Dues of Mortality

by Jason Austin

  Xavier whipped his head between Kelmer and the freshly dead assassin. He then gazed at the former in awe. He had seen where the shot originated, but hadn't expected it to be from a friendly in any event. He peered down at Glenda who was still trembling beneath his body.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  Glenda just hemmed and hawed, offering no definitive answer.

  “Glenda, are you okay?”

  “Y...yes, yes, I'm fine,” she said finally.

  Xavier raised from her and then offered her a hand up. Once she was on her feet, he cautiously walked over to Kelmer and gingerly cupped the barrel of his pistol. The doc was as white as a sheet. Kelmer gave no resistance, as Xavier relieved him of the weapon.

  “I...I...f...found the bullets,” Kelmer said. “I thought they...c...could help.”

  Xavier took another peek over his shoulder at the corpse. The unequivocal head wound was glossy with blood that had yet to stop flowing. “Better late than never.”

  ****

  “We have to get out of here,” Xavier said. The three of them had walked back to the house, trying to cast off the last of the adrenaline pumping through their systems. They gathered by the side of the house where Xavier had detached the nylon hose that came in so handy. Xavier slipped back into his brother's leather coat. He wondered if Benny would let him keep it now that it had been on a dead man. “Wallace is going to be expecting a sit-rep from these guys soon.” He nodded in the direction of the darkened woods. “I was thinking we might be able to do something about that, until Quick Draw here, came to the rescue.”

  Kelmer looked shocked. “I'm sorry...I”

  “I was just joking, doc,” Xavier said, raising a hand to the still shaky Kelmer. “You really looked freaked out, thought I could lighten the mood.” Xavier inverted his hand, pointing the fingers back at himself. “Bad call.”

  “How did he know we were here at all?” Glenda asked.

  Xavier looked more frightened now than Glenda had ever seen him. “That's what worries me,” he said.

  “Dana?”

  “Or Benny,” Xavier countered.

  Glenda cupped her mouth. “Oh, no. No!”

  “I’m coming with you,” Kelmer said, most unexpectedly. He appeared as if he had made up his mind that he could do no worse than kill another person in cold blood. He might as well take off all the gloves now.

  “Not sure that’s wise,” Xavier responded. “You’re the best shot at bringing this thing back to Wallace if we don’t make it. We’ve been doing the footwork this long. We might as well go the rest of the way.”

  “W...w...well, at least take this.” Kelmer reached in his pocket and pulled out the box containing the neuro-implant he’d shown them previously. “If worse comes to worse, it may be all you can give the authorities to plead your case.”

  Xavier stuffed the box into his own pocket, thinking he’d have to stash it someplace a little closer to his skin later on. “Stay here. We’ll keep in contact. Once we make sure my brother and everyone else is safe, we can reroute our efforts to this U.F.O of yours. I have a sudden urge to bring the entire operation down around Wallace’s head.”

  Chapter 47

  Xavier hung up his comwatch, for the fourth time in twenty minutes, and stared woefully into the plane's bathroom mirror. He hated himself. He replayed, in his mind, the call he'd made to his brother before boarding. He had been mindful to talk fast and limit the conversation to vague personal inquiries. He couldn't give Benny any room to divulge knowledge of the situation. However, he knew making the call could still be a gaff he might live to regret. But one Wallace won't if he lays a finger on Benny and Cassandra, he thought.

  “I'm glad to hear everything is okay, bro,” Xavier had said, trying not to sound like the mess of jangled nerves that he was.

  “Yeah, we’re good,” Benny replied. “How did...”

  “We're heading to the airport now. I gotta get off, but I'll see you guys soon. Bye.”

  Xavier strained to convince himself of success. He'd forgotten just how much hinged on the secrecy of his identity. He and Glenda could ill-afford any more brain farts like his one with Max Porter—telling him about Kelmer and Millenitech. Though, if Benny was being tapped, then Wallace already knew who Xavier was and there was no real way to parse his words accordingly. Either way, Xavier just had to know; he had to hear that Benny was safe and sound before he took another step. He splashed another helping of cold water on his face and straightened up. He saw his hands shaking and quickly pulled himself together. A minute later, he returned to his isle seat next to Glenda, one of his fists ready to punch a hole through his pocket.

  “Anything?” Glenda asked, visibly worried.

  “No, still no answer.”

  Dana Holliman hadn’t answered any calls yet, which left Xavier and Glenda praying for her safety. All things considered, Dana was a more likely inroad to Kelmer than anyone else. Had they been spotted talking to her? Xavier wondered. If so, would they have even made it to Seattle? Maybe Wallace just happened to move in on Dana after he and Glenda talked her, not knowing of their meeting—finally got impatient and decided to put the squeeze on Dana anyway. Or maybe those two trigger junkies were sent after Kelmer, and then Xavier and Glenda showed up just when they were ready to pounce; it would certainly be par for the course. Whatever the case, it all felt different somehow. Xavier couldn't put his finger on it, but there was an air of irregularity in all of this. It had been stuck in his craw almost from the beginning, but, now, had been accentuated by those bloodthirsty hatchet-men from Seattle. Hardcore killers they were—maybe not so much trained as experienced. Shit, the Latino would have danced all night if he could have, whittling Xavier down to a pool cue with that knife. Xavier beat his fist against his lips. What am I missing?

  Glenda rested her head on Xavier's shoulder, once again, falling slave to the psychosomatic drowsiness of knowing she was safe thirty-seven-thousand feet in the air...and next to Xavier. The smell of her, now, bright red hair intoxicated him. How he wished he'd met Glenda in a different life, at a different time. There was no honor in a world that would drop a woman like this in his lap just when he'd given up on all of life. Just when...

  Xavier gazed out the window over Glenda's head. When was the last time he even imagined killing himself? His chin nested on her crown and he reveled in it like a kiss. She’s not for you, he thought. You’re a bum, remember. You’re nothing. Once it’s over she’ll forget all about you. Just focus on the job at hand. Grandad Willie used to say that a lot. “Whenever you’re confused, just focus on the job at hand.” Shit, he said that about everything, to the point when it didn’t even make sense half the time. Xavier smiled. He so missed that old man.

  ****

  Cleveland, Ohio, August 31, 11:53 p.m. EDT

  Thaddeus Maguire never cared for the taste of alcohol, but always appreciated its effect. He rarely turned to it as a means of forgetting his problems and when he did, he always ended up being reminded of his low tolerance for the stuff the hard way.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, resisting the urge to sling his glass at the wall. He was such a goddamn coward! Just like dad always said. Just like mom always pitied. He slung back a hard hit of his drink. He swished the swig of liquid around in his mouth and then swallowed it prepensely.

  “Fuck you, Dad,” Maguire warbled, his head rocking on his shoulders. “Fuck you! You think I care? I don’t! What good would it do me anyway. I was never going to do anything right. No matter how right, it was still going to be wrong, wasn’t it? Wrong! Not enough! Not worthy of a Maguire!” His chest sank in. “Not worthy to be your son! Not worthy to be...alive.” He laughed out loud. “Well, you won’t have to worry about that if he finds out. Nope. If he finds out, he’ll kill me for sure. Because he’s a killer; a craaaaaazy-ass killer, and I crossed him.” He laughed again. “That probably wasn’t a good idea.”

  No, it wasn’t, thought Maguire’s guest. He watched the sad rendition
of Little Boy Lost play out from the shadows of Maguire’s three-million dollar home-away-from-daddy. Not smart at all. But then, you weren't exactly famous for doing the smart thing. The guest already knew Maguire to be a traitor, in more ways than one. Chad Maguire wouldn’t be able to contain himself at finally being rid of this “yellow” sheep of the family.

  “Fucking people don’t want to be saved,” Maguire prattled on. “When the gene jokes come banging down your door, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. Where are you, Calvin, you psycho fuck?”

  As he went to sit, a busted spring in his recliner jabbed Maguire in the butt, and he bitched in slurred nothings. His fourth glass of a poorly mixed drink spilled out over the carpet. Brand new fucking recliner and it was already falling apart. Built-in obsolescence, it was called. Everything was built to break down to keep people spending. “Another reason to bomb motherfuckers!”

  “Let me clean that up for you,” the woman's voice said. It was a strange voice. There but not there, sound, but no sound. It was almost as if she had spoken with telepathy or a close facsimile thereof.

  Maguire turned and saw her emerge from the shadow as if she'd been born of it. She was half-naked, and wearing some frilly lingerie that looked like it had been tailored from wisps of smoke. Her fire-engine red hair was long and flowing, longer than he'd ever seen it. Her captivating hazel eyes were also just as he remembered: bright and unique, similar to the collection of sea shells he'd once gathered for her, trying to find ones that matched. She walked toward him in runway model fashion, slow motion. The sway of her hips put Maguire in a trance just like a hypnotist's pocket-watch. Maguire's eyes swelled with tears.

  “Beth,” he whimpered. “You came back.”

  She glided right up to Maguire and ran her hands through his ragged hair. She breathed in his scent as if the smell made her ovulate. She loved him, wanted him, and she was making him know it. She backed him up until he plopped into the chair. The busted spring was waiting for him, but he didn't move a muscle. Beth—the only woman Thaddeus had ever loved, had sacrificed his entire future, his entire life for—had come back to him.

  “I missed you so much,” he said.

  Beth just straddled him in the recliner. “You ever had your brains fucked out?” she “sort of” asked.

  “You going to fuck my brains out, baby?”

  She moaned long.

  Before Maguire knew it, he was through his zipper and inside her.

  “Mmm, Taddy,” she said. Only Beth ever called him Taddy. During sex, he often heard it as “Daddy”. “Mmm. Fuck me, Taddy!”

  “Oh, Beth!” Maguire relaxed further as Beth began to take over.

  “Oh, Taddy! Gonna fuck your brains out!”

  “Oh, yes, baby. Do it! Fuck my brains out!”

  Beth increased the speed of her thrusting and the chair beneath them began to rock and creak under their thunderous coitus. She was riding her lover like a jockey on the lead horse.

  “Oh, fuck, yeah! I love you, Beth!”

  “Taddy!”

  Beth then hammered herself into Maguire so hard it knocked the wind out of him.

  “Mmm, yes!” she screamed. Her power continued to escalate until it became more like a beating than an explosion of pleasure.

  Maguire's chest tightened up as it absorbed the blows from her body. “Ow! Wait! Wait! I can’t breathe!”

  Beth just kept thrusting. “Oh, yes!”

  Maguire tried to grab her, and hold her in place, but her body ignored him entirely. It was as if she couldn’t be touched unless she wanted to be.

  “Stop! Stop!” Maguire exclaimed. “My head! My head hurts!”

  “Mmm, I’m fucking your brains out, Taddy! Here they come!”

  Maguire threw his hands to the sides of his head. His brains were, indeed, ripping their way out of his skull, expanding to her orders. The pain seared through him like a bullet. Nothing on earth could ever hurt like this. Maguire went into convulsions and the crack of the chair’s wooden frame could just have easily been his own bones. “Stooooooooop!”

  Whatever Maguire was seeing hadn’t been so bad, his guest thought as he watched Maguire in his last throes. The science was right—H-ball was far too easy to overdose on. Amazing how little he actually had to buy in order to put down one man. It had mixed invisibly into Maguire's drink and was, no doubt, tasteless. He double checked his freshly washed hands for Halloxiphen residue. Remind me never to give into temptation, he thought. He looked on as Maguire slowed down; his convulsions quieting as his muscles gave out. He clutched his chest in the end, meaning his heart or maybe his lungs had ceased functioning. Not that the massive cerebral hemorrhaging wasn’t sufficient. The man had to be a mess inside.

  The guest walked over to the body and discovered there was a mess outside as well. Streams of crimson trickled from both Maguire's nose and ears and his skin was dotted in wild bloody freckles from the ruptured capillaries. He looked down. A hard-on that could have plowed ten acres of farmland pointed straight up at him like an accusing finger.

  He did have a good time, the guest thought...right up until the last few seconds, anyway. It was probably every man’s dream to go out like that.

  From a small wooden coffee table, Maguire’s fliptop beckoned his killer. He sauntered over, opened the fliptop and accessed the interface. Good. The passwords were still saved, so all he had to do was call.

  The killer was speeding down the highway when the return call beeped through the fliptop as it sat on the dashboard's cooler. The caller had a number of tedious, but necessary, electronic safeguards to engage before transmitting.

  “Maguire?” the blackened screen inquired. “What the fuck’s going on? Why aren’t you transmitting video?”

  The killer switched on the video option. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Ross.”

  ****

  Cassandra’s back ached a little because she kept forgetting to lift with the legs. She never could understand how people lifted with the legs. It still took the arms and back to lift something. The bags of fertilizer weren’t that heavy, but her OB-GYN had told her that it looked like the baby was resting a bit closer to her spine than usual and it would cause more fatigue. However that didn't matter this evening. Cassandra was hosting a rare burst of pregnancy energy, which Bennet's late night at the hospital had given her opportunity to indulge. Her husband would throw a fit if he knew she was preparing tomorrows garden supplies instead of in bed getting her eight hours, but she had now officially taken maternity leave from Cleveland Catholic Charities, and the days spent around the house doing next to nothing pooped her out more than a 10K run. Short of shackling her to the couch, Bennet could do little to limit his wife's activity.

  Cassandra set out the bags of fertilizer, a garden trowel, and two packs of magnolia seeds in a small antique Radio Flyer wagon. Tomorrow would be good for more magnolias, she thought. She'd be up bright and early and could get right to work. She just had to make sure...Ah, that's what was missing: her canvas gloves.

  Kimbrough sat in the driver's seat of his car no more than ten minutes before getting out and circling the house. Luckily, there were plenty of trees and shrubbery to conceal his movements from the street. Not to mention, the properties were so huge a neighbor would need a telescope to see anyone wandering about next door. He grinned wickedly. The home nearest the doctor's looked empty and had a FOR SALE sign in the yard—no potential witnesses there. He buttoned his blazer to conceal the silenced CZ75 9mm. pistol strapped to his belt. With his back pressed against the wall, Kimbrough slithered around the corner, prone to the house, until he was a toe’s length from the garage. It had no windows, except for one, dead center of its rear door. Kimbrough peered inside and his eyes lit like torches. The target had her back to him, her head buried in a six-foot metal cabinet in a corner of the garage. He then tested the door's knob and was overjoyed that it spun.

  “Shit,” Cassandra said after failing to find her gloves and she reflexively bl
ushed. There was no one else to hear her, but she was embarrassed all the same. It was the kind of absurdity that could only be produced by pregnancy, she figured. She then dealt a slap to her frontal lobe. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Cassandra. The kitchen. She was using the gloves yesterday to polish the silver. She went inside to retrieve the gloves, wondering what other short-term scraps had been obliterated by Hurricane Hormone.

  The brief wait was regrettable, but Kimbrough made use of it by planting himself inside the garage, behind the life-sized metal cabinet. Now, there would be less distance to close, and less of a chance that she’d spot him before he reached her. Kimbrough would break her neck quickly and easily, although for authenticity, he’d have to drag the tubby bitch inside and roll her down the stairs. He didn’t look forward to that. By tomorrow, Dr. Bennet Hawkins will be the seemingly normal husband who “snapped”, killed his wife and unborn child and then offed himself in his grief. So common, yet so tragic.

  Chapter 48

  Once off the plane, Xavier moved up behind Glenda as fast as he could. She was getting too far ahead of him and he had to maintain a direct line of sight. He changed his gait to a swifter more heel-to-toe balance as his thighs rubbed together, threatening to start a fire.

  “Oy vay, what a way to impress the ladies,” he'd said as he and Glenda deplaned.

  “Don't worry,” Glenda had said. “I'll protect you.”

  “Fu-nny,” Xavier groaned. He recalled how the guy with the knife had said “I like that in a man” as Xavier was busy trying to stay alive. The line had gone right over Xavier's head. Only after ransacking the 2017 Chevy Lumina secluded on the edge of the Kelmer property line, did it make sense. Inside the car were two brand new, Italian suits, a lockbox containing some cheap-looking jewelry and several cases of ammunition for a Zamorana semi-automatic pistol...and a carefully packed red babydoll nighty, which Xavier could picture on Glenda if she were six-feet tall and a hundred-ninety pounds. Jeez, he'd thought. Just when you think you've seen everything. In an uncomfortable flash of brilliance, the unexpected find had also given Xavier an idea. If he didn’t overplay it, he could fake being...effeminate, realizing there was more than one way to disguise oneself. After all, he had to do something. If Jerome Wallace now knew who he was looking for, then Xavier couldn't very well just waltz off the plane, with a woman on his arm and for all the world to see. Even if she was adequately disguised, he would still be picture-perfect to any hitman worth a nickel. Xavier had changed into the suit just before the plane landed: a charcoal gray pinstriped jacket and pants, complete with a lime green silk tie and matching dress shirt. Xavier had also ran a concoction of water and baby oil through his hair to give it some curl and then topped things off with a glittering left-side bang. The costume, bejeweled rings and bracelet were excellent appurtenance.