“Sharon did enough,” I said.
“You don’t make time to heal, you won’t.”
“I’ll do.”
“You don’t look like you’ll do. You look like you’re over your fucking expiration date. I’ve seen lettuce not as green.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Only when your wiring gets twisted—and not your usual twisted. These are an entirely new set of wires, man.”
“Say it plain,” I said. “All the twisted wires in my head can’t decipher a metaphor.”
He leaned forward and turned the radio on. Then he turned it up after the song started to play.
“You got it bad,” he sang, his voice deep and raspy.
I turned the fucking thing off. “No more shows,” I said.
He threw back his head and laughed. “It’s the song. It pushes buttons if the buttons are there to push. This one—” He leaned forward again, turning on something different but still in the same vein. “Crazy.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I was sensing a theme here.
“All right,” he said. “I’m just fuckin’ with you.” He changed the song again. “This one is for all day, every day.”
The song was about getting it on. Even though my head rattled, my ears didn’t feel like they were bleeding out. I leaned my seat back some, covering my eyes from the sun with my hand, and passed out.
* * *
Carryingout hits was not the quick business people assumed it would be.
All those assuming people saw were the bodies left on the sidewalk, or the body parts or bones that sometimes washed ashore or were found beneath the ground or in cement. Most people had no idea of the extensive planning it took to carry out a successful hit.
There was so much to consider. Who. When. Where. How. One thing fed into another, and at the end of it, the plan had to be as airtight as possible. Scenarios could run from Plan A to Plan fucking Z.
The men that I dealt with were not of the average stock. Average men were easier to take out, because most of the time, they didn’t expect it. The men who ran in my circles, if they were smart, always kept this in mind. A friend. A brother. A cousin. Any of them would set him up if the boss said he had to go. Because in this life, it was either you or him.
Anyone looking at it that way always chosemeoverhim.
If the men I was after heard my name or saw my face—they knew it was only a matter of time.
So they ran. They hid. They played games with me, mostly hide-and-seek. But I was the best at what I did. Putting my business in terms of the corporate world, I was the CEO of Murder for Hire, Inc. I ran the motherfucker. And I had no problem destroying anyone or anything that stood in my way.
Some called me a psychopath. I called myself an opportunist. It just so happened that blood was my business.
There was a need to destroy other killers, or men who ran in my circle. These men knew the risks once they took the oath. I fit that need.
It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.
They ran. I found. They hid. I found. They played games with me. I’d play games with them, mostly peekaboo,I fucking see you, before I took the shot to end it all.
I had no feelings either way about death. It was a part of life—of everyone’s life. The most common universal rule if there ever was one. A breath is taken. Then it’s stolen for good. There’s nothing philosophical about it.
Here one minute; gone the next. Lights. Fucking. Out.
Yeah, the details were always a little different, depending on how creative death chose to be. How. When. Where. But even those mimicked each other from time to time.
One thing I’d learned from this business of murder over my forty-three years alive: we are all unique, but in death, we all end up the same.Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…
