Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (2 page)

Frank stormed to the door, but he didn’t slam it like I was expecting.  He just gave us another murderous glare and slunk out in silence.

“What’s with him?” I asked.  How could someone
that
upset be so calm?  Why would Charlie attempt to upset him further?

But Charlie didn’t seem concerned in the slightest, despite the fact that I was now staring at the door as if it were about to be filled with bullet holes.  “Don’t worry about him. Frank can be a bit moody, that’s all,” he said, as though he thought of him like a dog whose bark was worse than his bite, even as he ferociously mauled the mailman.  “He gets shy around new people.”

Shy wasn’t exactly the word I’d had in mind.  Homicidal was far more accurate.  “He hates me,” I sighed, and was tempted to say that Frank hated
him
too, because Charlie was clearly oblivious to the fact.

I wondered what they could possibly be to each other.  Father and son perhaps?  The ages were about right, though they looked nothing alike.  Frank was beautiful, his hair and clothes immaculately black.  Charlie was a slob, wearing one giant stain.  Or maybe once upon a time he had been a stray like me.  I didn’t ask.  Suddenly, being conscious seemed to take it out of me.  Even though I’d just woken up, I felt like I could sleep for a year.  I didn’t have the energy for as detailed an explanation it would take to make any sense of the man who’d just left the room.

Charlie chuckled, a sound like he was vomiting crushed glass.  “Yes, he does hate you,” he said almost proudly, and then he gave an exaggerated yawn, during which he less-than-casually checked his watch, and added, “Will you look at the time?”

I watched him stand and felt desperately lonely, though he hadn’t even left yet.  For as long as I’d been on my own, I still had a problem with it.  I needed the self-assurance that came from the presence of another human being, someone to pay attention to me and pat me on the head when I was good.  “Charlie?”

“Yes, my dear?” he asked, addressing me as he had back in the diner.  It was even more disturbing here, with no one to come to my rescue when things went bad.  I’d definitely have to decline if he offered me any candy.

“I’m really sorry,” I said.  Fucking up as simple an assignment as the one I’d been given was like second nature to me, but even with as frequently as it occurred, I still felt worthless when things went wrong.  And things had gone
really
wrong this time.

What had started out as a simple burglary had transformed into a scene of carnage that would’ve been at home on any
CSI
spinoff, and although I was still alive, the world’s greatest optimist wouldn’t be able to find a bright side to having wound up in Charlie’s bed.

I wanted to ask him about the man who’d stabbed me, to see if I’d actually killed him, to see if I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail.  But somehow, I couldn’t even bring myself to say it.  Not when Charlie was about to leave me there for God only knew how long.

The thought of prison was terrifying.  I wouldn’t last an hour, not with the way I looked.  I was pretty, there was no way around it.  I was little and a bit delicate looking, and my perpetually open mouth was the perfect shape for sucking on dirty things.  But apart from a twinge of remorse over not accomplishing what I was sent to do, and the thought of what would become of me if I were locked in a room with large, scary men, I felt fulfilled.

I’d never defended myself before.  I ran for cover, or I shielded my face, crossed my fingers, and hoped for the best.  It was liberating to fight back for once, and I had no guilt over the man’s outcome.  He’d stabbed me, nearly killed me, and scarred me for life.  I would’ve stabbed him again if I could.  It was the least he deserved for that half businessman, half pirate look he was trying to pull off, much less for running me through with a huge linty pocketknife when there were several perfectly clean knives in the block beside me.

“That’s all right, kiddo.  There’s always next time.  I’ll see you in the morning.” Cough cough cough.

I forced a smile, clenching my back teeth as my fillings shrieked in response to his kind words.  The thought of working for him again, for this to happen again, was horrifying.  But the alternative was worse.  I couldn’t keep floating from bed to bed, hoping that just this once things would work out.  At sixteen, I was already getting too old to be a boy toy, and the endless game of musical mattress was taking its toll on my self-esteem.

“Thanks, Charlie,” I said, and closed my eyes, feeling the weight of sleep dragging me down before I’d even heard the door close a second time.

When I woke up it was closer to afternoon, and Charlie was definitely not here yet.  I hadn’t taken him for a morning person so I wasn’t particularly shocked, though I’d had terrible dreams and the last thing I wanted was to be by myself.

The man who’d stabbed me had taken many forms during the night; overly aggressive guys I’d fooled around with in public restrooms, foster parents who’d been especially malicious, even Charlie, armed with a scalpel instead of the blade that had actually been thrust into me.  The one constant in all my nightmares had been Frank, scowling at me from the corner while I dropped helplessly to the floor, only for the dream to begin again.

It wouldn’t have been so frightening if I’d gotten to retaliate while I slept, but there was no retribution in my nightmares.  I never got to feel the satisfaction of my hand around the hilt, plunging sharp metal into soft, worthy flesh.  That primal strength of fighting for survival.  Me or him.  Life or death.  It was just the gasp of penetration, the pain of being punched hard in the stomach increasing as blood pulsed around the wound, doubling me over and sinking me to my knees to die.

I looked around the empty hotel room; decent sized television sitting on a dresser no one would ever put clothes in, inoffensive paint-by-numbers watercolor above the double sized bed, a nightstand no doubt containing an outdated phone book and an even more outdated bible in its lone drawer.  There was a chair in the corner furthest from the door and one at the side of my bed, upholstered to match the curtains with bright pastel colors that only emphasized their emptiness.

The feeling of solitude would’ve threatened to overwhelm me if it wasn’t for the abundant smell of cigarettes still lingering in the air.  It made it seem like it hadn’t been so long since Charlie was here.

Charlie
and
Frank.

I said his name out loud, remembering how he’d caught me when my body finally gave up.  He’d looked different then.  Stronger.  Maybe that was just my perception, being that I was falling into his arms, but it didn’t change the fact that he looked ill last night.  Charlie was a doctor, couldn’t he do anything for him?  And why the hell should I care whether someone who hated me wasn’t feeling particularly well?  It was probably a natural reaction; see someone fall, reach out to catch them.  How was I to know he hadn’t dropped me as soon as I was out?

Not that being dropped by Frank was all that bad.  It was still physical contact, even if it was brief.  And besides, being dragged across the threshold was almost as good as being carried.

Slowly propping myself up on my elbows with a pathetic whimper I was glad no one else could hear, I stared down at my poor mutilated body.  My shirt was missing in action, and my pants were unbuttoned, pulled low enough on my hips to reveal that I was a natural blond who wasn’t in the habit of wearing underwear.

This was quite the fashion statement I was making.  I’d gone from homeless to hospital chic with one well-placed knife; a marred abdomen and jeans stained beyond repair, stiff with dried blood down to the thigh on my left side, and stiff from the dirty snow up to my knees.  I was wearing someone else’s socks.  They were warm, no holes.  They were black.

I wiggled my toes, reveling in what I imagined must’ve been Frank’s socks.  I’d been unconscious, and still I was
that
close to making it into his pants.  Then I sighed as I remembered that I was in
Charlie’s
bed, not Frank’s, and besides, even something as un-strenuous as lying face down on a mattress would probably be too much physical exertion for me for quite some time.

My wound was thankfully covered, white gauze that was only one shade lighter than the skin below it.  Even without the blood loss I was pale, a complexion better suited for living in the Arctic Circle than on the streets.  But I was almost offended to see how little gauze had been used.  Considering how much of me was sore, it seemed like it ought to cover more than just a tiny square.

I cautiously peeked under the tape.  A violent bruise surrounded the no longer bleeding area and I didn’t look any further.  I couldn’t look at the actual point of penetration, not without spending more time unconscious.  Instead, I turned to my hands, the right one wrapped like my side.  The knife must’ve slipped when I’d stabbed him back.  I didn’t remember feeling that at all, though now that I’d noticed, it started to ache too.

The trashcan beside the bed was filled with more gauze, soaked so thoroughly with blood that it was hard to believe it had ever been white. There were my socks and my missing shirt, ripped apart at the knife-made seam, a stained rag that once belonged to my father.  Mom used to say that the color brought out his eyes.  It was the last thing of theirs I owned.

That’s when it all sunk in.

Things had been bad before, but I’d always been able to land on my feet.  Now I was bed-ridden, at the mercy of a man with hair growing out of his crusty ears, and I was too naked to be served at McDonald’s.

I had to turn on the TV for distraction, flipping through the channels until the self-pity passed.  Television had always comforted me.  It was my babysitter when my parents were at work and my nurse when I was out sick from school.  I’d learned more from that glowing box than I did from any class, and it was the first thing to grab my attention when I entered a room.  But that didn’t change the fact that there was hardly ever anything good on.

It took awhile to figure out the channels, to identify them by familiar acronyms between endless commercials.  As soon as I found something I might have wanted to watch, Charlie showed up with lunch.

Charlie was about my height, which wasn’t very impressive as far as heights went, with ice-blue eyes and a head of thinning gray hair.  He had a medium build gone soft from old age and bad diet, and he smelled like he’d extinguished a full ashtray with a large bottle of cheap cologne.  But I had to admit that he was charming, in the way politicians can be charming.  He said what you wanted to hear and that was how he got you.

“Feeling better?” he asked, sitting in the chair by the bed.

“I fucked it up,” I said solemnly.

I was supposed to break into the yuppie’s house and steal some stupid painting for Charlie.  That was the plan.  But I never saw any painting, least of all one he could possibly have any interest in.

The young urban pirate had allegedly bought the piece from a pawn shop.  It had been previously stolen from Charlie’s familial estate, and being the nice guy that he is, he offered to pay him double the cost to get it back.  But the man refused, and that left Charlie with no choice but to resort to theft himself.  Except that breaking and entering was a young man’s game which he was far too old to play.

Charlie had said that in return for my services he’d give me fifty bucks, plus I could keep whatever cash I found in the house, and we’d share the proceeds of any jewelry.  I hadn’t found any cash or jewelry, though I looked high and low.

I’d been tearing through the kitchen cabinets in my quest for riches when the owner came home.  He snuck up on me.  I couldn’t remember what had made me turn around, whether I’d heard him or just gotten that familiar feeling of being watched, but when I did I got his knife in my side.  The look on his face had been priceless, an expression
Candid Camera
would’ve eaten up.  He hadn’t realized that I was just a kid.  Then I’d stabbed him back and he was even more surprised.

“Did I kill him?” I asked.

Charlie smiled, though I couldn’t help but think he looked a little disappointed.  “No, you didn’t kill him.  But don’t you worry.  Frank and I took care of it.  We cleaned up your little mess.”

I took a deep breath, relief filling my lungs so fully that I didn’t want to exhale, even as my side began to hurt.  I didn’t kill him.  I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life as the bitch of cellblock six.  But I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything for very long before Frank came back into my mind.  Why would he do anything to help me?  Did Charlie make him?  And if Charlie could make him clean up my “little mess,” wouldn’t it have been just as easy to have him steal the painting in the first place?  Why was
I
hired for the job?

“Frank took care of it?” I asked, completely disregarding whatever Charlie’s part in the cleanup may have been.  If he was too old for breaking and entering, he was certainly too old to tidy a crime scene.

He laughed gratingly.  “Yup, destroyed all the evidence.  Frank’s good at that.”

Destroyed all the evidence
.  His words rang through my head.  Then it occurred to me what type of doctor Charlie had to be: the type who wasn’t allowed to practice medicine anymore.  He was working for men who didn’t care if his license had been taken away for poor hygiene or molesting patients; men who could destroy all the evidence of a break-in gone bad.  Frank wasn’t working for Charlie.  Charlie was working for Frank.  So why
had
he helped me?

I tried not to get my hopes up that Frank didn’t hate me after all.  Thinking about the dirt from under Charlie’s fingernails floating through my bloodstream did the trick.  “Am I gonna die?” I asked, the idea of a non-doctor laboring over me suddenly making me more concerned about my health.  Now I
wanted
to check out the wound, even if I fainted because of it.

“You lost a lot of blood, but nothing important was damaged,” Charlie said compassionately.  “I cannot believe you walked the
entire
way here.  You must have luck on your side, kiddo.”