Bad Reputation: The Complete Collection

by Matt Hader

  “It’s my business, leave me alone,” said Rita, bucking up some courage.

  Alex used one of Rita’s own hands to strike her in the forehead. Rita knew this was going to get ugly and probably bloody. It had before on many occasions. She had experienced this type of treatment her entire life, but she had had enough.

  “You can hit me all you want, I’m not telling you any more. Get out of my room!”

  George nodded to Alex, and Alex slapped her with her own hands repeatedly. “Quit hitting yourself. What’s wrong with you?”

  Both brothers laughed at her fearful and angry response to being struck. “Tell us who he is, sis!”

  The door opened and in walked her father, groggy and blinking some awareness into his brain. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “She snuck out again, pop” said George.

  “You knew?” asked Rita, sheepishly.

  Rita’s father gave her a long look and then said to his sons, “She’s not a kid anymore. Can’t you see?”

  “But papa, they’re still hitting me,” said Rita, near tears.

  “Hit ‘em back!” said her father, belly laughing.

  “You know that if I do, they just hit me harder!” cried Rita.

  Her father waved her comment away like a pesky gnat, stepped out of the room and shut the door.

  ***

  Jason Dimos was a former petty criminal who emigrated from Greece. In his old country, he worked as muscle for a small-time mobster. When his boss was murdered, and desiring a drastic change in his own life, Jason quickly switched his stripes to legitimate business owner and settled into the Chicago area.

  Eight months after Rita and Jason first met, Jason proposed. Instead of waiting the requisite period of time to plan a traditional Greek wedding, Rita asked Jason if he would be okay with a civil ceremony with the Justice of the Peace.

  She wanted very much to marry Jason, but she also needed to get the hell out of her childhood home as soon as possible.

  Rita’s family didn’t know she was engaged, or wed, until she returned to the Sauganash home after her wedding to retrieve her clothing and knick-knacks from her bedroom.

  After her wedding day, Rita saw her family on the odd holiday or two during the year, otherwise she avoided them at all costs.

  Jason was an adoring, nurturing, and supportive husband. He loved Rita deeply, but he was also afraid of upsetting her and triggering her frequent outbursts.

  He was mostly unaware of Rita’s troubled upbringing because she was an expert at keeping it pent up inside. He was oblivious to the trauma she endured as a child and that still haunted her into adulthood.

  Early in their marriage, Jason and Rita sailed along on a happy path. That was until their oldest son, Tyler, turned two-years old. Jason began to notice, for the very first time, that Rita would lash out in over-the-top fashion toward her son.

  Her reactions did not fit the punishment for whatever minor childish infraction Tyler pulled off. There was always an escalation process to Rita’s treatment of her children that usually went from okay, to bad, to worse. The emotional turmoil it caused in the Dimos home put a major strain on Rita and Jason’s relationship.

  With Jason’s gentle prodding, Rita saw an excellent psychiatrist in Skokie. The doctor’s treatments, mostly consisting of a laundry list of medications that were advertised on nightly news broadcasts, as well as anger management sessions, seemed to help - for a time anyway.

  But she was soon back to her old manic self, flying off the handle at even the most minor of familial infractions.

  Throughout May and June of 2010, Rita hovered near the apex of yet another manic episode in her life. But this episode was much more dangerous than anything she or her family had experienced in the past.

  Rita tried to convince a sleazy private detective named Enright to stop working for her son Tyler. Her efforts had backfired, though, and Enright blackmailed her instead.

  Tyler hired the unscrupulous Enright, a disgraced ex-cop, to find the man responsible for robbing his father, Jason’s, restaurant. The younger Dimos wanted nothing more than to locate and kill the man known as the “Baby Face Robber.”

  What Tyler and Rita didn’t account for was Enright turning the tables on the Dimos family after realizing that Tyler wanted the robber found so he could murder him - not have him arrested.

  Tyler sought revenge on the man known as the “Baby Face Robber” for ruining his father’s life, but Enright, instead, wanted cash to keep it all from getting to the authorities.

  The subsequent accidental shooting of Enright worked as an emotional release valve for Rita. Mere moments after her finger activated the trigger on the 12-gauge shotgun, the sleazy private detective was no more, her mind cleared, and all of her frustration, anger, and resentment towards her family simply vanished.

  Gone were the belittling and hurtful remarks to her husband for not making enough money. After which, her relationships with both of her sons improved immediately.

  Rita felt as if the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders. Her family was happy for the change in her attitude; no longer did they have to walk on egg-shells around her.

  However, slowly, as the years past, her frustrations and anger steadily resurfaced. The psychiatrist in Skokie increased the dosage of her medications, but Rita’s life was, again, beginning to spiral out of control.

  In the fall of 2012, Rita neared another breaking point. She needed to release the dreadful pressure building up in her mind and soul.

  She needed to find another release valve.

  ***

  Four days after the incident with her son, Christopher, and the bike-riding-bullies, Rita drove a rented Toyota two-door at a steady 65 miles per hour west on I-90 just outside downtown Boston.

  She hated that her wayward thinking and actions against her loved ones were gaining steam once again, but she had hit upon a solution to her troubles.

  Her plan would, if not once and for all, at least for another year or more, help her family life run more smoothly.

  Simply put, killing someone else would release the tension she was feeling at home and allow her to be a better mother and spouse. If it had worked before, it would work again.

  That notion alone, though, terrified her. The concept was so counter-intuitive that Rita kept questioning her own sanity.

  Deep down, she wanted to cease the entire killing process that she had set in motion. But she just couldn’t help but move forward with her plan. What in the hell was wrong with her, she wondered? Why couldn’t she stop the murderous circular thoughts that haunted her every waking moment?

  Through the prism of her pretzel logic, performing a killing-for-hire was just the tonic needed to make things right in her world. However, deep down, Rita knew that this trip was probably a mistake.

  She was dallying with self-wagers the entire journey, betting that she would chicken out. But the violent feelings churning inside her actually grew more intense. She was so confused by everything that was hurtling her way; the violent thoughts, the idea that this trip may or may not snap her out of her funk, the yearning to feel sane once again, and yet she kept moving forward towards completing her plan.

  Back in August of 2011, one full year after killing Enright, the sleazy private detective, Rita watched an uncensored cable television documentary about real-life hit men. Her mind raced after one of the documentary subjects, a greasy-looking man doing five life sentences, opined from his dingy jail cell, “All humans have the killing instinct in them, ya know. They just suppress it. Anyone with the right motivation can do what I done.”

  Rita, at that very moment, theorized that her killing butterfly was ready to emerge from its cocoon and meet the world. But it still took all of this time, and a growing head-full of violent emotio
ns, to wholly launch her plan.

  ***

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” asked an annoyed Rita, setting her bag on the floor. “I thought we were going to have the week together.”

  “Mom, it’s for school. I told you that I had this trip planned, don’t make this my fault,” said Tyler.

  They were standing in the middle of Tyler’s Commonwealth Avenue dorm room. The door to the room was wide open and students passed by every so often, obviously overhearing their loud conversation. Rita had made sure to leave the door open when she arrived.

  Tyler’s duffel bag was already packed and sat on the floor next to the room’s door.

  Boston College gave Rita’s son, Tyler, a full academic and football scholarship. A shoulder injury in his freshman year sidelined him permanently, though. He stayed in school, but struggled, himself, with feelings of inadequacy.

  “If I ace the finance paper I write after I get back from New York, I’ll be able to keep the scholarship. This is important.”

  Back home, Rita used Tyler’s troubles as an excuse to travel to this part of the country. No one would suspect that she was a hired killer, especially if she could slip away from Boston for a few days, perform her unseemly task, and be back in a timely fashion. Having this conveniently scheduled, and public, argument, along with Tyler being out of the dorm room for a few days, was a key component of her ultimate plan.

  “No, you’re right. Go ahead. I’ll just sit here in this tiny room all by myself for a few days. It’ll be fine,” said Rita, as she sank into the chair at Tyler’s desk.

  “Great. The guilt trip begins,” said Tyler, leaning over and grabbing his bag.

  “Honey, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. Go.”

  “You know your way around. The room key is on the desk. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” With that, he left.

  Rita tilted her head back and slowly exhaled. A smile creased her lips. Her plan worked. She got up, turned the TV on, raised the volume, and stepped over to close the room’s door.

  She waited ten minutes until she was sure Tyler was clear of the building. Rita picked up her bag and opened the door – to find a sullen-looking Tyler reaching for the knob on the other side.

  “This is stupid, mom. I’ll stay here with you.” He looked at the bag in her hand, and said, “What’s going on?”

  She shrugged and set the bag down. “Nonsense, you have the assignment due for your class.”

  He stepped inside the room, leaned over and turned the volume down on the TV. “I think I want to leave Boston, anyway. School’s not for me.”

  “Oh, honey, you don’t want to do that.”

  It took Rita nearly thirty minutes of excellent acting to persuade her son that taking the trip to New York and staying in school would be the smartest move for his long-term future.

  Once he exited yet again, Rita raised the volume on the television and hit the road.

  ***

  “For curtains, you say?” asked the ugly and suspicious young man with off-set eyes, blotchy skin, and crooked teeth.

  He worked at a rickety old hardware store in East Thetford, Vermont, when Rita arrived to purchase the components for the killing device she was going to use to complete her task. The weapon, a makeshift garrotte, was quite simple in its wood and wire design. She had found the plans for the lethal gadget through a simple Google search.

  “Never seen anyone use a one-inch dowel and this gauge wire for curtains,” he said.

  “You own this place?” Rita asked with a flirtatious glint in her eye, her good looks not lost on the ugly man.

  “Oh, geez, no. It’s my uncle’s shop,” said the ugly man, his neck and face growing red with embarrassment. He finally realized that maybe Rita was coming on to him.

  He bucked up some bravado and added, “But, yeah, I run it, though. I’m the boss.” He winked.

  “That’s very impressive. Could I ask one more teeny-tiny favor? After you cut those into smaller lengths,” she said, pointing to the six-foot long section of one-inch diameter dowel rod in the ugly man’s hand, “could you be a sweetheart and drill a hole through the middle of a few of the cut pieces for me to fish the wire through? If it’s not too much trouble. Six-inch pieces of dowel would be just perfect.”

  When he hesitated, she pretended to take an interest in the expensive folding knives displayed in the glass case between the two of them. Rita made sure to bend forward so the man could get a glimpse of her ample cleavage squeezing over the top of her scoop-necked blouse.

  “These look dangerous,” she said breathlessly.

  When she lifted her head, she caught the ugly man gawking. He quickly stumbled away, banging the dowel rod into everything in his path and headed into the back room.

  She didn’t want to travel through airports with a weapon and figured that the parts needed to build the garrote could easily be found in any location.

  After picking up a few more items, including a large roll of plastic sheeting and some heavy gauge duct tape, Rita waved goodbye to the ugly man as she shoved her way out the door of the hardware store. Once in the sunshine, she exhaled a long sigh of relief. She had nearly paid for her purchase with her credit card. “Keep it together,” she said to no one.

  Back on the road, Rita couldn’t help but breathe in the fresh air that cascaded over her through the open car windows. It was a beautiful fall day, and the leaves were on the turn. The scenery was stunning. Thick forested hillsides surrounded the highway on all sides. She could easily make out the peaks of the Green Mountains in the distance.

  This was the first time she ventured into this part of the country, and as she headed north, she wondered why she had never traveled to this beautiful corner of the world before.

  Rita performed mental gymnastics as she drove, willing herself to believe that the person she was going to kill deserved it and that she was doing the world a favor by eliminating them from existence. That would fit in nicely with her glaringly twisted strategy.

  As each mile passed, she also grew more and more accustomed with what she was about to do. It was all for the betterment of her psyche, and if that was the case, it would be good for her family -- that was the bottom line.

  In her town of Park Ridge, Illinois, in the days leading up to the murder for hire, Rita purposely made an ass of herself in public.

  The first time was at the Gemstone grocery store on Busse Road, where she verbally tore into the pimple-faced produce manager for how un-ripened the bananas were.

  “If these were any greener, they’d be zucchinis!” she screamed, then thinking to herself how lame her complaint actually sounded.

  It didn’t matter, though, because she attracted a small crowd of familiar-looking gawkers.

  She made sure there were as many witnesses nearby as possible and to act as strangely as she could during the purposeful run-ins. If she were caught in the act of performing a killing-for-hire, her attorney and psychiatrist could plead that she was operating under reduced mental capacity.

  The public outbursts could make for a sure-fire insanity plea. She hoped anyway.

  If she could actually make this entire plan work, perhaps she wasn’t going crazy after all.

  The job Rita was on the way to perform was for a woman known only as Deb in Fairlee, Vermont. She got in contact with Deb through a cryptically worded miscellaneous ad she placed on the Boston-area version of a popular internet classified web site. The ‘personal assistant job wanted’ notice Rita devised was simple and brilliant.

  In the ad, she used the words ‘discretion’ and ‘prudence’ a few times in hopes that those wanting a hit man’s services would latch on to her finely crafted terminology and reach out to her.

  She knew that it would be a numbers game to find the right person, but she
also needed to be careful not to entice too many perverts or entrap herself if the respondent was a cop.

  Rita used the computer at her local public library in hopes that nothing could be traced back to her.

  To activate the internet, a user needed their library card to log into the computer, but she circumvented that by patiently waiting for someone to walk away without logging out.

  It took seven trips to the library, waiting out other computer users to forget to log out, and going through fifty-six responses to her ad, before she finally hit pay dirt.

  ***

  “You gonna buy something, or what?” asked a portly female clerk wearing a maroon-colored apron and poorly manufactured blonde hair extensions.

  Rita waited near the meat counter of the rustic grocery store in Fairlee for the better part of thirty-minutes.

  As soon as she got into Fairlee, Rita’s nerves were a jumbled mess, and her thoughts grew clouded at times.

  Was she early, she wondered. She couldn’t recall.

  A few days ago she was so confident that her plan to kill off a deserving someone would help her along her way to emotional well-being, but doubt had crept in again.

  “Just browsing,” said Rita through a tight smile as the female clerk moved back behind the front register.

  The town of Fairlee was adorable, and Rita couldn’t help but think that she’d like to come back and explore the area sometime in the future.

  Wait.

  What in the hell was she thinking? She could never come back here after her task was complete.

  A woman with bluntly-styled, raven-colored, hair and piercing blue eyes entered the store. The woman ignored the female clerk when she waved hello and locked eyes on Rita. Rita knew she had to be Deb.

  Rita was slightly intimidated by the severe appearance of the woman and spun away to feign interest in the meat selection housed in the store’s refrigerated cases.

  “How do the pot roasts look to you?” asked Deb, casually, as she sidled up next to Rita, using a predetermined code phrase they’d set up in their last message.