by Blake Crouch
“I would shake your hand and introduce myself properly if you were to wash yours,” he said.
Luther wasn’t a handwasher. Never had been. He liked the idea of spreading his germs everywhere. Anytime he found himself in a public pool, he made sure to take a nice long piss.
But he made an exception, did a quick soap and rinse, and then dried off his hands with a few sheets of paper towels.
Then, he offered the Mexican psycho his hand. “Luther. I don’t really do last names.”
The man shook his hand. “Javier. Me neither. What’s in the bag?”
“I bought a couple of Spyderco Harpys,” Luther said. “You score anything?”
“A man is boxing up a Glock 36, custom suppressor, and non-factory clip as we speak.”
“Is that the Slimline model?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve wanted to try that one out. I’m more of a…” he remembered the words Alex had used, “a sharp-edged kind of guy. But I’m always on the lookout for compact firearms.”
“Makes it a little easier to get them in the car, no?”
Luther nodded and smiled, feeling a twinge of disappointment that he was starting to not want to torture and kill this man. He’d have thoroughly enjoyed cutting him apart in his van.
“Look,” Luther said, “I’m planning to meet some friends back here at the range around nine. Why don’t you come along? Try out your new piece?”
Javier said, “There’s something I need to check in on first, but yeah. I think that might be fun.”
Mr. K
He arrived at Porter’s Guns and Ammo just as it was closing, the last customers being ushered outside by Porter. Mr. K recognized him by the picture Dovolanni had provided, but if that wasn’t enough, Porter wore a tee-shirt that read Fuck Off, I Own a Gun Shop.
“We’re closed,” Porter mumbled, as he was digging out his keys to lock the door.
Mr. K approached, pressing a 9mm into Porter’s flabby side. “Mr. Dovolanni wants his money, Mr. Porter.”
The man’s reaction was priceless. His jaw, quite literally, dropped. Mr. K drank up the fear in his eyes. Unlike some of his peers, who derived a sadistic, sexual satisfaction from hurting others, Mr. K approached his work with a more detached, clinical attitude. But he did get a tiny, private thrill when he announced to the mark what was happening. That sudden deer-in-the-headlights look of horror, realization, and hopelessness never failed to buoy his spirits.
Next would come the promises, followed by the begging.
“I’ve got the money. I swear. I just gotta wait until the credit card companies deposit it into my account. I can write a check…”
“The agreement was for cash, Mr. Porter. Mr. Dovolanni doesn’t take checks. Let’s go inside and talk.”
Porter hesitated, obviously not wanting to be alone with Mr. K. And those were good instincts, because Mr. K was planning on hurting him.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“Inside. Now.”
Porter fumbled his way inside, while Mr. K gave him a quick pat-down, removing a Glock from the man’s waistband.
“Do you have a burglar alarm?” Mr. K asked.
Porter nodded, eager to please.
“Disarm it. And use the real code, not the dummy code. I’ll know the difference.”
In fact, Mr. K would not know the difference. But Porter thinking he would was persuasion enough to follow orders. Mr. K clicked the deadbolt on the door, then ushered the frightened man over to the cash register. Next, inevitably, would come the bribe.
“Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll double it,” Porter said.
Mr. K’s lips twisted up in a small, private smile. “I don’t take checks either, Mr. Porter.”
“I have some cash. And guns. I’ve got plenty of guns, some of them are worth big money. I can make you a deal.”
Mr. K nodded, pretending to think it over. Then he lashed out, smacking Porter in the side of the head, the butt of his nine finding the sweet spot and sending the flabby man to the floor.
Javier
The light was fading, and the crowd dispersing, a cold, winter breeze pushing through his hair like the fingers of a corpse.
Javier walked out of the tent carrying the box that contained his new Glock, and still puzzling over Luther.
He didn’t quite know what to think of the man with long, black hair. He’d been ready to murder him in that bathroom, risks be damned. But once they’d started talking, he’d realized there was something wrong with the man. Something deeply disturbed in the best sense of the word.
He hadn’t looked into a pair of eyes like that in…well, since he’d shaved this morning.
It took him five minutes to reach the G35, which he’d left in the parking lot of a bank, and he was just a few steps from the car when he heard it.
Soft, but certainly audible, a knocking on the underside of the Infiniti’s trunk.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She’d woken up. What the hell? He’d given her a perfect dose of shit that had knocked her ass out, but even when she came back, she should’ve been so beautifully fucking loaded she couldn’t move. Hell, he wished someone would shoot him up with black tar of this quality. Lock him in a trunk. What a way to spend a day.
Ungrateful bitch.
He scanned his surroundings. A few gun show attendees on the sidewalk behind him, presumably making their way to their cars.
He’d gotten lucky no one had noticed.
There were only a half dozen vehicles parked in front of the bank, the closest to him being a Chevy Nova, which was unoccupied. It looked old as shit. What kind of a person would let themselves be seen behind the wheel of such a beater?
Javier clicked a button on the automatic lock and the trunk popped open just an inch.
Glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he lifted the trunk and reached into his leather jacket.
The woman stared up at him, her eyes slits in the evening light. She groaned something incoherent through her gag.
“I know you want some more,” Jav said. “Daddy’s here.”
He unsheathed the syringe he’d already filled that morning. This was getting pricey. A fine puta like this was worth some major coin, but all businesses were about keeping expenses low and profits high. Keeping her high was eating up profits.
The woman groaned something that sounded like, “No.”
Javier lifted her arm and turned it over, squinting for a vein. “Don’t be an ungrateful bitch. You know you like it, baby. Women where I come from would blow fifty guys in a day to get a high like this.”
“Mmmph.” Then she moaned something that sounded like, “Go home.”
“This is home for you now, angel. No more work. No being tied down to some dickhead esposo. You’re living the life now, bitch. All you gotta do is make some nice babies. But I’m warning you, if you make any more noise—even the slightest little bird-peep—I’m gonna cut your eyes out. You don’t need eyes to get knocked up.”
He slipped the needle into a vein, depressed the plunger. Her cry drifted off into a euphoric moan.
“Yeah, now you’re coming baby, aren’t you? Feels so good, no? You got no care in this world. Now fucking callate la boca.”
Then he slammed the trunk shut and started back toward the gun shop.
Alex Kork
It was after nine P.M., and they were walking back across the street toward Porter’s Guns and Ammo, coming from a Waffle House where she and Charles had run into Luther.
Kite had moved over to their table and insisted everyone order the triple-scattered-all-the-way hashbrowns. Spent half the meal raving about how it was the best thing he’d put in his mouth, maybe ever. Alex, tired of hearing about fried potatoes, had stretched her right leg under the table and dug the steel toe of her cowboy boot into his crotch, given it a little wiggle, and told him he hadn’t tasted her yet.
That shut shy-boy down for a while.
Se
emed to get under her brother’s skin, too.
Well, fuck him and what he thinks. Ever since Charles got married, Alex had been seeing less and less of him. They hadn’t killed anyone together in months. She actually considered stretching over the table, giving that odd fucker Luther a sloppy, wet kiss, just to watch how Charles reacted.
But that would be weak, giving in to petty insecurity. There was a part of her that despised feeling so vulnerable. No one but Charles could elicit such weakness. Sometimes, she hated him for it.
Now they were moving through the dark parking lot of the gun shop.
They passed a trio who reeked of gunpowder, obviously fresh off the range—a good-looking forty-something woman walking between two men, one tall and ruggedly handsome, the other short and as wide as a Mack truck.
Up ahead, a man in a leather jacket stood by the entrance.
When he turned, she could see that he was Hispanic.
And drop-dead gorgeous.
“Hey, Javier,” Luther said. “These are my friends, Alex and Charles. Alex and Charles, here’s the guy I was telling you about.”
Alex was the first to extend a hand.
“Nice to meet you, Javier,” she said. “I’m Alex.”
“The pleasure is all mine, senorita.” The handshake lingered.
Charles sidled up beside Alex, threw his arm over her shoulder. “What’s in the box?” he asked.
“New pistol I picked up today at the show. Unfortunately, the shop here’s closed.”
Charles glanced at the door. “It’s not closed,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I said it’s not closed. At least, not to certain people.”
Javier straightened, Alex studying his hands, to see if they clenched into fists, wondering what Charles was up to, but also kind of thinking it might be funny to see him take an ass-beating.
“What do you mean certain people?” Javier asked. “And you better answer that question very, very clearly. I’ve had all the redneck, bigot bullshit I can take today.”
By the light which illuminated Porter’s Guns and Ammo, Alex saw her brother smile one of his wicked smiles.
“I meant to people who can’t pick locks,” Charles said.
Mr. K
“You obviously like firearms, but can you also recognize the craftsmanship of a well-made knife?” Mr. K asked as he pulled Porter’s pants down below his knees.
The shop owner was inching back into consciousness to find his wrists zip-tied behind his back. His ankles were similarly bound.
Mr. K watched Porter’s eyes flutter open. The hitman had taken off his jacket and was sitting on Porter’s thighs, holding the Morrell ice pick. He knew the penis was fed by numerous blood vessels, so this required a delicate touch. A dead client couldn’t pay, and employers universally frowned upon that.
He tugged down Porter’s white jockey shorts, and then chuckled to himself.
“You’re uncut,” Mr. K said.
“What?” Porter was terrified and confused and trembling with fear.
“You haven’t been circumcised.”
“Please…whatever you’re thinking—”
“I’m going to ask you one more time, Mr. Porter, for the cash that you owe Mr. Dovolanni. If the answer you provide doesn’t satisfy me, I’m going to circumcise you right here on the floor of your gun shop. Do you understand what I’ve just said to you?”
Porter’s eyes were welling up with tears. “Please, please…”
And now the begging, Mr. K mused. Human beings were so predictable when facing situations of terror.
“…I’ll give you anything…”
There must be some basis for it in Darwinian evolution, but Mr. K had never been able to understand how crying, shitting your pants, and breaking down into hysterics had ever served man or any of his ancestors in life or death scenarios.
“…you want if you…”
If an ancient Cro-Magnon were at the mercy of a saber-toothed tiger or a soldier of an opposing tribe, certainly this type of behavior would have proven futile.
“…only let me…”
Predators couldn’t be swayed by emotion or pleas or despair.
“…explain…”
It wasn’t in their programming. It certainly wasn’t in Mr. K’s. In these situations, only brute force—physical resistance—stood a chance. And yet in all his contract killings and torture-killings, only twice had the mark ever fought back.
“…you’ve gotta understand…”
How had this trait of utter cowardice in the face of fear prevailed through the evolutionary cycle ending at Homo sapien sapien?
“Can you pay me right now?” Mr. K asked calmly. “That’s the only question I’m interested in hearing you answer.”
“Tomorrow,” Porter said. “I’ll rob a fucking bank if I—”
“Hmm. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s no good for me.”
Mr. K pulled the ball-gag out of his pocket and jammed it into Porter’s mouth, had it fastened around his skull in five seconds.
“Did you get a chance to stop by Morrell’s Edges?” Mr. K asked, holding up the ice pick to make sure Porter saw the blade. “He told me it was the sharpest thing he’d ever made. Let’s give it a whirl, shall we?”
Porter raised his head and shrieked through the ball-gag.
“Oh, relax,” Mr. K said. “What I hear, the ladies don’t like a guy with a turtleneck anyway.”
As he reached down, he heard the locking mechanism in the door shift.
Mr. K glanced at the door, back at Porter.
“You typed in the dummy code.”
Porter shook his head violently. Possibly telling the truth.
Mr. K rose quickly to his feet, set the ice pick on the counter, and grabbed his 9mm.
“If I find you’ve lied to me,” Mr. K said, “I’ll spend the next three days taking you slowly apart.”
He stepped toward the door as the lock turned, hearing voices outside, one of them saying, “There it is. Open sesame.”
The door swung inward, and Mr. K found himself facing four people, three men and a woman, all standing in the dark parking lot. He pointed his nine at the first man, the one holding the lock pick and tension wrench.
“We’re closed,” Mr. K said.
Everyone froze. Best case scenario, the quartet got the hell out of there. But they had broken in, so they were obviously a criminal element, and criminals weren’t predictable.
Mr. K quickly did the math in his head. He could get at least two headshots in before the others either scattered or attacked. There were ten bullets in his gun, and the Morrell ice pick was behind him on the counter. He liked his odds, but clean-up would be messy, and the gunfire could attract attention. This being a gun show, they were all probably armed, so he needed to decide now before one of them pulled a weapon and—
“K? That you, K?”
Mr. K squinted into the darkness at the one talking. He had a Mexican accent, something familiar about it.
“It’s me, man. Javier.”
Javier? Mr. K let go of the breath he’d been holding, but he kept the gun pointed.
“Javier. Small world. I wasn’t expecting any company.”
Javier stepped into the light, palms up. He peered behind Mr. K, and then smiled broadly.
“Shit, K. You working? We didn’t mean to interrupt you, man. We just wanted to do a little late night target practice. It’s cool.”
“Who are your friends?”
“Luther, Charles is the one with the lock pick skills, and the lady is Alex. Guys, this is Mr. K. He and I used to do some contract work for the same jefe, years ago. Wet stuff.”
If Javier was cavalier about admitting to murder, Mr. K guessed his associates weren’t likely to go running to the authorities. Still, this was a wrinkle in the night’s previously-scheduled activities, and he didn’t appreciate wrinkles.
“What are you going to do to that man?” the woman, Alex, asked. She was stari
ng at Porter, and Mr. K thought he detected excitement in her voice.
“It’s okay,” Javier said. “They’re cool. If you want us to leave, we can come back later. Or…”
“Or?”
“Or we could help out. Might be fun to shoot at a moving target, if you know what I’m saying.”