Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder

by Nicole Castle

  The man who’d stabbed me had taken many forms during the night; overly aggressive guys I’d fooled around with in public restrooms, foster parents who’d been especially malicious, even Charlie, armed with a scalpel instead of the blade that had actually been thrust into me. The one constant in all my nightmares had been Frank, scowling at me from the corner while I dropped helplessly to the floor, only for the dream to begin again.

  It wouldn’t have been so frightening if I’d gotten to retaliate while I slept, but there was no retribution in my nightmares. I never got to feel the satisfaction of my hand around the hilt, plunging sharp metal into soft, worthy flesh. That primal strength of fighting for survival. Me or him. Life or death. It was just the gasp of penetration, the pain of being punched hard in the stomach increasing as blood pulsed around the wound, doubling me over and sinking me to my knees to die.

  I looked around the empty hotel room; decent sized television sitting on a dresser no one would ever put clothes in, inoffensive paint-by-numbers watercolor above the double sized bed, a nightstand no doubt containing an outdated phone book and an even more outdated bible in its lone drawer. There was a chair in the corner furthest from the door and one at the side of my bed, upholstered to match the curtains with bright pastel colors that only emphasized their emptiness.

  The feeling of solitude would’ve threatened to overwhelm me if it wasn’t for the abundant smell of cigarettes still lingering in the air. It made it seem like it hadn’t been so long since Charlie was here.

  Charlie and Frank.

  I said his name out loud, remembering how he’d caught me when my body finally gave up. He’d looked different then. Stronger. Maybe that was just my perception, being that I was falling into his arms, but it didn’t change the fact that he looked ill last night. Charlie was a doctor, couldn’t he do anything for him? And why the hell should I care whether someone who hated me wasn’t feeling particularly well? It was probably a natural reaction; see someone fall, reach out to catch them. How was I to know he hadn’t dropped me as soon as I was out?

  Not that being dropped by Frank was all that bad. It was still physical contact, even if it was brief. And besides, being dragged across the threshold was almost as good as being carried.

  Slowly propping myself up on my elbows with a pathetic whimper I was glad no one else could hear, I stared down at my poor mutilated body. My shirt was missing in action, and my pants were unbuttoned, pulled low enough on my hips to reveal that I was a natural blond who wasn’t in the habit of wearing underwear.

  This was quite the fashion statement I was making. I’d gone from homeless to hospital chic with one well-placed knife; a marred abdomen and jeans stained beyond repair, stiff with dried blood down to the thigh on my left side, and stiff from the dirty snow up to my knees. I was wearing someone else’s socks. They were warm, no holes. They were black.

  I wiggled my toes, reveling in what I imagined must’ve been Frank’s socks. I’d been unconscious, and still I was that close to making it into his pants. Then I sighed as I remembered that I was in Charlie’s bed, not Frank’s, and besides, even something as un-strenuous as lying face down on a mattress would probably be too much physical exertion for me for quite some time.

  My wound was thankfully covered, white gauze that was only one shade lighter than the skin below it. Even without the blood loss I was pale, a complexion better suited for living in the Arctic Circle than on the streets. But I was almost offended to see how little gauze had been used. Considering how much of me was sore, it seemed like it ought to cover more than just a tiny square.

  I cautiously peeked under the tape. A violent bruise surrounded the no longer bleeding area and I didn’t look any further. I couldn’t look at the actual point of penetration, not without spending more time unconscious. Instead, I turned to my hands, the right one wrapped like my side. The knife must’ve slipped when I’d stabbed him back. I didn’t remember feeling that at all, though now that I’d noticed, it started to ache too.

  The trashcan beside the bed was filled with more gauze, soaked so thoroughly with blood that it was hard to believe it had ever been white. There were my socks and my missing shirt, ripped apart at the knife-made seam, a stained rag that once belonged to my father. Mom used to say that the color brought out his eyes. It was the last thing of theirs I owned.

  That’s when it all sunk in.

  Things had been bad before, but I’d always been able to land on my feet. Now I was bed-ridden, at the mercy of a man with hair growing out of his crusty ears, and I was too naked to be served at McDonald’s.

  I had to turn on the TV for distraction, flipping through the channels until the self-pity passed. Television had always comforted me. It was my babysitter when my parents were at work and my nurse when I was out sick from school. I’d learned more from that glowing box than I did from any class, and it was the first thing to grab my attention when I entered a room. But that didn’t change the fact that there was hardly ever anything good on.

  It took awhile to figure out the channels, to identify them by familiar acronyms between endless commercials. As soon as I found something I might have wanted to watch, Charlie showed up with lunch.

  Charlie was about my height, which wasn’t very impressive as far as heights went, with ice-blue eyes and a head of thinning gray hair. He had a medium build gone soft from old age and bad diet, and he smelled like he’d extinguished a full ashtray with a large bottle of cheap cologne. But I had to admit that he was charming, in the way politicians can be charming. He said what you wanted to hear and that was how he got you.

  “Feeling better?” he asked, sitting in the chair by the bed.

  “I fucked it up,” I said solemnly.

  I was supposed to break into the yuppie’s house and steal some stupid painting for Charlie. That was the plan. But I never saw any painting, least of all one he could possibly have any interest in.

  The young urban pirate had allegedly bought the piece from a pawn shop. It had been previously stolen from Charlie’s familial estate, and being the nice guy that he is, he offered to pay him double the cost to get it back. But the man refused, and that left Charlie with no choice but to resort to theft himself. Except that breaking and entering was a young man’s game which he was far too old to play.

  Charlie had said that in return for my services he’d give me fifty bucks, plus I could keep whatever cash I found in the house, and we’d share the proceeds of any jewelry. I hadn’t found any cash or jewelry, though I looked high and low.

  I’d been tearing through the kitchen cabinets in my quest for riches when the owner came home. He snuck up on me. I couldn’t remember what had made me turn around, whether I’d heard him or just gotten that familiar feeling of being watched, but when I did I got his knife in my side. The look on his face had been priceless, an expression Candid Camera would’ve eaten up. He hadn’t realized that I was just a kid. Then I’d stabbed him back and he was even more surprised.

  “Did I kill him?” I asked.

  Charlie smiled, though I couldn’t help but think he looked a little disappointed. “No, you didn’t kill him. But don’t you worry. Frank and I took care of it. We cleaned up your little mess.”

  I took a deep breath, relief filling my lungs so fully that I didn’t want to exhale, even as my side began to hurt. I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life as the bitch of cellblock six. But I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything for very long before Frank came back into my mind. Why would he do anything to help me? Did Charlie make him? And if Charlie could make him clean up my “little mess,” wouldn’t it have been just as easy to have him steal the painting in the first place? Why was I hired for the job?

  “Frank took care of it?” I asked, completely disregarding whatever Charlie’s part in the cleanup may have been. If he was too old for breaking and entering, he was certainly too old to tidy a crime scene.

  He laughed gratingly. “Yup, destroyed all the eviden
ce. Frank’s good at that.”

  Destroyed all the evidence. His words rang through my head. Then it occurred to me what type of doctor Charlie had to be: the type who wasn’t allowed to practice medicine anymore. He was working for men who didn’t care if his license had been taken away for poor hygiene or molesting patients; men who could destroy all the evidence of a break-in gone bad. Frank wasn’t working for Charlie. Charlie was working for Frank. So why had he helped me?

  I tried not to get my hopes up that Frank didn’t hate me after all. Thinking about the dirt from under Charlie’s fingernails floating through my bloodstream did the trick. “Am I gonna die?” I asked, the idea of a non-doctor laboring over me suddenly making me more concerned about my health. Now I wanted to check out the wound, even if I fainted because of it.

  “You lost a lot of blood, but nothing important was damaged,” Charlie said compassionately. “I cannot believe you walked the entire way here. You must have luck on your side, kiddo.”

  I smiled. It had been a long time since I considered myself remotely lucky. But I suppose I was. I was alive, after all. And it looked like I might stay that way. At least for now.

  Charlie came to visit me every day around lunch time, bringing something greasy to eat and a deck of cards; although it took another week before I could sit up to play with him. We watched TV instead, but the first time he turned on the news there was a story of an arson investigation in a very familiar neighborhood, where the owner could not seem to be located. There were no leads. There was no evidence. I’d gone pale enough for Charlie to be concerned, and after that we stuck to game shows, since he refused to let me watch soap operas and I couldn’t handle the news.

  It was obvious that the man I hadn’t killed was nonetheless just as dead; bleeding men didn’t accidentally leave the gas on and then go on vacation without telling anyone. And it had to have been Frank who finished him off. Charlie could barely open a packet of ketchup without my help, let alone change my bandages; his hands were gnarled with arthritis.

  I spent hours thinking about what it must have been like for him to walk into that house and see what I’d done. Had my assailant been making the mess worse, dragging himself across the kitchen tile, unable to reach the phone and call for help? Did Frank stab him as I had? If he did, he would’ve done it better, correctly so he didn’t slice his hand. And he certainly wouldn’t have gotten stabbed first.

  The idea that Frank was a murderer discouraged my affections less than the knowledge that he hated me. In fact, I was flattered. I liked to think that Blackbeard the stock broker had been killed because he hurt me, not because his survival may have led to Charlie’s incarceration. Visualizing Frank telling him “This is for Vincent” before making him walk the metaphorical plank gave me a hard on.

  I tried to get more information about him, my intrigue only heightened by the fact that he had never returned. But Charlie seemed less than enthusiastic to help me out. He just laughed a lot, saying Frank’s just this or Frank’s just that, explaining away his strange and interesting behavior with words like shy or moody and then dropping it completely.

  I thought I’d never get any answers until I was five hundred imaginary dollars in debt to the man thanks to the ever changing rules of poker playing. Then I decided to try a different approach. Winning.

  Instead of going further into the red, I started betting for information. I’d match his twenty bucks and raise him a “Where’s Frank?” That gave me the determination to pay more attention when Charlie was cheating, and cheat right back.

  Still, he was a hell of a lot better at cards than I was, and even when he did lose he wouldn’t give me complete answers. Then if I tried to press him he got angry, and that was when I saw his true colors. The more I asked about Frank, the less time Charlie would spend with me, making up excuses that meant I’d be going without lunch, or dinner, or sometimes both. It wasn’t as if I could go out and get something on my own. I had no coat, no shirt, a still healing stab-wound for all to see, no room key, and no money, since he never had given me that fifty bucks. So I behaved myself, making small talk and not mentioning Frank at all. And then he showed up.

  Frank came in while we were eating dinner in front of the TV, and stupid me just stared at him with my mouth hanging open. He looked thinner, though it had only been a little over a week since I’d last seen him, and the dark circles under his eyes were even more prominent.

  I watched him stand there, keeping close to the door as if he didn’t want anything to do with either of us. He was wearing all black again, looking funereal from head to toe, his clothes hanging off of him like he was no more alive than the person he seemed to be mourning. His body was so tense it made my muscles sore just to look at him.

  “Hey, kiddo. Want something to eat?” Charlie asked. I had a feeling my food was the meal up for grabs, but Frank got a sour expression on his face when he glanced at the paper bag spotted transparent with grease. Then he went and sat down in the same corner chair without a response.

  That was generally my reaction to what Charlie brought, but I’d gone hungry too many times to pass up the opportunity of having something in my stomach. The fries may have been cold and soggy, and the burger may have tasted like Charlie used it as an ashtray before handing it over, but it was better than nothing.

  “Vincent’s been asking about you, Frankie boy,” he said with a sinister grin.

  I turned as far away as my neck would allow, feeling my face flush and silently cursing Charlie with every bad word I’d ever heard. I couldn’t believe he said that! It was bad enough that Frank hated me. Did Charlie really have to make it worse?

  Frank was watching me, I knew it. And I was sure he was angry. How could I have been dumb enough to think that we shared a connection? He’d probably only sat with me because he was still on evidence destroying duty, and he wasn’t expecting me to pull through.

  Charlie laughed and turned up the TV. I continued to focus on the door until not even ten minutes later Frank stormed out of it again. Then I stormed to the bathroom like the teenager I was, slamming my door as hard as I could.

  Catching sight of my reflection in the mirror was the last thing I needed at that moment. My hair was a disaster that the world’s strongest styling gel couldn’t fix, the surgical tape was gray with grime and peeling away from the gauze because I’d been picking at it again, and I hadn’t had a proper shower since I’d used up all my shampoo trying to scrub out the stain on my jeans. No wonder he didn’t want to be in the same room with me. I could barely stand to look at myself, and I was the vainest person I knew.

  I sat in the corner and brought my knees to my chest, pulling at the frayed bottoms of my pant legs and trying not to cry. It wasn’t fair. I’d been waiting for days to see him again, and I didn’t even have the chance to make myself presentable before scaring him away.

  By the time I cooled down enough to go scream at Charlie, he’d thrown out my dinner and gone home. But Frank had left his book.

  I looked around suspiciously before approaching it, as if I were being watched. The thing was so torn up that I was afraid it would crumble in my hands. I carefully picked it up anyway, feeling the mostly missing front cover further disintegrate under my thumb. The title page said Jane Eyre. That was the last thing I thought he’d be reading.

  I’d never read it. I never even saw the movie. But I knew it was prissy English shit, because Eric Harrison told me so.

  Eric had been a few grades above me in school, and I’d seen a copy of it in his backpack while he was unzipping his fly and acting like he had no idea what I was doing on my knees. He’d slapped me for looking at his stuff, and then he said that it was “Prissy English shit” he was forced to read, and I’d probably like it because I was a fag.

  I flipped through the book, almost expecting to find a more appropriate novel inside, and gasping in horror as one of the middle pages came away from its friends.

  “Fuck,” I said, then suddenly felt someo
ne behind me. I turned slowly, and there was Frank standing in the doorway, watching as I dismantled his book. I’d known it would be him, but his presence still startled me enough to make me drop the thing to the floor.

  He tensed as if I’d raised my hand to hit him, that same wounded expression on his face that I’d seen when I woke up, like I had betrayed him.

  I quickly picked it up, gathering the multitude of pages that had spewed out like the petals of a wilted flower and trying to shove them back in. But the harder I tried to fix it the faster it came apart. I set it on the chair before I made it any worse, deciding it better not to go near him to deliver it. He didn’t move.

  “It must be a good book,” I said amiably, “unless you bought it this way.”

  I groaned. I’d always had trouble shutting up when I was under stress, and the more I talked the more frazzled I became. I glanced down at the pile of loose pages carelessly inserted where they didn’t belong. Of course he didn’t buy it that way.

  “Reading something like this, even as much as you’ve obviously read it, isn’t really an indication of sexual preference. You’re probably very butch when it comes right down to it, and I’m sure lots of manly men like this sort of prissy English shit—I mean literature,” I closed my eyes, shuddering at the nonsense I couldn’t prevent from coming out of my mouth. “Sorry.”

  When I opened them again, he still hadn’t moved. Then the phone rang and I jumped halfway to the ceiling. Frank just glanced toward it indifferently.

  It had to be Charlie. Probably to tell me that I’d be going hungry tomorrow. Great timing as usual.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, and as I moved toward the phone Frank moved away from me, almost like he was going to attempt to rescue his property but he didn’t make it that far. He just kept a measured distance between us, never taking his eyes off of me.

  “Hello?”