Bang Up

by Jeff Strand

  "I said, get out of here! Actually, no, give me your wallet first."

  "I need it," said Skip.

  "Give me your goddamn wallet!"

  Skip took his wallet out of his pocket and handed it to the man. The man opened it up, took his forty-six dollars in cash, then flung the wallet down the sidewalk.

  "Maybe you're homeless because you're unpleasant," said Skip.

  The man waved the knife at him. It wasn't actually a very big knife, and didn't look that sharp; it may, in fact, have been a butter knife. But the man was waving it like he knew how to cut a bitch. "Get out of here."

  "Maybe we should—"

  "Leave before I open you neck to groin."

  In theory, this was a good development. If he wanted the experience necessary to make his murder-for-hire go smoothly, it was more useful to practice on an angry man with a knife than somebody who simply offered up his neck for the strangling. On the other hand, Skip didn't want the guy to stab him.

  "We—"

  "Leave!"

  "But—"

  The man jabbed the knife at him. The man was still sitting on the bench and Skip wasn't anywhere close to being within striking distance, but he still flinched. This was kind of embarrassing, though at least he hadn't yelped.

  "I'll go," said Skip. "I meant no disrespect. I wasn't trying to suggest that your life isn't worth living. The problem was with me, not you."

  "Are you going to get the hell out of here, or do I need to gouge out your eyeballs and use your head as a fucking bowling ball?"

  Skip wondered if that hostility could be useful. "Do you want to kill somebody with me?"

  The man raised the knife as if to throw it, and Skip took the hint. He hurried over to his wallet, scooped it up, then fled the area.

  He walked for a few blocks, feeling as if this was an unpromising indicator of future success. But at least the man hadn't stolen his credit cards or his punchcard (eight more submarine sandwiches and he got a free one). It was difficult to make the case that this practice session had gone well, but Skip wouldn't get disheartened. He was sure the actual murder would work out fine.

  14

  He peeled off his shirt, revealing a tattooed abdomen with rock-hard pectorals. I sucked in a deep breath. His chest looked even better than the picture in his online profile. I'd assumed it had been Photoshopped, but you can't Photoshop real life, at least not with current technology. How had I—innocent, bookish me—been so blessed as to end up in this hotel room with Draven?

  "Shall I continue?" he asked, mischief in his piercing blue eyes.

  I let out a coquettish giggle and bit my lower lip. "Please do."

  He dropped his pants and I couldn't stop the sharp intake of breath. I'd never seen such a manhood. It was larger at rest than most of the ones I'd seen fully aroused. If he was a grower as well as a shower, it might hurt. But, I thought with a giggle, there was nothing wrong with a bit of pain under the right circumstances.

  "Do you approve?" he asked, with a gentle smile that made it clear that he knew perfectly well that I approved. Goodness, how I approved!

  "Yes!" I said, and it was all I could do not to clap my hands with delight. Oh, the things he could do to me with that manhood! It was so pleasing to the eye, and I had little reason to doubt that it was equally pleasing to the touch...and perhaps the taste!

  I think he knew what I was thinking, because his manhood began to rise. And rise. And rise some more. How alert could it get?

  When its ascent finally stopped, Draven looked deservedly proud.

  "I promise I'll be gentle," he said.

  "Promise me you won't," I told him with a giggle.

  Julie saved the file. That was enough writing for today. She was ridiculously horny, and Ralph wasn't going to be able to satisfy her needs. She either needed to get in a self-love session or to contact Kirk. Masturbation was the smarter option, but contacting Kirk would be much more fulfilling.

  She decided not to go with the smart option.

  It might freak him out that she had his e-mail address (acquired from Ralph's account) but she was pretty sure Kirk had enjoyed the experience as much as she had. Hopefully she hadn't given off the vibe of somebody who would show up unannounced in the middle of the night with self-inflicted wounds screaming for him to tell her that she was the only woman he'd ever loved.

  He'd get over it.

  She sent him a quick e-mail.

  * * *

  Kirk stared at his computer screen.

  Hi, Kirk! It's Julie from the night before last. Presumably you remember me. I criticized the book club selection. Any chance you're up for an encore? Let me know.

  Wow. All of that arguing with himself over whether he should contact her, and she'd contacted him instead. What a waste of agonizing indecision. He wasn't sure how she got his e-mail address and he didn't care.

  Absolutely, he wrote back. Tonight?

  * * *

  Daytime is better, wrote Julie. Unless you have to work.

  * * *

  Kirk did indeed have to work, but he didn't give a shit. His boss would get over it. And if his boss didn't get over it, he could find a new job. It was probably time to start considering other career opportunities anyway. Another hotel?

  * * *

  How about your place? Julie asked.

  * * *

  Having Julie come to Kirk's place was a terrible idea.

  Sure, he replied.

  * * *

  Ralph had been monitoring Julie's e-mail since the day they returned from their honeymoon. He'd assumed that she had a secret e-mail account that she was using to plan her affairs, so he was surprised to see this back-and-forth communication with Kirk coming through her regular address.

  Did she not have a secret account? And if she didn't have a secret account, did that mean she wasn't actually trying to cheat on him before?

  Ralph put that out of his mind. He was so furious that he could kill Kirk, if he hadn't already hired somebody else to do it for him. And he was pretty freaking unhappy with Julie at the moment. When Kirk went missing, maybe Ralph would offer subtle hints that he'd been the one responsible without actually confessing to the crime. Or maybe he'd string up Kirk's body with an unnerving message carved into his chest. He'd have to figure out how psychotic he wanted to go.

  He hurried out of the office building and called Skip.

  "Hey," Skip answered.

  "Is this a secure line?"

  "It's my regular cell phone."

  "Can you talk privately?"

  "I'm in line at the grocery store."

  "Screw it. I need you to kill that fucker as soon as possible."

  "Can I buy my kitty litter first?"

  "Yeah, that's fine. What's your cat's name?"

  "Oh, I don't have a cat."

  "I need you to get over to his place as soon as possible. He's making plans to fornicate with my wife again. I want him dead before she gets there."

  "Still just him, right?"

  "Yes."

  "I could kill him while they were fornicating. That would dissuade her from ever having sex again. Including with you, maybe, so I guess that's not a good idea. I probably shouldn't be saying this out loud—some people are staring at me." Skip raised his voice, clearly speaking to the other shoppers. "Kidding! Just kidding! Passing the time while we wait in line!"

  "Dead before she gets there. Don't let me down."

  "I won't," said Skip. To somebody else, he said, "This is twelve items! You don't count individual tubs of yogurt!"

  "I'll send you the address."

  "Cool. I'll let you know when he's...when the job's done."

  Ralph disconnected the call. Was it possible that his rage was so intense that he was making a terrible mistake by hiring an obvious idiot to commit murder?

  Yes, it was most definitely possible.

  In fact, Ralph might go so far as to say that it was likely.

  He didn't care. Kirk had to die.
<
br />   15

  Kirk hurriedly tidied up his apartment, which only took a couple of minutes. As a kid, he'd been a total slob, and he'd carried that into his adult life after moving into his own place. But on his twenty-fifth birthday, he'd been at a bar where he met two beautiful women who offered to give him a birthday present he'd never forget. After confirming that they weren't hookers without actually asking if they were hookers (which would piss them off if they weren't hookers) he took them back to his place. He couldn't believe it. His fantasy was about to come true. He could get fired from his job, break his arm, lose a couple of second-tier relatives, and get severely burned and this would still be the greatest year of his life.

  But when the ladies stepped inside, they'd both wrinkled their noses. Dirty clothes on the floor. A half-eaten bowl of Alpha-Bits on the coffee table. An unpleasant smell from an unidentifiable source.

  "You know what, maybe this isn't such a great idea," one of the ladies had said.

  Kirk, panicked, had offered to do a quick and thorough cleanup, but it was too late. The moment was over. His slovenly habits had cost him a night with two women at once. Though only one of them left and he got to have acrobatic sex with the other, it was still a brutal lesson. From that moment on, Kirk kept his living area nice and clean.

  Everything was ready for Julie's visit except—shit!—he'd run out of condoms. Julie might bring some, but she also might not, and "But I thought you were going to bring them!" was not a good way to start a passionate sexual encounter. Though Kirk was irresponsible in many ways, such as carrying on with a married woman after her husband had shown up at his apartment to warn him never to do it again, but he did always practice safe sex.

  No worries. He had time to make it to the convenience store and back before she arrived.

  * * *

  Skip had prepared himself for the possibility that Ralph might send him on the job early, so he'd bought the pizza last night. He'd also eaten a couple of slices, which would be difficult to explain if his target decided to open the box, but Skip planned to kill him before he opened the box.

  He walked up to apartment 204 and rang the doorbell.

  Nobody answered.

  He knocked.

  Nobody answered.

  Skip had run through eighty different scenarios, but all of them had involved Kirk opening the door. He wasn't sure what to do now. He wished he'd brought a lock-picking kit and also learned how to use one.

  He tested the doorknob, just in case.

  The door was unlocked.

  Skip quietly opened it, stepped inside, and closed it again. The apartment was silent.

  "Hello?" Skip called out.

  Nobody responded.

  Who would be so foolish as to leave their door unlocked?

  * * *

  It occurred to Kirk that he didn't specifically remember locking his door. No big deal; it wasn't as if he was in a high crime apartment complex, but since he was putting himself in physical danger by letting Julie come over, he needed to be a little more careful. He couldn't let his elation at getting to see her again cause him to make mistakes.

  * * *

  Skip set the pizza down on Kirk's dining room table. This had worked out pretty well. People were generally more surprised to find somebody waiting inside their home than knocking on their front door. Skip would find a place to hide, wait for his unsuspecting victim to wander past, and then wrap his enormous hands around his neck. Squeeze. Crunch. Simple.

  He decided to just hide in the bedroom. Because he was smart, he brought the box of pizza with him so that Kirk wouldn't think, "Why is there a pizza on my dining room table? That's peculiar."

  It was a pretty nice bedroom, but there were no candles next to the bed or rose petals on the sheets. If Ralph's wife were coming over to do things with him, Skip would've strewn rose petals over the sheets. It was common romantic courtesy. Perhaps that was why Kirk wasn't home; he was off getting a rose. Maybe some chocolate and champagne. Skip didn't like the idea of stealing from a dead man, but he was totally taking the heart-shaped box of chocolates if Kirk came home with one.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and ate a piece of pizza while he waited.

  About ten minutes later, he heard the door open.

  He stood up.

  Should he walk out into the living room, or wait and hope that Kirk would walk into the bedroom? This was probably a strategy he should've worked out during the ten minutes that he was just sitting there with nothing to do.

  Skip decided to wait for two minutes for Kirk to walk into the bedroom. If he didn't, Skip would go out there and kill him.

  * * *

  Something felt wrong.

  Was somebody inside his apartment?

  "Julie?" Kirk called out.

  There was no evidence that anybody had come inside, but Kirk couldn't help but feel that he wasn't alone. Maybe it was just because he knew he'd left the door unlocked. Julie shouldn't have been able to get here this soon, but maybe she'd driven really, really fast and was currently crouched on his bed, completely naked, with her ass in the air.

  "I'm coming in," he announced. "I hope you're decent."

  Kirk walked over to the bedroom and peeked inside. There was a pizza box on his bed.

  Oh my God, he thought.

  Julie was the kind of woman who would eat pizza in bed. He loved her. He wanted to marry her. He wanted her to divorce Ralph and marry him. Or maybe they could make it easy and kill Ralph instead.

  Where the hell had that thought come from?

  He would not be killing Ralph, unless the pizza was double pepperoni, double cheese.

  "Oh, Julie!" he called out. "Where are you, my sweetie?"

  Was that too much? Would she object to him calling her his sweetie, even in playful jest? She had no idea that he wanted to kill her current husband and marry her. He needed to be more careful with his terms of endearment. "Hey, Julie...?"

  He stepped into his bedroom. He immediately noticed that somebody was standing right next to the doorway. This somebody was the wrong size and the wrong gender to be Julie. It was a huge guy, the kind you'd hire if you wanted to send a message that somebody should stop messing with your wife if he didn't want his legs broken.

  "Uh..." Kirk said.

  The man grabbed him by the neck with both hands. Then he began to squeeze.

  Okay, so this wasn't a "message" type of break-in. This was a "kill" one.

  Kirk tried to knee the man in the groin. But the man anticipated the move and pressed his legs together, so Kirk just kneed him in the upper leg, which had little impact.

  The man squeezed harder.

  Kirk wanted to reason with him, but the best he could do was to make gagging sounds.

  He couldn't breathe. This surprise was so much less pleasant than finding a naked Julie on his bed with her ass in the air.

  Then the man released his grip. Kirk fell to the floor, gasping for air.

  The man sat down on the bed. "I can't do it."

  Kirk lay there for a moment, rubbing his neck and waiting for his vision to return to sharp focus.

  The man glanced down at him. "Can I get you a bottle of water or something?"

  Kirk nodded.

  "Do you have any in the fridge?"

  Kirk nodded again. The man left. Kirk grabbed the edge of the bed and pulled himself upright as the man returned with a bottle of water. He twisted off the cap and handed it to him.

  Kirk sat down on the bed and took a sip. "Thank you," he said.

  "I want to have a killer instinct, but I just can't summon it," said the man, sitting down next to him. "When I stood there strangling you, I just kept thinking, 'I sure hope his eyes don't pop out.' That's not what you're supposed to think when you're strangling somebody. You're supposed to want their eyes to pop out. It means you're doing it right."

  Kirk drank some more of the water and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. "I probably don't need to ask, but why were you tryin
g to strangle me?"

  "You slept with my employer's wife."

  "That's what I thought."

  "And you were planning to do it again."

  "Yeah."

  "He was pretty upset."

  Kirk nodded. "I see that."

  "This is really embarrassing," said the man. "I knew there were a lot of ways I could screw this up, but I didn't think I'd completely wuss out. Your throat was right there in my hands. A quick twist and I could've snapped your neck. What a waste."

  "Well, if it means anything, I'm grateful."

  "That doesn't mean much."

  "So is it safe to assume that you've abandoned the idea of killing me?"

  The man was silent for a long moment.

  "Sir...?" Kirk asked.

  "Yeah, I feel like I probably shouldn't kill you. It'll just make me feel guilty."

  "Nobody wants guilt. It eats you alive. Gives you sleepless nights. Ulcers."

  "I already said I wasn't going to kill you," said the man. "You don't have to keep trying to talk me out of it."

  "Fair enough. What's your plan?"

  The man shrugged. "Are you willing to fake your death and move out of the country?"

  "I'd love to, but finances are kind of tight right now. You'll notice I didn't try to bribe you to let me live."

  "I guess I'll just tell Ralph the truth. What's he gonna do, hire somebody to kill me, too?"

  "Based on his track record I doubt the person he picked would be effective."

  "Anyway, it's time to accept that I'm not the savage beast that I thought I was. I never thought that I could murder people left and right with a machete, but I figured I could break somebody's neck without getting all humanitarian. I suppose I should have understood this about myself a lot sooner, considering that I'd never harm a dog or a cat. Oh well. Sucks to be me." He stood up. "I'm not good at giving advice. However, when Ralph's wife shows up, I'd maybe suggest not boning her."