Diary of an Assassin (8 page)

CHAPTER
18

Gustav Fabrice saw the light of the
setting sun for the first time in six weeks. He had been in what the prisoners of La Santé simply called the Coffin. It was a crate in which a prisoner would lie on his back and the guards would feed him through holes. Another hole allowed him to relieve himself, and, other than the guards shouting at the prisoner twice a day, there were no interactions.

Gustav had been placed there for attacking another p
risoner that the guards were fond of. One guard in particular, Gy, had taken enormous pleasure in Gustav’s predicament and at one point urinated on him in the box, the other guards laughing behind him. When Gustav was walking out of the prison in the jeans and sports coat he had worn at his arrest, he smiled to Gy and told him he wished he had an enjoyable life.

“Fuck you, Gustav. If I see you in here again
, it will not be as pleasant.”

“Take care of yourself, Gy. It is a dangerous world we live in.”

A car was waiting out front and
he got into the backseat.

“Where to
, monsieur?”

“Autour du Monde, please.”

“Oh, the monsieur knows his clothing.”

As the
y drove, Gustav stared out the window. Five years he had been locked away and in five years the city had changed. It appeared more crowded and dirtier than he recalled, trash drifting over the streets on a light breeze. But perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps he had changed and saw the world a bit differently.

Autour du Monde
, to his satisfaction, looked exactly the same. The small boutique catered to those who preferred something unique in what they wore. Gustav found several shirts and sweaters and a few pairs of pants with scarves and a jacket to match. The driver paid on a credit card.

“I need a shower,” Gustav said.

“Of course, monsieur. A room has been arranged for you at Hotel Lutetia.”

“Excellent. Take me there now. But I need to make a quick stop first.”

“Of course.”

After a twenty-five minute
drive to a Paris suburb, Gustav told the driver to wait. Parked in the lot of a farm, they simply sat as the minutes turned to an hour. Gustav occupied himself with meditation, but the driver asked if it would be all right for him to go for a walk. Gustav nodded.

Evening soon came and when darkness fell
, Gustav got out of the car and walked several blocks amidst the night air. He forgot how exhilarating being on the streets at night felt. He was like a predator confidently walking through the jungle, certain that he was at the top of the food chain. In prison, he felt much the same way, but because he was held in the psychiatric unit, there really wasn’t anybody there to challenge him.

Before he’d left, he began an operation smuggling narcotics into the prison,
primarily heroin. He preferred to sell heroin, cheaply, to the other inmates, as it made them more docile and easier to control.

Th
e home he was looking for was across the street and to the right. It was an average home, nothing out of the ordinary for this suburb, and inside, through the windows, he could see a family playing with a dog in the living room.

Gustav walked across the street, and knocked on the door.

Gy Tasse finished his shift at the prison and logged out. He checked in his firearm, as the guards were not allowed to take them home, and changed into some sweatpants and a warm hoodie. As he made his way out to his car, he spotted an administrator, Nicolas, stashing something in his trunk.

“I have some candy
for you,” Nicolas said, tossing him a wad of cash. “Your share of Gustav’s money.”

Gy
caught the brick of cash held together with a rubber band. At least twenty thousand francs. Not an enormous sum, but a surprising profit for someone locked away in the psychiatric unit.

“I’m glad the sick bastard’s gone,” Nicolas said, lighting a cigarette.
“He frightened me.”

“He was nothing. Just talk, like a woman.”

“I was with him longer than you, Gy. You’ve only been here two years. I was with him from the beginning. I remember one time a good doctor that was employed in the unit gave him a test, and Gustav pretended to break the marker he was using. The doctor, not thinking, gave him a pencil. You should have seen what Gustav did to him. He lost both eyes.”

“If he’s that dangerous
, how did he get out?”

Nicolas shrugged. “Who knows how things really work?
L’oublier, que pouvez-vous faire?”

Gy threw the cash up in the air and caught it again. “See you tomorrow.”

Nicolas nodded and returned to what he was doing.

As Gy drove through the streets of Paris, he thought he would stop and buy his wife a box of artisan chocolate from Patrick Roger, her favorite chocolatier. The traffic was terrible
, and he called to tell her he was going to be late. He left a message and made his way to the store.

The store was crowded, as it always was, and they were giving away samples of a new lemon chocolate. Gy took one and loved it. He ordered a box of ten and paid with the cash
Nicolas had given him. Halfway out of the store, he turned around and bought another three for the ride home.

The night air was cool and
the sky was black except for a slit of moon. Gy never gazed up to the sky in wonder. He was worried about practicalities, and theory never interested him. In school, his favorite subject was car mechanics and he had no interest in subjects like literature or mathematics. He was happy in his little corner of the world, with a guaranteed paycheck, four weeks of vacation a year, and a good retirement.

Not to mention the money that would trickle in every month from the inmates. Pay
ment for protection or for a blind eye to drug activities was something that had always occurred and he felt no guilt over being a part of it. One time, however, a man had been killed on his watch because he had been paid to be elsewhere. He had thought it was for drug business, but instead a group of inmates had stabbed a man to death. For that he felt some guilt, but assured that the man was scum, he conceded that he deserved to die.

Gy passed the small farm
that neighbored his home and glanced inside before pulling into his driveway. He had no garage but it didn’t matter, as it rarely snowed. He took his chocolates and his cash and got out.

As he walked along his driveway to the moderately sized home, he saw something out of the corner of his eye
on the sidewalk. It was a pinpoint of red in the darkness, and it would go up and burn bright and then lower and grow dim. It was a cigarette.

Gy pulled out the knife he kept with him and put the chocolate and
the money down on the steps of his porch. He walked over to the man, who was clearly standing on his property. As he neared, he could make out his face in the moonlight.

“You!” he
spit.

“Oui
,” Gustav said, “me. How are you, Gy?”

“I’m going to cut your balls off and then call the police and have
you thrown back into your hole. We’re going to have some fun there, you and I.”

“I don’t know if you’ll want to do that. You may want to try
to stop the bleeding while you can.”

“What bleeding?”

Gustav smiled and Gy’s eyes went wide. “No!”

Gy turned and ran
for the house. He stood at the doorway and saw what had occurred inside. Dropping to his knees, he began to weep.

He screamed and jumped up. He sprinted at Gustav, tears running down his cheeks. He swung with the knife, aiming directly for the throat. Gustav stepped out of the way as if he were a child avoiding a bee. He jabbed his fingers into Gy’s throat
and then slammed his fist into his temple before striking full force into the nerve near the armpit. Gy’s arm went dead as Gustav swept his legs out and stood over him.

“I thought about this day
a lot, Gy, my friend. I thought: would it be better to kill you or simply let you live with the death of your family? I decided it would be better to let you live. I think you will destroy yourself with alcohol and prostitutes and perhaps even kill yourself when you realize truly what you’ve lost. So it is, as the Americans say, your lucky day.”

Gustav left him on the sidewalk crying, a grin on his face as he walked back to the car.

CHAPTER
19

Rhett drove over a hundred miles per hour as they sped down the freeway. It only lasted a minute or two before they hit traffic and had to slow down. Then they would speed up as long as they could before having to slow again.

Stephanie sat next to him, in shock and shivering. Rhett took off his sports coat and placed it on her.

“I don’t…I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“We can worry about that later. I need to get you out of here right now.”

“Where are we going?”

“A place I know, upstate.”

She shook her head. “I need to call my husband.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said confused.

“Look at me.” She wasn’t responding and Rhett gently put his hand on her shoulder. “Look at me…your husband can’t help you. The police can’t help you. These people don’t care about laws or morality. They don’t feel pity for you. They don’t care. They have a job to do and are being paid a lot of money to do it. If they fail, not only do they lose this contract, they will never be hired again. You’re worth too much
for them to leave you alone.”

“Why? What did I do?”

“I don’t know. But I may know someone that can find out.”

It was a
five-hour drive to upstate New York. The weather alternated between sunshine and a gray, dismal rain. They were near Palmyra now, famous because the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith had a divine vision there. But other than the Mormons, no one cared about this area of the state. It was little more than farmland and forests. Rhett never quite felt like this was New York.

Getting off an exit a few miles past Palmyra, they stopped at a gas station. Rhett got out
to pump and glanced inside the car. Stephanie was staring at the dashboard unblinkingly. She had lost color in her face and he could see that her hands were trembling. He went inside and bought her bottled water and some fruit to help steady her nerves.

“Here,” he said, getting back into the car.

“Thanks.” She opened the water and took a few sips as they pulled away. “I don’t even know your name.”

“
Isaac.”

“Isaac, did you kill those men?”

“Yes.”

“You just killed them, just like that?”

“Would you rather I let them kill you?”

She shook her head. As they drove, she stared out the window at the passing farmhouses and would linger a long time on the horses.

“I grew up with horses. I worked at some stables when I was younger and I’d spend all day with them. I’d brush them before shows and make sure they had all their medication. They were so…human. They had personalities. If you just spent enough time with them, they would open up to you.”

“Stephanie, you have one chance to live. You need to do everything I say when I say it. This isn’t a democracy
, this is a dictatorship. You’re putting my life at risk too. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Please say it.”

“I understand. I do what you say when you say it.” S
he looked to him. “Why are you doing this?”

“I
have my reasons.”

“Does your wife know you kill people
to protect strangers?”

Rhett was about to ask how she knew he was married when he realized she’d seen his wedding ring. He touched it lightly, twisting it on his finger. “She passed away.”

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “
Any idea why someone would have a contract out on you?”

“No. I’m almost never home. Most of my time’s spent in Washington
. Do you think…it could be my husband?”

“Is your husband wealthy?”

“No.”

“Then it couldn’t be him. The company I work for—worked for—doesn’t pay less than half a million per contract. That means they’re probably paid doub
le that for the initial retainer. This is bigger than a domestic dispute.”

“You work with these people?”

“I used to. But not anymore.”

“You were
a…”

“
I killed people for money.”

She swallowed and looked away, out the window again.
“Why are you helping me? Really?”

“You remind me of someone, and no one was there to help
her when she really needed it.”

“How do I know you’re not still working for them?”

“If I wanted to kill you, I’ve had a dozen opportunities. This is the exit.”

They pulled off the freeway and into an intersection that led up a road
with several farms. Turning down another road past a herd of cattle that was fenced off with an electrified fence, they followed a dirt road up and over a hill before coming to a gate on their left. Rhett got out of the car and retrieved a key from his pocket for the gate. He drove the car through and then got out to lock the gate again, glancing down both sides of the road before getting back in.

Up another dirt path was an old farmhouse. It was like something out of the
nineteenth century. White exterior with a big unfenced yard and an old red barn about a hundred meters south of it. Rhett parked under an apple tree and stepped out. He opened the door for Stephanie and helped her out as his eyes darted around in search of anything that may be out of place.

“
Where are we?” she said.

“It used to be my grandparents
’ place.”

They walked along the gravel road
that curved up to the farmhouse. Rhett unlocked it and they went inside. The home was one story with a Dutch oven in the living room. One entire wall was glass and looked out onto the orchard of apple and peach trees. The kitchen and bedrooms were off to the side.

“Nobody knows about this place,” he said. “Just make sure not to call anybody from the landline. You shouldn’t use your cell phone either.”

“I have to make calls. I have appearances I’m supposed to be at, meetings, people are going to think I’ve disappeared.”

“
You have disappeared. No calls. You said you would do as I say. If not, you can be on your own.”

“Fine, no calls.”

“There’s no food here. I’m going to run up to the store. I should be back in half an hour.”

She nodded as he walked out the door. Rhett locked it behind him and did a quick run of the property. He checked the barn, and the work shed that was behind the home. He stood quietly for a long time and just listened. When he was satisfied that no one else was here, he got into his car and
passed through the gate. As he locked it, he looked down both sides of the road and realized they couldn’t stay here long. They would find them here. They would go through all his records and every single one of his relative’s, and hers too. They would check everywhere just to be sure.

As he pulled away, he glanced into his rearview mirror and saw Stephanie at the window, staring out at him.