2 The Housewife Assassin's Guide to Gracious Killing

by Josie Brown

  Without another word, I head out the door.

  “Come here,” Jack calls over to me. “You’ve got to see this!”

  “Shhhh! Lower your voice, or you’ll wake Trisha.” I point to my little sleeping beauty, who is now sprawled out over the bed in our guest suite in Lion’s Lair. While Jack flips through the files on the memory stick Edwina left in my care, I’m tossing my clothes in my bag as fast as I can.

  Time to get the hell outta Dodge.

  Jack nods towards his iPad. “Turns out Breck sells WMDs not only to Asimov, but to the Afghanis, the Iranians, the Taliban, and the Quorum, too.”

  “Oh my God!” Without thinking, I drop the dress in my hand onto the floor. “But selling arms to known terrorists is considered treason. Wait… didn’t he sell off his munitions company around the time he married Babette?”

  He shakes his head in anger. “Apparently not. There’s a video clip here, taken during the meeting the other night, between Breck, Asimov and Carl. Edwina must have recorded it, without Breck’s knowledge. It shows that Breck still owns it—along with the Quorum. Together they set up the dummy corporation that apparently bought it.”

  “That way, had Breck’s political career taken off as planned, no one would know of his terrorist ties,” I reason. “What a great way to have your cake and eat it, too! I guess the Quorum had him over a barrel when they pushed to have Carl appointed the new CEO of his legitimate corporation, too.”

  “And get this, sometimes Asimov pays him off with white slaves, which are used for another big revenue generator for Breck. He owns strip joints and whorehouses in every major city in the world! New York, London, Paris, Buenos Aries, Bangkok, you name it.”

  “Wait a minute: Emma told me about seeing Antoinette on a porn site—what’s it called again? Oh yeah, Island of Misfit Sluts. Do you see any reference to that?”

  “Hold on…” I watch as Jack slides through a few screens and taps a button or two. “There is something that sounds similar on his corporate asset sheet. Its d.b.a. is ‘Misfit Quay.’”

  “His private island! I’ll bet it’s where he takes some of the women for his own pleasure. I’m guessing he also films his smut and snuff videos there, and that his internet servers are kept on the Island, too.” I rush to the door. “Jack, Serena will end up there, too. We’ve got to stop him, before he takes off!”

  But we can’t leave Trisha here, alone.”

  He’s right of course. “Maybe Abu is still here.”

  Jack punches in Abu’s number. In a moment, it picks up. Jack quickly explains the situation, then he hangs up. “Abu will be over in a moment to take Trisha home. Head out to Santa Monica airport. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Chapter 21

  Airplane Etiquette

  Alas, the friendly skies have gotten downright inhospitable these days! This should not be blamed on underpaid flight attendants. Heavens knows they have enough on their hands, what with all the clueless tourists, wailing babies, and cocktail-sodden road warriors they must appease.

  Your way of keeping serenity up in the air is to do the following: First, dress appropriately. Hats, gloves, stockings and your best coat will emphasize your demure disposition, albeit more to take off during your strip search. Next, if you’re going to conceal a weapon, make sure it isn’t metal, and do so in a cavity least likely to be searched. (By the way, when you figure out which one that is, let the rest of us in on this much coveted secret.)

  And finally, the fact that the plane has run out of gin and vermouth is no reason to open the door and jump.

  Breck’s limo has a good head start, but I know a few back roads that get me to the airport, hopefully in time.

  While on the way, my cell buzzes. It’s Emma. “Donna, I’ve finally found the intel we needed on Edwina. Believe it or not, it was in some old KGB files.”

  So, Babette was correct about the connection between Edwina and Asimov. “She’s too young to have been an agent.”

  “She wasn’t. But apparently, her mother, Irina Sokolov, had friends in high places. Alexei Asimov was her mother’s most important lover, when he was Deputy Chairman of the KGB. His watchers kept a thorough file on him, too.”

  “Irina had more than one lover, and Asimov knew about it?”

  “Most prostitutes do. I guess I should have called him her john. Granted she was a high-priced call girl, and had been, for at least a few years. Do they call them “call babies” if they’re not yet teens? She was only fifteen when she delivered Edwina.”

  Just three years older than Mary. I think I’m going to throw up. “Anything else?”

  “She kept it a secret from her pimp. Considering she worked the Savoy Hotel making eight hundred dollars a night, I can see why.”

  “Was Asimov the father?”

  “Not according to the file,” Emma explains. “Get a load of this. It’s Jonah Breck.”

  The vision of Breck raping Edwina comes to mind. Does he know she is his daughter? Would he care if he did?

  And Edwina referred to him as “a friend of my family’s.” Does she know he’s more than that?

  “By the way,” Emma continues, “by 1990, Irina Sokolov was listed as a ‘public relations executive’ for one of Jonah’s Moscow-based companies: the Savoy Hotel, which was the first hotel to get a gambling license.”

  “Which, as we all know goes hand-in-hand with prostitution.”

  “Exactly. Well, one thing is for sure, she was a caring mother. She got Edwina out of Russia, and into a prestigious Swiss boarding school. Afterward, Edwina went to the Paris Sorbonne University, where she got her Baccalaureate degree in International Business and Languages.”

  “Is Irina still in Russia?”

  “She died. The official cause of death was a ‘drug overdose,’ while on vacation at some island resort. But there was also a video clip in the file of a snuff film. The woman who is getting killed looks a lot like Edwina, so I presume that is what really happened to her. Edwina was still in college at the time. How sad is that? Well, one thing for sure, Breck did Edwina a favor by firing her.”

  When I get to the airport, the place is empty.

  The few airport personnel that are there for this midnight flight are locked in the manager’s office. I hear them banging on the glass window and calling out for the police. My tingly spider senses tell me this is not a good sign. But instead of releasing them, I run past them to the gate. I’ll let the cops take care of them. I’ve got to stop the plane from taking off, and the less civilians around, the better.

  Great instincts because Edwina is standing on the tarmac with Breck.

  She’s holding a gun to his head. Inside Breck’s plane, a Gulfstream G650, the pilot is on his headset. He’s obviously trying to get security to answer his frantic call for help. Rutherford Collins is also in the cockpit. He looks as if he’s going to pass out, he’s so pale.

  As I sneak up behind her, I draw my gun but pray I don’t have to use it.

  “Edwina, don’t shot him! Please!”

  She looks pale and weak. She flinches when I call out her name, but she doesn’t drop the gun. Instead, she digs it deeper into the back of his skull. “I have to, Donna! So he doesn’t hurt anyone else!”

  “Jeez, it’s about time someone got here and calmed this bitch down,” Breck growls. “Ha! You’re the last person I thought would be my savior. All this time, you’ve been carrying a gun? So much for Asimov’s security team. So, what are you waiting for? Shoot her! Now!”

  “Shut up, Breck. She’s not the problem. You are.” So that we understand each other, I point my gun at his crotch. “Listen, Edwina, I opened the memory stick you gave me, and I know everything about this sadistic pig: about the munitions sales all over the world, and about the sex shops, and the porn site. I get it. He doesn’t deserve to live. But if you kill him, you’ll end up in jail�
�maybe for the rest of your life. Please, leave now, before the police get here! I’ll keep him under guard until they do.”

  “You gave her all that information?” For a moment, Breck’s anger is stronger than his fear. “Why, you cunt! You were being paid to keep your mouth shut.”

  Edwina does what I would have done: she shoves the gun into his mouth to shut him up. Thank goodness, because I’m tired of hearing his whiny little voice, too.

  “Now that I’m here, I’ll make sure he stays put until the cops come. Please, Edwina, just put down the gun and walk away now, while you still can.”

  “What makes you think I trust you?” Edwina’s voice breaks with suspicion. “Didn’t you just hear him? Your husband was willing to sacrifice you, to fatten his company’s bottom line.” She shakes her head in disgust. “And you were willing to go along with it, or don’t you remember that? Oh, I get it, that’s why you’re here! He invited you to go along with him, to his magical island paradise, didn’t he? You fool! Don’t you know what happens on Misfit Quay? He rapes women! He ties them up, beats them, and violates them! He, and all his pals. And he puts it on the Internet. And he gets away with it because he’s so powerful! He did it to my mother. Then he did it to me, too!” When she stares down at him, hatred hardens her eyes. “Well, Daddy Dearest, you’re not getting away this time.”

  “Whaw dah hawl is she tawkin’ abowt?” Breck is finding it difficult to talk with Edwina’s Smith & Wesson in his mouth. Should he survive this—and between her and me, the odds aren’t in his favor—I’m guessing he’ll include a Russian Roulette game in his sick sex itinerary.

  “I do know what he does there! Edwina, between his sex slavery business and his illegal munitions sales, he’s looking at jail time for life—if they don’t fry him as a traitor.”

  She smiles at the thought. “Ha! That would be sweet. It would have been simpler than setting up the hits on him.”

  “You mean, the assassins were after Breck, not Asimov?”

  Edwina nods. “Wherever Asimov would be standing, Jonah would be right beside him. It would have looked like an accident. As if they’d shot the wrong man. At least I paid them with funds I funneled from his own off-shore bank accounts!”

  “You bitch!” Breck yells. “You embezzled… from me?”

  She nods proudly. “That’s okay. Where you’re going, you won’t need money.”

  Ah, now so much makes sense. “It was you who shot Breck in the House of Mirrors, wasn’t it?”

  Edwina nods. “When the assassins missed the hit, I realized I had to do it myself. I tried to poison him. I’d coated the champagne glasses with succinylcholine, but Asimov’s consultant made the butler drink from one first.” She frowns. “And it was you who shot me in the House of Mirrors, wasn’t it?”

  I realize now why she’s so pale. It is from the loss of blood. “Yes. But now, knowing what I do, I wish I hadn’t. ”

  “Not me. I wished I’d died back there.” Her voice is so low, I can barely hear her. “They should fry him, along with all the others in their private little club, that ‘Quorum.’

  Breck is a member of the Quorum?

  Now things make sense: his closeness to Asimov, as well as some of the Third World dictators, all of whom we now know are his munitions customers.

  As much as I’d like to see a bullet in his head, his rendition would give us so much we need to know to take the Quorum down. I can’t let her shoot him.

  And besides, if Edwina is to escape, it’s now or never. “Edwina, I’ll make sure he pays for his crimes, to all those women, including your mother. I know he raped her when she was only fifteen. I know she saved you from the same living hell he put her through.”

  My declaration takes her off guard. Her wrist relaxes around the gun.

  And that’s all Breck needs to make his move.

  He slaps Edwina’s gun from her hand. It falls too far away for him to go for it. While she scrambles for the gun, he elbows me in the gut. I double over, but I won’t let go of my gun. That doesn’t stop him from making a grab for it. As we wrestle with it, she stands there, helpless and stunned. She doesn’t want to shoot me, or miss him.

  Not Breck. He knows exactly what he is doing. When he bends my arm so that the gun is pointed directly at her, he squeezes my trigger finger, without a second thought.

  The bullet hits her straight through the heart.

  She staggers back then drops to the ground, up against the wheels of the plane. But her eyes stare out at him until her life ebbs from her, along with all the hate and pain and sadness that has made it a living hell.

  “You son of a bitch! That was Irina Sokolov’s daughter.”

  “No shit?” He stops to contemplate that. “Now that you mention it, there was a resemblance.”

  “You dirty son of a bitch! Don’t you get it? Edwina was your daughter!”

  “She’s my… what?” He shakes his head, hard and long. “Bullshit! That’s a lie.” He turns toward the plane. “You’re one sick bitch—which, sadly, is my type. So if you want to hop onboard—”

  That’s it.

  My first shot slams into the tarmac, at his feet. That was just for fun, to watch him dance a jig and squeal like the revolting little pig he is.

  I’m having so much fun that I don’t hear the Los Angeles SWAT team runnin’ and gunnin’ around me until the team leader yells, “Police! Drop your weapon and on the floor, spread eagle! Now!”

  There goes a great pair of Michael Kors slacks. But I do as I am told, and pray Jack gets here, pronto, to clear the air, so to speak.

  In the meantime, Breck howls, “Thank God you’re here, officers. I’m Jonah Breck. This—this lunatic killed my assistant, and was about to kill me, too! She jealous and mad because I won’t leave my wife for her!”

  I can’t believe this clown. He thinks I’m going to take the rap for him? “He’s lying, officer. He’s the one who killed her, not me!”

  The SWAT leader looks at Breck, than to me, and back to Breck. “Oh yeah? The shot came from her gun! Take it and test it. My fingerprints are nowhere around it. My poor secretary was just trying to protect herself from this jealous nut. I’m on my way to Washington D.C., right now, to meet with the president. I’m to be the new ambassador to Russia.”

  “I can confirm that, officers!” Rutherford says waving a white flag out the door. “Feel free to look at our flight plan.”

  The officer hesitates, then nods.

  “Officer, you can’t let them go! He’s a traitor! He sells arms to terrorists. Not only that, but he keeps sex slaves on his private island!”

  “See? What did I say? This woman is as nutty as she sounds.” As Breck passes me, he murmurs, “Spread-eagle is a great look for you, Donna.”

  I grab his ankle and he falls onto his knees. But before I can jump him, I’ve got a SWAT-regulation boot is on the center of my spine, pushing me back down onto the asphalt. My face is crammed sideways, but in the direction I’m facing I can see Breck stumble up the ramp. The plane door slams shut behind him, and a moment later, the plane taxis down the runway and leaves the ground. I can see it again as it banks back over the airport and out toward the sea.

  The next thing I know, I’m being lifted onto my feet and read my Miranda rights. My hands are pushed behind my back, and I’m handcuffed. A police car is driven onto the tarmac, and I’m shoved into the back of the squad car.

  It drives off the runway. When we hit the gate outside the airport, six other Santa Monica PD black-and-whites fall into line behind us.

  As we turn down Arizona Avenue, Jack’s Lamborghini speeds past us. I’m sure every cop in my entourage is jonesing to chase after him. No need. He does a U-turn in the middle of the street in order to flip around and follow us back to the station.

  Hopefully, he’ll be able to get me out of this jam, as soon as possible. I m
iss my children, my home, and my bed.

  I miss feeling Jack’s arms around me.

  I can’t help but wonder if Acme will consider our mission a success or a failure, considering all the assassins were exterminated despite the fact that they weren’t after the target we’d presumed.

  Oh yeah, and the summit was cancelled before it started.

  On a classroom scale, my guess is that we earned a C+.

  Okay, maybe a D.

  We should at least get an A for effort.

  Chapter 22

  Saying Good-bye to Your Hostess

  Inevitably, the party has to come to an end.

  Under ideal circumstances, this is not when (a) the place is on fire; (b) the joint is being raided; or (c) when a murder most foul has been committed. (Admittedly, any of these incidents would put a damper on an otherwise successful soirée.)

  When you feel it is time to leave (or that you’ve worn out your welcome), hopefully, it won’t be after everyone else has already gone. Heaven forbid you should be that last annoyingly longwinded can’t-take-a-hint-no-matter-how-much-she-yawns guest!

  And you certainly cannot slip out in the shank of the evening, without even a simple fare-the-well. (Unless you’ve pilfered through her jewelry box and helped yourself to that strand of her grandmother’s pearls you’ve always admired. Then certainly, run like hell.)

  In the same token, make sure you aren’t the first to walk out the door. This relays the unspoken message that you find her party deadly dull. (Even if that is the case, you would hate for her to think that, especially when you could have taken it upon yourself to liven things up by spicing the punch with a tab or two of LSD).

  My cell in the Santa Monica hoosegow could do with a little sprucing up, but my roomies, Big Bitch Bitsy and Shitfaced Leona, would get in my face and threaten me with some smackdown should I even consider rearranging their fine collection of Chippendales trading cards, which has been stuck onto the concrete wall with Bubblicious.