“Do it and let’s get the fuck outta here,” he said.
Without delay, I grabbed a handful of hair on the top of Brandon’s head and pulled back on it, elevating his face off the floor and allowing me access to his neck. I knew, in order to minimize the chance of getting blood all over my hand and arm, I needed to perform the next maneuver completely the first time. Holding the knife handle securely and moving left to right, I quickly dragged the keen edge of the blade across the front of Brandon’s neck, making sure to transect all of his major vessels as well as his trachea.
Being a surgeon and having years of experience making incisions through human flesh made Brandon’s coup de grace somewhat easier to perform. However, I was still more than a little sickened by the knowledge that this morning’s surgical endeavor was intended to mutilate and murder, rather than to heal, as all of my previous experience had aimed to do.
Wasting no time, I wiped the blood off of the blade on the back of Brandon’s tank top and retracted the blade into the knife handle. Hank had already checked through the window and seen that the elevator lobby was clear, at which point he began sprinting up the stairs. When he arrived at the top, he spied through the one-way tinting covering the window and confirmed that no one was approaching the door. “Clear,” he said into the mic. “Be down in ten seconds, be ready to go,” he said.
“I’ll be ready, lobby still clear,” I replied, as I peered out the window. I had replaced my knife in my bag and checked myself over to make sure I had no obvious blood on me.
Hank ripped the tinting off the second-floor door window and yanked the loop of twine that had been placed through a hole drilled through the wedge, effectively displacing it and returning the door to functionality. He jammed the used equipment into his and grabbed my oversized kicks. On his way down the stairs, he stopped at the ground floor door where he quickly removed the wedge, which he then replaced into his pack as he descended the remaining flights of stairs.
He tossed me my shoes and replaced my vigil at the door. I shoved my feet into them and tied a loose knot.
“Ready,” I said.
He ripped the tinting off the door as I yanked the final door wedge free.
“Take it cool and easy,” he said. We’re just a couple of losers checking the place out. No reason for us to be in any hurry. If we look like we’re in a hurry or stressed out, we’ll give ourselves away.”
“I know, now let’s go.”
The door opened in front of me and I stepped into the lobby toward the elevator. I had to really pull hard on the loop of heavy-duty wire attached to the elevator wedge, but, once I put my weight into it, the wedge pulled free and the elevator door began sliding shut. I knew this maneuver would not be captured by the lobby camera, so I didn’t have to conceal my efforts. It was essential to our plan that we leave no indication the crime had been carefully plotted out. This effort would have been foiled if we’d left video footage of ourselves disabling the elevator with perfectly sized rubber wedges.
Each of us did our best to recapture the ‘bad boy’ demeanor with which we entered the parking garage as we stepped out of the lobby into the parking lot itself. Neither of us noticed any new cars as we casually glanced around, making our way to the back of the garage. As we walked under the exit ramp camera and continued up the ramp to street level, we made sure we kept our guilty mugs facing away from the camera.
“Mission accomplished,” Hank said, as we stepped off the top of the ramp and onto the street. “That was some beautiful, cold hearted work you did back there. I’m proud of you, man. You did what had to be done and you handled it like a fucking Marine. Trust me, I know.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I figure from the time that asshole entered the stairwell, we were done and out of there in less than 45 seconds. I’d say we anticipated the scene and executed the plan flawlessly. Now, we just need to finish out the morning without fucking up our alibi.”
Within a few minutes, we had ambled a few blocks down the street and were back at the car. We looked around and found the oil change garage parking lot to be otherwise empty, just as we’d anticipated. We jumped into the Camry and casually, exited the parking lot onto Lemmon Avenue. We needed to change out of our disguises, so Hank drove us to an automatic car wash which was on our way back to the interstate. He had withdrawn cash including a ten-dollar bill from an ATM in Paris the day before. He had purposely avoided touching this bill with his bare fingers in the interim. He used his gloved fingers to insert this particular greenback into the car wash cash receiver. He selected the basic wash package and was instructed by the computerized voice to enter the wash. Within three minutes, Roger’s car was sparkling clean, and Hank and I had transformed ourselves from scumbag street punks into two casually dressed, but respectable appearing, middle aged men who seemed to be carpooling to work early on a Friday morning. Before getting back on the road, we drove across the parking lot to the vacuum machines. I didn’t want Roger finding sandy colored synthetic, Kurt Cobain hairs or similarly out-of-place Bob Marley dreadlock fibers floating around in his vehicle, so we quickly, but thoroughly, vacuumed the interior of the car. We had removed our hooded sweatshirts to reveal the white polo shirts that we were wearing underneath. As I looked at my buddy behind the wheel of Roger’s generic sedan and checked my own reflection in the window of the Camry, I was satisfied there was no longer anything remarkable about our appearance. I was certain no one would look twice at us as we made our way to Forney, Texas, where Hank had his meeting with Roger and the real estate agents in a little over an hour. I hopped back into the passenger seat and we resumed our commute to Forney.
While we drove, I went through each of our bags and made sure nothing was missing. I didn’t want to have to wonder later if there was any chance we’d left something in the stairwell, dropped a personal article as we walked back to the car, or even accidentally misplaced part of our disguises within the vehicle as we hurried to change outfits in the car wash.
“Okay, everything is accounted for and Ryan will never again have to worry about being beaten by that asshole,” I reported.
“You need to know that it’s gonna hit you later that you took a life,” Hank said. “Only a total sociopath can do what you did and not have it fuck with his head. Whenever you flash back and feel that knife slicing through his tissues you need to imagine him backhanding your beautiful daughter. If you do that, I don’t think you’ll have to struggle with a guilty conscience.”
“Well, maybe I am a sociopath, because I only have one regret at this point,” I replied.
“What’s that?”
“Actually, I have two regrets. First, I wish there would have been a safe way to let him know, even if only for a few seconds, that his executioner was me. Secondly, and this is probably the one that makes me a real sicko, I wish we could have made him suffer. He should have had to feel every bit of pain that he caused Ryan, and he should have felt the terror that I’m sure she has felt. I’m not sure that he felt anything other than irritation at having to speak to someone who he normally wouldn’t have ever given the time of day. By the way, nice job distracting him.”
“Jesus Christ, man,” he said. “You really are one twisted motherfucker! I don’t know if I should be hanging around with you. Some of your hatefulness is bound to rub off on me.”
“Nah,” I said, “it’s the other way around. I used to be passive and forgiving. You’re the one who fucked my head up in the first place.”
“Oh yeah,” Hank replied. “I tend to be a corrupting influence.”
“That you are, my friend—that you definitely are! But I love ya’ bother and I definitely owe you one!”
Chapter 39
We made the drive to Forney within the expected time interval, experiencing very reasonable traffic along the way. Hank dropped me off at a truck stop as we entered town, and then he continued on to his hotel. He told me later that he arrived at his Hilton Express with 20 minutes to spare, so he took a shower
in the room that had been arranged for him, by his attorney, the night before.
He met Roger in the lobby a few minutes before 8am and told him he’d gotten in around 3am There was no reason for Roger to suspect otherwise, so nothing more was said about it. According to our conversation later that morning, while we were in the air over central and southern Louisiana, my real-estate-tycoon buddy and his lawyer, Roger Swain, had enjoyed a productive meeting with the real estate agent who was representing the seller of real estate Hank had been speculating on. The property in question was comprised of a small complex of about 40 townhome-style apartments which looked out onto Mesquite Municipal Golf Course in the nearby city of Mesquite, Texas. He and Roger had run the numbers and were acutely aware of the fact that the asking price was well above market value. In keeping with their usual modus operandi, Hank and Roger had done a thorough background check on the seller and discovered that he was deeply in debt. He’d fallen behind on his estimated tax payments due to a series of bookkeeping miscalculations, which had led to an unexpected ~$200,000 tax debt. They knew the seller was desperate to sell, and a quick sale would yield him the equity he needed to pay the ultimate loan shark—the unsympathetic and unforgiving United States of America’s Internal Revenue Service. This research had, of course, led them to the speculation at hand. As they had many times before, they were counting on the fact that the desperation of the property owner would lead to a favorable margin for a buyer who had done his homework and was willing to cash in on someone else’s misfortune.
Hank told me the meeting in Forney, that morning, had accomplished the goal of convincing the seller’s representative that he was a legitimate potential buyer and that he and Roger were aware of the exaggerated valuation of the property. They set a date for Hank’s building inspector consultant to go through the complex with a fine-tooth comb and let the agent know that they could expect an offer if everything checked out okay.
After he dropped me off and as Hank prepared for his meeting, I used his burner phone to call a taxi. I couldn’t use an Uber, like I usually would, due to the fact that payment information would be linked to that phone. This would leave a digital trail that could easily be followed and would not match up to Hank’s alibi.
As was typical of the many cabbie experiences I’d endured over the course of my life, an unkempt and fragrant—well, I guess the p.c. term would be ‘non-traditional American’ gentleman driving a well-used and somewhat decrepit minivan showed up about 30 minutes after I called to arrange the ride. I subsequently enjoyed a bumpy ride, which was provided by my malodorous driver. By the end of the ride, I’d determined he did not seem to understand the pressure between his right foot and the gas and brake pedals could be applied incrementally as opposed to 100% on and 100% off.
Over the previous several years, I had become accustomed to Uber and Lyft drivers, who pulled up in clean and fresh smelling mid-sized vehicles like Honda Accords or Dodge Chargers. These single-serving chauffeurs typically enjoyed the advantages of speaking English as their primary language as they drove pleasantly through traffic, making every effort to keep themselves, their vehicle, and their clients safe. It was as if the Uber and Lyft drivers of the world had somehow stumbled upon an eternal truth which has never been acknowledged—and possibly never even learned—by cab drivers. This new breed of ‘personal transportation engineers’ had fortunately discovered it is not necessary to make their patrons regret the transportation decisions they’d made and/or fear for their lives as they traveled to their destinations. My ride to Terrell on that day brought back the sense of terror and the fear of death or dismemberment which I had always experienced while riding in a traditional taxi.
Fortunately, I eventually arrived safely back in Terrell, where I had my cabbie drop me off at The Home Depot. After exiting the vehicle, I had offered thanks to the gods of mass-transit that my life had been spared and that I’d arrived at my destination safe and sound. I wandered from the parking lot into the gigantic establishment which was brightly lit by fluorescent light bulbs and smelled of fragrant, fresh-cut lumber. At this point, I just had to burn up some time without giving myself away as an out-of-place imposter until it was time to return to the airport.
The massive home improvement Mecca was right across the street from the Quik-Trip where I had acquired my pre-homicidal refreshments earlier that morning. I figured that no one would be looking for footage of a murder suspect on the recordings from the store surveillance cameras, so I left my disguise in my backpack and wandered the store posing as a potential power equipment and hardware customer until it was time to start hoofing it back to Terrell Municipal Airport. As I roamed the isles of the megastore, I actually came across several items I needed for upcoming home projects. I resisted the urge to purchase these articles, as I didn’t think that Hank would appreciate it if I showed up at the airport with a large box containing a ceiling fan for my study or a new cordless power tool set. It wasn’t likely that his disapproval would even be assuaged by the 20% savings they were offering. I made a mental note, however, to hit the Rockwall location of the home improvement superstore when Mandy and I got back into town.
After burning up an appropriate amount of time putting together my upcoming Christmas list, I exited the store and headed back to the airport. I essentially retraced the path I had taken earlier that morning as I returned to the airport. In order to get back to the far end of the runway, I had to traverse about three quarters of a mile of sparsely wooded terrain. The trees kept me hidden from drivers on the nearby roads, so I had little fear of being noticed, but I did keep my eyes out for any police or other municipal vehicles before I left the cover of groupings of trees and entered areas of diminished concealment. During this part of the mission, I was glad I had thought to include a camo patterned poncho in my pack, as the white polo shirt I’d unveiled at the car wash earlier would have had me standing out among the trees in the forest like a Shaquille O’Neal at a midget convention. I donned the poncho, which draped down past my knees, pulled the hood up over my head and voila! I was invisible. Well, at least darn close to it.
I checked my watch as I came to the edge of the woods and looked out onto the two parallel runways of the Terrell Municipal Airport. It was 9:25pm, so I was a few minutes early. I wandered back about ten yards into the trees and squatted down. I didn’t want anyone noticing a guy staring out at the runways and wondering if I was about to pull out a stinger missile or something less impressive, but nearly as destructive, like a deer rifle that could be used to shoot out the landing gear on an incoming plane. I knew, in the diminished light among the trees and with the camo jacket on, I would remain concealed until it was time to make my next move.
It was at this point that the reality of what had transpired hit me. I had taken a life. I had stolen a human being’s one and only opportunity to exist in this world. As I considered the act of violence and retribution I’d carried out just hours before, I was reminded of a movie line uttered by Clint Eastwood in the movie Unforgiven, about the fact that killing a man is ‘a hell of a thing’ which is akin to stealing everything he has and everything he ever will have.
The reality of what I’d done was starting to hit me hard, just as Hank had predicted it would. I thought of the wannabe gunslinger in the movie who, after one kill, decided he could not handle the mind-fuck that followed his first and only murder. I remembered that character trying to drink away the memory of what he’d done and deciding the life of an old-west hitman was not for him. I wondered if my lack of an emotional response to Brandon’s assassination meant I was even more mentally fucked up than the juvenile killer-for-hire who needed to distance himself from his violent actions so urgently that he surrendered his fee to Eastwood’s character and their other partner. No! I thought. It didn’t make me a sociopath to recognize that my daughter’s life was in jeopardy, and to do whatever it took to ensure that she would be safe. I was no sociopath, I told myself. I was merely a father accepting his duty to
try his best to provide for the safety and happiness of his offspring.
While I squatted in the woods, waiting for my cue to make my way to the rendezvous I’d arranged with Hank, I realized I was remorseful about one thing. Although I was not culpable for the decisions he’d made, I felt genuine sorrow that Brandon had made those choices. Whatever had programmed his mind and driven him to behave as he had, it was unfortunate that he lacked the strength to control his impulses. Regardless of why he was prone to such violence, his actions put him on a collision path with me that neither of us could alter. He’d forced me to do whatever it took to ensure that he could no longer hurt my daughter. I acknowledged in my mind that he had no more ability to turn away from his destiny than I’d ever had.
“Oh well,” I thought to myself. “We can’t all be winners at the game of life, and ultimately it’s hard to feel badly for a guy who’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had chosen to give pain and fear to his life partner, instead of love and security she deserved. She wanted nothing more than to be loved by him. Fuck him, goddammit! I’m not going to spend one more second mourning the live and death of Brandon James! He made his choices, and, in the end, he got way better than he fucking deserved!”
Fatal Flaws Page 25