He hasn’t said a thing about a job yet, and it’s beginning to make me nervous. The next half hour, during which he listens to my New Wave music without saying one cross word about it, downright terrifies me. It isn’t until we drop the body off at an animal crematorium whose owner owes him a professional sort of favor that he drops the hint. Or rather, that he drops the plain manila envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“Job,” he says, stuffing a gas station churro into his mouth as he speaks.
I take the envelope and turn it gently over in my hands. He never really speaks at this point. Normally, he waits patiently, all the while slurping down a cup of coffee or chomping away at a pastry as I look over the files. When I’m ready, I’ll usually give my take on it, explain how I would apply what I just learned to do a proper job of things. Still, he never waits this long to hand me the contract/dossier combo pack. My veins pump solid polar ice. Is it someone I know? Is it me? Is that why he’s been so hesitant to talk, or why he gave me such a lavish gift? An L115A3 is no slouch piece of gear.
My hands shake as I undo the clasp, and despite my best efforts to appear calm—an assassin is always calm and collected in the face of danger—I can’t help but tear the envelope a little as I open it. My fingers close on the contents, ready to pull it out, but I freeze. I can’t bring myself to look at the photograph.
“Whose is it?” I ask, my voice quivering like a leaf in a storm.
“It’s yours,” he says. I can hear his voice crack and I know this contract frightens him as much as it does me.
“But… why?”
“Because it’s time. I knew this couldn’t go on forever. I knew this day would come eventually. I just didn’t expect it so soon.”
“Why is it time? Why now?” I want to cry. My mentor, the only father I’ve ever really known has a contract on me. Any moment now, he’ll try to kill me, and Prince Charlie is too far away to reach and too large to use in these close quarters anyway. I don’t even have Lady Di(e) on me. Lady Di(e), who isn’t afraid to get up close and personal with her subjects. Why would I? When I got dressed this morning, I had no reason to suspect I would need a little 7.65mm peashooter, especially not when I was going out to shoot a big dreamboat like the Prince.
“Just look at it,” is all he says, barely getting the words out. “You’ll understand when you read it.”
I oblige him and slide the contract from the envelope, bracing myself to see a black and white shot of me through a telephoto lens. Instead, I see a press photo of a balding man in his sixties waving to a crowd. I’m not nearly as photogenic as I thought.
“Who is this?” I ask, confusion wrapping me up like yellow sponge cake around my creamy relieved center.
“Bill Thompson. CEO of-”
“Thompson’s? The big box department stores? What did he do to get a hit put on him?”
“Don’t know,” says Houston, brushing churro crumbs from his lips. “Not my business to ask.”
I keep reading, skimming over the usual stuff. Height, weight, blood type, allergies, medications, associates, hobbies, habits. Important stuff, but not the most crucial. I skim down until I see the juicy bit: client notes.
“Wow, John Smith sure wants a lot of people dead. Seems like every other job you get is from a fellow named John Smith. We should give him a bulk buy discount.”
I glance over to see if he cracks a smile, but he wears the same somber face he had when he handed me the envelope. My joke is going down with all passengers screaming. It’s not like him not to respond to a dad joke, especially one that was work related.
I keep reading. Thompson needed to die during business hours, ideally some time between ten and two. Cause of death: accidental or natural, no whiff of foul play. Translation: no body disposal. The job is right up my alley. Except there’s no room for a sniper rifle or clean up anywhere in the job. So why the gift? Why the lecture on fundamentals?
As if on cue, Houston speaks up. “It’s yours. Your first solo job. Well mostly. I’ve done all the preliminary work. Noted his habits, the places he goes, his associates. The kill, though, that’s all you. Falls nicely within your skillset, too. You asked why now. Because I think you’re ready.”
“But what about the gun? I won’t need it for this job.”
“So you’ll have time to practice with it before whatever job you will need it for. Time to fly on your own, little bird.”
His eyes begin to fill with tears, which he wipes away with a Subway napkin. “You’re just growing up so fast.”
I am not even remotely used to this sort of open display of emotion from him. It makes me feel all… squeamish. I reach over and give him an awkward side hug and a still more awkward, “there, there.”
“Wait,” I say, pulling back. “Does this mean I have to move out? Is this just so you can watch TV in your underwear without worrying about me walking in on you?”
He laughs. “No, kiddo. I genuinely think you’re ready for this.”
Inside, I squee a little and do a happy dance in the passenger seat.
Houston gives me a fatherly pat on the back. “Getting the place to myself is just a bonus.”
Chapter 2
JAMIE
ROLLING IN A NEW DIRECTION
“I never understood how someone with your particular talents can live so poorly, Jaime,” the Marquis said, then cast me a sideways glance. “That is the name you use these days, yes? Jaime?”
He did not wait for a response. Instead, he pulled a 1976 Riesling from his bag. “Damn the Germans, but they can make a delicious white wine. Of course, if there’s one thing they know, it’s how to elevate a white.”
“That’s in poor taste,” I said with a shudder, and though I wanted to chase him away for it, he did bring the best wines. Instead of chiding, I got glasses and a new pang of self-loathing.
“Perhaps it was,” he sighed, “but this wine is not.”
“Let me guess,” I asked. “A hundred bucks a bottle?”
“Upper threes,” he said. “But worth every penny, I assure you, and damn the uncultured savages who have their unwashed protests in the street because I spend that sort of money on a bottle of wine. Let them earn their own money and do as they please with it.”
“You always were a devout capitalist,” I said.
“Not true. I’ve always been a devotee to power, not money. It just so happens one often follows the other like some infatuated schoolgirl. When we met in France those centuries ago, I thought my title and power came from God, and so I was a devout Catholic. Then you and your upstart revolutionary friends showed me that divine right was a fallacy. Oh, how you showed me the error of my beliefs, and I amended my ways. You convinced me to become a devout capitalist, admittedly at gunpoint, but at the time, I believed you were right. Most anyone can be bought, as you showed me quite clearly. Some people say money is power, but they are wrong. Money is money. A bit of paper, a clink of metal, or ones and zeroes in a computer. Money is nothing when not put to use, so I decided that the calculated use of money was power. Then the Communists came, and they tried to tell people that we didn’t need money, and yet they were corrupted just like the rest of us, because though they lacked money, they had the will of the people. Right now, it appears people are power. But that’s all changing. Francis Bacon was ahead of his time. Knowledge is power, so these days, I am a devout believer in the power of knowledge, particularly secret knowledge. Gold is still useful, and God and people and knowledge. But these are my congregation, not my faith. Power is my deity.”
I nodded. That definitely sounded like the charismatic aristocrat I met over two centuries past.
“You can understand then why I find your accommodations so unfathomable. You have such natural powers as I could only dream of. You are immortal. You can change faces at will. You have such potential, old friend. It pains me to see you live so low. I wish you would let me raise you to my level.”
He opened the bottle, poure
d a couple of glasses, and set them on a side table to breathe while he tossed me the cork. It reeked of petroleum, and my stomach turned at the smell. “Never mind about the wine,” I said through curled lips. “I’m not that thirsty.”
“Is it the gôut de pétrole?”
“I don’t know,” I asked. “Is that what makes it smell like it was aged in a gas tank?”
“You know, among connoisseurs, it is an integral part of its bouquet. That and a good noble rot.”
“Noble rot and gas smells. I think I’ll leave the Riesling to those with a more sophisticated palette.”
“You’re a Philistine.”
“Once,” I said with a wry grin, “but that was a long, long time ago. Also, their wine wasn’t awful.”
The Marquis let out a pained sigh. “I figured you would be unable to appreciate so exquisite a vintage, which is why I brought along this 2010 Shiraz just for you.”
With the grace of a panther, he reached into his bag, drew yet another bottle, and held it out, but otherwise made no effort to get it to me.
That had always been his way. He would sit there, all airs and smiles, in some ensemble that just oozed class. Even now, he wore a white dinner jacket and bowtie so nice that it may have been stolen straight from Humphrey Bogart on the set of Casablanca. I can’t speak for the Marquis’s whereabouts in the early 1940s, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that was where he’d gotten the garment. He kept his arms wide across the armrests of my second-hand easy chair, and he crossed his legs like the sort of dandy you wouldn’t dare tease. Sleek dark hair flecked with the first touches of silver came to a point that added just a touch of chilling menace to his powerful face. His expression as still as the Sargasso Sea, he offered the wine, and powerful as a king, he made me get it myself. He was the most sublime predator I had ever seen. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to rip his clothes off him and forget the wine. Not that I’m his type. Not these days and not in this body. Still, he would probably oblige, just so he could lord it over me later, the bastard. My magnificent monster.
I scowled, rose from my ratty couch, and snatched the Shiraz from his outstretched hand before I lost my resolve to hate him. “Give me that accursed wine.”
Without taking my eyes off him, I pried out the cork and began to drink straight from the bottle. It was a decent brand, one of those eighteen-dollar affairs I could only justify on particularly special occasions. I’m certain he meant it to be an insult, but I wouldn’t dignify it by taking any offence. Besides, I didn’t have time to be upset. I was too busy drinking middle shelf wine that I could rarely afford on my own.
After putting away half the bottle, I decided to let the wine breathe so that I could do the same. The Shiraz burned more than I expected, but that probably had a lot to do with the speed with which I put it away. All the while, he kept that smug, self-satisfied look on his face.
“I thought you weren’t thirsty,” he said.
“I thought you had something important to talk about. Instead it’s been gas wine and condescension.”
The Marquis put down his glass and pressed his fingertips against each other. “Do you enjoy living like this?”
He gave my cramped Baltimore apartment a sweeping, dismissive gesture. Apparently, my Salvation Army furnishings, including a hide-a-bed that almost didn’t smell like cat anymore and a twenty-inch TV whose picture had only a slightly purple tint didn’t meet his lofty standards. At least my 1965 Jose Oribe ten-string classical guitar wasn’t bottom shelf. “What? You mean Chez Merde? Oh, why would I ever want to give all this up?”
“I have a proposition for you. It won’t take much of your time, and I assure you, it has the potential to be quite lucrative for you.”
“Is this an indecent proposal?” I asked, only half joking. “Are you going to pay me a million dollars for one night? Because if you are, I demand a million dollars and dinner.”
He smiled perhaps the warmest smile he had given me all decade. “Not while you still have a penis.”
“I’m beginning to think you liked me more back in France.”
“Of course I did,” he said. “You were a woman then.”
“We’ll always have Paris,” I said, raising my bottle. I took another swig of my Shiraz and savored the burn. “So, what did you have in mind?”
“Were you aware that the world is full of terrible people?” he asked, so casually patronizing that I almost didn’t catch it.
I stared at him hard, daring him to ask what I was thinking.
“And were you aware that the world is full of wealthy people?” he asked again, the sarcasm more pointed.
“And were you aware,” I said, “that if we were to make a Venn diagram of those two groups, there would be a large overlapping area with you squarely in the middle?”
“I am, and today, my mercenary nature works to your advantage.” His pride radiated from him like a spotlight that somehow managed to shine back on itself. “I have a wealthy friend who thinks one of those terrible people out and about in the world may have an eye toward killing him.”
“I’ve done bodyguard work before,” I said. “It doesn’t pan out as well for me as you might think. I get killed, so nobody pays me because who pays the dead guy, and then because people know I’m dead, I have to create a new identity, which by the way, is getting harder and harder every year.”
“I can imagine,” he said and took a sip of his petrol wine. Somehow, he managed to enjoy it. “No, what I’m thinking pays extra if you die.”
“I’m listening.” I leaned in closer, careful to support myself on my armrests. The wine had begun to hit me and I had become a little wobbly and warm. I undid a couple of buttons to keep from burning up.
“Do you know why medicine is so profitable?” he asked
“Because it’s a captive market, and people will pay anything to live a little longer?”
“Precisely,” he said, apparently quite pleased that I understood at least a little about profiting off the misery of others. “Enter my friend, stage left. Someone wants him dead. He does not wish to die. He has vast stores of money he would gladly pay to someone who could save his life.”
“I’m not a superhero,” I said, and leaned back into my chair for fear of falling over. The Shiraz was kicking my ass. Eighteen dollars well spent.
“Hence the paycheck. No one is asking you to be altruistic.”
“I mean, I can’t save anybody. Shooting guns, chasing off bad guys? That’s not something I do.”
“No one said anything about chasing off the bad guy,” he said and sipped his Riesling. “Mmmm, you really are missing out. But no, you will die for him.”
“We’ve been through this. New identities are hard. It’s not enough just to move and make up a new name anymore.”
“I’m afraid I misspoke. You will not die for him as you are imagining it. You will die as him. You will die in his place. You do your magic that lets you turn into him, you masquerade as him until someone kills you, and you rise from the dead to collect your paycheck. He lives, you live, and the killer halts the hunt.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. For thousands of years, I haven’t been able to stay dead. Stab me, shoot me, cut off my head, burn me to cinders and scatter the ashes, and I’ll still come back. I don’t know why, and I’ve given up trying to figure it out. Some people have told me it’s God working in mysterious ways, but it’s hard to believe in Heaven when this is my afterlife.
For the most part, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Usually by the time I come back, the coroner has already passed on word to Uncle Sam that I have shuffled off this mortal coil and then it’s canceled credit cards and goodbye apartment lease. It would be nice to have it work for me instead of against me. Long ago, I learned a spell, the only spell I ever learned, which allows me to turn into someone else. All I need is a fresh blood sample. Once upon a time it was quite useful. Someone panicked because I’ve risen from the dead? I could just turn into someone
else and start again far away. These days, though, that just led to different questions, like why do I have someone else’s fingerprints and DNA, and how did I change, and how did I come back to life after you shot me for impersonating someone, and I had no fondness for the way people got their answers.
The Marquis must have sensed me mulling over his proposition because he pressed his pitch. “Picture this. Ten thousand dollars per week just to pretend to be someone, to give them some peace of mind that no one is going to kill them. If it so happens that you do die, it’s an additional five-thousand-dollar fee, plus one thousand dollars per day that it takes you to revive.”
“Can I charge extra for torture?” I asked, warming to the idea.
“It’s your business. I know a great many rich men, and they make a great many enemies. Think of all the clients I could pass your way.”
“What do you get out of it? Are you like my agent, skimming ten percent off the top?” I crossed my arms, then stopped when the extra body heat on my chest made me sweat. What was in this wine?
“Not at all,” the Marquis said, and to his credit, he seemed genuinely offended. “Why would I want to squabble for your pennies? No, my motives are entirely selfish, but not financial. The truth, Jaime or whatever you choose to call yourself these days, is that you’re an embarrassment. You live in this shabby place, you wear those cheap clothes…”
I took a moment to consider what I wore. Jeans I bought new, a t-shirt with an inauthentic tribal design on it, and a bowling shirt I picked up from a thrift store for fifty cents. They were clean with no holes, no stains. These were, without a doubt, some of the nicest clothes I owned. I had several days’ worth of stubble, shaggy brown hair. I could see his point.
“I can’t take you anywhere. You’re my oldest friend, but if anyone sees me with you in public, my stock portfolio literally drops two percent.”
The Professional Corpse (The Departed Book 1) Page 2
