1 Manic Monday

Royale with Cheese

Jake enjoyed feeling the cold Italian marble against the
small of his back almost as much as he did the view before him. The mansion was
located on a pristine, lonely stretch of beach along the coast.  The
California sun reflected off of the gently tossing waves.  The only mar
upon the whole scene was the blood from two bodies slumped against the patio
door. 

Jake’s phone vibrated against the marble, startling
him.  He thought he had more time.  The bodies were still warm. 
The “cleaner” was not due for another hour. 

“Monday.”

“Do we have a clear conscience?” The voice on the other line
was thick with a Russian accent, the “r’s” clipped and the vowels full and
round.

“The deed is done. Housekeeping is on its way.”

“You are cleared for recovery, then?”

“I strongly recommend that I remain until the housekeeper
leaves.”

A pause from the other line.
 
Someone
covering the speaker with their hand.
 

“When they leave, you must be prepared.”

“I understand. “ Jake hated talking in code.  It was
trite and paranoid.  But, perhaps, knowing what he did, it was wise.

“Five-one-five, dash, two-one-three.”

“Three base Monday out and clear. 
Five-one-five,
dash, two-one-three.”

He shut his phone and got moving.  He wiped the marble
down with a cloth, extracted a hand-held vacuum and cleaned along the door and
under the mat.  Jake pulled out the stiletto he used to assassinate the
two guards, removed the detachable wood handle and replaced it carefully with
another.  The replacement was a plant.  He carefully peeled back the
plastic covering the prints and deposited it in his jacket pocket with the
original handle.

Jake checked his watch and admired the sun as it continued to
travel towards the horizon. The doorbell rang.  Jake walked briskly back
through the house, its vaulted ceilings, expensive furnishings, and modern art
welcoming and cold.  He could see the cleaners through the window in the
front.  Suddenly, he was reminded of
Pulp Fiction
.  The older
man, Charles, Jake had met about a month ago.  He looked remarkably like
Harvey Keitel.  Jake did not know the tall, lean fellow with him.  He
opened the door and fought the urge to look back over their shoulders down the
drive. 

Instead, he found himself staring at the gargantuan nose of
Charles’ partner.  His nose was bulbous, red, and out of place on the
man’s face. His cheek bones stood out prominently, his unshaven chin jutted
forward, and his ears seemed barely attached to his skull. He looked like he
had skipped a whole week of nutrition and got a busted nose as a reward.

Thankfully, they pushed on past him without noticing. 
They were on a schedule.  It was crucial not to deviate from it by
standing gawking at each other or making small talk.  Besides, he knew
Charles was all business.  They made their way back toward the bedroom,
the young guy craning his considerably long neck to take in the gaudiness and
lavish home of Eilif
Nicolaisen
, real estate mogul,
trafficker of drugs and slaves. 

“Through here?” Charles motioned towards the hall.

“Yes.
On the left.”

They entered into the bedroom and put down their
equipment:  two briefcases and a bucket. 

“Nice house.” Big-Nose said.  He looked around at the
paintings, the furnishings, his eyes roaming, full of grift and barely
concealed excitement.

Charles shook his head as he unpacked.  He glanced up at
Jake and smiled.  Charles inserted the knife with surgical
precision.  Big-Nose fell forward onto the bed face first.  The only
sign of his passing was a small red dot of blood on the back of his neck below
his skull.  Jake shrugged.  Sometimes Charles took matters into his
own hands.  He usually had his reasons.

“So, how’s your wife, Charles?” Jake asked.

Charles rolled Big-Nose over onto the floor, cradling his
head with a plastic cloth to catch the blood. 

“She is obstinate as ever.  I tell her of you and she
say you are her hero."  He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
 "The woman is a tramp, I am saying.”

“I say she has good taste.” He put his hands in his pockets
with a wry smile upon his lips.

“I found him on the road, needles lying around him. 
Last night at the park.
He not
ask
much questions, but offered to have sex with me. 
Disgusting."
 
He wiped his hands on his slacks. "America is full of perverts and
deviants, I am saying.”

“He finds you more attractive than your wife does, Charles.”

Charles chuckled a little.  He was a hard man to make
laugh, but Monday had developed a rapport with him over last few weeks.

“Not surprising.  She likes young men.  Always
has.  I was young once, too.  Now, she has her way with all the young
men.  Me? I don’t care."  He shrugged.  "Let her have
her fun.”  He pointed to Big-Nose as he adjusted the body into
position.  “He fit the bill for goat?”

“Yes.  He will do fine.  He is tall enough to fit
my strike angle.  Thank you for sending his prints ahead.  The
timeline will be more accurate that way.  You do good work.”

“I am told I am the best.”  He said, pointing to his
chest.  He held out his other hand for the stiletto.  “I do not
know.  Maybe, I see doctor soon. 
Pains in my
chest, aches in my joints.
  I retire before one of these bait kill
me first.”  Jake handed him the stiletto wrapped in a heavy cloth.

“Everyone expendable, everyone
valuable.”

“That is what they teach you? 
So cold
and precise.
 
So good I suppose.
 
Easier to let go when you know where you stand in the first place.”
 

With the planted stiletto in place, it was easy to piece out
the scene.  Two guards killed by Big-Nose with a twelve-inch stiletto
knife.  On his way out, Charles would arrange the house to seem that a
robbery was in action when the thief was caught trying to hide in the
bedroom.  The two guards, amorous chaps that they were, caught the thief
on their way to consummate their fondness for each other and were
murdered. 

No need to be extreme in the staging.  The authorities
would be encouraged to wrap up the embarrassing affair quickly.  Money can
make many things possible.

Still, it was tidy.  Eilif would not suspect that he was
being set up.  Sometimes assassinations were more complicated than merely extermination. 
Sometimes it is necessary to assassinate someone's character as well as their
person.

A Few Dollars More

Eilif wiped
his face with shaking hands.  His
Hublot
Black Caviar Bang watch caught on his long dark hair.  Anguish etched his
features. 

He did not give much thought to the guards,
Hanz
and Beckett.  If Clarence had not told him their
names over the phone over an hour ago, he would not have known them from the
maid.  He had no care about their preference for each other.  These
things did not matter.  What mattered was the man lying on the floor in
his foyer.  What mattered were the police, the FBI, the unidentified
authorities traipsing through his house.

He felt violated, exposed, and for the first time since
Finland, he felt vulnerable.  He looked down in horror at the splatter of
blood on his ostrich
Ferragamo
bl
ü
chers
. 
He hoped, wildly, that no one noticed.  He fought the urge to wipe it off.
He held his neckerchief in his sweating palms, kneading the cloth.  He
watched, fascinated and utterly decimated as men and women crossed in front of
him, oblivious to his presence.  Clarence was answering all the
questions. 

This is what I pay him for
, he thought.

Part media expert, part security advisor, and mostly a
hard-nosed manager in a soft-seeming British exterior, Clarence was his most
trusted employee. 
Invaluable.
Calculating.

A small but valid concern that nagged Eilif was the
possibility that Clarence would someday realize his value and use it as
leverage.  It was fine to surround oneself with qualified and capable
people.  It was also wise to be as paranoid as possible about those people
and arrange plans of succession in the case that they must be removed. 
Despite his trustworthiness, Eilif wondered if perhaps it would be best to
offer the man more compensation as sort of a delaying action for what Eilif
considered the inevitable.  He put it at the back of his mind.

He had more pressing concerns at the moment.

He had never seen the man before in his life.  His
wounds did not make Eilif flinch.  But, his nose was atrocious.  He
had to look away. It made him a little ill at his stomach.  Eilif had that
problem with everyone he found to be distastefully ugly. 

Eilif was positive that he would be rid of these people in a
short while.  He was convinced that Clarence could handle the
situation.  He really just wanted to go upstairs to his secondary suite to
change into a robe and some warm slippers, have some brandy and read the briefs
his team had prepared for him on the shipment coming next week from South
Africa. 

He resented standing there in his formal living room
watching total
strangers
mangle his carpet.

That was when she walked in.  He could tell immediately
that she was trouble.

Detective Charlotte Bellevue was all professional. 
From her sensible blazer to the thin line of her mouth turned into a frown of
distaste and judgment, Eilif could tell that things had just gotten
worse. 

"Mr.
Nicolaisen
, I am Detective Bellevue of the Violent Crimes Unit here in
Ventura."  Her blonde hair was cut just below the nape of her
neck.  She looked fit, intelligent, and mad.

"How
can I help you, Sergeant?"

"Detective is fine, sir."  No nonsense. 
No small talk. 

Does she not truly know who I AM
, he wondered,
appalled at the disdain with which she spoke to him.

"Sorry."  He was totally flabbergasted. 
He was also offended slightly that the department would not send their brass in
a situation like this.

"Mr.
Nicolaisen
, I will need
you to join us down at the VPD to answer some questions."

Eilif's
eyebrows rose in surprise.

"I was not aware that I was a suspect," he said as
coolly as he could manage.  He could sense things spiraling out of control
and he could not imagine why. 

"The investigation is just underway.  Nothing has
been determined as to the suspect.  However, some facts have arisen that
we need to corroborate."  She seemed impassive, distant.  Her
eyes lied about the smile on her lips. 

"Facts."
He meant it as a
question.

"Yes. 
Facts concerning your
involvement with the Vasquez Cartel in Mexico.
  This man," she
indicated the man with a sweep of a
hand,
"was
connected to the cartel."