Further Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman

by JB Lynn

  “Because I’m gay?” Usually Zeke was all smooth talking and charm, but at the moment he sounded like he was on the verge of coming unhinged.

  “Well . . . not just because you’re gay.”

  Disbelief and something close to anger warred in his gaze.

  “Look, I’m sorry.” I raised my hands in supplication. It was bad enough I’d insulted Aunt Leslie, I really didn’t want to alienate Zeke too. “I said the wrong thing. I always say the wrong thing. Ask anyone. A couple of minutes ago I reduced my aunt to tears. I’m an equal opportunity foot-in-mouth-er.”

  “How long?”

  “My whole life?”

  “How long have you known I’m gay?”

  “Since senior year.”

  “Since senior year?” his voice cracked.

  I hung my head, feeling guiltily awful.

  Had he thought it was a secret all this time? Even if Aunt Loretta hadn’t told me, I would have figured it out myself when he rebuffed Alice’s advances. No straight guy had ever turned down my leggy, blonde, Amazonian friend.

  “It’s okay,” I assured him. “Everyone’s cool with it.”

  “Everyone?”

  I nodded.

  “Even you?” He stared at me intently.

  Despite the fact we were discussing the fact that he was gay, my heartbeat sped up a little as his blue eyes searched mine. I swallowed hard, quelling the desire to tell him I thought it was monumentally unfair. “Especially me.” I offered what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “What a mess,” he muttered. Pulling free of my grasp, he turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving me to finish the balloons all by myself.

  Not that I needed any help.

  By the time I finished the balloons, Aunt Susan had finished the doves, Zeke was done hanging all his streamers, and Aunts Leslie and Loretta returned. Zeke, Leslie, and Loretta all refused to speak to, or even make eye contact with me for the entire party. Not that I really minded, since I made a point of running myself ragged, trying to be the best maid of honor ever.

  I served food. (I didn’t get a chance to actually eat any myself, but I heard it was outstanding.) I mingled with guests, mostly Alice’s friends from all of her do-gooder adventures over the years and I dutifully carried each and every gift for her to open while her friend Preppy Priscilla, the girl our high school class had voted Most Likely to Kiss Up, wrote down a list of who gave Alice what.

  Zeke meanwhile stayed in the back of the room, standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest and a permanent frown etched on his face.

  It wasn’t until Lamont had shown up, and all the gifts had been packed into his car and those of my aunts, that Zeke and I interacted.

  With everyone else gone, I told him, “You did all the prep work. I can do the cleanup. Go home.” I didn’t relish the idea of spending the next few hours doing all the work, but the alternative was to spend them with him mad at me. My nerves were frayed, and I feared the continuing tension might just about kill me.

  Zeke surveyed the mess, calculating how much time and effort it would take to clean up.

  “Really,” I said, all but shooing him out the door. “I’ve got this.”

  “You’re right,” he said, turning away.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It is all the stuff of landfills.” He grabbed a garbage can, hauled it over to the nearest table, and began cleaning it off.

  “You don’t have to—”

  He shot me a look, effectively silencing my protest.

  “Thank you,” I said weakly.

  “Alice wants you to pick up your dress.”

  “I told her I’d do it tomorrow. I’ve got something to do tonight.”

  “Hot date?” he asked.

  I had an appointment to kill a man. “No, just something I’ve got to take care of.”

  “She wants me to go with you to make sure you get the dress tomorrow.”

  “I don’t need a chaperone.” I considered popping a balloon to illustrate my point, but thought better of it. After all, he was helping me clean up.

  Ignoring me, he said, “I told her I would.”

  “Awesome,” I said sarcastically.

  “I thought so.” He flashed a mysterious smile at me.

  He was up to something. I just didn’t know what.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I HAD A couple of hours to fritter away between when I finished cleaning up after Alice’s shower and before I was due to kill Jose Garcia, so I went home, in the hopes of taking a nap and getting some much needed sleep. Despite the cooperation of the animals, sleep eluded me.

  “Tell me the plan again,” God urged.

  “Jose has some special silver goblet that he uses to make toasts. No one else is ever allowed to drink from it. The plan is to get the poison into that. He makes his toast, he croaks, game over.”

  “Frog like?” Doomsday asked.

  God chuckled. “No, he doesn’t croak like a frog. He dies.”

  I checked the outfit I was wearing for lint. It was the same black dress I’d been wearing when I met Delveccio after I’d attacked his son-in-law to prevent him from killing the mobster’s young, comatose grandson. I wondered if, like baseball players and their lucky socks, this was somehow my “lucky” dress.

  “How are you going to get close enough to the cup?” God asked.

  I shrugged. Patrick had gotten me the poison and the information about the toast, but he’d been unable to come up with a plan as to how I could put the two together. “I’m winging it.”

  God covered his eyes and shook his head. “Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.”

  “Do you have a better one?”

  “A better one than walking into a room full of drug dealers and their relatives and hoping you can get close enough to poison one? Sure. Don’t do it. Walk away from the job.”

  “I can’t. I need the money for the lawyer . . . not to mention the hospital bills.”

  “You’re going to get caught.”

  “I’m not going to get caught,” I told him with way more bravado than I was feeling. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll get the job done and everything will be okay.”

  “Delusional,” God muttered.

  Ignoring him, I slipped on my black high heels, wobbled for a moment, and then headed for the front door. “I’m off to meet Patrick. He’s driving me to the job. Wish me luck.”

  “Luck!” Doomsday panted.

  “Tell the redhead to check in on us if you get caught,” God said. “Otherwise we’ll starve to death.”

  I stumbled, realizing that not only my safety was at stake, but that of the lizard and dog too. “I’ll tell him.”

  I walked out, locking the door behind me, unsure of whether or not I’d ever return.

  Leaving my car at home, I walked the couple of blocks to the bowling alley where I’d arranged to meet Patrick. In hindsight, I realize this wasn’t the best of plans. Walking in a dress and high heels is enough of a challenge for me, but when the various catcalls and wolf whistles were directed at me, it became even more difficult. I did my best to hold my head high and ignore the “compliments” but I really wished I had my gun with me so that I could teach some of the pigs a lesson.

  I’d worked up quite a head of outraged steam by the time a white panel van pulled alongside me, slowed, and lowered its window. “Fuck off, loser,” I shouted, before the driver had a chance to say anything.

  The van fell behind and I felt a moment of triumph. I resisted the urge to fist pump the air, but inside I was doing a victory dance.

  Then the van pulled alongside me again.

  A frisson of fear danced down my spine as I remembered every movie I’d ever seen where a kidnap victim is dragged into a panel van and never seen again. I moved as far to the far end of the sidewalk as I could and pretended not to notice I was being stalked.

  “Are you planning on walking all the way, Mags?”

  I stopped and so did the van.
<
br />   Peering inside, I saw my favorite redhead. “You!”

  He threw the van into park, hopped out, and ran around to where I stood. “You didn’t really mean it when you told me to fuck off, did you?”

  “I thought you were another of the dozen jerks who propositioned me on the way here.”

  He opened the passenger door. “I’m sorry about that. I should have realized that you walking through this neighborhood in that wasn’t the best of ideas.” He motioned for me to climb into the van.

  “In that?” I asked, not budging.

  He ran his eyes slowly up and down the length of my body with blatant appreciation.

  I swallowed hard as every cell in my body responded to the implied caress.

  “C’mon. Let’s get you in.” Taking my elbow in his warm, firm grip, he steered me into the van, helping me to balance on the step up. Once I was situated, he let go of my arm, but he didn’t move away.

  My breath caught in my throat as I looked down into his stormy green gaze. My heart stopped as he reached up, his fingers skimming the tender flesh of my throat as he adjusted the chain of the necklace.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure if he was asking if I was ready to kiss him, or if he was asking about the upcoming assassination.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  He stepped back, breaking the contact. “Seat belt.”

  As he climbed back into the driver’s seat, Patrick said, “You don’t have to do this. You can still back out.”

  “I’ve got to do it. I’ve got too much to lose.”

  Nodding, he started driving toward the restaurant where the Garcia family wedding rehearsal was taking place. “I want you to promise me, though, that if it looks like you’re going to get caught, you’ll abort.”

  “If I get caught, Delveccio will have me killed, right?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But you said that if I didn’t kill his son-in-law, Alfonso, that he’d have me killed.”

  “He could have been tied to Alfonso.”

  “And what about Gary the Gun?”

  “Him too.”

  “But you think it’ll be different with Garcia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, I get the impression he really likes you. For another, I doubt anyone could win a case against him based solely on your testimony.”

  “Why not?”

  He glanced over at me. “You’re the daughter of a convicted felon. They’d paint it that you’d cut a deal to get your father out of jail.”

  “I wouldn’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “I just wouldn’t.”

  “Because you think he deserves to be there?”

  I shrugged.

  “What if you found out he didn’t really kill that teller, that all he was guilty of was robbing the bank? What if you found out there’d been a miscarriage of justice? Would you leave him there then?”

  I stared at Patrick. He’d voiced the questions lightly, but I sensed an urgency behind them.

  What did he know about my father’s case? Could it be that my father really had told the truth when he said he wasn’t a murderer? I’d entertained the idea as a possibility, but I hadn’t thought much beyond that. Did my father really deserve to be free?

  I examined his expression, but Patrick’s face was a stoic mask I couldn’t read. Instead of answering his question, I asked, “So if I get caught, I’ll just rot in prison?”

  He pulled to a stop at a red light. “You could probably get yourself a pretty good deal.”

  “How?”

  He turned to face me. “You could testify against me.

  “Patrick!” I gasped, stung by the suggestion. “I’d never do that.”

  “I know,” he said with a sad smile. “Which is why I need you to promise me that if you think you’re going to get caught you won’t go through with it. Promise me, Mags.” He stared at me with an unnerving intensity, willing me to make the pledge.

  “I promise.”

  The horn of the car behind us blared, and Patrick returned his attention to driving.

  “I need a favor though,” I said.

  “Name it.”

  “If something goes wrong and I do get caught, I need you to take care of God and Doomsday. I know you can’t give them a home or anything, but if you could make sure they don’t starve, and if you could find them new homes . . . good homes . . . they deserve that.” I was choked up with tears by the time I finished.

  He reached out and patted my knee. “Of course I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t do this. Just walk away from the job now while you’re safe,” he pleaded.

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t.”

  “You worry too much.”

  He glanced over at me, his eyes glittering with emotion. “That doesn’t mean my advice isn’t good. Speaking of which, take these.” Flipping down the sun visor, he caught a pack of opened cigarettes mid-fall. He held them out.

  “Thanks, but I don’t smoke.”

  “I’d noticed.”

  I wondered what that meant, but before I could ask, he tossed them on my lap.

  “You don’t have to smoke them. They’re a prop.”

  “A prop?”

  “A useful prop. You can walk right out of a lot of situations simply by saying you need a cigarette. Plus they’re a great conversation starter. You can always walk up to anyone and ask if they have a light. And last, but not least, they can help you blend in with a group you have nothing in common with except for the cigarettes in your hands.”

  “Oh. Thanks, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome, I guess.” He pulled the van over to the side of the road and pointed at a driveway. “That’s the rear entrance.”

  I reached for the door handle.

  “You can still change your mind.”

  I hesitated, unsure whether to be touched or freaked out by his concern. “You’ll be here when I come out?”

  “I’m going to park up a hill a block or so away. I can see both the front and rear parking lots from that vantage point.”

  “How?”

  “Binoculars.”

  “I guess this is it.” I smoothed my dress over my thighs, trying to quell the sense of uneasiness that was making me queasy.

  “Don’t get caught.”

  “I’ll try, but if I do . . .”

  “The animals will be well cared for,” he promised.

  I climbed out of the van and tottered down the driveway. There was no turning back now.

  GETTING INTO THE restaurant was easier than I’d expected. I made a show of stuffing the cigarettes into my clutch as I approached the back door where a couple of waiters and waitresses were hanging out, smoking.

  “Is this the door I came out?” I asked them.

  “Not this one,” a waiter said.

  “But you can go in through this door,” a waitress offered, holding it open for me.

  “Thanks.” I scooted past them, skirted around the kitchen, and found myself smack in the midst of a bustling cocktail party.

  People were talking and laughing, the staff was passing out appetizers, and there was a line at the bar. I got on it, thinking it was probably the least auspicious place to stand and survey the room. I didn’t see Uncle Jose. I saw a lot of unsavory characters and what looked like some hired muscle, but I couldn’t spot the man I was there to kill.

  “Quite the turnout,” the older gentleman who’d gotten on line behind me said, as he stared at my legs.

  Gritting my teeth, I smiled politely. “Have you been here before?”

  “Many times.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Not as beautiful as you, my dear. Tell me, do you have an escort this evening?”

  I managed to keep from rolling my eyes. Barely. The last thing I needed was to be saddled with this old letch for the evening. �
��He’s here somewhere. I think he went to look for Jose. Do you know where he is?”

  “No doubt in the private room upstairs. It’s his daughter’s day, but I imagine he’s planning on making a grand entrance.”

  “Oh,” I exclaimed. “There’s my better half!” I waved at a crowded corner at the opposite side of the room. “If you’ll excuse me . . .” I hurried away.

  Crossing the room was a bit of an obstacle course, but I managed to dodge waitstaff and maneuver around clusters of guests without tripping in my high heels. When I looked back at the bar, I saw that the old letch was no longer watching me, but was instead focusing his unwanted attentions on another single female guest.

  I slipped out of the room and wandered down a deserted hallway, searching for a stairway that would lead me to the private room and my prey.

  Instead I found a pair of inquisitive, dark eyes staring out from behind a potted plant.

  “Who are you?” a small voice asked.

  “Who are you?” I asked the little girl.

  “Christina.” A five-year-old, dressed in the cutest purple party dress, emerged from behind the plant.

  “What are you doing, Christina? Playing hide-and-seek?” I looked up and down the hallway, but saw no adults the child might belong to.

  “I’m looking for Grampa Jose. He promised me a piggyback ride.”

  “Where are your mommy and daddy?” I had better things to do than watch over this kid, like kill her grandfather, but I couldn’t in good conscience just leave her alone.

  “Daddy’s in heaven.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. And where’s Mommy?” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t about to find out that Grampa Jose was the little girl’s only living relative. That knowledge would make murdering him much more difficult.

  She pointed at a restroom door.

  “Is she sick?”

  “She’s crying.”

  “How about we go check on her,” It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach when Christina grabbed the hand I held out to her as I remembered Katie doing the same thing countless times. I barely held it together as I walked her over to the ladies’ room.

  “Hi, Mommy,” she said, letting go of me and running inside as I pushed the door open for her.