I’d never seen anything like it. Watching him blindly wield a weapon that close to his jugular was both unbelievably sexy and extremely disconcerting. Frank had a lot of issues with the way he looked, something I would’ve had difficulty comprehending even if I wasn’t in love with him. He was handsome, it was undeniable. But he didn’t see it, and I finally understood that his reluctance to be around people had more to do with his distorted perception of himself than his overwhelming shyness. The poor man hadn’t even known that his eyes were green until I mentioned how pretty they were, and he’d dared to look at his reflection in an attempt to prove me wrong about the color.
“Is he dead yet?” I asked, laying our food out in front of him and then sitting on his lap. I constantly tested the boundaries of our platonic relationship to see exactly what physical contact I could get away with. Frank let a lot slide simply because he was in denial about how much I desired him, and he liked to pretend that I was just a very affectionate person rather than admitting that he might be worthy of my adoration.
“Not yet,” he sighed. Famous people came with a heftier fee, but with that he had to deal with paparazzi, and cameras made him nervous. Though I couldn’t see what he was worried about. If anyone could kill a celebrity without being seen, it was Frank. “He should be soon. I did my part.”
Drugs. Not the illegal kind either. Mr. Marshall was a big fan of pharmaceuticals. It was no wonder he’d been making a fool of himself on every talk-show that would have him for the last four months. Of course, there were speculations about what was causing his odd behavior, but his reps denied it until they were blue in the face. It had only taken Frank a few hours of surveillance to know the truth. And to decide how he’d kill the man.
It wasn’t very often that Frank was the one to choose the means to his victim’s end. Most of the time, Charlie’s clients had something very specific in mind; sending a message with an assassin’s bullet, or exacting some sort of brutal revenge by having the mark tortured in unimaginable ways. But occasionally he’d get one where the client just couldn’t be bothered, and they’d leave the decision to the professionals.
Accidental suicide was generally what Frank would go for when he murdered someone. It was quiet, untraceable, and above all, it gave him the opportunity to get up close and personal with his victim before they died.
He admitted to me that seeing a person die was one of the most incredible experiences he’d ever had. It made him feel human, watching the life leave their eyes. I tried to tell him that fucking me would make him feel like God, but he didn’t buy it.
“Did you mess with his pills?” I asked, finishing my meal. He was still picking at his.
“Of course I did. Serves him right,” he said. He really disliked drug users. They couldn’t be trusted, and trust was extremely important to him.
Before he’d started working professionally, a group of intoxicated junkies had thrown rocks at his dog. The animal was injured badly enough to have to be put down, which Frank took care of himself. But not before he did the same to them. He still had its collar in a safe deposit box in Paris.
I stood up, jumping onto the bed and turning on the TV. I couldn’t wait for the story to break that leading man and action superstar Robert Marshall had been found dead on the set of his latest film. It wasn’t every day that I got to see Frank’s work on the news. Usually we were on the road, away from the area of coverage before anyone was the wiser, and the majority of his hits weren’t high profile enough to go national. But in this case, we couldn’t leave until the job was finished, and we wouldn’t know that until we got word.
Frank came and sat beside me. He didn’t normally even glance at the television, preferring to lie next to me and read his book while I destroyed more brain cells watching brightly colored garbage. But since this was work-related, he made himself comfortable.
It took until morning. I was fast asleep with my head against his chest when he shook me awake, nodding toward the TV.
I rolled over, finding the control buried between us, and turned it up to hear the pretty reporter announce what we already knew; apparent overdose, no foul play suspected. Frank smiled a little, then stood and started wiping down the room.
The road stretched for miles ahead of us, an eighteen-wheeler on the horizon the only vehicle within sight. I stopped mid-sentence, turning toward the back of the car. At first I thought Frank had hit some cuddly jackrabbit, but the thudding sound continued. “Is there someone in the trunk?” I asked, gaping at him incredulously. Here I was, telling him a heartwarming story about my first and only pet, a goldfish that died the day after I won it with a well-placed ping-pong ball at the County Fair, and he had a still-breathing corpse in the trunk. Its name was Mr. Walter Gene Chrysanthemum. I was an odd little boy.
He casually flicked his turn-signal and slowed down for the impending rest area. “Stay in the car,” he said, grabbing a bottle of something I hadn’t realized was in the backseat.
“Is that chloroform?”
“Yes,” he said, parking the car and stepping out. I watched him in the rearview mirror instead of turning around, because I figured that’s what he would do. It was sneakier. But as soon as he opened the trunk, I lost my line of sight. I opened the window and stuck my head out, watching while he leaned over, the car rocking while someone struggled under his grip. Then he shut it, glanced at me disapprovingly, and came back to the driver’s seat.
“I stayed in the car,” I said as he put his seatbelt back on.
“Most of you did. Hold this.”
Frank handed me the bottle, which I immediately sniffed, and nearly fainted. He must’ve known I’d do that. He was grinning the whole time I felt light-headed.
“That’s really potent,” I said composedly, like nothing had happened. My sinuses were on fire. “Who’s back there?”
“A mark.”
“Is he gonna disappear?” I asked with excitement. In the months that I’d known him, Frank had yet to make anyone disappear. Just the standard leave-a-crime-scene type of jobs, or the one accidental suicide which I’d gotten to see on the news. Having a living mark in the trunk meant that I’d at least be near the murder when it took place, and might even get to watch. I would’ve kissed him if he wasn’t driving.
“Yes.”
“Cool,” I said. “Are we gonna shoot him?”
“No.”
“Are you gonna shoot him?”
He smiled. “Tell me about your fish, V.”
“Tell me about our mark.”
He raised his eyebrows without looking away from the road. “Be good or you’ll be riding with him.”
“You’re so sexy when you’re threatening me,” I said, though he had put me in the trunk before, and would undoubtedly do it again.
He’d gotten a flat-tire outside of Iowa, and after I changed it I found myself accompanying the flat in his trunk, simply because I called him a girl for not knowing which one of the “metal bits” was the tire iron.
Frank got a kick out of the fact that no matter how many times he tried to be a tough-guy, I never took him seriously. It was no wonder his empty threats had become more and more violent; from breaking my fingers or smacking me to strangling me in my sleep. Even if he pointed a gun at me I would’ve simply smiled. For being a cold-blooded killer, he was a total softie. I was so completely safe in his care that I didn’t even feel uncomfortable in the car anymore.
I supposed it helped that he was such a good driver. He was always aware of his surroundings, checking the rearview and side mirrors constantly and keeping both hands on the wheel whenever possible. He didn’t drive a single mile over the speed limit, and he had never even turned on his radio because he liked to concentrate on the road.
Of course, not everyone was as fond of silence as Frank. I’d always found quiet time to be boring time, and if there wasn’t enough noise in the air I had to make some. I would talk for hours on end, entertaining myself to the best of my abilities and amazingly not driving him
up the wall.
Frank said that he liked listening to me, though at first I thought it had more to do with him not having to do the talking than being interested in what I had to say. I didn’t have that many years of life experience to fill all the time we spent on the road, especially because I’d already told him so much about myself before we even left Chicago. Instead, I got into narrating episodes of soap operas, or sometimes even movies, since he’d never seen one.
I would’ve been surprised by that revelation if it had been anyone else, but Frank was so abnormal in general that it didn’t shock me at all. He didn’t know how to turn on a television, he wasn’t into music, and he never read anything by an author that wasn’t fully decomposed long before he’d been born.
We were polar opposites in that respect. I was all about pop culture, and although I considered myself far less intelligent than him, Frank seemed to think I was the cleverest person he’d ever met.
We pulled off the freeway, driving slowly down dirt road after dirt road until traffic was a distant memory, and there were no tire marks to discern if any cars had come before us. The thumping sound started back up again just as Frank stopped the car.
“I’d prefer if you stayed here, V,” he said, though there was no conviction in his voice. He was fully aware that he’d have to put me in the trunk if he wanted me to miss this. “Okay, here’s the plan.”
Frank leaned in close to me, whispering as if the person in the trunk wouldn’t learn our plan soon enough. His cheek touched mine as he spoke, his five o’clock shadow brushing lightly against my ear. I gripped the leather seat below me, holding on desperately as though I’d melt to a puddle on the floor mats if I let go. His being completely ignorant to his effect on me only made it worse. There was a virginal purity about him that made me want to get him dirty.
“Here,” he said, putting a cold, heavy gun in my hand. It was as unloaded as a gun could be, but I was still excited as hell to hold it. I hadn’t gotten my hands on any of his weapons since the pistol in his glove compartment, and at the time I was scared of it. Now I wanted to shoot off every round in his arsenal, with him standing behind me, holding me tight. And the more I wanted it, the more he seemed to resist.
Ever since I expressed an interest in learning about his vocation professionally, he’d started pushing me away. He wasn’t even subtle about it. He’d just say that I was too young, and if I asked him how young he had started, he’d brazenly change the subject.
But now wasn’t the time for playing coy. I was his companion and seeing him kill again was inevitable. The gun he gave me wasn’t for protection so much as keeping me entertained. He said this would be a long night.
We got out of the car, Frank acting normal while I was trying too hard to synchronize our actions like a stylized scene from a movie. He shut his door gently, I slammed mine a second later. He walked coolly around to the trunk, I bounded to meet him.
“Step back,” he said, putting his arm up to force my compliance. I kept my useless gun pointed at the car, pretending like I was Frank’s partner in more ways than one. He smiled at me and shook his head, then popped the trunk.
The man shot up like a jack-in-the-box, duct tape wrapped around his mouth, wrists and ankles. Frank had his gun pointed at his face faster than I’d hopped another foot back in surprise.
I was astounded to see just how alive the mark was. There was no evidence of assault, no blood or bruises. He blinked quickly at his surroundings, the setting sun brighter than anything he’d seen in hours. Then he looked at me, his startled expression growing confused.
Frank grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling him out of the trunk one-handed and letting him fall hard to the dry soil below, never once allowing his aim to falter. He took a shovel from the trunk as well, tossing it a couple of feet away from the car.
The man barely struggled as Frank dragged him toward the now ominous garden tool. I kept my stance up nonetheless, pointing my gun at his legs. I knew I had no bullets, but even so, I didn’t want to aim it any closer to my future husband than needed.
Frank rolled him onto his front, standing with one foot on his back as he pulled out a knife and sliced the duct tape from his bound wrists. The blade gleamed in his hand, making my knees go so weak that I had to hold onto the car. Even watching him use a butter knife on an unsuspecting piece of toast was enough to make my whole body burn, inciting an erection under the table that would last long past dessert. Much to my dismay, he’d misread my twisted desire as fear, and started using a fork to avoid upsetting me.
He kicked the man over and tossed the knife to his chest. It bounced.
The mark was about sixty pounds overweight, a thick layer of fat over an even thicker layer of muscle. The core of his body was like a barrel and he had large, strong limbs. Frank had seemed intimidating to me when we first met, but at that moment I realized just how unusual I was in finding safety in his presence. This man, who could bench press both of us without breaking a sweat, was so terrified of a willowy Frenchman that he didn’t dare to touch the knife until Frank nodded toward it, granting permission for him to unfasten his ankles.
“Toss it over there,” Frank said, flicking his gun back toward the car for just a second. The man tossed the knife gently, underhanded. It hit the dirt with a cloud of dust. I quickly went to retrieve it, slipping it in my pocket and keeping my gun on him.
My heart was running a marathon without me, thrashing hard against my ribcage. I felt a lot like I had before losing my virginity, the excitement outweighing the fear, but keeping it on the backburner in case. Only this time the fear wouldn’t have the chance to escalate, to overshadow every feeling but apprehension and pain, the realization that I’d made the biggest mistake of my young life.
Still, my hands were shaking.
Frank calmly backed away from him, both hands supporting his weapon once more while the mark shakily pulled the tape off his mouth. It was strange, but he seemed to be looking at me more than he was at his captor. I wondered whether he considered us one in the same, after all, I had a weapon too.
“Pick up the shovel,” Frank said, standing just slightly in front of me.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I can pay you.”
I was wondering when the begging would commence. But I didn’t feel an ounce of pity for the man, and I knew Frank would feel even less.
“Do what he says,” I said firmly. Frank would give me a hard time about that later, but for now, I felt fierce.
The man stared at me, sympathy instead of fear. It made me so angry that I pulled the trigger, momentarily forgetting that Frank hadn’t provided ammunition. Then Frank fired, making me jump twice my height straight into the air. For just a moment, I’d thought the bullet had come out of my gun, and I returned to reality filled with disappointment.
His pistol was equipped with a silencer the same as mine, but I was used to the silent puff of air they have in movies, and not the suppressed bang that echoed through the stillness of the night, like distant thunder.
Frank hadn’t aimed to hit, but his message was received loud and clear. The mark was on his feet, shovel in hand, eagerly awaiting further instructions.
“Walk twenty paces and start digging.”
He hesitated, looking to Frank and back to me again, the shovel as useless a weapon as mine.
“Or I shoot you in both legs, and make young Vincent here do the digging.”
“Hey!” I said, trying to be quiet so our adversary wouldn’t hear my discontent. I never signed on for manual labor. I sure as shit didn’t want to get stuck with the shovel, especially burying as big a man as him. “I dig really slowly,” I piped in, deciding it would be best to convince both of them that having me dig was a bad idea.
“It’s your choice,” Frank continued, ignoring me completely. “If you try to run, you will regret it.”
He stared at us, defiance not even making it to the top ten emotions on his face. Then he turned around, his m
assive shoulders hunched, and he started walking. Frank followed after a few steps, and so did I.
“Be good, little Vincent,” he said under his breath, reaching back to smack me upside the head and never breaking stride. “That’s far enough,” he called out.
The mark stopped immediately, turning to us with tears streaming down his face. I’d never seen a grown man cry before. I couldn’t help but look away. It was one thing to kill a man, but to break him first? I wondered whether weeping was allowed in the great book of man laws if you were on your deathbed. I’d never gotten past the chapter that said you weren’t supposed to kiss other boys.
“Dig,” Frank said coldly.
“Please,” he blubbered.
“Dig,” he repeated, and aimed his gun low.
The crying didn’t stop for a long time. He sniffled as he dug, sometimes having to stop completely to get a hold of himself before continuing. Frank and I watched in silence as he became smaller, disappearing into the growing hole at his feet.
I got to hold the flashlight when it got too dark, pointing it toward the parts of his grave that I thought needed more work. Frank had gotten a little closer, something I was explicitly forbidden to do.
Finally, after hours of the only sound being the scraping of metal against dirt, I decided we all needed a little levity. “What’s your name?” I called out to the hole.
Frank glanced at me, his face impassive.
The man stopped, looking up at me with dirt and sweat staining every inch of him. “What?”
“Your name. I’m Vincent.”
“Um, Walter. Walter Jones.”
“I had a fish named Walter Gene!” I exclaimed. “He died…too.”
Walter went a little green around the gills, looking uncomfortable like he wasn’t sure whether I was trying to be tactless. That wasn’t my intention at all, it just came out that way. But Frank seemed to find it very amusing. I could see him snickering, the corners of his mouth raised as he kept his eyes on his victim.
“Sorry,” I said. “So, what did you do?”
Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder Page 12