The Fever Dream

by Sam Jones

  “You pick it?”

  “The Executives picked it for me.”

  “The who?”

  “The Executives.”

  “And who are they, exactly?”

  “They’re the higher-ups at The Trust. Tara, that lovely lady you spoke to? They’re her bosses as well. They’re everyone’s bosses.”

  “I see… You’re, uh, being quite open with me, I have to say. I thought hit men liked anonymity.”

  “I could be lying. I could be telling the truth. Either way, you can’t really use the stuff I’ve said against me. Even if you tried, I’d just kill you before you could do anything about it.”

  Amanda swallowed. He wasn’t kidding.

  “Let’s not run in circles, Amanda. Like I said before: you need to be one hundred percent sure that you want this. You tell me what type of service you desire, I will give you a price, and then you will say yes or no. That’s why I wanted to meet you in person, to make sure that you’re absolutely certain you want this. If you say yes, after that, there’s no turning back.”

  She paused. Breathed. Spoke—

  “I want him dead. I need him dead,” she said like a mantra, the same way she said it to Tara.

  Black thought back to his conversation with Tara when she gave him the outline of the situation before he spoke with Amanda —

  “What Tier is the contract?” Black asked Tara.

  The Trust had divided all contracts into ‘Tiers.’ A Tier One job was the usual ‘murder for hire.’ Cheating husbands or terrible bosses that needed the boot. Higher up on the scale you found yourself at the Tier Five jobs, usually multi-man contracts that involved something like robbing a bank or taking multiple hostages. Tier Ten, the highest in the contract echelon, tended to be gigs that fell more along the lines of government destabilization and political assassinations. Tier Ten’s were reserved for the best of the best, and Black was far from the best of the best.

  He was just lucky.

  “How long has he been beating her?” Black asked Tara.

  “A few months, she claims,” Tara replied.

  “That’s it? Most of these situations go on for years before someone pulls the trigger.”

  “It’s not your problem to figure out if her motives are sound, Mister Black. Your job is to kill her husband.”

  Black thought for a moment before speaking again. “Who is she?”

  “Amanda Francine Dubin,” said Tara as she read Black a background check on Amanda. “Thirty-one, female, Los Angeles resident.”

  “What does she do?”

  Tara paused. Read. “Nothing, currently. Last know job was an upscale watch retailer located in Universal City.

  “No criminal history?” Black inquired. “Arrests? Restraining order filings? Anything like that?”

  Tara read some more. “No. Nothing.”

  “I think I’ll pass. Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s been assigned to you. Miss Trask has taken away your privilege to choose your assignments, considering what happened with the Koogan contract.”

  He remembered. The end result had landed him on The Trust’s shit list.

  Take the contract.

  Don’t want a Re-Val.

  “Where is the contract located?” asked Black.

  “Los Angeles,” said Tara.

  “Wonderful. Superb. Are you going to book the flight, or should I just put it on my platinum card?”

  “We’ll pay your fare, Mister Black, we always do.”

  “I was making a joke.”

  “It didn’t land. I’ll arrange a flight for you to Los Angeles,” said Tara. “Forward me your receipts. I’ll deduct all expenditures from your Contractor Expense Account,” she said.

  “Thanks, Tara.”

  “May I assist you with anything else, Mister Black?”

  Black snorted.

  “Just one thing out of curiosity,” he said.

  Tara waited.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” asked Black. “I’m looking for a date—”

  Tara hung up the line before she had a chance to let Black finish his jab.

  He cracked a smile and focused on Amanda and the cold beer in front of him that was beginning to turn warm.

  “You know, I don’t have to kill him,” said Black. “I can make him disappear. Rough him up. Blackmail him.”

  “A hit man can do all of that?” Amanda asked.

  “I’m more than just that. I’m a jack of all trades.”

  “Right. A Contractor. For ‘The Trust’.”

  “Be careful how loudly you talk,” said Black.

  Amanda fell silent.

  “Don’t suppose you want another night to sleep on this?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “All right” he said. “Let’s keep it simple: Do you want me to do this? Yes or no.”

  Amanda nodded repeatedly, as if the motion would somehow speed up the process like the clicking of ruby-red heels.

  “All right,” said Black. “It’s going to cost you ten thousand.”

  Amanda blinked once, inhaled, and exhaled.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Black was stunned. Ten thousand was not as much money as it used to be, but this girl wasn’t batting an eye at the price tag.

  “You’re going to go to a motel,” Black told Amanda. “Ever heard of The Silver Saddle? It’s not far from here.”

  Amanda knew it. “Yeah.”

  “Good. Go there. I booked you in Room 10. Key is waiting for you at the front desk under your name. Showed him a picture. He should recognize your face. Don’t go anywhere, don’t call anyone, and don’t take your cell phone. You’ll wait there until I come by and make contact with you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you have anyone that’s expecting you?”

  “I do what my husband tells me to do. No one’s expecting me anywhere.”

  Black started breaking down the facts in his head. Laying a plan. Figuring out his angle.

  “I’m going to make it look like your husband disappeared. Took off. Skipped town, maybe with a girl. Skinny eighteen-year-old or something. It’ll be the best way to avoid suspicion when this is all over.”

  “But you are going to—”

  “I’ll do what you’ve asked.”

  She nodded. Satisfied.

  “Do you by chance know where Richie is right now?” asked Black.

  “Either the strip club he hangs out at or our apartment,” said Amanda.

  “Where’s that?”

  “6552 De Longpre Avenue.”

  “And the strip club?”

  “He only ever goes to one. ‘The Gentleman’s Club.’ It’s in Burbank.”

  Black took a mental note.

  “How long will this take?” asked Amanda.

  “Not sure,” said Black. “Maybe one day, maybe two. I need to follow your husband and map out an ideal plan to eliminate him. Once it’s done, we’ll talk about the money part.”

  “Okay,” said Amanda in a flat, hopeless tone.

  At that point the deal had been made. There was no point in sticking around any longer.

  But Black did.

  Because he wanted to.

  His eyes went wide and a cheap grin stretched across his face. “You want to hear a joke?” asked Black. “You look like you could go for a joke, right about now.”

  The shift in tone made Amanda mentally spin for a quick second. She couldn’t help but indulge it. “Uh. Okay,” she said.

  “This is a knock, knock joke. You okay with that?”

  “Sure...”

  “Okay. Let’s do this… Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Butch, Jimmy and Joe.

  “Butch, Jimmy, and Joe Who?

  “Butch your arms around me, Jimmy a kiss, and let’s Joe.”

  A few seconds of dead air passed.

  “That’s not funny…” Amanda said.

  Black
snapped his fingers, genuinely bummed out. “Damn it. I can never land the one-liners.”

  The poor attempt at humor actually cheered her up. Her lips formed into a grin.

  Black pulled out a pen and grabbed a napkin from the stack, a shamrock with Ireland’s written in green on the front. He jotted down a number, folded the napkin in half, and handed it to Amanda. “This is my number. It’s the only number you should be calling. And only if there’s an emergency.”

  She stashed the napkin in her purse like a prize was wrapped inside.

  Black placed a crisp twenty on the bar and stood up. Then he put his hand out. Amanda wasn’t sure what he was trying to say, but when he held a curled fist with the thumb and pinky extended to his ear, she understood.

  “I don’t have a cell phone,” she said.

  “Really…”

  “Yeah. Richie took it away. Do you need my apartment keys? That I do have.”

  “It would help.”

  She forked them over, a pine tree keychain attached on the bottom.

  Black jingled it in his hand. “This actually smells like pine trees.”

  Amanda looked at the keychain with such weight and history it threw Black for a quick spin. For a moment, one might have thought that he was taking her child from her, based on the way her eyes were squinting at him.

  “Can I have that, actually?” she asked, eyes glued to the keychain.

  Black didn’t get it, but it wasn’t the time to question it. He unhooked the pine tree and handed it over to Amanda, who pocketed it and then left her hand hovering over the pocket she stored it in, guarding it like a secret.

  Black got back to business—

  “I’ll have a cab out front for you in fifteen minutes. Have another beer in the meantime,” said Black. “Everything’s gonna work out. I’ll see you soon, Amanda.”

  Then he headed towards the door. Amanda turned to watch him leave but in a flash he was gone. A ghost. She quickly thought about how the guy was able to switch back and forth, sounding so lighthearted one moment and feeling like he was about to pull a gun on her the next.

  He was unbalanced.

  Yet somehow appealing…

  She had her beer. Fifteen minutes passed. Amanda slid Black’s twenty-dollar bill towards the bartender, slipped on her thin, gray hooded sweatshirt, and went for the door. Hope in her stride. In just a short time life would be back on track.

  Everything’s gonna work out…

  In the back of the bar, a man with a shaved head, big arms and jet-black beard placed a ten-dollar bill on his table and headed for the exit.

  He followed after Amanda, his right palm resting inside his jacket on the grip of a tucked-away revolver.

  Everything outside was wet. Black was initially going to post up on a corner, but the wet asphalt and mist lingering in the air made him switch it up, just in case rain was going to hit. He went inside the gas station across the street and bought a protein bar, a bottle of water, and a pack of American Spirits. A pay phone was near the bathroom. He used it to call for two cabs at the same destination.

  Black didn’t use Uber. Contractors didn’t use cell phone apps.

  He let another minute pass before he saw the mist outside subsiding. Black moved back outside, turning away from the security camera behind the clerk as he did so.

  He walked out and moved twenty feet to his left and positioned himself across the street from the bar. He leaned against a street lamp, one foot crossed in front of the other to support his leaning frame as the orange glow from the light overhead shrouded him in some hellfire kind of lighting.

  He looked at his watch, a sturdy, slightly oversized thing that looked like a cross between a dress watch and a sport watch. Chronograph. Black. Thick leather strap. Durable. He saw that he had another two minutes to kill. During that time, he lit and puffed on an American Spirit. He never indulged more than three a day. Black shouldn’t have been smoking. It wasn’t a written rule in The Trust’s long line of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts,’ but it went without saying that Contractors needed to be in top physical form and smoking was a big no. Every six months, The Trust would send Contractors out to get physicals. CT scans from head-to-toe. Black always made it a point to not smoke thirty days before his check-ups; just to be sure no trace amounts of nicotine were hanging ten in his system. He was certain that somebody was getting wise to his trickery during his last physical.

  Fuckin’ doctors…

  He puffed as he took a mental map of his surroundings for any tails or suspect characters. There were none. Almost on cue, Amanda emerged and was out in front of the bar. One minute after that, one of two cabs that Black hailed had arrived.

  He checked his watch—

  Sixteen minutes.

  I was off by a minute…

  She got inside and the cab took off. The second cab arrived for Black thirty seconds after Amanda’s. Black hopped in, gave the driver a hundred-dollar bill and told him to follow the other cab.

  During the ride he looked out of his window and took in the sights – a stretch of renovated apartment complexes, occasional peppering of coffee chains, and fast food joints. Not much to look at, in Black’s opinion, especially when nighttime hit and soaked everything in a layer of black. The trendier stuff, i.e. hipster coffee shops, dance centers, and clubs/theatres were in the opposite direction of his destination.

  This was Black’s third time in LA and his second visiting North Hollywood. He liked Los Angeles on the whole well enough. There was an air of industrial romanticism and a captivating sense of noir to many parts of the city. Decent food. Gorgeous people. Cities just weren’t his preferred style of living.

  I just wish I lived in a cabin.

  In the woods.

  In the middle of nowhere.

  Seven minutes went by before Amanda was dropped off at the Silver Saddle Motel. Just off Lankershim Boulevard. Black’s cab not far behind her.

  Black scoped out the area as his driver pulled up outside the motel—

  Apartment complexes that had not advanced past 1970s aesthetics stood off to the left of the motel. On its right was an abandoned building. Looked like a former donut shop that couldn’t keep up with the times. A twenty-year layer of dust had gathered on the windows and made it look fogged. Across the street was a paint and body shop that rested in a strip mall, which seemed to sport nothing but automotive services – a tire store, muffler store, oil/smog check. There were vintage and totaled cars parked in several of the parking spots. To the right of the strip mall was a four-story building painted in beige. A sign over the top read ‘Studio Storage.’ The style of the blue and white lettering and burnt-out neon tracing the sign meant the thing was probably erected sometime around the ‘50s. Cutting through the middle of the street, in front of the motel, was a seemingly endless row of trenches, dirt, gravel, and construction equipment surrounded by fencing and road meridians – a future rail line that was an attempt to link The Valley into the rest of the LA Metro’s circulatory system. It stretched the entire length of Lankershim and well past where the naked eye could see. The whole thing looked like a border crossing that went on forever.

  The motel itself was old. Definitely erected around the same time the Studio Storage was. Palm trees were scattered around in an uncoordinated pattern. Three buildings occupied the ground – one up in front, one on the left, and one tucked into the far back/right corner of the lot. The buildings on the corner and on the left were rooms. The building up in front was the main office with a faux, full-sized brown and white stallion resting on top of the roof like a forgotten Christmas decoration, sporting a rigid pose. Almost proud. Black questioned how it played into the generic white and yellow coloring of the motel.

  It didn’t. It was just a pointless relic that stood the test of time.

  Black told his driver to hang back while he watched Amanda enter the hotel from a distance. She walked to a box office-like window area near the front door of the main office building. Said he
r name through the hole in the window. The clerk behind the desk recognized her from a photo someone showed him. The clerk behind the desk then gave her a key. She turned to the row of rooms on her left, walked down to Room 10, went inside, then shut and locked the door behind her. Several seconds later the lights went out.

  Black nodded.

  Safe and sound.

  Black took an extra minute to once again make sure that there were no tails or suspect characters. There were none. Satisfied, he gave his driver another Benjamin before slipping out of the cab and heading into the Silver Saddle. He was staying there too.

  Best to stay close to the girl.

  Black checked in here an hour before he headed off to Ireland’s for the meet with Amanda, so he walked right past the clerk, a white kid who looked like a reject from a John Hughes movie. He was knee-deep in a Lee Child novel and never looked up as Black headed for Room 8. His room.

  He glanced at his watch—

  10:32 p.m.

  Time to start planning. Between the location of the strip club and Amanda’s apartment (and her keys), Black had enough information to work with. He’d scope out both locations, find Richie Dubin, tail him, and fill in the rest of the blanks as he went along.

  Maybe a cigarette first?

  No, dick.

  You just had one.

  Snag a shower.

  He was in dire need of a smoke when he landed at LAX earlier that morning, where he was greeted at the exit with his ‘supplies’ from a bald man in a black suit. It was always someone different that met him when he arrived somewhere for a job, but those people, male and female, always wore black suits. Black figured it was The Trust’s half-assed attempt at having some sort of ‘uniform.’

  The bald man in a suit handed over a black, leather courier bag. The contents inside were stored neatly – a burner phone, gloves, carbon fiber knife, several dozen gun magazines, a document for Amanda called a CW (something important she’d have to sign when the job was finished), toiletries, and Black’s preferred tool of choice – a Beretta 92F 9mm. As an aging cop with a moustache once put it, “Takes fifteen in the mag, and one in the pipe.” An old school model, but sturdy and durable. With minor, basic maintenance the Beretta could hold up phenomenally well over time. He was also given a suppressor and six thousand dollars in per diem. It was all Black needed. He was efficient and economical. The bosses always liked that about him. Of all the Contractors, he was by far the cheapest, in terms of expenses. He never spent too much. But time could change that. After all, Black was only two years into his twenty-five-year contract.