by Osborne, Jon
Jack’s throat tightened without warning at the unexpected thought of Molly – his faulty physiology rearing up its ugly ahead again in its never-ending attempt to undermine his hard-won confidence. He sighed heavily. If nothing else, he knew that he’d need to work on getting his traitorous body under control if he wanted to serve up the heaped helping of humble pie that Dana Whitestone so desperately needed to taste.
Taste until the pompous bitch choked on it.
Jack took another deep breath and willed himself to calm down. Jangled nerves led to stupid mistakes and represented the trademark of an amateur. He knew that. Besides, if he were to be perfectly honest about the whole thing, he supposed he couldn’t be too hard on himself for his unwanted physical reactions to his crippling emotional pain. Ever since the deaths of his parents (his father by Jack’s own, at-the-time-inexperienced hand), his little sister was all that he had left in this world in terms of family. And though he hadn’t seen Molly in better than a year now (and though she’d inadvertently ratted him out to Dana Whitestone back in New York City during the whole Chessboard Killer debacle), he planned to rectify that situation very soon. Needed to rectify it very soon, as a matter of fact. Because ever since he and Molly had first been separated he’d felt completely dead on the inside, and that unpleasant feeling didn’t seem at all likely to go away on its own anytime soon.
Only one way to fix that – even if it meant temporarily putting Molly in the line of fire.
Jack finished composing himself and traded in the dark frown on his face in favor of an easy smile. Typical psychopath behavior, he knew – this ability to change his personality on the fly in order to achieve what he wanted – but also a useful card to play at the moment. Reaching down, he clamped a moist hand on the girl’s bony shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “What is it, sweetheart?” he asked. “How can I help you?” Sincerity oozed from his voice. His face crinkled up with just the right amount of concern. A real chameleon – that was him, all right.
The little girl let go of his coat and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other in an obvious effort to underscore the urgency of her situation. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she squeaked in a high-pitched voice that immediately made Jack think of Minnie Mouse, at the same time looking around quickly to make sure that none of her nosier classmates were eavesdropping on them at the moment. This was private information, after all. Not for general consumption. “I need to go really bad.”
Jack released the little girl’s shoulder and blew out a frustrated breath over his teeth. Pulling back the sleeve of his trench coat, he checked the time on the cheap plastic watch strapped around his left wrist. 12:33 p.m. He’d already been in the school for more than three minutes already and he’d only given himself five to get in, do what he needed to do and get out. Not a very good start, to say the least. Still, professionals needed to adapt to their circumstances as they presented themselves. Anything less was for the brain-deficient losers who actually wanted to go to prison.
“Then why don’t you go to the bathroom, honey?” Jack asked, somehow managing to keep his own tone relatively civil while at the same time attempting to put an end to the inconvenient conversation just as quickly as it had begun. Perturbed as though he might be by the girl’s incredibly inconsiderate interruption at this highly critical juncture, however, he also realized that sometimes the easiest answers proved the most difficult to figure out for yourself – especially when you possessed the woefully inept mental faculties of a child.
No luck for him on that count, though, unfortunately.
“I forgot where it is,” the little girl whined, practically hopping from foot to foot now in a panicked response to the ever-expanding pressure in her absurdly inefficient bladder. “Can’t you take me? Please? I think I’m going to pee right in my pants.”
Jack looked up from the girl and scanned the hallway. He cursed softly beneath his breath. The space had filled up to near capacity now. Fewer than twenty feet away, a portly nun wearing a long string of wooden prayer beads around her impossibly fleshy neck shepherded chattering children into a classroom. Once the jowly penguin caught sight of him the jig would be up, and Jack knew it. So like it or not – and whether or not he’d planned it out this way for the past several months – he’d been left with no other choice but to edit the original script. He needed to act now.
So that was exactly what he did.
In a heart-stopping blur of well-practiced movement, he sprang nimbly backward, sending the little boy standing directly behind him careening out of the way. The rifle came from beneath his trench coat in a glimmering flash of cold black metal that would soon become very hot black metal, indeed. Raising his arms, he leveled the barrel of his intimidating weapon squarely at the center of the little girl’s birdlike-chest.
Then, almost as if to answer in no uncertain terms her amazingly selfish question about escorting her to the bathroom when he clearly had other, more important tasks to attend to at the moment, he jerked back his right index finger hard on the trigger.
A violent explosion of power roared up Jack’s arms with the firing of the rifle, setting every last nerve-ending in his body on fire with the surge of pure omnipotence that washed all hot and sticky through his veins like a dose of pure black-tar heroin. After all of this time of feeling so lost, of feeling so alone and directionless, he’d finally found himself exactly where he’d wanted to be all along:
A mighty god among mere mortals who was serving as their cold-blooded judge, jury and executioner.
A bright red splotch blossomed across the little girl’s scrawny chest as the speeding projectile made thudding impact with her fragile breastbone a split-second later, followed almost at once by a waterfall-rush of urine that streaked down her toothpick-thin legs and pooled in a liquid yellow mess on the shiny white tile at her feet.
Pure chaos followed after that as screams of terror ripped through the hallway. The little girl stumbled backward three feet, clutching at her badly traumatized chest and gasping helplessly for air. All throughout the hallway, sneakers squeaked dissonantly against the tiled floor as confused children relied on the instincts they’d been born with in a manic attempt to escape the wild-eyed lunatic who was firing a rifle in the confines of their previously safe school. A beautiful ballet of madness that Jack wouldn’t soon forget, accompanied by sounds that were absolute music to his ears.
Breathing hard through his nostrils now – practically snorting with the pulse-pounding excitement of it all – he swung the barrel of his weapon around in the direction of a little boy who was standing five feet away and wearing a clean white polo shirt, simultaneously racking the pump-action rifle again with a blood-freezing click-clack. The little boy froze in place at the ominous sound, as though his feet had been nail-gunned to the floor. Then his enormous brown eyes widened in absolute horror as he became painfully aware of his own mortality for the very first time in his ridiculously short life.
Winking at the boy, Jack Yuntz pulled back his finger on the trigger again – even harder this time – not entertaining for even a millisecond the thought of bestowing mercy upon him.
After all, who in the hell had ever bestowed any mercy upon Jack?
Nobody, that’s who.
And now they’d all pay for it.
Starting with these clueless little children here today.
CHAPTER 2
Friday; 8:30 p.m.; Oak Barrel Bar; Cleveland, Ohio
The man’s target sat alone at the end of the long mahogany bar; enveloped by a thick cloud of swirling cigarette smoke that danced languidly above her frizzy brown hair as though moving to the haunting melody of a beautiful love song only it could hear.
Horatio D’Arbinville shifted in his seat and wrinkled up his slender patrician nose in thinly veiled disgust at the mere sight of this complete train-wreck of a woman – this despite the true feelings that he had locked away for her deep inside his heart:
The feelings of pure and ut
ter devotion. The feelings of pure and utter love. The feelings of pure and utter lust.
Mixed in with more than just a dash of greed, of course. Couldn’t forget about that. After all, greed turned good men great. It turned cowards brave. Above all else, greed made sure things got done. And quite aside from whatever other faults might be pinned to the back of his finely tailored suit at the moment (and quite aside from any unfortunate comparisons one might see fit to draw to Michael Douglas’s “Gordon Gecko” character in the 1980s movie Wall Street, of course), if nothing else, Horatio D’Arbinville had always been the sort of man who’d gotten things done. Hell, getting things done had always marked his single greatest claim to fame in this hopelessly uncultured world that he had the great misfortune to inhabit. His goddamn trademark; every bit as noticeable as his lean and muscular body, impeccable taste in fashion and the generally aristocratic air that hung about him.
The woman in his crosshairs at the moment certainly didn’t look like most of his other previous targets, though – no debating that simple fact. Not even remotely. Too bad for D’Arbinville, but that was the way the cookie crumbled sometimes. Wasn’t that what the Americans always said?
In stark contrast to the thin and glamorous jet-setting types he usually preferred, this woman appeared slightly overweight, more than just a tad bit drunk presently and pasty-faced to a fault. Not to mention just plain dour-looking.
Helen Morgan sat with her wide, manly shoulders hunched forward like a football player huddled up for last play of the last game of the year, but not even her sloppy posture could obscure bloodshot hazel eyes that had been plastered with far too much inexpertly applied mascara. No matter how hard he tried to do so, D’Arbinville couldn’t detect anywhere at all within her completely defeated body language even the slightest trace of self-confidence.
In other words, she couldn’t have presented a more perfect fit for his intentions for the evening if she’d tried.
Still, Helen Morgan suffered from a terrible many problems in the looks department. The poor soul. For on top of these notable and extremely visible transgressions, D’Arbinville also saw that she had also somehow seen fit to leave her home that night in an outlandishly garish get-up that came complete with a vomit-colored blouse, skin-tight yoga pants testifying to the fact that she’d never practiced yoga a single day in her entire life and too-big silver hoop earrings that stretched the lobes of her ears in a decidedly unattractive manner. Rather disgusting on the whole, really, when you looked at the unpleasant view through the crystal-clear lens of absolute honesty. Then again, beauty had always lain in the eye of the beholder, now hadn’t it? Of course it had. And to Horatio D’Arbinville – at least on this particular night – Helen Morgan appeared absolutely gorgeous. A stunning vision of jaw-dropping femininity. The belle of the ball. The queen of the prom.
The unquestioned woman of his dreams.
D’Arbinville smiled a toothy grin – the one that folded his handsome face clean in half – and took a violent pull on his cigarette before flicking a short line of gray ash into the clean glass tray that was sitting on the scarred wooden table in front of him while the sounds of She’s Like the Wind poured forth from the antique Wurlitzer jukebox situated over in the southwest corner of the bar.
D’Arbinville widened his smile another half an inch or so as he listened to the late, great Patrick Swayze work his way deftly through the iconic Eighties song. Fitting tune for the occasion, certainly, especially considering the fact that this rather mousy woman had proven so remarkably difficult to catch up with. Still, that had been then and this was now, and right now D’Arbinville had backed his surprisingly elusive quarry directly into the corner where he’d wanted her all along:
Drunk, desperate and looking for love.
Just like him.
D’Arbinville took another healthy drag on his smoke and relished the heavy taste of tobacco on his tongue before leaning back contentedly in his sturdy wooden chair and allowing himself to savor the moment. He’d always adored these quiet slices of calm directly prior to the striking of the storm. They gave him an all-too-rare chance to collect his thoughts, to gear up for the events that would soon transpire, to ensure that he operated at the utmost capacity of his extremely considerable abilities. And unlike the majority of the other missions he’d undertaken in the past, this time he had more than just a little financial incentive driving him along.
Because this time – fates willing – he’d also have the opportunity to restore the criminally besmirched honor of his beloved family name.
The smile ran away from D’Arbinville’s face at once at the infuriating thought. Sadly, however, he knew that he couldn’t restore his family’s name without initially taking something equally precious from the man who’d sullied it so badly with his wholly unforgivable actions in the first place.
Thankfully for him, though, the unsuspecting Helen Morgan provided him with the ideal opportunity to do just that.
The Frenchman lowered his gaze eighteen inches and stared at the cigarette tucked between his manicured fingers. Undulating wisps of smoke floated softly upward toward his eyes and made them water slightly, filling his nostrils with the pleasing scent of fine tobacco. Applying slight pressure on the filter with his knuckles, he dented the tightly rolled cotton as his anger began to burn even more insistently in the back of his throat, producing a sharp, acidic taste in his mouth that immediately made him want to spit. Even if it meant a lifetime spent in prison for his troubles, he’d smash in Zachary Paulson’s smug little face with his bare fists until it had been turned into a bloody, soupy mess that not even the man’s mother would be able to identify at the morgue once they pulled back the opaque plastic sheet. Hell, D’Arbinville would consider a lifetime in prison worth it.
That being said, he certainly had no plans of getting caught here tonight – or on any other night in the near future, for that matter. Where the hell would lay the point in that? No, he’d stick to the game plan here and see each one of the particulars all the way through to the inevitable, bitter end.
And the first step on that long journey began with the entirely perfect, completely beautiful and hopelessly naïve Helen Michele Morgan.
D’Arbinville leaned forward in his chair and stubbed out his cigarette before immediately lighting up another and resuming his smoking. His coffin nails of choice were Gitanes – always had been ever since he’d been sixteen years old and running the dirty streets of Paris with his rowdy friends – now removed from their iconic blue box and placed into a sterling silver case that had been etched with his initials. Classier that way. More European. Not to mention the ideal affectation to impress the American woman seated across the bar.
D’Arbinville blew out a huge cloud of smoke and shook his head in mild contempt, knowing full well that it wouldn’t take very much to impress the lovely Miss Morgan. Never did with these woefully unlettered provincial types. For all the positive qualities they might possess – and Lord knew they possessed a hell of a lot of them – the women here in the States had always impressed so goddamn easily.
D’Arbinville sighed and chased away the thought with a quick shake of his head. Didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself here. To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. Leaning back in his seat, he let loose with another long, smooth stream of grayish-blue smoke, making a small, wavering O with his lips before efficiently clearing away the pungent fog hanging in front of his face with a rapid wave of his left hand. This was it. No more waiting. No more preparing. No more following this middle-aged spinster all around the city while he played unpaid private eye. Because once everything had been boiled down to brass tacks, his time was worth something, goddamn it. A lot, actually. And he intended to be paid for his time. A lot. And soon.
D’Arbinville found his best smile again at the comforting thought and took another long drag on his cigarette as the jukebox in the corner switched over to Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel. Tap
ping his left dress shoe against the uneven wooden floorboards at his feet in perfect time to the upbeat ditty, he lifted his three fingers of mid-quality Scotch to his full lips and took a tentative sip, feeling the potent amber liquid warm his gullet while he surveyed the other patrons present at the Oak Barrel Bar on Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland with a discerning eye.
The place didn’t look very full to him, even though Friday night should have marked a measurable up-tick in business for the proprietors. Still, all the better for doing what it was he needed to do. Fewer patrons meant fewer witnesses, and drunks possessed notoriously poor recall skills, anyway. Always had ever since the very beginning of time. Not to mention the fact that he and his small – though extremely well-trained – team had prepared far too meticulously for the train to go running off the rails before it even had a chance to pull away from the station.
The bottom line here hadn’t changed one little bit:
He and Helen Morgan were going to have a baby together.
“Can I get you anything else, sweetheart?”
D’Arbinville looked up at the sound of the throaty-sounding female voice filling his left ear. A full-figured waitress in her mid-twenties was standing over his table with a circular serving tray balanced in her right hand. Naturally pretty, with just a trace of understated make-up highlighting her soft features – quite unlike the painted-up caricature Helen Morgan presented fifty feet away.
Sitting back in his chair again, D’Arbinville breathed in the server’s floral perfume and allowed his smoldering brown eyes to do what they’d always done so very well since he’d been just a boy:
Notice every single detail, no matter how slight or initially inconsequential those details might seem.
Mid-length, dyed-blonde hair framed a youthful-looking face featuring a pair of large and shiny doe-brown eyes that book-ended a cute and slightly upturned nose. Several cheap silver rings adorned her surprisingly slender fingers. Most notably of all, her pleasingly plump cleavage threatened to burst right through the buttons of a shirt that had been chosen a size too small for two extremely apparent reasons.