The cold rain hits me straight in the face, but I don’t mind.
It’s the only thing that reminds me I’m alive. Everything else worth living for died a long time ago. But that’s another story.
The house I’m watching is big and white, and has enough lawn around it to justify a sit-on mower. There’s more money on the drive in Mercedes and BMW’s than an Average Joe down at the docks earns in a life-time.
In fact, the part of town I’m in, if I stand here too long they’ll probably charge me residence tax.
I lean back against the tree and light up a smoke. On the ground are the butts from the previous five I’ve had. It’s been a long night but it’s what I do.
Watch. Wait. Make my move.
I got the call from Smith three days ago. I knew it was him before I checked the number on the pager.
No-one else pages me. I call the number from the pay-phone near the South Bridge. I hear the fork-lifts moving containers around down on the docks in one ear, and the soft, flat voice I recognise in the other.
“It’s a straight forward contract. Usual rates.”
“Alright.”
“The details and first payment are in an envelope. Usual place.”
“Ok.”
“Good luck, Brunner.”
“Yeah.”
The usual place was a luggage locker in All Saints Station. I have a key and he has a key. The envelope is document-sized and padded with bubble-pack. Inside a type-written sheet of A4, a bundle of unmarked notes and some black-and-white shots of a man and a woman, some separate, some together.
Their names are Raymond and Barbara Anderson. They’re retired, but he still has a big say in the oil company he set up back in the Seventies. There are other board members now. Younger, hungry for change, no doubt but Anderson still had his name over the door. He has the voice. Soon to be a dead voice.
I don’t consider myself to be a killer.
Sure, in a court of law I’d be bang to rights.
But morally, I’m not the killer.
I’m just the trigger. The tool.
I’m no more a killer than an empty gun. Someone else puts the bullets in.
Someone else decides when it’s someone’s time to die.
And in my experience if someone is willing to pay good money – and it ain’t cheap – to get someone killed, then there must be something they’ve done to cause that other than having their dog shit on someone’s lawn. No-one loads the gun on a whim.
So, I sleep ok and I get paid not to ask questions.
I just follow orders. Like back in the desert. Following orders.
The rain has been steady all night, but now it’s getting heavy.
I pull the collar of my coat up higher around my neck and grind out another butt.
The only light on in the Anderson house is behind the pulled drapes in the front lounge. The way the glow around the edge of the window brightens then fades, I guess they’re watching TV.
I check my watch. Maybe a movie or even the news channel.
I take my hands out of my pockets and flex my fingers.
By tomorrow the Andersons will be on the news themselves.
Not up top, but somewhere before the weather.
Retired couple found dead in their home. Result of a suspected burglary gone wrong.
Mr Anderson had been the majority stockholder of Anderson Oil…etc…etc…
I make to cross the street when something stops me dead.
Movement. Maybe an animal. A dog in the bushes. A cat with a mouse.
I wait and let the cover from the tree make me invisible.
I see the movement again. Not an animal. Too big. Not on all fours. A man.
The bushes rustle and he’s crabbing up the path by the side of the house. In his hand is a shape that looks like a gun.
I let him disappear in the big slab of shadow blanking out the garden, and then I follow.
Someone else here for the hit? Possible, but Smith wouldn’t double-book and it was long-odds if I happened to be counting down the clock to the kill at exactly the same time as another hit-man.
We’re hardly like buses. Two don’t come at once…
A burglar then. Someone looking at a big house and thinking big pickings.
Take the wife’s jewellery and the husband’s wallet. Maybe even get what’s in the safe, and be back down-town doing a line of coke before the cops get the Twinkie crumbs from off their laps.
Couldn’t blame the kid. Just fucking bad luck to try it tonight. By the time I’m done he’ll wish he’d picked somewhere else.
I put my back against the house wall and listen. From round the back I hear something like a small bell chiming. More like glass smashing. The kitchen window.
The Andersons’ won’t hear it though. Too busy laughing at Saturday Night Live.
I jog down the side of the path, keeping to the grass and avoiding the gravel. The kitchen door is open, and the glass from the window at the side is on the ground. They made it easy by leaving the key in the lock.
The kitchen is empty, just the green glow from the microwave clock. The burglar must be down the hall.
I’m about ten running paces behind him and that’s where I stay. I let him make his move.
The lounge door crashes open and I hear Mrs Anderson scream.
“Shut the fuck up, lady.”
The voice is young, maybe still in its teens. Too much bravado, too much tension.
“What’s going on? What do you want?”
“Everything you’ve got old man. Every fucking dollar and now!”
I decide to take in the show with my eyes as well as ears. I edge down the hallway so I’ve got a third view through the open door.
The kid’s got his back to me, but down the side of him I can see Anderson half-sat, half-standing from his chair. He doesn’t look that much different from his pictures, except he’s a little greyer and he’s sweating. Having a gun waved in front of your face can do that.
“We don’t keep that much cash in the house. You’re wasting your time. We’ve got nothing.”
The kid wasn’t buying it and the way he was waving his canon around I doubted he was going to not buy it for much longer.
“Fucking bull-shit, old man. Every one of these houses has got a fucking safe. I want what’s in it now, or I’ll put a hole in your lady.”
“I’ve told you, we’ve got nothing.”
The kid was dancing around like he was bare-foot on hot coals, but Anderson was playing the long game. Hoping to negotiate and reason. He was wrong. The kid had never been in a board-room.
The kid’s canon went off and I heard a wet gurgle and a shout from Anderson.
There was nothing from Mrs Anderson so I guessed she was either dead, or well on the way.
“Now open the fucking safe!”
Anderson’s mouth goes slack and he stops thinking he’s having a directors’ meeting. Like he’s sleep-walking, he goes to the wall and unhooks the painting of some water-meadow. Behind it is the steel door of a safe and he spins the combination until it swings open.
He stops looking at the safe and starts looking at his wife, his mouth trying to say words that won’t come.
The kid doesn’t care about the woman, and Anderson doesn’t care about the kid ransacking his safe.
I decide it’s time to join the show.
“Put the gun down, son.”
The kid thinks he’s hearing voices, but spins round to see me pointing a .38 at his head. He looks me in the eye, then back at the safe and then back to me. He knows I’m not playing around.
He does as he’s told and hangs the canon by his side.
I step further in the room and tell him to throw the gun on the rug and sit down in the chair Anderson was sat in.
He had found his voice now and was whimpering while cradling what was left of his wife’s head in his arms. The other half of her head was splattered over the wall-paper behind them.
The kid starts shuffling around again, like the chair has just been charged with a few hundred volts.
“You muscling in, man? You don’t know what you’re doing, man.”
He’s rambling on and I’m not in the mood. “Shut up.”
Anderson tears his face from his wife and looks at me with wet, red-ringed eyes. “Police?”
I know it’s not the time or place, but I can’t help smiling. “’Fraid not.”
His eyes widen then close and his shoulders start shaking.
I look at him and then at the kid, and make my decision.
“Stand up.”
The kid starts shuffling again. “What?”
“You deaf, son?”
He shakes his head and jumps to his feet.
“Go over to the safe, and take out anything worth having.”
His face clouds but he does what he’s told, courtesy of the .38 pointing at him. He rummages around and scoops out a stack of cash and a couple of necklaces.
“Toss me the money.”
I catch the bundle and stuff it in my inside pocket.
The kid looks at the jewellery in his hand and raises his eyebrows.
I smile again. “Nah, you keep it.”
The cloud goes from his face and he’s about to say something when I thumb back the trigger and shoot him between the eyes.
He’s dead before he hits the floor.
I turn the .38 towards the Andersons. A frightened old man and his dead wife.
“Who did you piss off, old man?”
He doesn’t know what to say. All kinds of words get almost said, but in the end he says nothing.
I shrug. I don’t care. Business is business, and tonight, business is good.
I take a clean rag from my coat and bend to pick up the kid’s canon with it.
I weigh it in my hand for a second, then I pull the trigger and send Anderson to meet his wife.
So there we have it.
Three shots. Three dead bodies. Two guns.
I wipe down my gun and go put it in Anderson’s hand, making sure his prints are all over it. Then I put the kid’s back in his hand and stand back to study my scene-making.
Desperate burglar breaks into wealthy business man’s house, waving a gun around and shouting threats. Things get ugly. Shots get fired, and three people end up dead. Open and shut. The cops won’t even dust for prints.
I button up my coat and leave the way I came in.
I’m a block away before I hear the first sirens, and I smile for the third time that night.
I’ve lost a gun but gained a bundle heavier than a piece in my pocket.
I stop at a pay phone and dial a number I know straight off.
“Brunner?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it done?”
“Yeah.”
A sigh. “Good. I’ll arrange the drop for the remainder of your fee this evening.”
I’m still smiling. “No rush.”
