HIRED GUN (Culvert City Crime Files)

by James R. Tuck

  "Anyways, Bill Sr. is a scientist, a real egghead. Smartest man I've ever met. You know what he researches?"

  Exhale. "I'd have to know him to know that."

  "Cancer. He works at the nation's largest cancer research lab." The dark haired man leaned forward. He pointed the pistol lighter at the Senator. "Funny thing about looking for the cure to something is you have to create it so you have something to study. To look for a cure for cancer first you have to give cancer to a lab rat."

  His finger flicked the trigger, making little bursts of flame come from the short barrel. "And you don't have time to wait, so what they do is design an agent that starts the cancer instantly, accelerating it from the first exposure." He sat back. "That's what Bill Sr. does."

  "What exactly does that have to do with me?"

  "Those cancersticks are a gift from him to you."

  The Senator stopped mid-inhale. Dread crawled up from his guts, slithering into his chest. It writhed, twisting in his ribcage, settling heavy in his lungs. The cigarette fell to the tabletop, bouncing once in a flash of tiny sparks. The hardback chair crashed to the ground as the Senator scrambled back, eyes wide in horror.

  The man between him and the door sat back. Loose and relaxed. Ready.

  "Wasn't it you Senator who pushed the bill to make prisoners stay in jail even if they had a terminal disease? To prevent the state from having to pay for anything over basic medical care for prisoners? Your bill makes sure that a prisoner, say one who gets a life sentence for multiple counts of felony child molestation, won't get anything stronger than an aspirin when the cancer is gnawing inside them, rotting out their lungs."

  The dark haired man stood. His hands slipped into his pockets. "You know what I hear about cancer Senator? It's a shitty way to die. The pain is unimaginable. The cancer dissolves your lungs like they were dipped in acid. Pain chews at your nerves as your lungs get heavier and heavier. Each breath gets shallower. Your mind going into an animal panic as it fights to stay alive. The pain lights you up, keeps you awake so you feel every second of of dying."

  Tears spilled out of piercing blue eyes. The Senator gasped, throat tight, constricted. All he could suck in was a tiny sip of air. Darkness stabbed holes in his vision, pulsing with each pound of his heart. His lungs were soaked, bags full of liquid hanging inside his chest.

  The dark haired man's left hand fell on his shoulder.

  "Gotcha."

  The word broke through the panic, a hammer on a sheet of glass. The Senator's throat opened up, sweet oxygen pouring into his lungs. Gulping air like a starving man eats a buffet, his vision swam clear, panic falling, sliding away. "I thought . . ."

  "Like I said, Senator. You are too easy."

  The pinkyless hand slipped out of the pocket.

  "There's no such thing as a cigarette that gives you instant cancer." He leaned in close, voice just a whispher. "I hope you and Jesus have it all worked out."

  A flick of the wrist.

  CAUGHT

  I wrote this little ditty for the FlashBANG! Competition on Twitter. 150 words or less to tell a story. I was intrigued but thought, nahhhh, I can't do that.

  Then an idea formed in my brain.

  About 20 minutes later I banged out CAUGHT.

  Well, whadda ya know? I CAN write a 150 word or less story and make it good.

  I didn't win, but I did make the short list to the top 20, beating out hundreds of entries. Not too shabby for a story that took no time. So now for your viewing pleasure is the second shortest story I've ever written.

  CAUGHT

  His revolver looked huge in her dainty hand, high polished nails scandalously red against the shiny chrome. He hadn't thought the clueless bitch knew about it.

  He hadn't thought she'd known about a lot of things.

  The special hollow-points he'd bought filled each chamber of the cylinder. One hit from them and he was a goner.

  In like a penny, out like a pizza the salesman had said.

  His voice trembled. "I shouldn't have cheated on you." Hands shaking in supplication.

  "No dear, you shouldn't have gotten caught." She thumbed back the hammer. The click was thunder in the cheap hotel room.

  "She meant nothing to me. I love you, not her!"

  One perfectly cultivated eyebrow arched up. "And you think that makes it better somehow?"

  "You shouldn't do this."

  "No dear," Her voice was ice down his spine. "I just shouldn't get caught."

  BANG!

  SECURITY CHECK

  This is another snapshot in crime. A glimpse into the way a hitman looks at the world just a bit differently than you and I.

  Well, the way I do anyway.

  I don't know you from Adam. I guess you could very well be a hitman. You could be a stone-cold killer trading blood for cash. You could be a sick twist who actually likes watching that light snuff out.

  I have no idea what you're capable of. I mean, I know nothing about you.

  Nothing at all.

  And that's exactly what I'll tell the Feds too.

  SECURITY CHECK

  The German Shepard eyed him with the casual indifference of a trained killer.

  If it decided to break and go for him there wouldn't be anything to slow it down. It could yank the slip lead from the loose grip of its handler, claw its way across the tile floor, and be at his throat before anyone would be able to react.

  He knew the German Shepard could do this. The German Shepard knew it could do this.

  He stared in those dark brown eyes.

  The dog turned away and lay down.

  Adjusting his glasses with three and a half fingers, he turned back to the conveyor belt.

  The woman in front of him spun, arms held out like she was going to hug him. The TSA agent between them skimmed the wide black wand slowly down her front, bumping off her breasts and brushing her groin. The woman flushed, cheeks red, mouth pulled tight. Her eyes met his and they shared a moment.

  Just get through this. It'll be over soon.

  The agent gave a wolf smile. “Enjoy your flight, ma'am.”

  The woman gathered her things from the conveyor belt and scurried away.

  "Next."

  He pushed his small carry-on into the shrouded x-ray machine and then stepped through the metal frame. The open bag containing his camera disappeared along with the plastic bin that held a set of keys, his belt, a fountain pen, his shoes, and his watch. He looked over the top of the x-ray shroud to see if anyone was going to look up at the thin strand of piano wire running through the camera's strap.

  The female TSA agent studied the screen with a blunt, bored face, whitewashed by hours and hours of cathode rays. He wondered again at the safety of sitting with your feet tucked under an x-ray machine built by the lowest bidding contractor. Maybe TSA employees would start dropping dead from radiation poisoning in ten years. Maybe their toes would start to mutate and become club feet for their children to the third and fourth generation.

  A shiver climbed his spine using vertebrae for handholds.

  He stepped up and held his arms to his side. The agent waved the wand in front of him then behind.

  It never touched his chest or his groin.

  He turned to get his things off the conveyor belt.

  A second agent held his bag and the bin.

  "Could you step over here with me sir?" The agent turned as if he expected to be obeyed.

  He followed, the airport tile slightly slippery under socked feet.

  The second TSA agent had his things, including his shoes. The agent placed them on a table, walking behind it.

  "Is there a problem?" He held his voice tight, keeping it mostly inside so he sounded harmless.

  "Just a routine check, sir."

  He looked back at the security checkpoint. The line continued uninterrupted. Conveyor, x-ray, wand, next.

  "If it's routine then why am I being singled out?"

  "We choose passengers at random. I
t's not personal, sir."

  He studied the agent as he worked, sorting his things onto the table, latex covered hands touching everything. Young, earnest, and clean cut; the agent seemed like the kind of guy who grew up involved in the Boy Scouts. Tie tacked neatly to his bright blue uniform shirt. Not a clip-on that would come off with a tug, but a full tie windsored in place, a rayon noose with a fancy slipknot.

  His name tag read Kenneth.

  Kenneth held up a set of keys.

  They jangled.

  Two steel rings, the perfect circumference for his middle fingers to slip into after being attached to the tabs on the piano wire, connected by a metal clip. From the clip dangled three keys that unlocked nothing. They were longer than normal keys, not so much that anyone would notice, but long enough to allow almost two inches of surgical stainless serration to stick up between knuckles when held right.

  Kenneth held them by the thin steel tube dangling from the other side of the clip.

  "What is this sir?"

  "Nitroglycerine."

  "Kind of young for high blood pressure aren't you?" Kenneth began to unscrew the cap of the cylinder.

  "Hereditary heart disease. It is no real worry but the Missus asks that I carry them as a precaution."

  Kenneth spilled tiny white pills out into his palm.

  It's a good thing you're wearing gloves, Ken.

  Kenneth looked them over, then scooped them back into cylinder. He sat them aside, picked up the pen.

  It was a thick fountain pen. Heavy. Quality. The nib and cap were removable, allowing for easy ink cartridge change, or creating a hollow tube to shunt away piss and blood from a punctured kidney.

  Kenneth looked it over, grunting. "Nice pen."

  "Thanks. I haven't had a chance to use it yet."

  Kenneth moved his other things around. Opening his passport, studying his face against the one inside. The face was the same, the name belonged to a stillborn child from West Virginia that wasn't born the same year as him.

  Bored with Kenneth, he watched as a man was hustled through the security check. There was no wand waving, no pat down, and his things were never even put on the conveyor belt. The man was short, stooped in the shoulder. His impeccable Brooks Brothers suit was tailored to fit. A cell phone pressed to his ear, the loose skin of his jawline wobbling underneath it as he yelled at whoever was on the other end of the line.

  He couldn't hear the point of the conversation the man was having, but he could assume. Nothing makes an important person fly off the handle like a sudden change in travel plans. To find out that you'll be on a commercial flight sharing first class instead of on your private charter.

  The line of passengers were held back by the German Shepard and his handler. They were joined by two men who could have been clones of each other. Same brown hair clipped short, same square jaws, same sunglasses, same white wire coming out of their right ears. Both wore dark blue suits that together cost less than the shoes of the man walking ahead of them through security. The suits were not tailored and he could see where both of them had matching bulges on their hips. They tried to look like Secret Service, but weren't far enough from Jersey to quite pull it off.

  Bodyguards.

  Muscle.

  Goons.

  "Here you go sir. Sorry about the hold up."

  Kenneth held out his things in their plastic bin.

  He took it.

  "Nothing out of the ordinary." Kenneth smiled. "Sorry for the inconvenience, sir."

  "No problem."

  He didn't use Kenneth's name. Using someone's name increases the chance that they will remember you. He began putting things in the pockets of his suit.

  "Are you traveling with us on business or pleasure?"

  Everything put away, he patted his pockets.

  "Business. Absolutely business."

  "Well, good luck, sir. Enjoy your upgrade to first class."

  He smiled.

  "I will. First class is the only way to fly."

  TEACHABLE MOMENT

  This is officially the shortest story I have written. 60 words.

  Sixty.

  Six Tee.

  And now the shortest introduction I've ever written (26 words) is done.

  TEACHABLE MOMENT

  This was not my fault.

  I told him, if only his dumb ass had listened.

  Take a man's freedom and he'll adjust.

  Take a man's pride and he'll live.

  Take a man's toilet paper and you leave him no choice but to shank you between guard rounds.

  It's the only course of action that makes any sense.

  Tell your cellmates.

  BOOTS ON

  This is the only story based, somewhat on true events. I did live in a shitastic trailer park. I did have a skeezy, drug-dealin neighbor with a dumb, but sweet, knocked up wife. I had the girl he made the eyes at.

  And I did wind up on that porch, pulling on my boots and trying to decide between kicking in the door and kicking through the tin foil walls.

  Read the story to see, kind of, what happens.

  BOOTS ON

  The laces of my boot cut into the crease of my palms as I kneel and yank them tight. A ragged splinter sticks in my knee, digging into the elephant skin there, drawing a fat drop of blood that swells around it.

  I don't care.

  I wrap the laces around the leather of the boot top, pull up, and twist them to start the knot.

  Wayne's porch is small. I barely fit. You don't get much sitting space on a hundred-dollar-a-week, busted-ass single-wide in a park full of them.

  My heart pounds, making everything pulse on the edges. The rusty, dented gas can laying sideways on the grey, splintery boards pulses. The stupid-ass garden gnome with it's broken foot and it's crooked, mocking grin pulses. The weight bench with no weights but a million pockmarked cigarette burns pulses.

  Every crumpled, discarded, discolored butt laying like white trash confetti pulses.

  It looks like they're trying to crawl away.

  Am I gonna kick in the fucking door or go through the soda can thin walls?

  There's no lights on, no sound coming from the trailer.

  Fear ices the skin on the back of my head.

  Wayne is home. He's always home in the middle of the day. Piece-of-drug-dealin-shit.

  That boot's tied tight. I shift, changing to the other boot and it's loose, limp laces.

  I've been awake just long enough to get up, take a piss, stick my feet in my boots, and find Brenda's note.

  Brenda.

  I never thought I could get a gal like her. She's funny, and nice, and smells good. She's tiny, I can pick her up with one arm, no problem. Course, she don't weigh as much as the sacks I carry two at a time down at the feed factory. She's so pretty it make my teeth hurt. She should be a model or something.

  That's why when I saw her at the Tasty Freeze I never thought I could be with a gal like her.

  "Hey you." Long, dark hair bounces as she hops up on the tailgate beside me. Her hand smooths down the red sundress. Her legs are perfect and tanned.

  "Um, hey."

  "Be a doll and open this for me." She holds out a cold bottle of rootbeer, not old enough for the real thing.

  I twist the top off like it was nothing and hide the little stinging cut from the edge of the cap against my jeans. I hand it back to her, expecting her to hop off and go back to the group of friends she'd come with.

  She didn't.

  She tilts the bottle up and I watched her take a long drink, lips kissing the mouth of the dark brown bottle, throat working as she swallows, the soft smile as she pulls the bottle away at the sticky sweet flavor.

  I'd never been jealous of a soft drink before.

  She looks at me sideways and holds out the bottle. "Want some?"

  Somehow I convinced her to stay with me that night. We've been together ever since. We don't have much, but we got something and that ain't nothing.

 
Yank.

  Pull.

  Cut.

  The laces of the other boot cinch across my instep.

  One thing we do got is neighbors. You can't get away from them when you live in a place that packs forty foot trailers ten foot apart from each other.

  Our neighbors are Wayne, the local, low-life drug dealer, and his old lady Cherry. They live in the run-down trailer next door to our run-down trailer. Wayne's always got a bag of scrips, or a bump of crank, or a sack of weed to sell. Wants to be Scarface when he's really Joe Dirt's retarded cousin.

  He's a sneaky bastard.

  Untrustworthy.

  And he makes eyes at my Brenda.

  He sidles up while I wait in line at the Want 2 Save on Saturday to pay rent for the week, sweaty longneck in a dirty hand. His squinty, twitchy eyes follow Brenda around the store as she shops, yellow, daisy-printed sundress swirling around her long legs.

  He takes a long pull, burps, then talks out the side of his mouth. "Shore is a good thing you're so big, Bobby."

  I step forward as someone gets done paying their rent and the line moves. "Why's that?"

  "Keeps all the fellas away from pretty little Brenda there. Ain't gotta worry about anybody tryin to take her from you. They all scared of what you'd do."

  I look down at him. I can see flakes of dandruff in his greasy hair. I make my voice rumble in my chest. "They should be."

  "Yep, she's so tasty I'm surprised you ever leave your house. If she was mine I'd be banging the hell outta her mornin', noon, and night." His smile is a clenching of teeth, a snurl of the lip under a thin 'stache. "She's safe . . . long as you don't let her outta your sight."

  He saunters off before I can say anything.

  Brenda's note read: At Cherry's. Back soon. Love Bren

  That's why I'm on this mutherfucker's porch.

  Brenda and Cherry are friends. Cherry's a sweet girl, not bright, but not a mean bone in her body, just always a sadness that hangs over her head. Brenda checks on her, helps her out. Cherry's knocked up with Wayne's kid, overdue, and ready to pop at any time.