Gabriel: Only one gets out alive.

by mike Evans

  “I need you to give me his name and address, and I will take care of the rest.”

  “I can’t do that, slick. It’s bad business. I’m telling you, take the loss, and let it go.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine… wait, you mean you’re going to listen to me? You’re going to let things go and we just move on, G? Oh shit, you had me worried. Fuck, you know what? I’m going to go make a damn drink. I say you do the same; maybe have four or five and then we’ll talk about a brand new day tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay with it. I just need you to wire the money that I would have gotten from doing this job out of your account and stick it in mine.”

  “Stick it in your ass—that’s what I’m going to do! You’ve lost your fucking mind!”

  “Oh, I’m thinking very damn clearly, Forsyth; you get me my money or you give me his address. One way or another, I’m going to get paid for this job, and I’m going to get it fucking soon. What’s it going to be boss? You’re the handler, you set up the job, you get the money, and you pay me. If you are just setting up jobs and not getting me paid, I’m kind of confused. What the hell am I doing keeping you around? You aren’t trying to set yourself up for your own personal hit, right? I mean, you don’t have a death wish that I don’t know about, do you? Are you suicidal?”

  “I don’t have that kind of money. Christ! You know how much I spend on women and booze. Hell, it’s not a cheap lifestyle. Being the man that I am, it’s actually pretty damn difficult. To answer your other question, I plan to live out every last waking minute on this earth that baby Jesus will allow me to.”

  “So, then you give me the address; I’ll go there and collect the money. Hell, I’ll even give you the money that you should have earned this time. I say ‘this time’ only because next time I do a job, you’re going to make damn sure that I get paid before I ever pull the trigger. I am not kidding! I want the money and I want it before I go. We don’t do a job until we have been paid at least half up front.”

  “Deal, I’ll email you his name and address once I get home. Take a day and get some sleep; it’ll do you good. If you change your mind… you know, about that whole murdering the guy that hired you thing, you let me know.”

  “I tell you what. If you don’t hear from me in the next ten minutes, just assume I still want to cut his head off.”

  “You know, I think that you might be taking this a little far. Don’t you?”

  “I think that regardless of how this plays out, you’re going to get a lot of business, and that you’re also going to make a lot of money. You also aren’t ever going to get stiffed for a job or have someone think twice about doing so. The reason people screw over handlers is because you all think that those people hiring us are too powerful to do something. Well, you know what? Those days are over. If they want to make it through another day, they won’t fuck with us. They sure as hell won’t fuck with me!”

  “You know something, kid?”

  “What?”

  “You scare the shit out of me. You let me know if I ever piss you off, alright?”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’ll do my very best to make sure I apologize to you in the most sincere of ways that I can. You aren’t really going to cut his head off, are you?”

  “If you want to stay on my good side, you make damn sure that when I get up in the morning, I have what I need. I don’t have expensive tastes like you, but I’m not doing this shit for free. I wouldn’t do anything that crazy.”

  “Hey, man, you’ll have it in the morning, on my life.”

  “You sure that’s how you want to say it?”

  “It’ll be there, I promise.”

  Gabriel hung up the phone, laid out the gear that he knew he would need to travel cross-country to wherever the man was located, and slept like the dead. When he awoke, as promised, the name of the hirer was sitting encrypted in his email. The two didn’t trust people or hackers on the web, and they shared an email account. They input the message that they wanted the other to see, and they saved it as a draft, never actually sending the message. Between the two of them, it only took a quick phone call to let the other know there was a message waiting. He read the email and was off to California a day later, rested and still very much wanting his funds paid.

  Gabriel had tried to call the man in order to collect and give him a chance to pay. He had thought about how worried Forsyth was about their reputation and felt if he could avoid unnecessary killing, it would be the smart play. “Hello, I’d like to speak to Dr. David McBroom, please. It’s about a financial matter.”

  A few minutes later, the man came on the line already acting as if he was being disrupted. “This is Dr. David McBroom. I’m very busy and I don't have time to talk bills with someone. Why can’t you people ever call the damn accountants like you’re supposed to do? You know, if you’d have gone to college, you might not have to do jobs like these.”

  Gabriel waited for the man to quit his rant and shut up before he continued, “I don’t think your accountant handles this type of thing, sir.”

  “Get to the point, kid. I’ve got patients that I need to see, and my deadbeat partner hasn’t been in all damn week. You wouldn’t believe how useless they are; they’re probably worse than having a damn wife.”

  “It’s going to be a long time before he comes in, don’t you think?”

  “What are you talking about? He’ll be in eventually. He always comes in. This place is his dream. Look, call my accountant and have him pay you; it will be no problem. Good day to...”

  Gabriel was past patience and already disliked this man more after one minute on the phone than he had when he just thought he was going to stiff him on his bill. “Your partner won’t be in because he’s dead. He’s dead because I killed him. I’m calling you because you were the absolute dumb fuck who told me, or told my handler who arranges things for me, that you would pay us a prearranged amount of money to kill him for you.”

  “And you are calling for what?”

  “Please tell me you aren’t that dense. Are you?”

  “Well, let me ask you this; As far as I know, the way life works is, once you take it you aren’t able to bring back the dead, are you?”

  “No, no I can’t. But I can add to it. By the time I’m done, I can make you wish that I wouldn’t have taken my time.”

  “Don’t threaten me, kid. I’ve been around too long and have dealt with too much shit. The likes of you calling and hounding me for money is going to do absolutely nothing to move along any process of trying to extort money from me.”

  “It isn’t extortion when you owe it to someone. I’m not worried about collecting it because I’ll get my money; I promise you this. I can also promise you that if you see my face, it’ll be the last thing you ever see. If you don’t understand that, then let me dumb it up for you. If you don’t pay me, if you don’t make an arrangement right now with me, then you’re dead.”

  “Kid, if you knew what kind of security I keep at the house and around me, you’d never have even made this call. I think that you need to reassess your loss, here, and move on.”

  “That’s your final word then?”

  The man hung up on Gabriel and Gabriel headed to California. Dr. McBroom didn’t appreciate that when he sought out a man to kill his partner, he had gotten the best, and got exactly what he should have paid for.

  Two days later, when the doctor came home, he had instantly wished, with every bit of his soul, that he had paid the stranger on the phone. He wished he’d paid them whatever they wanted to be paid. The man walked into his entryway and saw how empty it was. When he walked into the living room, he dropped his briefcase where he stood. He stared in shock, looking at the scene before him. His bottom lip quivered, unable to speak at first. The room was filled with his bodyguards—his dead bodyguards—all lined up against the wall.

  Each of them had their pistols lying empty on their legs. Gabriel was sitting in front of the
m in a chair and holding a silenced pistol. When the doctor turned to run, Gabriel put a bullet through each of the man's kneecaps. The man screamed in agony for anyone, anyone at all, to come and save him. He collapsed onto the ground, writhing in pain. He pushed up, trying to drag himself away and gave up very quickly, the pain too much to handle.

  Gabriel never even stood up. He watched the man squirming on the ground; his face was red and tears poured from his eyes. Gabriel kept the pistol pointed at the man’s temple. “I need you to stop moving, David. If you move, I shoot you. Do you understand? There is no question in my mind of what I will do to you if you make any rash and stupid movements.”

  Gabriel stood and walked up to him. He used the barrel of the gun to open the man’s sport coat, making sure he was not invoking his right to the second amendment. The man, who wouldn’t stop screaming, finally yelled, “My other bodyguards aren’t going to show you mercy, do you know that? You should leave now if you want to have the slightest chance of living!”

  Gabriel stared the man in the face. He turned around, counting the number of guards behind him and said, “Wait—do you mean that you have more bodyguards than this at your home that you employ?”

  The man laughed hysterically, hope flooding through his veins, “Yes, those are my real guards. They are going to torture you until you only think you understand the meaning of the word pain.”

  Gabriel looked at him, a knowing smile on his face as he finished patting him down. “I killed them first. They’re downstairs in their makeshift poker room. I hope you weren’t paying them much, because it’s been more difficult sneaking into homes in a third world country than it was here. I think you were wasting your money.”

  The man looked up with steel in his eyes. “You aren’t going to last long, you know, if the two of you are going to be going after people who hire you, right? I mean, what does that say about you?”

  Gabriel stood back up, looking around at the men on the ground, and put a foot back and kicked a steel-toed boot into the man’s gut. “It says that I want to get paid. It means if I am not paid, you don’t live.”

  Gabriel pulled out a small laptop, placing it in front of the man. “Pay me now; I want twenty percent more for my trouble. If you come after me, if you even think about me, talk about me, you'll be a dead man. I can promise you that.”

  The doctor screamed in pain as Gabriel sat there patiently, waiting for him to punch in the numbers. He yelled, “I need a hospital… I won’t give you your money until I get medical treatment!”

  “Aren’t you a doctor? Take care of yourself once I leave.”

  The man stripped his coat off, ripped the thousand-dollar suit into pieces, and wrapped each of his knees tightly, screaming as he applied the makeshift bandages. He yelled, “Now take me to a hospital!”

  Gabriel’s patience was done; he was now more worried about getting paid than the man’s long-term health. He put the computer on the man’s lap and pointed at it. “You need to pay me now, or you’re going to have more bullet wounds that need to be healed.”

  The doctor shook his hands free of the blood, wiping them on his ruined pants; he punched in the numbers and handed it back to Gabriel, who confirmed it. Gabriel closed the laptop and started walking towards the man. He pulled a knife from behind his back, gripping it tight. The doctor freaked when he saw this and started screaming for his life. “But I paid you, I paid you! What are you doing, I don’t understand!”

  “You remember when I called you? What I said? That if I needed to come collect, you were going to die? Well, unfortunately for you, you’ve seen my face. You shouldn’t have seen my face, which wouldn’t have happened if you had paid my handler when you asked us to do something for you. You see, now I have to make an example out of you.”

  “But what does that mean? I don’t understand.”

  Gabriel gripped the man’s hair, tilting his head back. The man gripped at Gabriel’s arms, trying a last-ditch effort to survive, which did not surprise Gabriel. Gabriel took the butt end of the knife and smashed it into the man’s nose four times until his nose shattered and blood poured down his face. His crisp, white dress shirt was a mess of blood and snot. He gripped his face, still yelling, as Gabriel ran the knife across his neck, slicing through the many layers of skin. He didn’t stop until all that held it on was a small flap of skin. He left him lying there, in front of his bodyguards, his head hanging on by a miracle.

  Gabriel ripped the man’s shirt open and carved a dollar sign into his flabby chest. He pulled out a digital camera that had data web synced to it. He called Forsyth as he walked out of the house. “Hey! You sitting at your computer by chance?”

  “Maybe, why… I thought you were on some holy crusade to go out and try to get some of our money paid back to us.”

  “Check your bank account and see if there is anything there that will make your day a little more pleasant.”

  Forsyth typed slowly, a little bit nervous about what he was going to see; when he hit enter, he saw the numbers stacked up in his offshore account. “Do I want to ask what you did to get that money?”

  Gabriel hit send on the camera. “Check out saved drafts on our account… see if you think that might help out with the future of payments.”

  Forsyth stared at the images, completely shocked. “Holy shit! I’ve heard the stories, but Jesus Christ, did you really have to cut the man’s head off?”

  “Yeah, I did. I don’t want this to be a repeat situation. If you can’t collect with this, then the two of us are going to have to have one serious ‘come to Jesus’ meeting. I hope that you understand that is not a conversation that you’re going to want to have.”

  “No. I don’t think we’re going to have to do anything like that. But tell me, because I’m dying to know if you’re just fucking with me… did you just Photoshop that? I mean it would be genius, but people could look up something like that. I know you’re smart enough to know that, right? I mean if these pics are just you dicking with people.”

  “Forsyth, if you haven’t figured out that I’m lacking in the personality department, then let me be the first to advise you that I have no personality when it comes to money. I never have and never will use it in a joking matter, and I’m never going to get stiffed again. If you want to make sure that I’m not full of shit, I would say that you could simply check the California Daily News. I’m pretty confident that there is a good chance that they won’t miss out on putting in such a juicy story.”

  “So, you think the cops are going to find them before the next edition of the paper comes out?”

  “They'd have to be really big assholes if they didn’t, since I already called them and advised where they are and what happened.”

  “You called the cops on yourself?”

  “Yep, and I’m leaving now. I’d hate to try and talk this out with the police force; I don’t know if they could handle having to deal with a guy like me. Their psych department would be trying their damnedest to figure out what's wrong with me after they see the dollar symbol carved into his chest.”

  Forsyth scrolled through the rest of the pictures and looked at the dollar amount in a second window. “You might have sent me too much money, you realize that right?”

  Gabriel was walking down the street, keeping an eye over his shoulder, and saw that the street couldn’t have been clearer. “Yes, we got a twenty percent bonus for having to wait for the money. It seems a couple bullets to the knee were enough to motivate him to pay the interest. I need to get off the line; you get the next job lined up and let me know when it’s ready. Don’t come with excuses about not being paid. Those pictures and the newspaper ought to be more than enough to never have to deal with stupid shit like this again. We’re professionals; remember that. We aren’t first-time hitters.”

  Forsyth just stared at the money and the pictures. “No we aren’t going to have any more trouble, kid. Why don’t you take a week off and I’ll do my best to get your some work lined up if
you’re ready to go?”

  “Get it arranged I’m ready to go. You line them up I’ll take them out. I don’t need breaks.”

  “Don’t burn yourself out kid. You might not like what you become.”

  “Look if you knew how many hits I’ve done the last five years for the CIA, you might not be so worried about that I’m going to become. You got any other fatherly advice?”

  “Yeah go get laid kid. You are too damn uptight.” Forsyth hit the phone’s end button and sat back stretching and putting his hands behind his head. He smiled, realizing that cash cow wasn’t even the appropriate thing to call his killer for hire. He couldn’t have been happier thinking of the fact that he didn’t need to worry about future shortcomings with people trying to rip the two of them off. He logged into the job site and started searching for his next contract.

  *****

  Present day

  Gabriel was unworried about them finding him. He had an inner knowledge of how the FBI worked and the way they approached their jobs. He locked up his place and sat back in his truck, ready to write the day off as a partial success and glad that he hadn’t gotten caught. The idea of taking a capsule that would make his brain hemorrhage until he died was not a pleasant thought. He always kept something in his pocket just in case the worst happened. He pulled out of his space slowly, looking around and making sure nothing looked out of place. He had a few drunks that were staples in the neighborhood, and if they weren’t around, he knew it meant they were dead or there was something wrong going on. He made a habit out of dropping off a couple bottles of whiskey a month anytime that he was around.

  He was trying to relax when his phone started to buzz. He ignored it and let it go to voicemail. He knew no one had this number so automatically wrote it off as a wrong number. When it rang a second and then a third time, he started to look in his rear view mirror a bit more suspiciously. On the fourth ring, he hit the button to speak. He waited, not saying anything. He wanted to know who it was, but if they didn’t say anything, he was going to end the call. He had no patience for games. After a minute, a voice came over the line, “Hello?”