towards me. “I’m just-”

  Thwap thwap. The bullets struck her chest almost before I consciously realized I’d squeezed the trigger. Jules fell back, those big blue eyes wide as her face went white while her shirt turned dark red.

  She opened her hand, the cell phone dropping to the floor beside her.

  I turned. Nothing apologetic in Dack’s expression as he raised his hands. I heard the pop, the truth hitting home with the impact of the bullet, my hand burning with the second pop, my gun clattering to the floor beyond my reach as my legs folded underneath me.

  “Wha’d I tell you, man? Minute you came home MacDougal would send someone around.” He crossed the room, kicked my gun beyond my reach and then stepped back, careful not to get my blood on his shoes as he lit a cigarette, blew out a deep breath.

  “Didn’t think...not…you,” I sputtered.

  “Idiot. How’d you think I knew about Blackmoore and McLean, eh? I’m a company man. Always have been.” He sucked hard on the cigarette, face darkening with the effort, and then he blew it out, long and slow.

  I could just turn my gaze to Jules, line of blood trickling down from her mouth, eyes half open staring vacantly.

  “In this business, you aren’t in or out. You’re in or you’re gone,” he said as the room went dark.

  Restoration

  Scott walked into the room as the frail figure in the bed lifted her head. “Out. I want him out.”

  Mildred Earle collapsed against the pillow.
/>   “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lindsay said as she stared back at her mother, her arms folded across her chest.

  “I…want…him…out,” the old woman whispered hoarsely. Mildred clasped the sheet with clawed hands and pulled it up, partially covering her face. Scott sighed. Mother had never come close to rivalling her daughter in the drama department before but she was making a good go of it in her old age.

  “Uh, as I was saying, she’s reached the point where she’s not capable of making her own decisions. You can’t rely on her to act in a rational manner.” The doctor used soft, soothing tones as he talked to the next of kin and the lawyer, his back to his patient.

  Scott watched the circle of adults. His brother-in-law, David, put his arm around Lindsay, who seemed to gain an inch in height the second he touched her.

  “So, what you’re saying is, Mildred Earle isn’t fit to make any changes to her will or legal documents?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll need that medical documentation for my file…”

  Lindsay turned. The hushed exchanges between the doctor and the lawyer continued as she looked at her brother.

  “The humidifier is empty, Scott. Must I remind you every time I come that it’s important? It’s hard for Mother to breathe.”

  He bit his lip but didn’t argue. As he filled the humidifier in the sink of the master bath suite that his brother-in-law had built – the one thing David had done that he actually appreciated – he heard footsteps and the sound of the door closing as the bedroom emptied. The shrivelled woman, clutching her blankets and peering out at him with wide eyes, was the only one left when he returned.

  “Don’t kill me,” she said. “Don’t hurt my baby.”