Affair with Murder The Complete Box Set

by Brian Spangler

  I forgot about the air. It gets trapped inside and battles to come out, to leave his dead lungs. That doesn’t always happen, though.

  The car slowed, causing the brakes to yelp.

  “Mom?”

  “Gimme a second, baby girl,” she said. Her tone was gruff and filled with concern.

  I sat up as my mom swung her arm, slapped the man’s face. His head spun from one side to the other, but no breath or movement came. The seams in the road began ticking again, faster this time. We were on our way. Over three hundred now. Almost there.

  My mother clicked on the radio, rolling the dial until the orange needle came to rest somewhere between the numbers six and seven. WAJA-FM was the local station I liked. She’d caught me dancing and singing along to the songs one time, and had stood in my bedroom door to watch me—without me realizing it—for a while. After that, I’d sing the station’s call letters. She’d laugh whenever I did that. I liked when she remembered the station. I liked it better now, knowing the man in the front seat was dead.

  EIGHTEEN

  A FEW DAYS’ “RESEARCH”—that’s what I liked to call it—and I was prepared for Theodore Holst. Late morning had arrived and my dream from the night before was still clouding my mind. I couldn’t afford to think about my mother or the old station wagon. Not today. By noontime Messenger needed to be dead. Had to be dead, in fact, or we’d have to forfeit the contract.

  I took the first available cab, poaching it from two businessmen who were too busy talking to notice me. I slid across the vinyl, closing the door as the air squeezed from the backseat upholstery. The man in the driver’s seat gave me a brief look and set the cab’s meter.

  “Uptown,” I told him, adding an intersection that would drop me into the path of Messenger’s bike route.

  “Uptown,” he confirmed without another look. We drove into traffic.

  The traffic ahead was as thick as the stench. But I’d expected to hit a few stops before the intersection and factored in the congestion.

  We’re set? I texted Nerd, asking and expecting a confirmation. If we weren’t, we’d have to abort the job.

  We are! he texted back, the exclamation mark showing his confidence. Tracking you both, he added. The second message revealed he had taken an extra step—more than we probably needed, but not a surprising one. Nerd was the only reason the plan had come together the way it did, and for the first time my design became our design.

  “That was one of the easiest hacks ever,” he’d told me, his mouth stretching wide in a satisfied grin. “I tapped into the courier’s servers, added a message for the deli, and scheduled a pickup by Messenger. Even confirmed his route too. He’s all yours.”

  “Where at address uptown?” the taxi driver asked with a thick accent. I raced to come up with an answer, but had nothing because I hadn’t planned on staying in the cab for very long. “You have address?”

  “Sure. Sure, I do,” I answered, jumping as a bike messenger flew by the window. Another messenger followed, lightly brushing the car with his arm.

  “Slow down! Too much glare!” the bike messenger yelled, giving me an idea. I leaned toward the window, catching the last of the bike messenger before he disappeared from my view. He was right—the sun was harsh, eclipsing the buildings along Seventh Avenue and blinding unsuspecting eyes.

  “Glare is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” I mumbled, considering what extra layer of description that add to a police report.

  “Glare?” the taxi driver replied. “Is club? Is where you go?”

  “Saks Fifth Avenue,” I corrected him, remembering the sign I had seen above the building when studying Messenger’s route.

  “Okay then,” he answered sharply. I was relieved. I didn’t have another store name to give him. “That place I know.”

  The stopped traffic was a work of art. It was a visual and audible glorification of obnoxious horns and humps of color. Cars and trucks bumping and pushing, with bikers rushing along its belly like feeder fish swimming with whales. I only needed to wait for Messenger to appear. I rolled Needle. Toyed with her. Played with the narrow metal and picked at where the syringe emerged. My teeth chattered with a nervous angst. I bit on my tongue and waited for him.

  I’d come to trust Nerd with setting up Needle. I rarely parted with my ring, my partner in delivering death, but Nerd had found her and given her to me as a gift. Who better to care for Needle than her godfather? Nerd’s latest poisonous blend came to us direct from a local source, a chemist making money on the side. Nerd had vetted the chemist, while also taking great care to keep our identity hidden. The chemist also preferred payment by Bitcoin—that helped.

  “Won’t take more than half a dose,” Nerd had instructed. “Potent. Dangerously strong, so don’t accidentally jab yourself.”

  I shook my head and focused, twisting Needle around on my finger, prepared to pop her syringe at the moment I knew was coming. Sunlight cut into the cab, creating a harsh dagger of light that forced the taxi driver to lower his visor. It was almost high noon, and Messenger would be coming up from behind the cab at full speed any moment. Saks Fifth Avenue was still a few blocks away, and the deli was in the block before it. That was my finish line, and left plenty of room for Messenger to pass us. But if he was late, I’d miss the opportunity—our one shot.

  “That won’t happen,” I whispered, peering behind us. “Can’t happen.” I kept my eyes shaded from the brightness, but the sunlight bounced off the cars behind us. I squinted, trying to distinguish the faces in the crowd from any approaching bikes. My heart sank. I had one shot, and was nearly blind.

  A bike messenger flew by, then another. I focused on their heads and necks, searching for the skull-shaped dark patch of ink. Nothing. I put my hand on the door, and the cool touch of the handle encouraged me as I leaned on it with all my weight. I couldn’t miss him. That wasn’t an option.

  A flash of sunlight skipped off the car behind me, and I saw another bike messenger approaching. This time, I heard a voice. He was yelling at a pedestrian who’d stepped off the curb, nearly cutting him off. I recognized the tone immediately. It was Messenger. He appeared from the ray of sunlight like a bird flying out of a firestorm, and the mark on his neck triggered my body into action.

  I sucked down a breath and pulled up on the taxi’s door handle while kicking my feet out toward the curb. The door swung open just as the rubber of Messenger’s front tire reached the cab. The bike’s wheel snapped, the metal bent as his body hit it with a force that shook the cab like an explosion. The window spidered into a thousand jigsaw pieces, the glass shattered into a storm of pebbly stones that flew from the door and scattered over the asphalt. I saw Messenger’s chin strike the top of the door frame and heard the crunch of bones as his head snapped upward and back, twisting his neck around in a single motion. His body crumpled and slid down into a lifeless pile. I let out a breath while the chaos of the moment quieted. The tinny rattle of his rear wheel spinning was the only noise for a moment.

  “What a fuck!” the taxi driver yelled. His face appeared through the small opening that separated the front and back seats. “My cab! Look what that mother fuck do at my cab!”

  “I’m so sorry,” I told him, trying to sound clumsy, trying to sound naive.

  Curious faces from the sidewalk began to slow and step off the curb. A quiet murmur rose in a buzz of voices, asking questions and making awestruck comments. They would begin circling the taxicab soon, I knew, stretching their necks to catch sight of a macabre scene, taking the sight with them to talk about for the remainder of the day.

  “Mother fuck broke my cab!” the taxi driver continued to yell as he fumbled with his door’s handle.

  “I never saw him. I mean, with the sun and the glare.”

  “That mother fuck!” I heard again as he thumped on his steering wheel while trying to get out of the car. “He pays for damages!” The taxi driver slammed his door, condensing the air in the cab so suddenly it set off a ring
ing in my ears. Now was my chance to finish Messenger. I readied Needle to deliver the poison.

  “The world won’t miss—” I began to whisper, having slipped from my car seat onto my knees, hovering over Messenger’s broken body. Shock and relief filled me like a cold drink. I let out a gasp. He was already dead. His head was turned completely around, his eyes staring back at me. A single drop of blood fell from his broken nose. I heard a whisper in my head telling me to run, telling me to turn away and not look back, but I was frozen by the sight, by how he’d died so quickly, so . . . elegantly.

  There was no redness from the hit, no bruising or flow of blood pouring onto the asphalt. The dead don’t bleed. His neck must have snapped cleanly when he hit the car door. I buried Needle’s syringe again, careful not to prick my finger, and then jumped back in the cab. I needed to stay a moment, needed to catch my breath. My eyes stayed fixed on Messenger’s, waiting to see him blink, or to see his pupils change—the emptiness growing or shrinking as onlookers gawked and took pictures. They never did. Even as the sun shuttered behind a cloud, the black circles remained fixed and even, the image of the taxi’s door burned into his retinas forever.

  Cars and trucks blurted in protest to the abrupt stop in traffic, throttled their motors in a roaring threat to go around us. The sidewalk of tourists and suits and expensive open-toe shoes slowed and then spilled into the road again like a swollen river breaching its shallow banks. A hundred strange faces began asking questions about what happened and whether “the poor man” was alive. I took that as my cue to leave, escaping through the other car door.

  “Where you leave?” I heard the taxi driver shout. “The politsiya . . . the police need statement. You stay!” But the more he yelled, the faster I moved. When my feet hit the pavement, I dove into the street, staying low to avoid any city surveillance cameras and rushed from the scene. I dodged an approaching truck, its horn blaring, the deep tone vibrating through my body. Another car slowed and I ducked in behind it, ran along its side. More trucks and cars passed, rolling slowly enough to give me cover. I guided myself, touching their metal skin, walking from one to the next, hiding as the driver’s accented voice bellowed over the traffic. Briefly, I turned back and saw the first police officer arriving. He was a young man with hair cropped short, as though he’d been plucked fresh from the military. His baby-face expression remained fixed, stayed unchanged by the sight of the collapsed body. He checked for life, found none, and spoke into his radio. He’d likely seen many dead bodies. After all, it was a busy city and accidents happened. When he began to talk to the taxi driver, I turned away.

  I made it across the street, put my feet on the sidewalk, and felt a familiar rumble in my legs. I was near a subway entrance. I ran to it. A welcome puff of warm air gushed over me. I took to the first steps, gripping the steel railing, and turned around for one last look. Messenger’s body remained the same. Lifeless. He was dead, and this case was over. I let out a sigh and felt a comfort and confidence I hadn’t felt before. I was coming into my own.

  I was an assassin.

  Some of the crowd began to move on, their interest lost. I moved on too, but stopped and blinked when I saw a familiar face.

  That can’t be him, I told myself, convincing my mind that I was seeing things.

  But it wasn’t a mistake, and I squeezed the railing to hold myself still. Garrett stared through the crowd, his eyes locked on me. He held his phone in his hands as though taking my picture.

  What’s he doing here?

  I ducked my head, dropping down the flight of stairs in a rush, not caring if I took anyone with me this time. Before I completely disappeared, I peered over the sill of the top step, easing my eyes up just past the steel edge and the face of chipped concrete. I hoped it was just my mind playing tricks on me.

  “Shit!” I blurted.

  Garrett looked beyond the subway entrance a moment and then approached the officer. He had replaced his phone with his badge, and was asking questions.

  It was him, but I couldn’t be sure he saw me. He might have been in the city for court, or something else.

  Just a coincidence.

  But I was lying to myself. In the pit of my gut, I knew Garrett’s presence wasn’t a fluke.

  I didn’t stay to find out more, though. I slipped into the recesses of the city’s subway system. I found comfort in the rail’s long, isolated tubes, the quiet noise, in riding the subway cars as they were chased by the smell of ozone. I melted into the surroundings, became one of many in the crowd, disappearing briefly from the world. There was safety here.

  NINETEEN

  PRACTICE. THAT’S WHAT A girl needs. That’s what I told myself as I arrived at the hot little disco that had once been a popular sports bar. There was a time when Steve and his friends wouldn’t miss a baseball game without getting a seat there, without a pitcher of beer and all the bar food they could eat. But that was a lifetime ago, and the only sports going on inside now included a little dancing, some sex play, and a game of faux assassinations of my own invention. I needed to practice, and treated that need like a doctor’s prescription. But like any drug, I had to be careful not to overindulge. The crunch of stones sounded under my wheels as and I turned off the street and into the club’s parking lot. A craving for the taste of whiskey and a small turn-on encouraged me to hurry and park.

  “Practice” might be too tame a word. The truth was I’d been playing a lot, and my favorite playmate was Skank—little miss heart-shaped tattoos—the girl who’d almost broken up my marriage before Steve even proposed. I’d found her one evening after Katie’s death, when I needed the club’s scene, and bought her a drink. What started as a chance encounter turned into a rehearsal. That is, I used her to rehearse how I’d approach a hit. Nerd had stepped in to help me on occasion, walking with me through the crucial motions, rehearsing the plans, but it wasn’t enough. I needed something real, something I could sink myself into, I needed flesh on flesh. And more than that, I needed someone unsuspecting and in a public place—just as if it were a real hit.

  Skank was perfect to practice with, to toy with for fun. And it helped that she was attracted to me—on the dance floor anyway. Her hands in my hair, a kiss on the nape of my neck, and a quick brush against me. I played with her, dipping my toe just over the line of passion, but then pulling back when the water felt too hot. My time with her was running short, though. To her, I was a tease, and lately I could sense her frustrations, sense that she wanted more, expected more. The parking lot was crowded, forcing me circle for a spot. It was early in the week for crowds, but it was never too early for Skank. She’d be there, dipping her chin toward me, slinking her hand onto mine, borrowing a sip of my drink and promising to give it back with a flick of her tongue.

  Practice. Just practice, I reminded myself.

  I found a spot. It was far enough from the door that I’d have a good walk, but I didn’t mind. The city’s frigid chill and the hit on Messenger were behind me. Tonight was my night to celebrate the win. I stepped into the early summer evening, the sky nearly dark, taking siege of our part of the world and wrestling the daylight away. I passed a wall of aluminum, a tourist bus with a placard showing through the glass of the door that read “Happy 21st Birthday.” Large, blocky letters in shiny, electric blue hung crooked and peeled from one of the corners. It was someone’s birthday all right, and a big birthday it was. The dance floor was going to be crowded, but that was okay. I wanted more bodies surrounding me; that gave me more to practice with, more variables in what could happen during an actual hit.

  I stopped before reaching the door and kicked at a stone, suddenly rethinking the night. I wasn’t alone. I wrapped my hand around my middle as if waiting to feel an approving stir. I was going to be a mother again, and this wasn’t how a mother should act. The smell of the bus exhaust brought back an image of my own mother, her narrow chin and wide eyes, the sound of her moans as she came with a stranger beneath her.

  Who am I kid
ding? This is exactly how my mother would act.

  The only mother I had. I learned it from her.

  “But you’re different,” I answered to myself. “This is practice . . . for work.” I nodded slowly and reached for the door. I entered the foyer, a small, dark cushion of space between the club and the outside. A sudden punch jabbed beneath my ribs, forcing me to lean against the wall. Swirling waves of raised stucco pressed into my bare arm, gently scratching me while I swayed and tried to shake the sudden pain.

  “Was that you?” I asked, but knew it couldn’t be the baby, not yet. It was still way too soon for me to feel anything. My hands went numb and I clenched them, thinking the anticipation of getting some practice was making my adrenaline pump. “Get a grip, would you?”

  A wave a nausea came next and I leaned harder into the stucco, waiting for the sickening churn to pass.

  Morning sickness?

  I’d had it with Michael, but it had never hit me with this kind of pain. I waited and kept a pleasant thought in my mind. Snacks had been an easy pregnancy—never got sick, not once.

  Does this mean we’re going to have another boy? I smiled. Another boy.

  But I would’ve felt the same pleasure if Michael and Snacks were going to have a little sister, I knew. The pain and nausea passed.

  Music reached my ears. I was ready. I wouldn’t stay long. I’d go home—draw a bath, float in the tub, and let the day drain out of me. When the club’s door opened up, two men stepped out—boys really—both of them in black shoes with thick heels, their ripped jeans hanging low below V-neck T-shirts one size too small. They wore their hair the same too, shaved on the sides and spiked high on top, no doubt in an attempt to add to their height. Carlos would have cringed.

  The young men laughed until they cried, sharing the punch line of a joke I didn’t hear. As they walked and chortled, one of them tapped his leg to the thrum of music bleeding from the open door. I caught the motion like a bug and felt my legs begin to move to the rhythm involuntarily. I decided to go in, promising myself and the baby it’d be a short stay. I rolled Needle around my thumb, thinking if I was here to practice then I’d really practice. Needle’s chamber was empty, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use the syringe.