Fashion doesn't do anything for me unless you're modelling the latest urban assault clothing or maybe the latest version of night vision goggles. Francis is just another client with a problem, and it sounds like he's got a rather big one at that.
I pick him out pretty easily when I see him leave the office. He was pretty accurate in his description of himself, but mostly it's the bruising and cuts on the face that give him away. The sunglasses he's wearing look like they're probably hiding the worst of it, even though I can still see the bruising around his eyes. The glasses don't cover it all.
And then of course, there's the limp and the sling on his left arm. Kinda hard to miss those. This guy was kidding when he said he'd got the shit beat out of him. I was feeling for him already just looking at him. I could only imagine how bad the poor schmuck had felt right after it happened.
When I checked his reference, she told me Francis had been beaten several times now, and that they kept getting worse each time. From the looks of him, I'd say his attacker didn't have much more room to up his game without leaving Francis lying in a hospital bed or actually killing him. I guess that's why the poor guy called me. He knew this couldn't go on much longer things getting a lot worse.
It didn't take me long to decide Francis was on the level and didn't present any threat. I don't think he wouldn't be much of one on his best day, never mind the way he looked today.
I followed him and stepped up behind him when he stopped to get a coffee at one of those high-end coffee joints. You know the kind where they ask you a bunch of questions about how you want your coffee, and you can't understand a word they're saying except that it's going to cost you your right arm and somehow be worth every penny.
When I leaned close and spoke his name, I think the poor guy just about filled his boxers. I figured he was bound to be jumpy, but this was a whole level above that. Francis was so tightly wound, he was likely to die of a heart-attack before his attacker got the chance to lay another beating on him.
He actually let out a little shriek slash scream when he heard my voice. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him it was alright, told him who I was, and that it was OK. I swear I could actually feel the poor guy's heart pounding through right through his shoulder, and then his body seemed to sigh in relief as he realized he wasn't in danger.
We each ordered and found a little table in the back of the coffee shop where we could talk undisturbed. If Francis had any reservations about me, he certainly didn't show it, which meant either one of two things. Either he'd been fully informed by the person that referred him about what I was capable of, or he was one of those rare people that didn't automatically judge a book by it's cover and assume I was just a harmless teenage girl.
I figured it was actually a little of both. Obviously he would've been given some background from his reference, but I also got the feeling Francis was one of those rare people that didn't form rush judgements on appearance alone. Oddly enough, I found myself liking him right off the bat, which isn't exactly a normal occurrence for me.
As Francis told me his story, I found myself sympathizing even more with guy. This most recent beating had happened just a couple of days ago, and it was the third one in as many weeks. Francis had no idea who his attacker was. All he knew was that the guy was big, insanely strong as he put it, and always wore a mask.
The attacks had come at all different times, not just at night as one might've expected. The first one had actually happened in the washroom at work. Francis had walked in, and the door had barely closed behind him before he was hit in the face, his vision turned to stars, and he hit the floor with a broken nose. A couple of kicks to the ribs followed, and it was over. Nothing was said. He'd barely even seen his attacker before he hit the floor. All he remembered was seeing a blurry black figure for a moment, and then he was gone.
The second attack happened in the parking garage of his apartment building. Francis had just hit the button on his car remote to unlock the doors when he was hit in the head from behind. Before he could fall down from the blow to the head, his attacker had slammed his face in the side of his car door. Francis barely remembers what happened next as he was barely conscious at that point, but the bruises all over his body pretty much confirmed his vague recollections of being savagely kicked over and over again when he hit the ground.
A neighbor had found him lying beside his car and helped him back up to his apartment. Francis had emphatically begged him not to call the police. Like last time, his attacker hadn't said much, but Francis vividly remember the one line he had spoken. "Call the police, and you're dead, faggot."
The faggot part is what made Francis realize what was probably going on. Francis is gay, openly gay. He makes no bones about it, and that, even in this day and age, still offends some people.
After the second attack and the faggot remark, Francis figured this was some kind of hate crime thing. He still had no clue who his attacker was, but he'd racked his brain trying to figure out anyone or anything this could be related to and had gotten nowhere. Francis was widely liked, and the only thing that made sense was the hate crime angle, not that really made any sense, as hate crimes never do.
The third attack was the worst yet, and more than just physically. It happened at his home, which on a psychological level is probably the most terrifying places you can be attacked. Invasion of your home is such a personal thing on so many levels. It's like your safe spot has been destroyed, your place of refuge, your sanctuary.
Francis had come home from work, opened the door to his apartment, and stepped inside. His mind screamed out that something was wrong as soon as he had turned from shutting the door, but it was just that split-second too late. Something hit him square in the face, and he didn't even have the chance to fall before his legs were viciously swept out from beneath him and the back of his head was slammed into the floor.
He doesn't remember much more about the third attack after that, other than the same vague blurry figure in black as previously. When he came to, his head was bleeding from the back, and his face was doing a good job of keeping up. He'd managed to reach the phone and call an ambulance. Despite his fear of involving the police, self-preservation had won out as he knew on a primal level that it was very likely he would die if he didn't get immediate medical help.
Turns out he was right. He had a concussion and a brain bleed, a severely broken nose, two missing teeth, and a broken jaw. Added to that were three broken ribs, fractured radius and ulna bone in the forearm of his left arm, badly bruised kidneys, as well as massive bruising over a large part of his body.
The brain bleed, or brain haemorrhage, as the doctor later told him it was also called was by far the most serious of his injuries this time. There was a good chance he would recover from it, but there were no guarantees. Brain injuries were tricky things, the doctor had said. Sometimes they heal with little or no medical intervention, and other times they don't despite the best efforts of the best doctors.
And then Heather told Francis about me. She was a past client of mine. Had a problem with an ex-boyfriend that she needed help with, and I had helped her. Francis was one of her best and oldest friends, and when she'd found out what had happened, she immediately insisted he contact me for help.
Francis was terrified of telling anybody about what was going on for fear of making the situation worse, but it had been impossible to hide his injuries after this last attack. Heather had found out he was in the hospital and had immediately gone to see him. One look was all she needed to know the situation was deadly serious, and she made him tell her everything, which was probably a good thing.
Francis wasn't likely to survive another attack, especially if it followed the preceding pattern and was worse than the last one. The brain bleed alone could kill him, never mind whatever new injuries he might sustain.
Which is probably why he had been able to get past his fear and tell Heather everything that had happened. Self-preservation is a powerful thing, a
base instinct at the very core of our being. Beyond any conscious awareness of danger, his body knew it was badly hurt and had to do everything to protect itself from further injury. Really, it probably wasn't so much that he got past his fear, but that the fear of another attack, or being killed, was greater than the fear of telling what had happened.
Fear is funny that way. It's really only just another one of the body's defence mechanisms. Fear makes you scared of things that can hurt you, things that aren't good for you, that your body and your mind want to avoid. Fear is a good thing. It often keeps us from doing stupid things, from putting ourselves in harm's way, and in Francis' case, it was fear of dying that resulted in my getting involved.
The next step with Francis is up to him. I can do one of two things. I can identify and eliminate the threat, or I can identify and reduce the threat. The first is permanent. I identify his attacker and take him out. The latter isn't guaranteed. I can identify his attacker, return the favor to him, maybe even hospitalize him for a couple of days, but there is no guarantee this would be a permanent long-term solution.
People like this obviously aren't balanced to begin with, so it's entirely likely he'd come back at Francis with even greater determination after recovering from my conversation with him. And the problem with that is that there would be no way to know when. He could come at him again immediately, or he could wait and bide his time for months or even years before striking again.
My preference is to eliminate the threat. This guy has it coming. What he's already done to Francis more than justifies eliminating him in my opinion, but that's gonna be up to Francis how he wants to deal with it. I could insist on doing things my way, but that's not how I work.
I locked eyes with Francis and laid out his options for him, stressing heavily that my preference was elimination as there was no guarantee of his future safety if he chose option two. I was VERY clear about the possibility of his attacker returning to finish the job if we didn't eliminate him. I underlined the fact that this could happen at any time, and there was really no way to guard against it, and then, without breaking eye contact, I waited for Francis to decide.
It was obvious that he was having trouble with being responsible for ending another person's life, regardless of everything his attacker had done to him. That was a good thing. Good people usually do have trouble making these kind of decisions. That's the difference between people like Francis, and scumbags like the guy who'd viciously attacked him three times now.
Finally, Francis broke eye contact and stared at his hands which were folded nervously on the table in front of him. He finally looked up at me, and in a quiet voice told me to do it. Eliminate the threat.
I reached out and put my hands on his. He looked at me, and I could see the doubt in his eyes, the fear, the guilt, that he was doing the wrong thing, and I nodded. I told him he was doing the right thing, and that he didn't have anything to feel guilty about. This was life or death situation. Somebody was going to live, and somebody was going to die. Francis hadn't made that decision. His attacker had. Francis had no choice if he wanted to live.
His head bobbed in acknowledgement of what I was saying, and I could see that despite his struggle with his decision, there was resolve there. He knew the truth of what I told him. This really was not his decision. It had been made for him. If he wanted to live, there was only one real option.
***
It's about 20 minutes after I left Francis. I'm in a high end women's clothing store on the upper side, and I have to admit, I'm a little bored. I shake my head as if it will clear my head and focus my thoughts. Boredom is a job hazard when you're on surveillance. It dulls your senses and makes you vulnerable.
Demario is shopping with a couple of lady friends, which is why I'm here. I wouldn't normally set foot in a place like this. Definitely not my thing, but since Demario is here, so am I. I'm trying to establish what Demario's daily routine is, but so far it hasn't been very consistent. Take this shopping trip for example. I highly doubt it's a daily event, although from the fact that he's got, not one, but two ladies with him, who knows. Anything is possible.
I pretend to browse, picking up the odd piece of clothing and looking it over while I keep a casual eye on him. The ladies are giggling and laughing with each other, flirting with Demario as they shop. And when I say ladies, believe me, I'm using that term loosely. Very loosely. I'm pretty sure they're hookers, or at the least, high paid call girls. They're dressed well, better than most hookers, so it's likely the latter.
The trio spend another twenty minutes or so in the store before leaving, only to head into another women's clothing store across the street. I watch them go in and disappear inside. I consider following, but only for a moment. I'm not learning much about Demario by shopping with him, and I don't really think I can take much more of this anyway. It doesn't really matter anyway, as I'll know exactly where he goes next whether I'm watching him or not thanks to the tracking device I planted on his car.
You might be thinking I'm taking a chance doing something like that because he might find it, and sure, there's a slight possibility he might, but it's pretty slim. Demario's the over-confident type. Too much testosterone clouding his brain. Thinks he's invincible. It would never occur to him that somebody would dare touch his car, let alone put a tracking device on it.
No, I think I'm safe there. My time now is better spent doing other things, and I have just right thing in mind. Actually, I'm kinda’ excited about it. I'm going to get some wheels, some transportation. Two to be precise.
Turns out the good Dr. Harry was a bit of a motorcycle fan. Big fan actually. Mrs. Latimer said he had over twenty in collection. She has no use for them, so she's selling them off, but she called me to say she'd love for me to have one if I'd like. Normally I'm not into taking gifts from clients, but in this case I'm going to make an exception. I love bikes, and I could actually use some transportation, so Mrs. Latimer's call was a bit of a stroke of luck. She also really seemed to genuinely want me to have one as a way to say thank you, not that she needed to as the thick bundles of cash she'd paid me for the job were all the thanks I needed.
When I got to the Latimer's house, I was quickly reminded of just how much money Dr. Harry had been worth. The place was a palace. The garage alone was huge, and that was only one of them. Dr. Harry had a separate underground garage built to store his motorcycle collection, and it was impressive all by itself.
Bike after bike sparkled in the fluorescent light that flickered down from the ceiling. Mrs. Latimer had said he had over twenty, but I quickly counted thirty-three that I could see anyways. No matter his numerous other flaws, I will say this for the dearly departed Dr. Harry, the man had good taste in motorcycles.
There were a couple of Italian-made Ducatis that caught my eye right off the bat. Beautiful machines, they were like a work of art on two wheels. There were quite a few other European and other exotic bikes too, but the little girl in me was looking for something. Ever since I'd been five and had seen my first Kawasaki Ninja, I'd wanted one, and sure enough, a few over from the Ducatis, were two of them.
A Ninja ZX-6R and a Ninja ZX-9R.
My pulse sped up a little as I stood in front of them. The Ninja ZX-9R was obviously the faster of the two machines, but it was the lime green and black ZX-6R that had my attention. It was perfect. Small and light enough for someone my height, yet fast enough to put many larger bikes to shame.
The look on my face must've spoke for itself because Mrs. Latimer just touched my arm and told me it was mine. She actually said I could have both of them if I wanted. I even thought about it for a moment, but then declined, saying the ZX-6R would be more than enough.
As a further surprise, she took me over to a built in storage cabinet that must've been 20 feet long if it was a foot. She touched a button on the side and the doors slid silently open to reveal what must've been at least twenty or more helmets with matching racing suits and boots. Incredibly, there were actua
lly all different sizes and a lot of them were brand new, never worn.
Mrs. Latimer said Dr. Harry liked to impress his friends by letting them choose a bike and going out for a ride with them. As he usually surprised them in doing so, he needed to have all different size helmets and riding gear as he never knew who would need what size.
My eyes instantly fell on the lime green and black helmet with matching leathers and boots. There was only the one set, but as luck would have it, it fit me perfectly. The tags were still on the leathers too. They were brand new, never worn.
I could see Mrs. Latimer was enjoying my obvious delight in the bike and the riding gear. It was nice to see her smiling, especially after all the pain her husband had caused her. The gift of the bike was kind of a win/win. I got a pretty amazing gift, and she got some much needed happiness in being able to give it to me.
I thanked her again and gave her a quick hug. She watched as I suited up and started the Ninja. As I drove up the ramp from the underground garage, I could see her smiling as she watched me leave.
The bike felt awesome between my legs. It's a feeling that's kind of hard to describe. Power, agility, freedom, and elation, all wrapped into one. You really can't understand it unless you've driven one. I'd only had the bike for short time, and I already knew I was going to be using it a LOT.
You might be surprised to know I actually have a driver's license for motorcycles. I took a driver's education course for bikes as soon as I turned sixteen. The driver's license isn't in my real name of course. It's in one of my aliases, the same alias that I'll be transferring the ownership of Ninja into.
Mrs. Latimer had offered to let me leave the bike in Dr. Harry's name. She'd even offered to keep the insurance paid up for me. I considered it for a moment before deciding the safer route was to transfer it into the same name my driver's license was under. Less reason for a cop to ask questions, and that's always the goal. No questions. Nothing to draw attention to myself. Blend into the background.
TEENAGE ASSASSIN: Episodes 1 to 4 *** ONLY $0.99 FOR THE HOLIDAYS - REG $3.99!!! *** Page 5
