Kill for Me

by Tom Wood

  He saw the guy turn around. There was some clarity in his eyes. Another few seconds and he would get clear of Victor’s limited field of view. Then it would be over.

  Victor wrapped the fingers of his left hand around the end of his right index finger protruding through the trigger guard and wrenched it back.

  The gun fired.

  The bullet missed. It plugged a neat hole into the metal cabinet to the right of the guy’s shoulder. He flinched, but a slow flinch. He couldn’t move away fast enough.

  Victor shot again.

  This time the bullet hit, but low. A gut shot. Messy, because it severed the inferior vena cava. The man’s white shirt reddened fast. Victor didn’t shoot again. He saw the wound was fatal. He could wait for the bleeding to do its job, and he needed the remaining bullets. The guy wasn’t going anywhere.

  The man tried to staunch the bleeding with one hand, and when that didn’t work, both. Without a hand to support him on the work surface, he fell.

  Blood extended across the tiles toward Victor, who swiveled on the floor, half-rolling to face the kitchen doors, bringing the gun up in unsteady hands, ready for when—

  The second bandaged guy came charging through in response to the gunshots, his own weapon drawn and ready.

  Victor shot, again and again, unable to aim so trusting volume instead, some bullets missing but others hitting until the man collapsed back through the swinging doors and lay still between them.

  It was an effort to keep his arms raised and the gun pointed at the doors, but Victor did so, fighting the weakness and disorientation and the desire to stop and succumb to rest, to sleep. There was still one left. The young guy who had driven the car.

  Seconds passed. The driver didn’t show, and no sound indicated he was somewhere on the other side of the doors. Victor could see only glimpses of a corridor beyond.

  He hauled himself to his feet, using a stool to help. It wasn’t easy, but he felt his mobility beginning to return.

  In the quiet, Victor understood the driver’s absence, because he heard a vehicle outside. The low rumble of an exhaust. Tires coming to a stop on gravel. A car arriving in no hurry. The young driver returning from running errands. If he knew what was happening inside—if the others had managed to get a message to him—then he would have arrived fast, engine roaring and tires crunching on gravel, or else he would have tried stealth and Victor wouldn’t have heard a car at all. The young guy knew nothing about what to expect.

  Victor had dragged the last corpse through the doors by the time the driver appeared. He was hesitant entering the kitchen, having found no one else in the rest of the building, but he was expecting his colleagues to be working on Victor, not dead on the floor.

  He did a double take when he saw Victor, when he saw the gun, when he saw all the blood. He had a cardboard carrying tray with four cups of coffee held so far out before him it seemed as though he thought it a legitimate risk that he might spill all four all over himself.

  Had, because he dropped the tray and coffee went everywhere.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Victor said. “Bad timing.”

  The driver couldn’t say anything.

  “You’re thinking that maybe if you had been five minutes slower you might have missed me altogether. You might have missed . . . this. But don’t beat yourself up. I would have waited all night if I had to. I’m afraid you were dead the moment you turned up at that hotel. It’s just taken this long for you to realize it.”

  The young guy paled.

  Victor said, “You never know how brave you are until you’re scared.”

  The driver didn’t respond. His hair was jaw length and hung over his face. He was too scared to push it back out of the way. His cheeks were smooth but the strip of skin between his nose and upper lip had a hint of stubble. There was a facade of innocence to him, but if true innocence existed, Victor had never encountered it, or perhaps he refused to see it. He used to tell himself he was the culmination of thousands—hundreds of thousands—of years of human history in an effort to justify who he was, to rationalize his life choices. These days, he needed no such excuse. He didn’t need to understand how he became himself. It was a fool’s errand even to attempt such self-analysis, but more than that, it was unnecessary. Victor simply didn’t care.

  “There was a time when I might have let you go,” he said, unsure whether it was the drug inside him compelling honesty or something more. “You’re no threat to me now, and I imagine the first thing you would do after I release you would be to get out of the city, the country, and never come back.”

  The driver was silent but his eyes agreed.

  “That was then,” Victor continued. “I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’m not going to let you go. I’m not letting anyone go. But I’ll do you a deal. If you tell me how to find Diaz, I’ll make sure your mother can have an open casket at your funeral. Do you think she would appreciate that?”

  The driver nodded as much as his fear let him.

  “So,” Victor began, “is there anything you want to tell me?”

  The driver found his voice. He spoke in staccato sentences. “I know where Diaz plays poker. A private game. A bar by the lake. He’s there every Friday night.”

  Victor said, “Your mother would thank you if she could,” and squeezed the trigger.

  • Chapter 40 •

  There was beauty in death.

  Life had a certain inescapable ugliness. It was messy. Uneven. Death, however, was pure. It was unsullied. He knew this. He felt it. Perhaps only he understood the disparity. Maybe only he could see it. To others, the beauty was in the inverse. Life was beautiful and death was foul. But life created bias. The living thought themselves beautiful because they were delusional. They were ugly. Only he could make them beautiful. It was his gift to them.

  He received no thanks for this gift. He received no appreciation. There was no applause. No adoration. Ungrateful faces were everywhere. Inescapable ugliness wherever he looked. The impure. The dirty. The disgusting. If they only knew of their own repulsiveness, if they could only see what he saw, they would end their torment; they would spare one another that ingratitude.

  He was no mere murderer. He was a guide. He was a renovator. He took away the ugliness of life and replaced it with something of higher aesthetic.

  Lavandier referred to him as the Russian, but his given name was Sergei Constantin. Though that name had long since been forgotten. Maybe it was out there still, perhaps as a rumor, a whisper of pain and terror and that which should not be named. He was no Russian but from the Czech Republic, although he had not set foot in his homeland for as long as he could remember. He had never been to Russia, but he had affiliates in that country. Men who found him work and whom he worked for on occasion. This was how Lavandier had found him.

  The Frenchman told him, “You need to be aware that another professional has also been hired for this task. He’s here already.”

  Constantin said, “I see.”

  Lavandier seemed unsure of his tone. “Is this revelation a problem for you?”

  “It is only a problem if he receives payment while I do not.”

  “You need not be concerned about that. Your fee is your fee, as agreed. You will be paid it when Maria is dead, whether it is you who pulls the trigger or not.”

  Constantin nodded his head. His skull was large and sat above narrow shoulders, supported by a neck that seemed too narrow for the job. He was tall, too tall, and thin, far too thin, but he needed no great strength to squeeze a trigger or slip a blade between ribs. It required but the will do so.

  He asked, “Did you ask this other killer whether he had a problem with me?”

  “I did not.”

  Constantin said, “Why not?”

  The Frenchman was composed. “He is unaware that another professional was to be hired
. He must remain unaware.”

  Constantin’s brow furrowed. His skin was thin and pale. He had deep wrinkles and eyes that always looked tired. The light pooled on his scalp.

  “I see,” he said. “I’m the backup killer.”

  “I don’t think there is any benefit in considering the situation as such. Your client is eager for success. We see hiring you both as a way to double our chances. We would have brought you in sooner, had you been available.”

  “You doubt the other man’s capabilities?”

  “Not at all,” Lavandier said. “But we are prudent.”

  “A competition, then.”

  “Again, I don’t believe that’s the right way to look at this. You will be paid in full, whether it is you who executes or him.”

  Constantin nodded. “I see. It is indeed a him.”

  Lavandier sat with a trace of awkwardness, but he said nothing.

  “Is he to be paid more than me?”

  Lavandier said, “The answer is yes. We agreed to his fee as we agreed to yours. His fee was higher. There is no insult there.”

  “I agree,” Constantin said. “But if it is I who fulfill the contract, then I wish to be paid his fee instead.”

  “That is acceptable to me.”

  “You are a reasonable man.”

  “We are reasonable men.”

  Constantin shook his large head, slow and deliberate. “If you believe that of me, then you have been misled, because I am anything but, I assure you.”

  “I would like to reiterate the need for discretion. The other party is not to know you are working toward the same goal.”

  Constantin said, “We are tasked with the same objective. It is not unforeseeable that our paths might converge at some point.”

  “They must not.”

  Constantin said, “I understand.”

  He considered this man before him, this Frenchman. He was well dressed and well spoken. He had manners. He had wit. Such things were irrelevant to Constantin, who judged all men by their will alone. Lavandier had no will. All he had was the appearance of resolve. His composure was an illusion. Constantin saw straight through it. Of all his skills, the ability to see that which was hidden he considered his most valuable. To be successful in the business of taking someone’s life, it was first necessary to understand how they lived.

  “Why is my competitor afforded privileged status?” Constantin asked, quiet and reasonable. “You approached him first. You were happy to pay him more.”

  “He comes highly recommended.”

  “And I do not?”

  Lavandier struggled to find a diplomatic answer. “It’s not personal.”

  “I am not offended. I am but curious.”

  “We would not hire you if we thought you were incapable of the task. It is just that the person who recommended him carries much weight. On balance, we must trust those sources we know best.”

  Constantin made a slow nod. “I understand.”

  “And you do not mind?”

  “You pay my fee; you make the rules.”

  Lavandier smiled. “I’m glad you see it that way.” He gestured. “If we are done, then I have things that require my attention.”

  Constantin didn’t move. “We are almost done.”

  He would never admit it, and indeed had no one in his life to admit it to, but Constantin enjoyed his work a little too much. Some professionals took pride in a job well done, but Constantin had fun. He liked killing. Always had, even as a child. His neighborhood had a disproportionate number of missing-cat and -dog signs fixed to lampposts. It would have been devoid of barks and meows entirely had he not been caught in the act and thrashed to such an extent that he spent a week in bed. It had been an important lesson to the young killer: don’t get caught. He had heeded this simple yet invaluable philosophy ever since. Besides, he had a cat of his own now, and preferred its company to any human. He hadn’t realized it as a child, but he had more in common with domestic felines than with his fellow man. Cats, well fed by their owners, had no need to hunt, had no need to torment their victims, but they did so regardless. They did so because they wanted to. They did so because they liked it. So he liked them in return.

  If being thrashed by his mother was a defining lesson, so was the lesson his father taught him: if you like doing something, make sure someone pays you to do it. Once Constantin knew he enjoyed taking lives, it was a natural progression to make it a career. He was self-taught in the arts of murder, and had been a quick student. He would be self-reliant in all things if not for the need for others to handle his business affairs, although they were never just business. If no one paid him to kill, Constantin would do it anyway. He chose the contracts that he believed would give him the most satisfaction, which were not always the ones that paid the best.

  Constantin thought about the other assassin. The one, whatever Lavandier had said, who was the primary on this particular contract. Constantin was not driven by ego, but he recognized the implicit insult. His rival must be of special competence to have his conditions met, and by nature of the arrangement Lavandier had more faith in that assassin than he had in Constantin. But should he kill the target first, he would receive the reward. A competition, whatever Lavandier had assured. A race, for which there could only be one winner.

  Of course, Constantin thought, if one participant should trip and fall, then the other runner would be assured of glory.

  The Frenchman was growing impatient in the silence. Constantin liked to keep people waiting. He liked to exert his will over the ugly.

  He said, “I’ll need a description of the other assassin.”

  Lavandier regarded him, curious, suspicious. “Why would you need that?”

  “To make sure that were our paths to cross,” Constantin said, “they may separate again.”

  He held the Frenchman’s gaze for a long moment, facing down his will and breaking it asunder with his own.

  Lavandier nodded in concession. “Of course.”

  • Chapter 41 •

  Messy. Unrefined. But they were dead and he was not.

  Cleaning up the scene was simple. They had everything Victor could need. He wrapped each corpse in plastic, making sure each cocoon was watertight, and loaded them into their own minivan in the cover of their unit. He wasn’t yet sure the best thing to do with the van and corpses inside, but they were better found anywhere but here and a long time from now. The independent status and autonomy that Eadrich had boasted of meant Victor could enjoy a significant window before anyone started asking questions.

  Outside, the sun was low but still bright, and it had been much darker inside the unit. The whine in his ears and the fog in his mind were slow to diminish, and cleaning up and moving the bodies had been tiring. His limbs remained a little slow, a little ungainly. He didn’t trust his balance. His steps were short and almost shuffling—a drunk leaving a bar.

  He saw an almost-empty stretch of asphalt that would serve any legitimate enterprise as parking spaces for employees and maybe deliveries and dispatches. Now just one other vehicle besides the minivan. A second, smaller car was parked farther away. Shiny paint. Clean window glass. No doubt Eadrich’s ride. Victor pictured the minivan driving around to pick up the others at the beginning of the day and performing the same route in reverse when it was time to go home.

  No one was around. No one could see Victor. The unit had a chain-link fence, but the next closest unit was out of the line of sight, and there was no through traffic on the approach road. Which was why they had chosen it, of course. Quiet. Remote as it could be so close to a major metropolis. How many people had been brought here, never to leave? Victor didn’t know. Couldn’t know. He was no humanitarian, although he enjoyed the irony of claiming to be from time to time. He didn’t care about those people, but he cared that he hadn’t become one of them.


  There were no CCTV cameras to concern himself with, beyond a few that formed a perimeter around the building. For show, mostly. They were too high and too old to capture Victor’s face, or anyone else’s, from inside a vehicle. Any cameras that had once been inside had been removed. The crew hadn’t wanted recordings of what took place within. He removed the hard disks that captured footage from the outside cameras, because he could never be too careful, and better for there to be no record of the four guys returning here and never leaving again. He didn’t imagine detectives would ever come looking for them, but maybe the cartel would. Best if they simply vanished. They had already called Diaz from inside the minivan to tell him there was nothing to worry about. By the time anyone realized that Victor was someone to worry about, he planned to be beyond their reach. Half the world away, ideally, with a new passport and sipping a bourbon from a seat where he could see the door, waiting for the next job to arrive. Which was the only forethought he allowed himself. Thinking about the future, like thinking about the past, was a luxury reserved for those who were safe in the present. Victor didn’t know when he had last felt safe—had he ever?—and if he had, he was pretty sure he never would again.

  The industrial estate contained many large operations, but the unit used by the private-security guys was small in comparison. They didn’t need a lot of space, and a lot of space used by only a few people attracted attention. Like Victor, they had to avoid scrutiny in order to do their job. He took the corpses away with no concern about being noticed.

  He drove far out of the city, far into the countryside, through ramshackle collections of dwellings that passed as villages, along narrow roads that were little more than dirt tracks. When he had seen no cars and no people for hours, he buried the bodies in woodland, in a single grave deep enough in the ground that no animals would smell them rotting.

  He arrived back in Guatemala City at dawn, and left the minivan unlocked with its windows down in one of the many poor neighborhoods. It would be stolen within the hour, he was sure, but even so, a crew of four missing cartel security guys was far from ideal. They might never be found, it might never be determined why they disappeared, but questions would be asked.