The Daredevil Corpse (The Departed Book 2)

by Sean Arthur Cox

  You would be surprised at some of the places clandestine, potentially sinister meetings take place. Mister Smith—every client is named Mister Smith in my line of work and every colleague seems to be named Jones—recommended the warehouse district like some late-night cable gangster. As if I met anyone to talk about killing a guy in places where there would be no witnesses should they decide to kill me themselves. Amateur.

  “So, what's on your mind?” I ask.

  He thinks for a moment, glancing anxiously about, then says, “Tree removal.”

  “Oh? How big a tree?” I ask. He wants to speak in code, and that's fine. Smart even, just in case someone does happen to be listening in. I just wish I didn't suck at it so much. How big a tree? What does that even mean? Size? Influence? Price? I mentally kick myself for not thinking before I speak.

  “Umm... pretty big,” he says. “But old, so it shouldn't be hard to pull out.”

  “Do you just need the tree cut down, or will you be needing stump removal too? So, you know, there's no trace of a tree having ever been there at all?”

  Does stump removal mean make it look accidental or does it mean just make the guy disappear Hoffa style? I hate, hate, hate this cloak and dagger double-talk stuff.

  He says nothing, probably also trying to figure out what the hell I'm saying. His eyebrows furrow for a moment, then he pulls a magazine from his briefcase and opens it to a dog-eared page. It's a profile on the stunt industry and not just movie stuntmen. It’s a history of stunting, from the glory days of Vaudeville side-show acts and big-name daredevils to shows like Jackass and the rise Internet amateurs. But Mister Smith isn't pointing to the article. He's pointing to the half-page picture of my childhood hero, Dan “Danger Man” Germany.

  In the past year, I've made a name for myself as an up-and-coming contract killer. Capable and thorough without the big price tag of overrated superstars like Tom “Nobody” Porter, Tomiko “The Rose” Haitoshi, or Mbodji the Shadow. I've even received a couple of anonymous e-mails congratulating me on being Rookie of the Year.

  I shouldn't be surprised. My mentor and adopted father figure Houston trained me pretty damn well, I think, biased though I may be, and my first job, the Bill Thompson hit, made all the headlines. The client wanted something surprising, something thorough, something accidental, something public. Naturally, when the media dove on top of the horrific multiple car pile-up that killed seven including the target Mister Thompson, just a few short hours before market closing, people in the know took notice of my million-to-one sniper shot that made it all happen. Professionally, it's my name maker, my Oscar-winning directorial debut. My inbox has been flooded with job offers ever since. Without it, I'm nobody.

  It's also my biggest regret. I'm all for toppling dictators and eliminating Russian spies and all that, but Bill Thompson didn't deserve to die, and the six innocent individuals who died in the process deserved it even less. Never again, though. My greatest professional achievement is also my greatest personal mistake. It’s also my greatest lesson in making sure it never happens again.

  “I'm fairly busy right now,” I say. “I just want to put that out up front before we talk specifics. I took the meeting as a favor to a friend, don't ask who, and because I hoped it might be something I could knock out between jobs. Can you accept that before we start talking?”

  He nods.

  “Let's talk price, let's talk time line, let's talk disposal.”

  “Well,” he says, “we can pay you twenty-five to make it happen. It needs to happen soon, within the week, ideally. And we aren't terribly concerned with what happens to the... tree so long as there's nothing left in our yard. We're hoping to remove it completely so no other trees grow up where you pulled that one.”

  There's no way I could take the job. Not “Danger Man” Germany. I think I still have his autograph someplace from when Houston took me to see him jump some school buses. Thankfully, Mister Smith had given me ample to work with to get out of the job.

  “Have you ever heard the Good-Fast-Cheap approach to business?” I ask.

  Mister Smith shakes his head. “No, I don't believe I have.”

  “Service has three qualities. It can be good. It can be fast. It can be cheap. I can do the job well, and I can do it quickly, but it won't be cheap. Your offer is too low. I can do it well, and I can do it cheaply, but you want it done within the week. Your terms are too fast. I can do the job fast and cheap, but there will probably be a trail of sawdust leading back to your yard. Good-Fast-Cheap. You can only pick two. Personally, I like the more money option.”

  “Twenty-five is hardly cheap. It’s more than double the average freelance rate.”

  “Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re not using anyone in your household because you don’t want a speck of sawdust left in your yard. And you’re not looking to hire some local guy with a chainsaw off Yelp here. You’re not looking for someone who’s good enough. You want top tier tree removal. And that’s one heck of a tree.”

  He pulls at his necktie and gasps for breath. Sweat beads his forehead. Newb. “Well, we had hoped that in addition to the fee, we could help you professionally. Use you for more choice work in the future and put in a good word to our associates.”

  “So I’m supposed to work cheap in exchange for a pat on the back from you and your friends?” I snort, then take a prolonged slurp from my overly sweet lemonade. “I already have a reputation, thanks, and I don’t need help finding work. You sought me out, remember? You need to make me a better offer or you can pull your own trees.”

  Mister Smith takes a moment to consider my proposal. “Any more than thirty-five would defeat the point,” he said. “That's almost costing us more than we're losing on the tree.”

  “So what will it be? Leave acorns all over for new trees to pop up, or I take my time and let its roots spread?” I hoped that made sense. Stupid tree talk.

  “I'll have to get with my boss and see what he says. Maybe we'll consult with a couple other contractors. Get some estimates,” he says and rises, fumbling the magazine back into his briefcase.

  “Do that,” I say. “You know where to find me. Maybe I won't be so busy later. Maybe.”

  I sip at my lemonade and munch down a few more curly fries as the small children race around me, totally oblivious to the sort of violence that fills their world. It's a little morbid thinking about it, I'm sure, but I wonder if one day one of these precocious tykes will piss someone off so monumentally that someone will come to me with their picture in a brief case, and if someone does, will they deserve it?

  I don't know the particulars, but I'm sure Dan Germany doesn't deserve what’s coming. Not the Danger Man. Especially not for so low an asking price. Twenty-five grand is a lot for a standard hit, but pretty skimpy for a known name. I'm not worried, though. I have a plan B for times like these, a strange acquaintance who saves people that don't deserve to die. People like Dan Germany. People like Bill Thompson.

  I pick up my phone and dial Lazarus, Inc.

  Chapter 3

  JAIME

  A MAN, A PLAN, A SCAM OR THREE

  “It’s too busy,” I said as I fished around the trunk of my car for something to wear, something with a little less blood and gray matter soaked into the cotton. When you had a gaping hole in your head, people expected the blood on your clothes. You’re the victim after all. But once that hole healed, a blood-spattered shirt kind of made you look more like the killer, and I was in no mood to explain to the police that no, it was my brains all over the shirt because I’m magically immortal like that.

  Finding an old Ramones t-shirt, I peeled the stained top across my body, grimacing when the congealed gore clung and pulled at my skin and body hair. For a moment, I considered changing my bra too, but decided against it. The blood was all dry now, so it wouldn’t soak through, and I didn’t feel like pulling away any more cloth scabbed against my skin this afternoon.

  “Say what now?” asked Dan, clearly distracted by my
chest. Poor guy. I wasn’t even wearing a particularly young and attractive body or a particularly appealing bra. I quickly slipped the shirt on to keep the conversation moving, and tossed the old one in the back, on top of the phone some contract killer gave me a year ago that hadn’t done me much good since I lost the charger.

  “Your stunt. You have too much going on. It’s absurd. Cartoony even.”

  “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” he said. “Make a big impression?”

  “It looks sad,” I said. “Desperate for attention.”

  “I’m almost eighty,” he said with no real inflection at all. “I’ve made a living doing dumb things for big crowds. Being an attention whore sort of comes part and parcel with the gig, don’t you think? I’ve been off the map for decades now. People would be suspicious if I didn’t look desperate for attention.”

  “You cannot fault that sort of logic,” the Marquis said.

  Danger Man’s blank self-awareness blindsided me like a surprise left hook from Cassius Clay. I expected a lot more bravado and dense talk from someone with a lifetime of concussions behind him, but I suppose twenty years with nothing else to do, a person had time to evaluate his position. I was fully aware what twenty years without purpose could do to a person. I stared at the dirt and mulled it over, my head bobbing as though physically working the idea over. “Fair,” I said. “Besides, you would know. You’re the expert.”

  “I haven’t heard that in years,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “The faith. The belief in my expertise. For not dismissing me outright.”

  I pulled myself onto the trunk of my car and had a sit. His words put a name to a faceless thought that had been gnawing at the back of my mind. “They’ll never let you do it. The insurance companies. I mean, I don’t have your full medical history in front of me, but I’m pretty sure they don’t trust a man your age to safely pull off a stunt like that. You’ll never get the permits either, for that matter.”

  “I figured as much,” he said, “but Ambrose has this plan that I think will work great.”

  Of course he did. I looked to the Marquis accusingly. I may not have been a beacon of morality, or even empathy for my fellow man, but the effortless way he had played the poor stunt man reminded me why I hadn’t spoken to him much in the past year, not since he played me and Bill Thompson to steal Bill company out from under him and get the old man in his pocket to boot. That sort of put a dampener on our hundred-fifty-year relationship.

  Ambrose, not giving a tinker’s curse what I thought of him, smiled and took his queue. “The world is full of people who would pay a great deal to watch a legend die. Americans are so sanitized, so distant from death. It shocks you to see a chicken get its head cut off, but they’ll not think twice about how many chickens died to make that plate of Buffalo wings. Deep down, you sense that missing connection, and you crave it. It’s why your movies are so violent and why you can’t look away from horrific accidents.”

  I nodded. It was a fair assessment, and while I didn’t consider myself any nationality really, I had lived in the United States long enough to feel the truth of it.

  “So, your plan is to fund this exclusively on ticket sales?”

  Dan chimed in, eager to show he was not just following someone else’s script. So sad and naïve. “We figure it won’t cost more than fifty grand to cover everything, renting where we can get away with it, buying where we can’t, and if we charge two fifty a pop, we’ll only need two hundred people to break even. America’s got a few hundred million people. Shouldn’t be too hard to find that many people who want to watch someone die.”

  “Of course, there’s also the matter of the media,” said Ambrose. “Naturally, the major networks will have nothing to do with this sort of stunt. We have no paperwork for the event, you understand. No permits. The Gossip Network, however, could probably be enticed to show interest to the tune of several million dollars for exclusive rights to stream the event live on their website. Obviously, it can’t be Dan doing the negotiating or it undermines our efforts to convince the insurance companies this wasn’t a public event. Officially, he has to be in the dark that tickets are being sold. We’ll have someone approach TGN claiming to have insider knowledge of when and where the stunt will occur.”

  “And they won’t care that it’s not legal?”

  “TGN? Doubtful. I’m certain they will already have a statement prepared in which they are shocked, absolutely shocked, to discover the paperwork provided to them has been falsified. Unofficially, of course.”

  “Color me surprised,” I said, anything but.

  “So long as that color is gold,” said Dan. “And to keep us from being shut down, Ambrose here says we’re going to do a flash-mob sort of thing. We aren’t selling tickets, on account of that being wrong, selling tickets to a stunt like this, but we are selling information.”

  “The location?” I asked.

  “Precisely,” said the Marquis. “It’s not a performance, you see, so from a legal, insurance stand-point, the paperwork becomes a touch easier. Our friend Dan Germany only wants to prove something to himself, here in his twilight years. We are, for a small fee, letting people know when and where this test of self will happen. No one will be charging admission or checking tickets. As such, we aren’t even legally required to provide those portable toilets you see at big events such as this.”

  “Which means a cunning legal mind like yours could still convince a jury that the insurance company should pay up?”

  “Once more, you follow where I lead,” said Ambrose.

  I bristled at his words, and I was sure he saw because his smile grew almost imperceptibly wider.

  He continued, “Especially given that I may, through a few subsidiaries, indirectly own a controlling interest in said insurance provider.”

  That sounded like the Marquis I knew, the one who held me in his thrall for decades, desperate for his approval. He had it all figured out, laid out like clockwork. He always did. I’m millennia old, and in just a couple hundred years, he had become so much better at this whole Machiavellian scheming than I would ever be. I wasn’t sure if I should be jealous or terrified. Usually, I was both.

  Dan began to jitter a bit and look around anxiously. “Look, I’m glad we’re all on the same page here, but we don’t exactly have much time.”

  I gave Dan the once over. Something about his urgency, his antsy shuffling was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Something that made me nervous.

  “It’s just, we have to train, right? A couple of weeks isn’t much time and what do you know about this sort of stuff? I mean, yeah, I don’t expect you to survive the stunt or anything, but you still gotta look like you know what you’re doing before you bite it.”

  He looked desperately back and forth between the Marquis and me, hand on the door handle and eager to get into the car and get out of here.

  “Right?” he asked. “Right?”

  “Right,” I said after a long pause. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  His eyes never stopped darting, and as we pulled away, I saw a black luxury sedan pass the cross street behind us. The first car I had seen since we’d been out here, and it was way too nice for this neighborhood.

  What are you hiding, Dan, I thought to myself, and why do I get the feeling this stunt isn’t the only danger you’re in?

  Chapter 4

  OLIVIA

  DAD KNOWS BEST SO SAY GOODBYE

  Crap. No answer. What’s the good in paying for someone’s phone if they never answer when you call? I groan and toss my cellphone against the passenger seat of my Sedona. Already, I could see Mister Smith on his phone, either checking in with his boss asking permission to make a larger offer, or more likely, getting some off-brand thug to do a hack job for peanuts.

  Groaning again, I snatch my phone back, dial Houston, and hope my mentor and surrogate father has some advice.

  “He
y kid,” he says. “You gonna be home for Independence Day?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, avoiding an answer. “Not going into specifics, but I think a certain politician would like to make a certain announcement around that time about the unfortunate passing of a certain foreign leader. I may or may not be busy.”

  “Oh,” he says, disappointment written so clearly on his face, I can read it over the phone. “Well, if things change, I’d love to have you out.”

  I love Houston like a father, but his parties are painfully awkward. Nothing but middle-aged contract killers sitting around telling corny jokes, commenting on how they remember when I was a kid and my how I’ve grown, and talking about how easy I have it now and back in their day they didn’t have GPS and computers to track their targets for them. A person can only bite her lip so much to keep from shouting that back in their day forensic investigation also had a much harder time identifying the killer and there are cameras everywhere these days, but old people will be old people.

  “Look, dad. I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

  “Dad?” he asks. “You never call me dad.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You did.”

  I didn’t realize. It must have slipped out. I mean, we both know that’s what he is to me, ever since he took me in after killing those scumbags the state swore were my parents. But I’d never actually said it, not outside of a job to throw onlookers and law officials off the scent. Never just between us. There’s a sound on the other end of the line something like a sniffle, but that’s not a thing respected hitmen do, so I don’t comment on it.