1 Manic Monday (7 page)

He tried to push to the back of his mind the burden that his
life was not the only one on the line in this venture.  Gary, Sam, and
Violet could also find themselves in danger if this did not go as
planned. 

Of course
, he thought with chagrin,
there
wasn't
really a plan, per se
.

Of Giselle, he could not even spend
a
moment
thinking about her now.  He did not want to allow a stray
thought to tip his hand.  He needed to be as engrossed in his performance
as the compliant, ignorant, and eager to kill assassin as he could muster.

The double oak doors were already shut.  He would have
to knock.  He suddenly noticed his palms were sweating.  He could not
go in like that.  He stopped and waved his hands vigorously.  He did
not want to seem to have an itchy trigger finger.

Jake checked his piece tucked neatly inside his jacket under
his left arm. He had picked up a new holster in the armory early this morning
just after having his usual caramel
machiatto
with an
extra shot of espresso.  He felt a little fuzzy.  He closed his eyes
and tried to clear his head.  He breathed slowly, listening to his
body.  He tried to focus and be open at the same time.

He was getting nowhere standing in the hall shaking his
hands and trying to find clarity before jumping off the precipice, so he
grabbed the door knob with confidence and put a surprised smile on his
face. 

The wolves were calling and he needed to meet them with a
smile and a handshake.  The snakes were slithering and Jake needed to
stoop lower than their bellies to leave this room alive.

"Mr. Monday," Lars said with false warmth. 
Jake could see the truth stuck between his teeth like some week-old beef.
"We were just discussing your role in our new project.  Come join
us."

The sun glinted off the fourteen-foot council table in front
of the bank of windows.  The full glory of downtown New York rose in the
distance up river.  Jake was not afraid of heights, but this view to the
north always made him a little dizzy.  He imagined the bright sun made him
squint, his eyes narrow like a drifter staring down his enemy.  It made
him
want
to spit tobacco on the carpet and deepen his
scowl.

He took a plush leather chair and swiveled it around so he
was not staring directly into the morning sun rising to the east.  He did
not bother shaking anyone's hands.  He knew that was taboo here. 
This was not business.  This was not about manners and the lies that
surrounded small talk and the other sycophant behaviors regarded as etiquette in
the corporate world.

This was about vengeance.  No handshakes needed for
dealing death.   
Only loaded pistols and blood
running in the dust at high noon.

He nodded at the balding Xavier Darius as a sign of
respect.  He noted the long, serious faces of his brothers and his eldest
son.  No Calvin, evidently. 
Too small to show, or
merely too dangerous?

Jake perused the countenances of the seven men seated across
from him.  He could not see all them clearly because of the glare. 
He believed three of the
board were
present.  In addition,
Xavier's son,
  Matthew
sat next to him, a
perma
-scowl on his face. 

He wanted desperately to be able to stow his normal tendency
to crack a joke for a different set of company.

No one here with a funny bone in their body
, Jake
thought.

He knew they would suspect that something was wrong if he
did not succumb to his customary benign banter.  He desperately wanted to
push the Stetson down in front of his eyes, kick his boots up on the long table
and take a nap.  He fought the urge. 

"Talking about me behind my back
again, Lars?
  I knew I shouldn't have taken down those bugs in here
last week," Jake said with a plastic smile on his face.  He could
almost hear it squeak against his teeth.

He saw Gary's grimace.  Gary sat with his palms on his
lap.  Jake saw his leg working nervously under the table.  It was a
good thing that Gary always appeared nervous.

The general consensus at the table was a frown.  Two
thick men in dark suits stood in the corner, their eyes boring holes into
him.  Their muscles rippled beneath their ill-fitting, off-the-rack
jackets.  The bulges of their tell-tale
Berrettas
were so
obvious,
a third grader could tell they were
packing.

In his mind, a high pitched, western whistling echoed. 
He fought the temptation to smile.

He wondered at these fellas.  Why would Darius bring
obvious mafia beef into a complex full of trained
mercs
,
assassins, and highly-trained support personnel?  It made no sense. 
They would be dead in seconds if Jake sneezed wrong.

Did the Darius Electric Cooperative owners feel safer with
four hundred and eighty pounds of meat protecting their backsides?  If
their IQs were equal to their chest circumference, the bodyguards might feel a
little daunted and overwhelmed with the audacity of their employers. 

Jake was reminded of the national economy.  It suffered
from a similar misconception of expectation. 
Over
promise, under deliver.
  Good choice.

Lars cleared his throat.

"We were just saying that the demands of this
assignment are simple and straightforward.  Nothing you can't
handle.  Once we agree to the timeline, we can get the other formalities
out of the way and get started.  Sound good?"  Jake felt his
eyebrows rise and his eyes bulge. 
Sound good?
 

His cheery manner was completely out of place.  Was
Lars scared?  And, when was the last time the Director asked if something
sounded good?  He attempted to keep the surprised look from his
face.  This was all so
dubious,
his hairs were
prickling at the base of his neck.

He was treading very deep water.

"Sounds fine, Director."
 
He wanted to sound official.  If this was "under the table," as
he suspected, it would be best if he kept up appearances.

"Great.  You received the dossier with the
information you need.  Is that correct?"

Jake had found a three-inch folder on his desk this
morning.  He had not even looked at its contents.  He knew what it
would contain. 
Excuses, lies, plans, uninteresting
information, mission parameters, success and failure directives.
 
It was a file with more specific details than the folder Lars had given him
last week.  Giselle was named, obviously, as the target.

"Absolutely.
  Just let me
know when I can get started.  I am anxious to do what I do best with my
particular set of skills."  He was trying to throw in as many cheesy
movie lines as possible.  He wanted to inspire greatness in the mafia
suits.  He was supposed to be some sort of hero here.  He needed to
fill the role. 
Cocky.
 
Brash.
 
Overeager.
 
Capable.
 
Professional.
  Jerk.

So far, so good.
  He did not
want to celebrate too early, though.  He had not received an offer. 
He trusted that the folder still on his desk held information regarding Ms.
Chaput's
itinerary, her residence, hotels booked, credit
card information, cell phone number, email address, favorite perfume, and underwear
size.  Ideas for confrontation, infiltration, and elimination would be
detailed.  Proposals for extraction, transportation, and ammunition would
be suggested.

"Mr. Monday, we know you are capable of carrying out
the mission parameters.  You do understand that the target is New Year's
Eve?"

Jake was only mildly surprised.  He did not show it.

"Of course.
  I am looking
forward to celebrating the
new year
in
style."  Now he was laying it on thick.  He could see a smile
creep across Xavier's face.  He was delighting in the baseness of
this. 

Jake wondered if anyone in the room besides him had ever
killed another human being.  The mafia guys looked like pounders, not
duelists.  Perhaps they had bludgeoned someone to death, or sat on them
until they suffocated.

There was no romance in it.  Murder was not an
aphrodisiac.  Snuffing out another's life was merely a vivid reminder of
one's own mortality.  As a race, humans could be so soft, weak, and
vulnerable.  Men and women could die in a million different ways.

The only joy that could be extracted from slaying a fellow
human was that somehow your life continued as theirs passed.  Joy was not
the word.  Relief was a better approximation of the feeling as you stood
over someone with four bullet holes in their head and chest and a three foot
diameter pool of blood on the floor.

The
group of “business men” were
nodding with glints of approval in their eyes.  Their morbid condoning of
Jake's task made his stomach lurch.  He did not regret doing his
job.  He just took no pleasure in it.  Some did.   It just
felt wrong.  It felt perverted.  It was just a job to him.  The
more he did it, the better he became at it, and the more he had the feeling
that what he did was terrible. 
Powerful, incredible,
and awful.

"Then we have an agreement.  Your assignment is
set and the package is to be eliminated.  A camera and laptop have been
provided for you to make a visual confirmation," Lars said.  It
sounded hollow.  He was just going through the motions.  Lars was
almost robotic in his delivery.

"We suggested using a head-cam, but your Director
refused.  He said that it will interfere with your ability to do your
job.  What do you think?"

Jake considered Matthew's question.  Evidently, he had
watched one too many spy movies. 

"The problem isn't the glasses themselves. The
resolution is bad, the live connection spotty, and the guise too obvious. 
The glasses tend to be too large, but that can be played off as a fashion faux
pas.  The only danger is that the risk of using them is too great to
justify the poor production value.  The Director is correct to suggest a
post mortem visual confirmation."

That was probably his most professional monologue
ever.  He hoped he was convincing, because the glasses would be a great
idea if they were going to do the assassination straight.  As it was,
wearing glasses would not allow him any room for negotiation with Giselle.
 Staging her death would be more problematic as well.

"I see," Matthew said, nodding at his father.

"Then I see no reason why we cannot shake on this
agreement like businessmen."

Jake stood, delighted that this was going to go off without
a hitch.

"I think the glasses are a good idea.  I disagree
with Mr. Monday and the director," Violet said, her voice shrill and
demanding.  He had almost taken her presence for granted.  She was
the only female at the table.   She was so suffused in anger and
self-pity, Jake had hardly registered her at all.

Jake saw the director swing his head around, his eyes wide
in fury and disbelief. 

So much for that promotion,
Violet,
Jake
thought.

"Excuse me?  Why is that,
Ms
…
.
"

"Sanger. 
Violet Sanger,
communication specialist and mission liaison, Dr. Darius."

Jake was impressed.  She had done her homework. 
But
what is her ploy?
Jake wondered.  He imagined she had just pulled a
Dillinger from beneath her petticoats and was holding them all
hostage
with the single round in the chamber.  Maybe he
was wrong and it was really a Gatling gun.

"The problem with the typical glasses used in
surveillance is that they are using tech from the nineties.  We have a new
model using Foster Grant and Chaps brand frames as well as couple of sports
frames and wireless ones.  The camera is embedded into the ocular lenses
of the glasses rather than the frames and use a
nano
technology that includes Bluetooth connectivity and upload speeds of up to
sixty
megs
per second.  This is faster than most
wifi
upload speeds because they do not use the same
frequencies and therefore don't have to fight the bandwidth."

Xavier laughed. 

"I suppose you can explain that to me in English,
Matthew?"

Matthew stared at Violet, his mouth agape. 

"Uh.
Yeah.  Sure,"
he said, stuttering.  He looked at his father and then glanced at his
uncles who stood watching him expectantly.  Could Matthew be the mover and
shaker here?  Daddy certainly deferred to him
enough."Basically
,
she is saying that the models of glasses they have available can provide us
real-time views of Mr. Monday's work."

Xavier barely managed to conceal the pleased smile that came
to his thin lips.

"I am looking forward to that.  Keep me
posted.  You have our information, Lars," Xavier said in a lazy,
half-bored voice. 

The Director had a constipated look on his face.  He
looked like he would implode. 
Defcon
9, at least.
 

"Yes, sir."

Jake guessed that it
rankled
his
boss to be addressed by his first name in front of his team.  Pride was on
sick leave today, evidently.

Xavier glided down the table and took Violet's hand in
his.  He lifted it to his lips.  Violet, to her credit, did not
blush.  She just stared into his eyes meaningfully and nodded with a
smile.  Xavier lifted his chin and closed his eyes.  He placed his
hand on his brother, Brandon's, back and escorted him from the room, the sun
reflecting from his prodigious bald spot.