Assassin Affairs (21 page)

“Have
you ever asked your husband to let you be like that?” asked
Jessie.

“Well,
no. I guess maybe I should and see what he says.”

“You
can use Mikey if you want to. There's no zap limit with him,”
offered Jessie.

“Thanks,
kid, but he's not my type. I did get Ashley to sign this I.O.U.
though. Here, read it out loud, Jessie.”

“I.O.U.
thirty minutes of cunnilingus, payable on demand, anywhere,
anytime....and she signed it! I want one of these, too, Ash!”

“If I
ever run into her at the mall and I'm feeling frisky, especially if
I'm with my husband, things could get really interesting really
fast.” They all chuckled.

Ashley was
a woman of extremes, either very domineering or very submissive.
Today she was still in submissive mode. As she served Sherry her
dinner, she began massaging her shoulders and said “If you
don't like to drive at night, hon, we could continue our session
until tomorrow.”

“I
want two more zaps.”

“Okay.”

Ashley
returned Sherry to her car in the morning, and Sherry returned with
the million dollar payment the next day.

“Here's
the information on my partner. She just upgraded to a hi-rise condo.
This is her address, the names of her kids and husband, and a few
other tidbits of information. Please get my money back, as much as
you can anyway, and make sure I have an alibi when you kill her.
Okay? If you have to call me, use one of those throw-away phones. I
don't want any record of our contacts.”

“Sherry,
I've been thinking about it, and there's a problem with this plan. We
never leave witnesses to murder, and if there are multiple deaths,
the authorities will investigate that much more. If they find all
that money going into your account at the same time she's killed,
they'll consider it more than a coincidence, no matter how solid your
alibi.”

“You're
right, Ashley. We should postpone the killing for six months. I'll
set up a new corporate account that she can't access alone. As soon
as the money comes back into the old account, I'll move it over. Can
you wait that long for the insurance money?”

“We're
flexible.”

Late the
next week, the four mercenaries managed to get into the woman's
twentieth floor unit. They each wore a hood over their face and stuck
with their established, successful routine of terrorizing and
promising no one would get hurt if everyone cooperated. Wanda
appeared to be around age fifty and was standing with her family.

“Where's
the safe, lady?”

“There
is no safe,” she said dismissively.

“We're
here to recover the money you stole from your company. Where's the
ten million dollars?”

“I
don't keep that kind of cash lying around, you stupid tart!”
she arrogantly responded. The foursome was more than happy knowing
they were about to take her down a notch.

Laura fired
off a few silenced rounds into the china cabinet to get her
attention. Cutlery shattered all over the place. “Who are these
people?”

“These
are my two daughters Brittany and Kayla, their two husbands, our
neighbors the Johnsons, and my husband.”

“We
want the money right now. Get it or your family and friends start
having an evening from hell, lady!” shouted Jessie.

“Screw
you! I don't have it.”

Jessie
turned her pistol toward the frightened group. “Put all your
keys, wallets, purses and jewelry on the table, wedding rings, too!
Then everybody strip! I want to see a pile of clothes at my feet in
thirty seconds!”

They all
complied except for Wanda. “You too, old lady!”

Her
arrogance dissipated as she undressed in front of them all.

“We're
taking everyone's identification, so we'll know where you all live.
If anyone reveals any details about tonight, they will live to regret
it. Where's the money?” Laura repeated.

“Some
of it's invested in this condo. The rest is overseas.”

“You've
got a problem if you can't get it wired back into the company account
tonight. A family that parties together, stays together. Let's get
our party started.”

“Brittany,
take Kayla's husband over to the couch and show him a good time.
Everyone else, sit on these chairs and watch.”

“Stop,
I'll get your money for you!”

“You're
too slow, old lady. Watch the fun. Maybe you'll learn something.”
She motioned for the mismatched couple to proceed with the
entertainment. The once-arrogant woman raced to get out her bank
statements and turn on her computer. The foursome cheered on the
young pair as they watched the naked duo interact.

“This
isn't very fair to Kayla,” commented Jessie.

“You're
right,” agreed Laura. “Join the party, honey. Take either
one of the Johnsons or Brittany's man, and get over there on the
other couch.

She chose
her sister's husband.

“The
penalty for early withdrawal is death, you four, even harsher than at
the bank,” she added with a snicker.

“Here,
I've got it, look! I'm transferring the funds now. Eight million is
all that's left,” the old woman called out.

Ashley used
her throw-away phone to have Sherry confirm receipt of the money.
They remained until the entertainment came to a stopping point, then
gathered up the spoils and left. As always, they had been careful not
to leave any fingerprints or traces of their DNA as evidence.

“I
hope neither of them was on the pill,” said Renée with a
wicked cackle as they departed the building.

As the
following months passed, Sherry worked hard at promoting the
business. She and Wanda barely spoke, and both signatures were now
required on any checks or withdrawals. No one ever reported the home
invasion. The families didn't want the bad publicity and feared the
threatened retribution. Wanda couldn't claim theft as she was merely
returning money into her own company's account.

When the
six month waiting period had passed, Sherry and her new friends
coordinated a plan. One morning when she was being presented with a
retailing award in front of a hundred people, the hit was arranged.
This time it would be in the underground parking garage of the condo
building. The group made a thorough check for any security cameras.
Jessica was made the designated hitter, much to her delight. As Wanda
headed from the elevator to her car, Jessie approached from the other
direction. The others watched from the shadows just to make sure she
had no problems. She attached her silencer, buried her weapon in a
pile of clothes, and appeared to be a college student carrying a load
of dirty laundry home to her mom.

“Good
morning, ma'am,” she said, displaying her youthful smile.

“Yeah,
yeah,” came the grumbled reply.

A moment
after they passed, Jessie dropped the clothes, turned and
double-tapped two rounds into the back of Wanda's skull.

As she
stood and watched the woman drop, she beamed a large grin and said
“Yes! Yes!,” then began jumping for joy as though she had
just won a big prize. The others came out from the shadows and
congratulated her.

When it
came time for the funeral, Renée felt compelled to satisfy her
curiosity. She watched from a remote part of the cemetery as the
mourners drove up. When the two daughters approached the grave site,
both appeared to be six months pregnant. Her pleasure was equal to
what Jessie's had been, and she went, “Yes! Yes!” She
felt a surge of sexual gratification from the fact she had now been
responsible for three new lives. With all the deaths that her career
had brought, it seemed a unique way to compensate, and she looked
forward to doing it yet again. She wondered how complicated the two
families' lives would be because of it, and got a wicked rush just
thinking about it.

About a
week later, Jessica announced that she and Richard had grown so close
through their correspondence, that she was going to go spend a year
with him in Southeast Asia. Her interest wasn't really in the
missionary work, but in all the possibilities that awaited her there
with the accommodating, submissive people, the ransoms, the
availability of weapons, the rapes and an assortment of other things.
She had grown tired of Mikey, and when Laura found a buyer allowing
them to double their investment, they sold the twins.

With her
daughter leaving the country, Joanna lost interest in accommodating
Renée. In order to keep Danny happy, she invited her sister
Jenny to move in with them and continue the sexual relationship.
Jenny readily accepted. This arrangement helped to drive a wedge
between Danny and Renée. The split was compounded when he
learned that the mother of his son had nearly been forced by Renée
to crawl around in their yard naked, mooing and eating grass. He
became livid.

When Laura
decided to reconcile with her husband, Renée gave up the
rental. It had been leased with one of her aliases, and she felt
vulnerable remaining there knowing that the now-sold twins knew of
its whereabouts. She and Ashley began having issues as to which one
actually owned the other; she broke-off their relationship as well.

Sherry paid
her debt to the group, continued to grow her business, and pondered
requesting a similar hit on her fully insured hubby. Her special
I.O.U. remained with her at all times and had Ashley's cell number
written on the back. When Sherry persuaded her husband to interview
for a live-in housekeeper, Ashley magically appeared and had an
impressive reference. She agreed to another one year commitment.

Alone for
the first time in years, Renée consolidated her assets and
departed to spend a year touring the South Pacific.

Chapter 5

Thailand

Terror

Now in her
mid-thirties, Renée had accumulated a multimillion dollar nest
egg from her years as an assassin, and had been taking a year off to
tour the South Pacific and its adjacent areas.

One day,
her travels took her to a remote part of Thailand where she was
staying in a lavish five-star hotel. It was an area known for its
great surfing and abundance of marijuana. She was lying on her
beachside hammock enjoying a rum-fruit drink, surrounded by the lush
green jungle, mountainous hillsides, and the sounds of exotic birds.
As she looked out on the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Thailand,
she felt most serene.

Restless
and bored with her lifestyle of the past year, her thoughts drifted
back to earlier times. She missed the adrenaline highs. Theirs had
been a close group of mercenary-assassins, every one of them had at
one time or another had sexual relations with all the others. Each of
the women was bisexual, a few with lesbian leanings, but all had gone
their separate ways a year earlier due to the usual emotional
conflicts such an intense occupation can create, and a minor internal
power struggle. She sipped her drink, wondering what had become of
them.

Suddenly,
the tranquility was interrupted by a deafening burst of automatic
gunfire. Renée instinctively sprang to her feet and saw a band
of a dozen army-fatigued, masked terrorists rounding up the wealthy
tourists, both couples and families. They motioned for her to join
the assemblage.

The way
they were masked gave her the impression they were Muslim. When she
heard them speaking what sounded like Arabic, she felt certain of it.
Their style of instilling mass fear was similar to what her own group
had used. The smallest of the group appeared to be their leader and
approached her as she stood in the line of frightened hotel guests.

“I
could gut cut you right now you rich American bitch, and no one would
even care! You look like one of those western lesbians!” The
voice seemed disguised.

The
threatening character rummaged through Renée's belongings,
took her room key and left. A few moments later, she saw her luggage
being loaded onto the group's truck, no one else's. The menacing
individual returned and walked behind them, screaming insults and
threats, kicking their legs so that they each fell to their knees.
This was Renée's first taste of being on the receiving end of
terror, and she didn't like it. The sinister leader leaned down
alongside her and whispered into her ear.

“Relax,
Renée, it's me.”

“Me?
Me who?”

“It's
the kid, it's me Jessie, but keep quiet about it. Don't blow my
cover!”

“No
way,” she softly mumbled to herself, astonished. “No
fucking way!”

Jessie was
about fifteen years younger, had been in her group of assassins back
in L.A., and had been her closest same-sex lover. Renée had
been her mentor.

Once all
the hotel guests were together, a half-dozen couples and families
were separated from the others and loaded onto the cargo truck, Renée
among them. At the last moment, she was shuffled into the front
compartment with the leader and watched in amazement as Jessie pulled
off the mask.

“What
a rush, Renée! You're going to need more clothes than that
bikini where we're going, so I packed your stuff. Those insects can
get nasty out there, but we've got lots of screening.”

“I
can't believe my eyes, hon! The last I heard, you'd hooked up with
that missionary son of Laura's.”

“That
didn't last long, but because of Richard, I got to meet all these
guys. I organized them and they helped me get the weapons. They
follow my instructions, and we share the spoils. I'm a desk clerk at
that hotel. I do credit profiles on each guest to determine who might
be worth a ransom. Since I'm sleeping with the assistant manager, he
looks the other way whenever I do anything that looks suspicious. We
pay some of the proceeds to the local powers-that-be to look the
other way. I didn't recognize your alias on the registry and couldn't
believe that was you on the hammock. I thought you were in the Fiji
Islands.”