by Sam Wiebe
I have a job to do. If I decline, he’ll end up just as dead. It might delay things by a week or so, maybe not even that. I’m not the only hired gun around.
Thinking that makes me realize something: they’ve brought me a long way and from another country to do this hit. There is a reason for that. I think further. Who is this guy?
Some simple googling brings results right away, but none that answer the question. He’d designed a Sterling engine that purifies water based on a proprietary system that uses graphene. A byproduct of the purification system had been a graphene-based fuel cell that is thinner and lighter than any other. That had been a decade ago. He now heads a company that develops and implements new solutions for both of those things: water purification and alternate fuel sources. The company has been successful enough that he is also at the head of a large nonprofit doing good work in third world countries cleaning water and providing power. He is a good guy with a social conscience and the success to do something with his gifts. Nothing I read about him makes me like him less.
And someone wants him dead.
I see no one obvious who might be responsible. He heads a private company, so a takeover move seems unlikely. No visible enemies. But experience has shown me that you can never tell what it looks like inside someone else’s life.
I give thought to sending a text, beginning a sequence, to find out who bought the hit, but I know it is a useless avenue. A network like the one I am part of didn’t get and stay successful by easily giving up sensitive information. It strikes me that even asking about it might put both him and my livelihood in jeopardy. Maybe even my life.
I consider my options. I can do the job I have come to do. If I do, I will know it was tidy and he didn’t suffer. Or I could feasibly not do the job without too much loss of face or reputation if I did it quickly and like a professional. “Something’s come up.” He’d certainly end up just as dead, but it would not be by my hand.
I don’t love either of these options, so I toy briefly with the idea of telling him the truth, or something close to it. That there is danger here. For everyone concerned. But I know his knowledge won’t protect him. Possibly nothing can.
I go for another walk. The seawall is a different place on a sunny midday than it was at night in the rain—large ocean-going vessels at anchor in the protected water of the bay, while sailboats bob around them like ponies playing in a field.
The seawall itself is packed with jovial traffic. Mothers and nannies pushing strollers. Kids on skateboards gearing up to make injuries they’ll regret in a couple of decades. Hairy youths followed by clouds of marijuana smoke flouting a law that is imprecise. All manner of humanity out to enjoy Vancouver in the sunshine. I soak it in, enjoying the feeling of sun on my skin and the warmth that kisses the top of my head. I lift my face to it and my phone rings.
“What does your day look like?” he asks.
“Looks like sunshine,” I say in truth. “What a gorgeous city.”
“How would you like to see beyond it? I have to run up to Squamish to see a man about a dog. Wanna come? I figure after we could go to Whistler for dinner. How does that sound?”
None of the place names have any meaning to me. It doesn’t matter.
“Do you really have to see a man about a dog?”
“I do not. It’s an expression. It’s a meeting. Won’t take long.”
“Sure. Okay. If it’s not an actual dog, that changes everything. I’m maybe half an hour from my hotel. So any time after that?”
“Perfect.” I can hear the smile. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”
By the time he pulls up in a sleek, long car, I’ve checked out of the hotel and am sitting on a bench out front, enjoying the sunshine. Waiting.
We follow a ribbon of highway out of town—raw young mountains, snow-kissed peaks, an ocean that laps at the edges of our journey at various points. I am lulled. The feeling of being out of control, like a little kid, and the grown-ups are taking you on vacation. That is how I feel. It’s not terrible.
At Squamish, he has his meeting while I find a café nearby and do more research, trying the dark web this time. Still nothing. He truly seems to be a straight-up, straight-shooting, well-liked guy. If there are skeletons, I can’t see them.
“You looked so intense,” he observes when he joins me. “As though what you were contemplating was life and death.”
“I was googling you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I just wondered if we had . . . I dunno? The right stuff.”
He drops down into the chair opposite mine. “Right for what?” he asks with an air of innocence.
“Exactly,” I say, deliberately obtuse.
“What did you conclude?”
“No conclusion,” I say tartly. “And here we both are.”
“Exactly,” he says. And the smile he gives me goes right to his eyes. “And what would I find if I were to google you?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I am an enigma.”
One eyebrow shoots up, but he doesn’t say anything.
“A cipher,” I add. “Maybe I don’t exist at all.”
“A cipher. An enigma. Those are interesting ways to describe oneself. And if that is the case, how is it that this cipheric—”
“I don’t think that’s a word.”
“—enigmatic woman should come into my life? What message does that bring?”
“That would be an arrogant way to frame things,” I say, smiling brightly and hoping he doesn’t see how close to the mark he’s come.
To my relief, he laughs. “It would, wouldn’t it? Of course. Everything is about me!”
“But all our worlds are, aren’t they?”
“I guess they are. Never mind. Let’s get back on the road. We’ve still got nearly an hour before dinner.”
The big car slips along the highway soundlessly for a while before I chance the question I’ve been formulating. It seems a risk worth taking. And we’ve got a long drive.
“If someone were going to kill you, who would it be?” I say, as conversationally as I can manage.
He looks at me quickly before pulling his eyes back to the road. “That’s a weird question.”
“Right?”
He laughs. I’m not sure if I hear an uneasy note, though I listen closely for it.
“Okay,” he says. “You first.”
“Me?” He’s taken me by surprise. He does that a lot. “Well . . . I’d have to think.”
“That’s what I’m doing. My turning it around was a stall tactic.”
“Ah.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not interested. Go ahead and answer.”
“Well . . . there might be too many to count,” I say truthfully. “But they wouldn’t know my name.”
“Well, it would seem you are safe then.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So no one in particular? Your ex?”
“No. He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly.
“It’s okay,” my response is automatic. In this moment almost not remembering the man who had been my husband. I put it from my mind. “Sometimes I barely remember myself.”
“Children?”
“No,” I say, turning my head quickly. I watch the darkening scenery. We are powering through a forest. The trees going by so fast, they are a solid blur of brown and green.
We are quiet for a while. When he speaks it’s like there has been no interruption.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who would want me dead. I don’t know if that means I’ve lived an exemplary life or if I’m just too vanilla.”
“Maybe neither,” I say. “Maybe something entirely different is true.”
“I think most people go through their whole lives without anyone ever trying to kill them,” he says, as though he’s given it some thought.
“You say that based on what?”
He laughs. “I don’t know. The number of people run
ning around not dead?”
“So not your ex-wife?”
“We’re still on the kill-me thing?”
I grunt.
“Okay then,” he says. “But not my ex. No. We get along and our arrangement suits us both. And she’s well compensated. It’s possible she’d get less money if someone offed me.”
“Well that’s good. No one wants to sit around wondering if his ex is thinking about putting a knife in his back.”
“Exactly. So do I pass?”
“Pass what?”
“Well, I don’t know. It felt like some kind of courtship test. I wonder how I did.”
“Anyone ever tell you you’re too competitive?”
“All the time.” He pats the steering wheel. “How else do you think I ended up with a Tesla?”
“You play to win.” It’s not a question.
“Always.”
He is slowing, pulling into the village. We are months from ski season, but at a glance, the sort of Alpine-village-meets-Rodeo-Drive motif seems to have something for everyone year round.
Walking around the village, I see it is even more charming and unreal than I’d first suspected. Disney does a ski village. Quaint little shops, trendy bars and eateries block after block. See and be seen. He leads me into one of these.
The food is exceptional yet somehow not memorable, though conversation between us is as engaging as ever. It’s easy to talk with him. No uncertain pauses or painful holes. I am easy with him. I surprise myself.
After dinner, we walk through the village hand-in-hand, sharing jokes and effortless conversation. In that walk, a shaft of pure happiness comes to me. Just this moment filled with nothing but what is right here, in front of me. For the first time in my recollection, everything I have is enough. And maybe I am enough too.
Maybe.
Other thoughts try to crowd in, but somehow I keep them at bay. Just a little longer, I plead with no one at all. Just let me feel this a bit longer. I’ll figure things out later, but right now let me have this.
“So what now?” he says when we’re heading back toward the city.
“I don’t have a plan.”
“You checked out of your hotel.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I say.
“How long are you in town?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’ll come and stay with me.”
“All right.”
His place is exactly what I’d expected. The top floor of a glass high-rise with views of the city all around and whispers of ocean and far mountains beyond.
“Do Vancouver views get any better than this?” I ask.
“Not much,” he admits. “That’s how I ended up here.”
“It’s all about the view?”
“Sure. And the jetted tubs. Check it out.”
He leads me to three bathrooms, each one more exquisite than the last.
“Multiple bedrooms too,” he says with a theatrical leer. “You can take your pick.”
“I’ll want one close to where you are,” I quip back, a line he finds uproariously funny.
He opens a beautiful bottle of wine and we sit on high stools at the counter in the kitchen. The view of the city is stunning. It takes my breath away.
“So beautiful you could die.”
He looks at me sharply. “What is it with you and dying all the time?” I can’t read his voice.
“I . . . I don’t know. I’ve . . . I’ve lost people. I guess that’s what it is. It brings it closer. Makes it more real.”
“Your husband,” he says.
“Yes. Him . . . and others. Listen, I’m enjoying myself so much with you. I don’t really want to talk about this now, okay?”
“Some other time, maybe?”
“Yes. Okay. Some other time. Maybe.”
We both know it is a lie.
In the morning, he gets up to go to the office. Before he leaves he drops a kiss on my forehead and a set of keys on the bed.
“Make yourself at home. And if you’re into it this evening, there’s a new restaurant I’ve been wanting to check out. You’re a good excuse.”
“Again with the excuses. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Dork,” he accuses.
“And the keys,” I say. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll rob you blind?”
“Not particularly. As far as I can see, there’s nothing more precious than you in this apartment.”
I just look at him, my heart in a cloud. I don’t know what to say and part of me feels dangerously close to tears. I put it down to hormones and move on.
Without him in the space to warm it, the apartment is even more massive. I drink the coffee he left for me and nibble on some fruit, then roam around the space dwarfed by his bathrobe, looking at his stuff.
In the sports-themed media room I turn on the television, then spend a quarter-hour figuring out how to make the channels work, remembering for a moment a time when there was only on and off.
When I finally locate the channels, they are filled with news. A serial killer is under discussion. Everything is heinous. There are hushed tones. The thought comes to me that there are those who would view me as a serial killer. I sink into the plush sofa behind me, pushed by the weight of this thought.
They would not be wrong, those people. I have killed serially. One after the other, I have taken lives. I don’t know how many now.
I wonder if I have not considered it that way before because of the money. There is no emotion for me with any of these killings. It’s a job. These are not random, violent acts. I am a professional. I put thought into what I do, never emotion. And the deaths are always humane. Many of my targets go from living to death completely without awareness. I’ve watched their faces at times, so I know.
I look again at the sketch of the unknown serial killer on the screen.
I think again of my lover, my host.
I close my eyes tightly. Push back the flood that threatens. I’ve held it off this long. It has been years now. I know I can do it again. I turn my attention back to the screen. The clipped Canadian accent now describing the killer’s heinous act. She’s mixing gun control into the conversation baldly. And she is matter-of-fact. There are statistics that all add up to the fact that people kill people with guns. The numbers are so horrendous they seem to make no sense. So deeply do I immerse myself in these thoughts that when my phone rings I jump, startled, and feel my heart begin to pound.
“What are you doing?” His voice, firm and warm. I suddenly want him here. To feel the firm, real length of him. To feel his strength. His warmth. And, yes, his desire and humanity.
“I’m watching television, if you can believe it.”
“Good! You figured it out. Bright girl. I often have trouble with it myself.”
“Why are you calling? Did you want to check to see what I stole?”
His laugh is deep. I could listen to it all day.
“Not at all. But if you do steal something, can you please take the sculpture in the foyer? My decorator said I paid a lot for it, but I don’t care for it much.”
We chat a bit more. To me we sound like normal people and that wrenches at my heart. I had not thought I’d sound or feel like normal people again.
And yet, of course, we aren’t like normal people at all. The reality of that washes over me again in a wave.
“You ever think about running away to a desert island?” The thought comes from nowhere and I just blurt it out.
“Let’s do it. I’ll peel grapes and fan you with coconut leaves.”
“What sort of desert island has grapes?” I ask.
And so on. Because it is right there and because we can.
We agree: I’ll meet him at the restaurant at six and then we’ll come “home” together. The way that makes me feel confuses me so deeply I can’t look at it.
I spend the rest of the morning performing a methodical search of the premises. I don’t know what I’m looking fo
r but I need to do something to dispel the restless energy. Plus I have questions. And I feel some of the answers might be hidden here.
So I toss the place. Searching deeply and carefully without leaving a trace. I don’t know what I’m looking for but when I find it—deep in a bathroom cabinet—everything falls into place.
It is a stash of drugs. Prescription medications. Zytiga. Rasburicase. CAPOX. Lenalidomide. Dexamethasone. Elotuzumab. Neupogen. And more still. I have no idea what I’m looking at, but all of the prescriptions have been filled within the last year. And they are all in his name.
I photograph the bottles, then replace them before heading to my laptop to hunker down and do some more googling. I easily determine they are all drugs used in the treatment of cancer and, coordinating the dates, it doesn’t take an oncologist to guess that the prognosis is not good.
* * *
I don’t remember the rest of the day. There was waking in his arms. Then my discovery. And there was his potential explanation. And there was nothing I could put between that would have the balance of the day make sense for me.
The restaurant proves to be the kind Vancouver does very well. Elegance so understated it appears causal, until you glance at the prices and see a different story. In this one, everything seems like traditional comfort food, but with some exotic twist. And so hamburgers, but instead of bacon, the menu advertises the addition of lardon. And coleslaw isn’t just chopped cabbage, it’s a creamy ginger slaw with jicama and organic heritage carrots. It all seems a bit much.
“Isn’t this place fun?” he says when he joins me.
I smile. He appears happy to be pleasing me, so I leave it be but find myself watching him closely, a new layer between us now. Are his hands stable? Does he look at all wan? How do his clothes fit his frame? But I only know this version of him; no before to hold against the after in front of me.
I find I can’t focus enough on the menu and ask him to order for me. He lifts an eyebrow in my direction, but doesn’t say anything, ordering vegetables that have been variously roasted and then put together with strong flavors—beets with harissa, cauliflower with chimichurri, and a chicken that has apparently been flame-broiled under a brick, which seems senseless, but I hold my tongue as I sip the cocktail he ordered us in advance of the meal.