by Frank Stein
“Okay.” I put out my cigarette and reached for another. “Let’s hear it.”
“Well, I don’t know if any psychiatrist would back me up on this one, but here’s what I think.” She paused for another moment, and shut her eyes briefly before continuing. “It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s an odd emotional sense of entitlement. I think the knowledge that we can bring new life into this world gives us an irrational sense of leeway when it comes to taking life out of this world.”
I stared at her. “Nobody thinks like that. You’re insane.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, I’m not saying any woman makes that calculation. Not even a woman who has killed her own children would make that explicit argument. But it’s something that’s buried deep in the psyche. And I think it would take the edge off any lingering psychological effects.”
I looked away. “Okay, we’re out of my area of expertise here. Even as an all-knowing management consultant, I don’t feel prepared to speculate on this topic.” I looked up at her and smiled. “All I have to say is that I’d like to see documented psychological studies on this before I start repeating the theory at cocktail parties.”
Simone laughed and blew a puff of smoke directly at me. “Okay, I concede. I’m full of shit. It’s just my own pathetic rationalization for why I don’t feel anything when I kill someone. And I’m not sure if I ever did.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “God, it’s been so long now, I don’t even remember what it felt like the first time.”
“When was the first time, anyway?” I asked. “How did you get pulled into this craziness?”
Simone didn’t answer. She gave me a look that seemed to say be careful about asking questions that you don’t want to know the answers to. She stood up and began stacking the empty plates.
I grabbed the glasses and followed her to the kitchen. As we loaded the dishwasher, I nudged her and whispered into her ear.
“The boating accident?”
FORTY-THREE
“My daughter from my first husband was twelve at the time,” said Simone. She lay down on the right side of the bed and turned to me and I could smell the mouthwash on her breath. “One evening she told me that her step-dad had grabbed her and . . . propositioned her, I guess is one way of putting it.”
“Damn,” I said.
“So I asked him about it the next day. Of course, I expected him to deny it, but I figured maybe he’d get the message and at least stop.”
“And?”
“And . . . the bastard just shrugged and said he didn’t see what the big deal was. She wasn’t his flesh and blood, he said, and so it was perfectly natural for him to be attracted to her.” Simone turned and lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Holy crap,” I said. “So you planned a boating trip and pushed him overboard?”
“No,” she said. “I kicked him in the throat right then and there. In my goddamn kitchen. He went down right away, just like they described in my self-defense classes.”
I sat up in bed and stared at her. I was somewhere between shocked and amused. “And he died?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. It didn’t matter. As soon as he went down, it seemed like I knew exactly what to do, even though I had never thought about it before.” She looked at me and shrugged. “I took a metal rolling pin and smashed his head in. Then I dragged him out to the garage, loaded him into our boat, which was already hitched to the truck, and drove out to the lake. It was all done in less than two hours. I was finished with the police report before my daughter got home from school.”
“Damn, Simone.” I laughed. “What did you tell her?”
“The truth,” she said with a shrug. “He was drunk and hit his head and fell off the boat and sank like a stone.”
“Nice.” I lay back down. “But how did that lead to you the Network?”
Simone laughed. “My sister-in-law.”
I sat up again. “Wait, your dead husband’s sister? She was in the Network?”
“Yup. And she had staged enough accidents to see right through my story.”
“And instead of turning you in, she recruited you?”
Simone nodded. “Almost ten years ago now.”
“That’s a long time to be a super-secret assassin-chick.” I kissed her on the neck.
She sighed. “Tell me about it. I need to retire.”
“Yeah, I was wondering, actually. What are the retirement options for us?” I was still kissing her neck.
“There aren’t any. This is a lifestyle choice. A permanent one.”
I looked up. “Well, not all of us had a choice.”
“Whatever. You had a choice. And you damn well made it. You’re a born killer just like I am. Just like Mo is. You just needed help recognizing it.”
I didn’t argue, but just returned to making my way down her neck. “But I guess when you’re an Omega, you aren’t necessarily out there as much. Isn’t your job now making assignments and running validations or whatever? Managing the various cells that roll up to you?”
“That’s part of it. But we’re all expected to do field work. We’re not detectives or investigators. We’re killers, and we don’t stop killing until . . . well, until we stop.”
“And when do we stop?” I murmured. My eyes were closed, and my hands were sliding down in search of the bottom of Simone’s long shirt.
She grabbed my hand. “I don’t think you’re listening.”
I moved up on the pillow and looked at her. “Sure I was. You said we stop killing when we stop.”
“And what does that mean?”
I shrugged. “When we decide it’s enough, we leave. Resign. Retire. Quit. Whatever you call it.”
Simone laughed. “I don’t think Mo has explained things well enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“Frank, there is no resigning or quitting. This is a one-way street.”
Now my stomach raged with that feeling I had hoped would never come back. The intensity of the last few days had made me temporarily forget about the practical aspects of my new life. I thought Simone’s emergence had freed me—after all, Mo didn’t have anything on me anymore. She couldn’t turn me in for killing Takahashi and Yoshi, because it would implicate her as well. I guess I had assumed I could now walk away whenever I saw fit, whenever I decided I couldn’t handle the killing. Not that I wanted to walk away just yet, but still, knowing that I didn’t have the option of walking away was not a small matter.
“But what does that mean? If I decide I’m done, what happens?”
“What do you think?”
“No way. That doesn’t make sense. That’s against everything this group stands for. Even soldiers get to go home after their tours, or get honorable discharges, or resign, or retire.”
Simone ran her fingers through my hair. “But we aren’t soldiers, honey. In some ways, what we do is more stressful because we need to keep it a secret from those closest to us. If we had the option to quit, we’d never be able to keep this thing going. Everyone would just stop sooner or later; more likely sooner. We’d have to keep recruiting new people, and there’d be more mistakes, more chances for leaks. The Network would turn into an inefficient, clumsy organization of half-assed murderers.” She shook her head. “Noble intentions and motives aside, the reality is we need some external constraints to keep us locked into this lifestyle, into this life.”
I took a deep breath and rolled over to my side of the bed. “Well, death is a pretty good constraint.”
Simone crawled towards me. “Or a pretty good opportunity.”
“And what does that mean?”
She sat up in bed and leaned over to the bedside table for her cigarettes. “Death can be our way out of this.”
“You mean fake our own deaths?”
Simone shrugged as she lit a cigarette. “That’s one option: fake deaths.”
“And what’s the other?”
“Real deaths.”
I stared at her. “You mean suicide?”
She laughed. “Not our deaths, silly.” Then she stopped laughing. “Remember, our organization is structured so that part of it can break off without exposing the rest. We also have some time-lag rules. Since I just started as a Beta Omega, my Alpha Omega wouldn’t have revealed my identity to his peers quite yet. So it’s just him. And I can get to him.”
I swallowed hard. “But aren’t there Alpha members from other cells that know about you? Alphas that report up to you?”
Simone spoke softly. “Just two cells in total. One of those cells was Chester’s, and because of our protocols his Beta doesn’t know me.” She waited for a moment. “The other cell is yours.”
I stared even harder. The smell of cigarette smoke mixed with peppermint mouthwash made me want to throw up. Or maybe it was just the dawning realization of what Simone meant, of whom she meant.
Simone looked at me through the rising cloud of white smoke. “What’s the matter? You don’t think you could do it? You in love with her?”
FORTY-FOUR
Simone probably didn’t believe me when I said I was too sleepy to think. I didn’t care. I buried my face in my pillow and pretended to be asleep. But I was terrified. What could I say? Faking my own death wasn’t an option. I had thought about that enough when Mo had me backed into a corner, and I knew I would never put my parents through the misery. But I couldn’t kill Mo. I thought about suggesting that we include Mo in our mini-revolution, but I knew it would be a mistake. Mo was in this for a deeper reason. For her, leaving would mean betraying the memory of her daughter.
But for me, leaving would be betraying Mo. And I was done betraying Mo. I buried my head deeper into my pillow and wished for it all to go away. For an instant, I wondered if Simone would snap my neck while I slept. But I was almost too sleepy to care. As long as it didn’t wake me, a broken neck didn’t sound so bad.
Then it was morning. I woke up and rubbed my neck and took in the fresh smell of cigarette smoke and coffee. Simone was sitting at the foot of the bed, her hair tied up, holding a steaming cup and reading on her BlackBerry.
She turned when she felt me stir. “Hey.” She smiled at me. It was a warm, beautiful smile, and I felt it pass through me.
“Good morning,” I said.
She put down her phone and touched my leg. “I’m sorry about last night. I wasn’t serious. It had just been a long day. Maybe I am getting a bit too old and too crazy for all this.”
“No problem. I barely remember what we talked about, anyway.”
“Good. But I’m still embarrassed about it. Especially about asking if you’re in love with her. I don’t care about that. And it’s none of my business. I have fun being with you, but if that ever needs to change, it’s fine.”
I smiled and nudged her with my foot. “I have fun with you too. And we’re not in a line of work where romance is an option, right?” I stood up and stuck out my chest and pretended to flex my biceps. “We are superheroes. And all superheroes run into trouble when they fall in love. All of them: Superman, Batman, Spiderman—you name it.”
Simone laughed. “Okay, Mighty Mouse. Get dressed. We have a date in an hour.”
I looked at my biceps. “Mighty Mouse? That’s harsh.” Then I shrugged and walked towards the bathroom. “What are we doing on our date?”
“We’re meeting Mo.”
I stopped just before closing the bathroom door. “You told her you were here?”
“Yes. Why? Is that a problem?”
“No, of course not.” I wasn’t sure why I was surprised, but I guess when you’re sleeping with the assassin-boss of your assassin-boss, the emotions can be hard to interpret.
FORTY-FIVE
We arrived at the 96th Street entrance to Central Park just before ten. The sun was out, and so was half of Manhattan. I wondered why it seemed like no one had to work that day. Then I remembered that we weren’t working either—no consulting, and no killing. Just a walk in the park with my assassin-boss and her assassin-boss. Life was good.
“Hey,” said Mo. She jogged up to us and gave Simone a hug. “What a surprise.” She winked at me. “You guys get any sleep last night?”
I didn’t answer. For some reason, I was uncomfortable with Mo’s casual remarks about my relationship with Simone.
Simone looped her arm through mine and laughed. “Well, I tried to get romantic, but Mighty Mouse here said that superheroes can’t afford to fall in love.”
Mo smiled. “Is that so, Frank?”
I shrugged and forced a smile. Simone let go of me and walked ahead towards the park. I looked at Mo and shrugged again. We strolled after Simone without making any serious effort to catch up with her.
Mo nudged me with her elbow. “Mighty Mouse, eh?”
“That’s me,” I said awkwardly.
Simone was waiting for us near the playground at the entrance to Central Park. She seemed distracted, and was staring at the noisy kids when we reached her. She gave us an embarrassed smile when she noticed us looking at her.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s walk uptown. If I remember correctly, there’s a nice waterfall at the top of the park near 110th Street.”
“I always found that waterfall creepy,” I said. It was true. When I went running in the park, I’d always run a bit faster past the spot with the waterfall. Maybe it was because you couldn’t really see it from the main road, but you could hear it, and you could feel the temperature drop right around that area.
“Come on, Mighty Mouse,” said Mo. “All the more reason for you to come along and protect us from the evil that may be lurking near the waterfall.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “Either one of you could kill me without even breaking a sweat.”
Simone looked right at me with a serious expression. “No. It’s sunny and humid. I’d probably sweat a little.”
Mo laughed, but I didn’t. Instead, I lit a cigarette, much to the disgust of a super-fit jogger who happened to be passing us right then. I glared at the runner. I resented his resentment.
The walk uptown was reasonably pleasant, and even the waterfall wasn’t so bad. Actually, it was the first time I had really ventured off the main road and into the secluded waterfall area. It was a lot higher than I had expected, and much more than just a stream trickling over some rocks. There was no one else there, and the three of us stood quietly and soaked up the gentle roar of the falls.
Mo had her arms crossed over her chest, and she walked up to the edge of the falls and peered over. I happened to notice Simone looking at her, and it sent a shiver up and down my spine. I shook my head and looked down at the ground and smiled at my own paranoia. When I looked back up, Simone was staring at me. I smiled at her, and stepped up close to Mo.
“Be careful,” I said. “I’m not a very good swimmer.”
Mo smiled. “Well, I’m an excellent swimmer.”
Now Simone moved near us and leaned out over the drop. “I don’t think drowning would be your primary concern if you fell down there.”
“I’m hungry,” I said quickly. “How about we get some lunch?”
“Sounds good,” said Mo. “Maybe somewhere in Midtown? I need to stop by the office at some point this afternoon.”
I sighed. “Right. Work.” I smiled at Mo. “I think I’ll be working from home today.”
Mo shrugged. “That’s cool with me. Has anyone in the office called you about another project?”
“No. My schedule shows me as booked on the Milwaukee deal until the end of this week. And I haven’t felt the need to update the staffing coordinator yet.”
Mo smiled. “No hurry. You can hide out for a week or so. It might work out well, actually. I think this California gig I’ve been trying to sell may go through soon.”
“Cool,” I said. The prospect of flying under the radar for a week and then shipping out to California sounded nice. And judging by Simone’s lack of interest in our conversation, I was optimistic th
at it would be a murder-free consulting job.
Soon we arrived at Central Park’s west exit on 110th Street. Mo went out into the street to hail a cab, but Simone stopped her.
“Let’s take the subway. I love the New York Subway,” she said.
“Okay,” said Mo.
We all walked to the end of the block and entered the stairs leading down to the 110th Street stop for the Central Park West subway line. It was a small station, and since there was another subway line a few blocks over on Broadway, this line wasn’t used as much for local traffic. The platform was almost empty, and it stank of human piss.
Simone walked to the end of the platform and stretched out her arms and took a deep breath. “Ah. The funk of New York City. I love it.”
I laughed. “Maybe you are cut out for city living, after all.”
“Maybe I am.” Simone turned to me and smiled.
“You thinking of moving to a city?” asked Mo. She walked up to the edge of the platform and leaned over to check for a train. The tunnel was dark, and Mo turned back to Simone. “Houston? Dallas?”
Simone laughed. “No. I was just talking shit. I like my country home. I have horses, you know.” Suddenly her expression changed and she looked sad for a moment.
Mo looked at me and then back at Simone. I could tell Mo knew something was up. Maybe it was her jungle sense or whatever she called it. Or maybe it was just my paranoia again. It must have been, since Mo casually strolled past Simone and leaned out over the tracks once more.
“Train coming,” she said.
The train sounded a bit too much like that waterfall, and I became alarmed as Simone took three steps to her left until she stood directly behind Mo. The roar became louder, and my paranoia screamed for me to do something.
I looked around, but there was no one else in sight. There was a camera monitoring us, but I suddenly became certain that Simone had been standing so as to keep her back to the camera at all times. And in a flash I remembered her opening up her hair and letting it fall across her face just as we had walked underground, which seemed odd to me, because the subway station was hot and humid.