Totally Killer

by Greg Olear

  He put his arm around her waist, consummating the deal. “Done.”

  And he drove them back to the Dakota, where they fucked, albeit briefly, on Asher’s black silk sheets.

  Trey Parrish was the cause of so much suffering—without his referral, remember, Taylor would still be alive, and my life would not have been destroyed—that no amount of revenge could ever make things right. Did Edmond Dantès really feel better, when all was said and done? That said, I do take some small consolation in reporting that, according to Taylor’s diary, Trey Parrish was “abysmal” in bed, and—it gets better—“hung like a prepubescent hamster.”

  CHAPTER 20

  A

  lthough I have mentioned it several times, I have not discussed at length Taylor’s bouts of clinical depression. She had been on Prozac since her junior year of college—and they don’t give you Prozac unless you exhibit signs of extreme melancholy, such as crying during Ghost. (My psychiatrist may as well have hung a GOT MEDS? sign outside his office.) All joking aside, she was really fucked up for a while there. She wound up dropping all her classes the first semester of her junior year—her friend Kim Winter had spent the year in Prague, which was part of the reason Taylor became unhinged; it was during this period that she had the three-way with her roommate’s fiancé—because she had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. She just stayed under the covers, in the fetal position and in tears, listening to Disintegration over and over. I mention this now because I want to paint as complete a portrait of Taylor Schmidt as I can, but also, and more importantly, to contrast her feelings of intense despair during her junior year at Wycliffe with the volcanic surge of exhilaration that greeted her the morning after pink-slipping Little Check. This was not the Cure. This was Katrina and the Waves. Taylor was walking on sunshine.

  When she woke up, it was almost noon. The sun burst through the window like glory streaming from heaven above. Trey Parrish and his hamster dick were gone. Taylor bounced out of bed, put on one of Asher’s dress shirts—she had slept in the nude—and made for the Mr. Coffee machine. She was startled to find Lydia Murtomaki at the kitchen table, presiding over a pot of coffee, a basket of scones, and the Times crossword.

  “Ms. Murtomaki. What a surprise.”

  “Saturn, for one,’” Lydia said. “Three letters.”

  “Car.”

  “Thanks.” The Director filled in the answer, in ink. “Coffee?”

  Taylor poured herself a cup. Since living at Asher’s, she had taken to drinking the stuff black.

  “You acquitted yourself like a pro last night, Taylor.”

  Taylor took a sip of coffee and burned the roof of her mouth. “Does that mean I’m hired?”

  “There are no permanent openings at this time. Alas.”

  “Something I learned from you, Ms. Murtomaki, is how to offer the incumbent a severance package he can’t refuse.”

  Lydia smiled, but otherwise ignored the comment. There was no reprise of the death-rattle laugh. “We know you killed Andrew Borden,” she said. “We also know that you didn’t realize that the Borden hit was not sanctioned by Quid Pro Quo, but was instead the reckless act of a rogue agent.”

  The roof of Taylor’s mouth began to throb in pain.

  “Don’t worry about fingerprints or DNA evidence—we sent our best people to clean up the mess. And I do mean mess. You left the Bible there. Careless, careless, careless.” Lydia picked up a scone. “Cranberry walnut. Delicious. Try one.”

  Taylor took the scone but did not eat it. Her eyes were glued to the Director’s. Where was this going? They were pleased with her, right? If they were going to kill her, they’d have done so last night, when she was sleeping, right? Immediately, her fears were allayed.

  “If you work for us,” Lydia told her, “you get it all—all the perquisites of membership: the Dakota, the Yale Club, the Jaguar.”

  Now Taylor began to get excited. It was late in the fourth quarter of a football game she was pretty damned sure her team would win—too soon to completely relax, but late enough in the game to get her hopes up. “The Jaguar is a bit fancy for my tastes,” she said.

  “And forever in the shop.” Lydia took a bite of the scone. “Really. Delicious.” She washed it down with a big swig of coffee and took our her cigarette holder. “Understand, Taylor: we place a premium on loyalty. Nothing is more important to us than loyalty. Not even competence. The situation with Mr. Krug, this is not how we like to do business. The only reason we’re moving in this direction—the only reason—is because we cannot accommodate agents with dual allegiances. Our servants cannot have two masters. It does not work.” She gave the last three words full emphasis as she screwed a cigarette onto the holder.

  Sitting down at the table, Taylor bit into the scone. “Ms. Murtomaki, are you asking me to do what I think you’re asking me to do?”

  “Please,” said the Director, lighting her cigarette. “Call me Lydia.”

  CHAPTER 21

  I

  f Asher Krug kept a diary—and he almost certainly didn’t; diary-keeping was too feminine a pursuit—I did not have access to it. Nor did he routinely get drunk and unburden his secrets upon me, like his girlfriend did. Thus I cannot say with one-hundred-percent certainty what was on his mind as the yellow cab whisked him from JFK to Central Park West just before midnight that Sunday night, nor am I absolutely sure of what transpired when he got back to his apartment. All I have to work with are two sparse and conflicting accounts of what went down. With that said, I hope that you will indulge my relating the scene from Asher’s point of view. I have thought this through for eighteen years, mulled it over from every possible angle, and this is absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what could have happened: As the cab coasted through Central Park via the Seventy-second Street crossing, Asher was grumpy. Grumpy and tired. His Japanese suit was wrinkled, his hair was matted to his head, and a painful pimple was in full flower on his chin. He resented that the company had sent him to do such low-level work. Yes, Little Check was not the usual pink slip. Yes, the operation required more coordination and planning than usual to bring off. But why waste his considerable talents hauling bodies and bribing yacht crews? He was Quid Pro Quo’s best pink-slipper—the starting quarterback, by God—and where was he during the Super Bowl? On the sidelines holding a clipboard. Disposal duty? Beneath him. He was a hit man, not a garbageman.

  The taxi deposited Asher in front of the Dakota. Victor, the night doorman, opened the door of the cab for him. Usually Asher bantered playfully with Victor, but not tonight. He didn’t even say thank you. He was still fuming about the Canary Islands assignment. Lydia’s panties were in a twist about the Borden hit, Asher decided. She was making it personal—women were unable by nature to think dispassionately and had no business running this kind of delicate operation—and that made Asher mad. The proof was in the endgame. Who wound up offing Little Check? Some new girl he didn’t even know. A new hit man? A hit girl? He couldn’t tell which was more ridiculous.

  In the elevator, Asher remembered that Taylor would be there waiting for him. Good. A blow job was just what he needed. That and a tumbler of Johnny Walker Blue would take the edge off. Hopefully she was still awake. Well, fuck it. If she was asleep, he’d wake her up. She paid no rent; let her earn her keep.

  He saw her as soon as he opened the door, down the length of the hallway, sprawled out on the leather sofa. She was flipping through an Us magazine, listening to “That’ll Be the Day” on CBS-FM, which was then an oldies station.

  “You’re up late,” he said.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” She got up and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re home early. How was your trip? I hear the Canary Islands are lovely.”

  Asher dropped his valise—the corner of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was sticking out of the front pocket—just missing his Bruno Magli-ed foot. His eyes squinted, like he was looking down the scope on a rifle. “I was in Washington.”

  “Like hell. Y
ou were in the Canary Islands, on disposal duty.” Taylor grinned like a contestant on a game show who’d just won whatever was behind Door Number Two. “I did it, Asher. It was me.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I gave Little Check the pink slip,” she said. There was obvious delight in saying the colorful euphemism aloud. “I went to see Lydia last week.”

  Asher took a deep breath, the vein on his neck pounding with fury. Molten anger flowed like lava through him. Anger at Taylor for meeting Lydia behind his back. Anger at Lydia for recruiting her to…to replace him? No. It couldn’t be. For a moment he thought he would lose his temper—for all his passions, he was generally able to keep himself in check; the job demanded it—but he reined himself in. He grabbed Taylor by the wrist. “Outside.”

  “I don’t have shoes,” she said, grabbing her handbag.

  “We can’t talk in here,” he whispered. Then, practically shouting: “Outside. Now.”

  He dragged her by the wrist into the hallway, slamming the door behind them, and made for the elevator doors. The night of the Rainbow Room date, when it was as hot as it’s ever been in New York, he hadn’t broken a sweat, but now, the first week of November, he was perspiring. Now he took her by the hand—he gripped her as hard as he could, like he wanted her bones to crack—and pushed the button for the elevator.

  “Asher, that hurts.”

  Good, he thought, and tightened his grip.

  They waited a minute in silence, watching the numbers descend. It opened, they got on. And they were not alone. A short, slim woman in enormous sunglasses was in the elevator, holding a white lapdog.

  “Asher dear,” she said. “How lovely to see you.”

  “Yoko!” Asher released Taylor from his grasp and greeted the woman. He was not one to be impressed by celebrity, but even before moving to the Dakota, he’d been a fan of Yoko Ono. “Likewise. And may I present Taylor Schmidt.”

  “Charmed,” Taylor said. “I am a big admirer of your late husband.”

  “Thank you, dear.”

  They exchanged pleasantries—how was the heat in his apartment? It was too hot in hers. Where was he at the co-op meeting? Richard had shown up drunk!—until the elevator stopped on the ground floor. Asher supplied rejoinders when necessary, but his mind was elsewhere. His anger tempered, his brain functioning mormally, he was trying to decipher the meaning of all the activity: Taylor asks to join Quid Pro Quo, Lydia hires her. Where did that leave him? Was he being demoted…or pink-slipped?

  The doors opened. Yoko went out first, half-running past the iron gates and into a waiting limousine. Taylor tried to keep pace with her, bare feet and all, but Asher grabbed her wrist again to slow her down.

  “That hurts,” she said again.

  Again, he ignored her.

  “So Lydia said that…”

  “Not here,” he said. “The park. Let’s go.”

  “Asher, I’m barefoot.”

  “You’ll survive.”

  They went through the gates, past Victor the night doorman, and headed east on Seventy-second Street. They crossed Central Park West—there were no cars coming, so they didn’t have to wait at the light—and plunged into the jungle of the park.

  Taylor would know if Lydia planned to kill him, Asher reasoned, so the idea was to get that information out of her. Fortunately, he was prepared. In his inside jacket pocket—something only a professional killer would keep on his person—was a syringe of Sodium Pentothol. He hadn’t needed it in Tenerife. So: get her alone, talk a bit, inject her with truth syrum, talk some more. That was Asher’s plan—one that had worked for him many times before.

  Manhattan is never completely dark—the taxis don’t need headlights in Times Square, even at midnight—but Central Park when the lights go down might be the exception. The buildings beyond were illuminated, but once they rounded a path, shadows were everywhere. Asher led Taylor, who would let out a grunt every other minute as she stepped on something in her bare feet, around one turn, then another. Then they stumbled into the little clearing known as Strawberry Fields, where IMAGINE is inscribed in a circle of stones. Sometimes there were homeless hippies huddled in cardboard boxes there, but tonight it was deserted. Perfect.

  He released her wrist in such a way that he practically launched her onto the stones. “I told you not to involve Lydia.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine. You don’t know what she’s capable of. I wanted to keep you away from her. I wanted to protect you.”

  “Protect me?” She got up and came at him, crowding him like a manager confronting an umpire after a bad call at the plate. Her face was inches away from his. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

  “You don’t understand.” Asher grabbed her and held her fast, each hand gripping one of her arms just above the elbow. “I love you, Taylor.”

  He had not planned to say this. Until he gave it voice, in fact, he had not even thought about it. Just the same, he knew that it was true.

  Taylor gazed at him with her patented awestruck, almost worshipful look. “I love you, too.”

  And they kissed, in the darkness of Strawberry Fields, on top of the word IMAGINE. “All You Need Is Love” popped into Asher’s head, the song he’d disparaged on their first date, and he realized that he liked it.

  When she broke away, Asher said, in a tone both warm and calm, “Lydia is inhuman, Taylor. She’ll make you do terrible things. Unspeakable things.”

  “Unspeakable things? What is this, Heart of Darkness?”

  “Let me put it in concrete terms. She’ll make you kill Todd, okay? If he doesn’t do his pink slip, she’ll make you kill him. Little Check is one thing. But how would you handle killing a friend? Someone close—someone you loved?” With one hand he caressed her cheek; with the other, he found the syringe of Sodium Pentathol in his jacket. “Shit, they might make you kill me, Taylor.”

  They were standing close together, as if slow-dancing. His head was slightly tilted, his eyes gazing so intently into hers—and his attention sufficiently focused on readying his own chemical injection—that he didn’t see her unscrew the fake mascara tube. So they stood there, the two of them, half making out, half preparing to jab the other with a needle.

  Ah, trust. The foundation of every good relationship.

  “They would never make me kill you,” she said, kissing him.

  Asher relaxed a little. Best as he could tell, she was telling the truth. She loved him, she wouldn’t hurt him. Maybe he could do without drugging her. Heck, maybe this bit of awkwardness would be over soon enough that he could get that blow job after all. It was the blow job he was picturing as he kissed her—picturing so intently that his eyes fluttered shut. The needle was already stuck in his neck, half an inch above his starched collar, before he realized that he’d been duped.

  “I would only kill you,” she said, “because I wanted to.”

  Asher shrieked, more in surprise than pain—the great Goliath felled by a boy with a slingshot!—as Taylor pulled away and began running, barefoot, for the street. Staggering, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the Sodium Pentathol. With his remaining energy, he hurled the syringe dart-like at Taylor, piercing her left ankle as she scurried away. He heard her cry out, but her footsteps did not abate. And then the pain became too intense to listen, and the sound of his breathing echoed like thunder in his ears, and he writhed in agony on top of the IMAGINE stones, and love is all you need.

  I was one weekend removed from Asher dropping the Quid Pro Quo bombshell on my lap. In those forty-eight hours, I’d gone through the gamut of emotions—denial, depression, shock, grief, and all the other crap they teach you in change-management seminars. But I found myself stuck on anger. I was really pissed off at Taylor, for so blithely sending me into the lion’s den. True, she’d told me to only use Quid Pro Quo as a last resort, but come on. Never in a million years would I have imagined that I’d have to kill so
mebody—and my former boss, no less!

  I’d been trying all weekend to get a hold of Taylor. I tried her mother’s—this is when long distance calls were still expensive, but I was willing to pay fifty cents a minute to sort this out—but the damned phone just rang off the hook. Only eighteen years ago, yes, but with no cell phones, no e-mail, no Facebook status updates, Taylor and I may as well have been star-crossed characters from a Thomas Hardy novel, victims of a hapless inability to communicate.

  That Sunday, I took a late dinner alone at Restaurant Florent, a French dinerette in the West Village that just went out of business last year, which was at the time offering a “Recession Prix Fixe” special. The economy was lousy, as I said. I ate marked-down steak frites and reread the first twenty pages of Foucault’s Pendulum and tried to forget the shitstorm that was my life.

  By one in the morning, I was back in the apartment, in boxer shorts and a Hard Rock Café T-shirt (the more obscure the city, the hipper the shirt—mine said Košice, although I doubt there was a franchise there) listening to a bootleg cassette of Andrew Dice Clay’s dirty nursery rhyme routine, nursing a Rolling Rock, and attempting the same Sunday crossword that I’m sure Lydia Murtomaki had finished in an hour—I was too tapped out even to masturbate—when I heard a key in the lock.

  For a minute I was scared…until Taylor staggered in, bombed off her ass. She looked like shit. Her eyes were bloodshot, her crooked nose beet-red. There was a bruise on her cheek and a stain down the front of her pink sweater that might have been salsa but was probably puke. Needless to say, none of this unpleasantness stemmed the blood engorging that which was peeking from the slit of my boxer shorts. Monomania is monomania.

  But I fought off my sexual impulses. This was no time for love. This was time for war! Two days I’d spent preparing myself for what to say to her…but at the moment of truth, all I could do was shout at her incoherently, which I did for some time. Finally I mustered a lucid question: “Where the fuck have you been? I was trying to reach you all weekend.”