The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

The Hitter by Chris F. Holm

FROM The Needle: A Magazine of Noir

THE PLAZA SHIMMERED in the midday heat, flush with handsome brown-skinned people bedecked in the garish red so favored by their nation's ruling party. They awaited the appearance of their newly reelected leader, a paunchy smile-and-haircut of fifty who fancied himself a revolutionary, and whose trademark fatigues always looked as clean and pressed as any banker's suit.

I awaited his appearance too, from my perch four stories above the square-my nerves jangling as they always do before a job, my rifle stock held flush to my shoulder in anticipation of the coming shot.

He was late.

Despite the wait and the oppressive heat, the crowd seemed jovial enough. Not exactly a surprise-everyone for blocks around had been screened six ways from Sunday to ensure a pretense of unity and good cheer. To ensure the cameras caught none of the starving, the torture-scarred, or the dissidents spurred to violence by the widespread reports of election fraud that, though suppressed here, were plastered across every newspaper in the Western world.

Lucky for me, their screening wasn't perfect.

If you want to kill somebody badly enough, no screening ever is.

Some below waved flags of yellow and green. Some held small children atop their shoulders as they jockeyed for position. Most laughed and whooped along to what I could only assume were charming ditties about the triumph of the proletariat, written in a language I didn't speak and blasted through the PA so loud it shook droplets of sweat loose from the tip of my nose. As they fell, they tapped a lazy rhythm on my hotel room's window frame. Reminded me of a radiator cooling, or the ticking of a watch in need of winding.

As if I needed reminding it was past time.

As if my itchy trigger finger wasn't reminder enough.

I trained my gun sight on the PA for a moment, entertained the thought of quieting the fucking thing for good. But then, why prematurely pierce the plaza's good cheer?

No. Best to wait.

And I was very good at waiting.

I'd been staying here a week. In this tiny island nation, in this tiny sweat-lodge room. I watched the election on the rheumy black-and-white bolted to the wall in the corner. Watched UN officials cluck their tongues as, one by one, all challengers conceded. Watched last night's drunken dancing in the square as party loyalists celebrated the only result that ever would have been allowed, all the while wondering if any of them suspected they were standing in the very spot their leader was to die.

I watched it all atop a mattress made lumpy by dint of the M40A3 sniper rifle I'd stashed inside it on my first day here. Sliced it open at one end with a blade taken from one of my own safety razors, stitched it back up with a sewing kit sent up by the front desk. One never knows who might wind up poking around one's room, after all-and in a nation where the courtrooms sit suspiciously empty given the number of executions carried out, one can never be too careful.

For a moment, the PA fell silent. Then the bombastic strains of a victory march blared from its speakers. The crowd hushed in anticipation, and then erupted in cheers as their fearless leader bounded up the stairs to the bunted riser and headed toward the podium, all waves and gleaming teeth.

The music built to a thundering crescendo. The crowd seethed with ecstatic frenzy.

I exhaled a measured breath, willed my drumroll heart to slow.

He reached the podium and stood hands raised, palms out-a mock plea for quiet. The crowd raged on, as he no doubt hoped they would. The victory march continued.

My body still, I sighted my target and squeezed the trigger: three pounds' pressure-no more, no less.

A crack like thunder echoed through the plaza. When Haircut heard the shot, he hit the deck. The man had a survivor's instinct, I'll give him that-he reacted a full second before anyone else in the square. But ultimately, his gesture of self-preservation was futile; by the time you hear the gunshot, the bullet's come and gone.

Lucky for him, he's not who I was aiming for.

When my target's head exploded in a mist of blood and brain, spattering the face of a young girl who sat on her father's shoulders beside him, the crowd contracted. For just a heartbeat, they were one-hunched together, a cornered animal, trying in vain to assess this sudden threat. Then the little girl began to scream, and the crowd's reaction tipped the slope to panic.

They pushed against each other-clawing, scrabbling, anything to get away from the mess of ruined flesh that, seconds ago, had been a man. As if he were contagious. As if they might be next.

Armed security materialized as though from nowhere at the perimeter of the square, their weapons brandished as they locked down the plaza's exits. A couple warning shots to dissuade the charging masses, and the crowd diverted as one like a flock of birds in flight.

More gunfire, a strangled cry-these from the sole guard manning a secondary entrance to the plaza-and the perimeter was breached. The guard disappeared beneath the surging crowd, and his brothers-in-arms responded by turning their rifles on the crowd. A chopper thudded overhead, no doubt to spirit Haircut and his detail away from the melee. Never mind he knew damn well the threat to him had passed; being caught on camera watching helplessly as your citizens rioted before you was bad business for a despot.

And riot they would, until the lot of them were locked up or dead or far away from here. Which is why the soldiers should have said to hell with orders and let them flee the square. But most of them were kids-green, untrained. They didn't know any better. They didn't know some orders were best ignored.

I turned from the window, stretching and rubbing grit from my eyes. I didn't need to see the rest-I'd seen enough of these scenes over the years to know that's how they always play. Pop a leader up onstage and the crowd will scatter, sure, but deep down, they know they're not a target.

You want to see real panic, pop a member of the crowd.

Not that panic was my goal. My goal was to get paid. Panic was merely an inevitable side effect. And that which one can reliably predict can be used to one's advantage-say, for example, in making one's getaway.

I left the gun. I left the room. I left the hotel. I left the country. The details of my egress, I won't bore you with; they're more prosaic than you might expect. After all, no head of state had died that day-just some lowly schlub nobody'd ever miss. Hell, by the time my plane was wheels-up, Haircut had gone before the cameras to calm his panicked nation and commend his security detail for detecting and eradicating so imminent a threat as said schlub posed.

You'd think it'd sting, watching someone else get credit for your kill, but the eight hundred grand in my bank account was salve enough to soothe my wounded ego.

In the days that followed, Haircut and his ministers painted the deceased as a supporter of the far-right fringe, out of touch with the mainstream and spurred to violence by Haircut's landslide victory. When all was said and done, two dozen so-called coconspirators saw the business end of the firing squad for the part they'd played in the botched assassination.

It was a tidy justification for a bit of housecleaning, but it was bullshit nonetheless. You don't call me if you want to pop an amateur. In fact, you don't call me at all-I call you. And when I do, you'd be well advised to take the call.

See, I hit hitmen.

Which means if you hear from me, someone wants you dead.

That smear of brain matter I left back in the square? Former triggerman for the Varela cartel by the name of Juan Miguel Garcia. Went freelance a few years back. Hired to hit Haircut by a consortium of sugar manufacturers, if you can believe it. Seems under Haircut's tutelage, the state reclaimed a hefty chunk of land that had belonged to them, and they thought perhaps new leadership might be more inclined to negotiate its release.

Not that their reasons matter much to me. Everybody's got a reason to kill. It's the ones who've got the means to that I keep tabs on.

It's the ones who've got the means to that I end up putting in the ground.

Garcia's benefactors set the price on Haircut's head at eighty K. I asked Haircut for ten times that. My biggest payday yet-but then, ten times the hit's my going rate, and it's nonnegotiable. The smart ones pay. The ones who don't aren't around long to regret it. Haircut did some homework, ponied up. Now he lives to subjugate another day, and Garcia gets a dirt retirement. And me and my eight hundred grand live happily ever after.

Or at least, that was the plan. Seems that in my line of work, happily ever after is hard to come by.

Just ask Garcia.

The sun shone blinding orange over my front left fender as I pushed the rented Beemer past seventy, just back from the Garcia job and heading southwest from Dulles into the rolling Virginia countryside. A few miles east of Morgantown, I slowed. I parked the Beemer on the shoulder atop a gentle rise and watched the sun set behind the rambling buttercream farmhouse nestled in the woods across the road.

The lights inside the house were on, and through the French doors that led out to the deck, I could see Evie in the kitchen making dinner. Long and lanky in a tank top and low-slung jeans, with an easy grace and a smile to match, she chopped and diced and measured and stirred, pausing occasionally to brush her hair back from her eyes and chatting all the while with someone just out of sight.

Her husband, no doubt.

The fucking bastard.

Not like I can blame the guy for stealing my wife away from me; by the time Evie met Stuart, she thought me years dead. And my grandma always used to say you meet a girl who looks as good in jeans as Evie does-a girl who can eat a burger with her elbows on the table and look like a lady doing it-you hold on to her forever. I didn't listen.

Guess Stuart was the type to mind his grandma. Well, that, or he worked out that lesson all on his own-and either way, it made him a better man than I'll ever be.

Of course, the fact that he was a mechanic and not a hardened killer didn't hurt in that regard, either.

Still didn't mean I had to like the guy.

Evie held a spoon out for Stuart to taste, and he stepped into sight, first taking the proffered bite, and then wrapping her in his arms and twirling her around. Her peals of laughter carried through the open kitchen window-melodic, beautiful-and took me back to the summer we graduated high school. We were only just engaged-Evie working weekends slinging soft-serve, boot camp still three months off for me-with barely ten bucks between us and not a care in the world, lounging and laughing and making love at my family's camp not three miles from here.

Then I noticed the roundness of her belly in profile as the man who wasn't me swung her round and round, and my nostalgia hardened into something cold and sharp in my chest.

Evie was pregnant.

Which would have been a cause for joy if it were mine.

If Evie didn't think me dead.

If, all those years ago when faced with this path, this job, this empty life, I'd instead chosen to be a better man.

You're probably wondering how it all went wrong. How anyone could go from happy and laughing to watching from the outside as some other guy gets to live his life. How anyone could go from fighting for God and country to killing for money. And truth be told, the progression was simple enough.

Mind you, simple's not the same as easy.

Picture a fresh-jaced patriot of eighteen, straight out of basic training. Kid we're talking about's as green as can be-he barely knows which end of his rifle is which.

Picture him pleased as punch at being selected to pull guard duty for a visiting dignitary and his family. Said dignitary comes across as a kindly older gentleman, beaming as he introduces his wife and children to the kid, and thanking him for his protection, for his dedicated service. Looking back, that dignitary probably wasn't a day over forty-five, but as young as this kid was, he may as well have been a hundred.

Now picture how that kid might react if he saw the dignitary and his family slaughtered before his very eyes-taken out not honorably in battle, as a man should be, but instead by cowards operating in darkness.

I don't have to picture it. I see it every time I close my eyes.

I was not that kid.

I'm the guy who killed him.

See, back in boot camp, I was identified as having certain qualities. Qualities the military finds valuable in a covert operative. To this day, I'm not certain what specifically put them onto me, but whatever it was, they weren't wrong. I took to the training like a dog to the hunt, and why wouldn't I? Black ops was my chance to make a difference. To tip the balance. To make the world safe for democracy.

Yeah, I know how it sounds. But I enlisted in the weeks after 9/11. Back then, the Kool-Aid was flowing pretty freely, and that kind of naive, pie-eyed thinking was the norm among us grunts. But don't worry-I didn't think that way for long.

The job itself proved just the antidote.

We were a false-flag unit, operating under orders of the U.S. government but without the safety net of our nation's military backup or diplomatic support. Think back on the giant fucking mess our nation made of Iraq and Afghanistan these past eight years, and on our lapses of judgment and common decency along the way. Now think on the fact that what you know about those conflicts is what our leaders let you know, and you can begin to guess the nature of the missions we were sent on-missions our government worked hard to ensure would never see the light of day.

I don't mean to say we didn't do some good. Many of the threats we neutralized were just that. But some of them weren't. Some of them were just people we killed.

Hell, when it comes right down to it, all of them were just people we killed. Some of them just warranted killing, is all.

I couldn't honestly tell you if that dignitary needed killing or not. I can say we didn't need to kill his wife and kids. Or his entire security detail, who weren't any more a threat to us than the wife and kids had been. Hell, most of them weren't much older than his kids. But we did. We killed them all.

Well, my unit did, at least. Me, I froze up after I slit the young guard's throat. He'd kicked the door in to find me standing over his friend the dignitary, knife in hand, and I got to him before he could unsling his rifle from his shoulder. Cut him ear to ear, clean through his windpipe, and listened to his strangled cries as he died. He looked so, I don't know, surprised, as if he couldn't square exactly how it had come to this. For that matter, I couldn't square it either-but something tells me that would've been cold comfort to him as he lay dying.

There were other missions after that. Other kills. But that kid was the one who broke me. I don't know-maybe I felt some kinship with him. Maybe I'd just had my fill of taking orders from those who refused to get their hands dirty. Hell, maybe it was the phase of the fucking moon.

Whatever it was, after I killed the kid, I withdrew into myself. I stopped writing Evie. Stopped calling. I didn't figure I was worthy of her love on account of what I'd done. I'm pretty sure I was right on that count.

I wanted to die. To disappear. And when a roadside bomb in Kandahar made chop suey of my unit, I saw my chance to do just that.

Turned out it was easier than I expected. There was no formal inquiry into the bombing, no attempt to recover the dead. And why would there be? They bore no emblem of our government, and officially they didn't even exist. They were simply left to rot in the desert, disavowed in death as they would have been in any other failure.

This gig hitting other hitters started out as retribution, I suppose, or some misplaced sense of justice. I guess I figured once you agree to hit somebody, you deserve whatever's coming to you. That ridding the world of people who kill for a living was some kind of public service.

Yeah, I get the irony of the situation.

But whatever my reasons at the outset, eventually this job became just that-a job to me. Something I did because I was good at it. Too good to walk away.

Something I did because I didn't know how to do anything else.

Or maybe that's bullshit, and I kept at it because I figured one day somebody was going to turn the tables on me and put me in the ground.

God knew I deserved it.

And God knew I wasn't going to do it myself.

From my vantage point across the country road, I watched Evie's house for hours-the house I helped to pay for, funneling Evie blood money through a dummy trust set up to look like a structured settlement for the widows of war dead who fell victim to faulty body armor. Like some half-assed act of charity could make up for what I'd done to her-leaving her a widow at twenty-three.

Like it could help me get to sleep at night.

I watched as darkness descended over the whole of Virginia, and the stars rose cold and bright. I watched as, one by one, the lights went out, and the only illumination was the flicker of the TV screen in the upstairs bedroom window. I watched until even that went dark, and dawn broke across the eastern sky. Then I climbed back into the Beemer and set out on the long drive home.

A Google alert is all it takes to get you dead these days.

Crazy, isn't it? Lucky for you, though, a Google alert is also all it takes for you to get a call from me, and if your check clears, I maybe bag the guy who wants to get you dead.

Technology's a hell of a thing.

Take this particular Google alert, for example: a set of race results from Vernon Downs, a small-t ime harness track in upstate New York. Big winner of the day was a mare named McGurn's Lament.

Only here's the thing: there's no such horse as McGurn's Lament. And if you were to try and make sense of the day's stats, you'd find that they resist sense-making. That's because those stats aren't stats at all.

They're a book cipher.

The Syndicate's been passing messages this way for years. Got their fingers in a half a dozen race sites so they can spread the bogus results around, avoid raising any hackles. They use made-up horses as code names indicating the nature of the message-Brown Beauty if they're moving smack, Luscious Lady if they're talking whores, and so on-with the pertinent details encrypted in the results that follow. McGurn's Lament signifies a hit. An in joke of sorts, I guess. McGurn was Capone's chief hitman, the guy responsible for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. He was gunned down himself a few years later, in the middle of a frame of tenpin. You see the name McGurn's Lament, you know the numbers are going to code for a name-and if you're lucky, an address. Even money is whoever that name belongs to isn't long for this world.

It works like this. Say the horse wearing number thirty-eight came in sixth. That means the sixth letter on the thirty-eighth page is the one you want. Big enough block of numbers, you can encode damn near any message you like. Any message like a name and an address. Any message like Take your time or Make it look like an accident or whatever. And because nearly every letter of the alphabet appears in dozens of places throughout the course of any book, there's none of the pesky repetition that code-breaking programs rely upon to work their mojo. Unless you know what book the code is referencing-and I'm talking the exact edition-there's no way you're going to crack the fucking thing.

Lucky for me, I knew what book they were referencing. Convinced a Syndicate guy I popped a few months back to cough it up in return for doing him quick. Nineteen sixty-nine first edition of The Godfather.

Never let it be said that Mob guys don't have a sense of humor.

The target's name was Michael Rigby. From what I could gather, he was like the Chicago Mob's very own IT guy, at least until he took them for a cool twenty-eight mil and then turned stoolie for the feds-decimating their northwest operation in the process. The remainder of the message consisted of a URL, a bounty of twenty-five K, and three short words of instruction: MAKE IT PUBLIC.

The URL led to a piece in the Springfield, Missouri, News-Leader, dated yesterday, about a local Radio Shack employee named Mark Reynolds who hit the jackpot playing slots at a Kansas City casino to the tune of over $2 million. Article asked him how he felt. "Lucky," was his reply.

Only Mark Reynolds of Springfield, Missouri, didn't seem so lucky to me. Because Mark Reynolds's stupid mug was smiling back at me from my computer screen, and he looked an awful lot like a stoolie IT guy named Michael Rigby.

Guess WitSec figured stash a guy in a town called Springfield and even if somebody lets it slip, you've got to search the country over before you find the right one.

Then again, maybe Rigby was lucky. After all, between what he stole from the Mob and what he won playing the slots, he had enough money to cover my fee sixty times over.

Which meant maybe he'd live long enough to spend the rest.

"Morning, Michael."

It wasn't morning. Hadn't been for hours. But given the rumpled state of Rigby's slept-in clothes and his gravity-defying hair, it may as well have been. Though where he was going with bedhead at three in the afternoon was beyond me.

I'd been hiding in his garage since six A.M., waiting for him to show. The way he leaped for the gun stashed under his workbench when he saw me, I'd say he'd been waiting for someone like me a while too.

"Don't bother," I said.

He bothered. Click click click click click. When he caught on his piece was empty, he threw the fucking thing at me. It bounced off the wall to my right and clattered to the concrete floor. I tried not to take it personally.

"Relax-I'm not here to kill you."

But Rigby wasn't listening-he was too busy doing his best Gene Krupa impression on the wall-mounted button that opened the garage door. I'd disabled that too, of course. This wasn't my first day on the job.

He peered at me a moment with manic Muppet eyes over the top of his tan mid-nineties Skylark, and then bolted for the driver's side door. Damn near got inside, too, but he froze once I told him the score.

"Or rather, what I should have said is, I'm not here to kill you, Michael, but there are others close behind who mean to. And if you leave, you're on your own-I won't be able to protect you."

He paused halfway through the Buick's open door, digesting what I'd said.

"You with WitSec?"

"No," I replied. "I'm not with WitSec."

Rigby laughed, black and bitter as old coffee. "'Course you're not. Figured maybe they saw my picture in the paper, sent you out to keep an eye on me, but I should a known those asshats don't give a damn about me-not anymore."

"Wait a minute-you're telling me you're no longer in the program?"

"Nope. I told those fuckers to take a hike about a year back. Always keeping tabs. Checking up on me. Poking round my business. Couldn't get at a dime of the dough I'd stashed, them looking over my shoulder all the time. So I dropped out. Told 'em I was fine. And I would a been, too, if it wasn't for that fucking picture. That is what brought you here, isn't it?"

"Yeah. That's what brought me here. And I'm not the only one who's seen it."

Rigby cocked his head, like I was some kind of math problem he could maybe figure out. "So if you ain't with WitSec, who the hell are you?"

"Who I am isn't important. What's important's who I work for."

"Okay then-who do you work for?"

"You, actually. Or rather, I will, for the bargain-basement rate of a quarter million dollars."

"A quarter million dollars."

"That's right."

"Which gets me what, exactly?"

"You know those guys coming to kill you?"

"Yeah?"

"I kill them first."

Another barking laugh. "Shit-you're like some kind of hitman entrepreneur? Now I've fucking heard everything. But seriously, dude, don't you think a quarter mil's a little steep?"

I showed him my palms. "Hey, that's your call to make. But I would've thought a guy with thirty million in the bank would have no trouble forking over a paltry quarter mil to avoid his own grisly murder."

"Look around, pal-I look like I got thirty mil?"

I looked around. He had a point. I told him so.

"Damn right I got a point. See, the Marshals Service took it personal when I kicked 'em to the curb. Guess once I did they figured out I wasn't square with them when I told 'em I didn't know shit 'bout all the money that went missing. Next thing I know, I got a federal prosecutor sniffing around, asking all kinds of pointed questions about unreported income and wondering if maybe I had any back taxes needed filing. Ain't been near my stash since, for fear they'd bust my ass. Don't have to tell you if they locked me up, I'd be shanked within the week, and ain't no pile of money worth that. So instead I figured fuck it-easy come, easy go. Time to seek out other sources of income. Hence my little trip to the casino."

"A two mil payout goes a long way toward putting you back in the upper class," I said. "Picture aside, that was quite a stroke of luck."

"Luck? You think that shit was luck? Took me eight months to write a patch that could get through the casino's firewall and hack those slots. I earned every fucking dime of that money."

"And now that you have it, you'll have no trouble paying me."

"Yeah, only that's just it-I don't have it yet. Maybe Vegas does it different, but a two-bit slot joint in KC don't exactly hand over that kind of coin right on the spot. I gotta go back Thursday to pick it up."

A puzzle piece clicked into place. "Let me guess: big crowd, oversized novelty check-that sort of deal?"

"That's right," he said.

"Yeah, that's where they're going to hit you."

Rigby didn't look too happy to hear that, but he was skeptical still. "What makes you so sure?"

"Their instructions were to make it public."

Even in the dim light of the garage, I could see him go pale.

"Fuck," he muttered. "Fucking motherfucking fuck." Then he brightened. "But you said that you could stop 'em, right?"

"I said if you paid me, I could stop them."

"Right, but if you stop 'em, I can get my money, and then I'll have more than enough to pay you."

I shook my head. "I don't work that way. I get my money up front, or no deal."

"I dunno, dude-that sounds pretty fucking hinky to me. If you're as good as you're puttin' on, why's it matter if I pay you after?"

"Well, for one, there's no guarantee you ever would, in which case I'd have to kill you-and that makes two hits I don't get paid for. And for two, an attempt on your life is going to attract all kinds of attention from the authorities, which makes any subsequent transfer of funds a whole lot riskier than it would have been beforehand. But all of that pales in comparison to the fact that I don't kill without good reason. No money, no reason. So take it or leave it, but my offer's nonnegotiable."

"Everything's negotiable, dude."

"Not this."

"So what then? You're just gonna leave me here to die?"

"No," I said, handing him a scrap of paper on which was scrawled the number of a disposable cell, "I'm going to leave you here to make a choice. You can choose to run-to leave this place tonight-and who knows? Maybe you'll manage to disappear again. You can choose to spend the next three days getting my fee together. If you're successful, you give me a ring on that number there, and you have my word no harm will come to you. Or you can choose to do nothing and see how long your luck holds. It's up to you."

Rigby was silent a long while. Then he shook his head and swore. "Damn-all I figured on getting when I came out here was a breakfast sandwich from the gas station on the corner. Instead, I get you, and all the sudden I ain't so hungry anymore." He paused and licked his lips. "But I could sure as shit use something to drink."

Thursday morning, Rigby called. I knew he would. What I hadn't figured on was what he'd say.

"You get my money?" I asked.

"Not exactly," he said.

"Then this conversation is over."

"Wait-don't hang up!"

I didn't hang up. God knows why, but I didn't. Now, of course, I wish to hell I had.

"I'm listening."

"I want you to take it all."

"Excuse me?"

"The whole two mil. Every fucking penny. Just get these guys off my ass long enough for me to rabbit, and it's yours."

Two million dollars.

Two million dollars.

It was more than I could make in three jobs-in five. And it was just sitting there in front of me for the taking. All I had to do was pop some lowlife Syndicate button man, and bam.

I wanted to do a backflip. To happy-dance around the fucking room. But Rigby didn't need to know that. So I played it calm, cool. "And how do you propose to get me this money?"

"That's the beauty part," he said, relief apparent in his tone. "We just have the casino give it straight to you. See, that big check is just for show-I'm supposed to give 'em my account info ahead of time so they can transfer the funds directly once the dog-and-pony show is over. But I figure a big-shot hitman like you has probably got a numbered account somewhere, all nice and anonymous-like, am I right? So who's to say for the purpose of this transaction that account ain't mine?"

I should have said no. Should have up and walked away. But I got greedy. I got stupid. Two million dollars buys a lot of bad decisions. So what I said instead was, "You try to screw me, and I'll kill you-you know that, right?"

I swear, I could damn near hear him smiling. "That mean we got a deal?"

Two. Million. Dollars.

"Yeah, we got a deal."

"Cool-let me grab a pen."

Pendleton's Resort and Casino was a tacky riverboat-themed complex overlooking the Missouri River from an industrial park just north of KC proper. And old-timey marquee awash in the light of a thousand bulbs gave way to an interior whose décor was as loud and jarring as the din rising from its endless banks of garish, clanking slots.

Rigby's ceremony was in a banquet hall just off the gaming floor, sandwiched between a hypnotist's matinee performance and some country act I'd never heard of. The room was big and dark, with plush carpeting of nauseating green and red and floor-to-ceiling curtains on each wall. A small stage was set up at one end of the room, surrounded by a smattering of linened tables with folding chairs to match. The chairs were mostly occupied, full of drunks and barflies and compulsive gamblers who'd run out of dough, tossing back free drinks and snatching apps from silver platters as they passed. To one side of the stage was a short, stout bar, people crowded all around. At each of the two exits was a security guard-husky, uniformed, armed. Another couple stood just offstage at either side.

I didn't like it.

The hall was too full, had too few exits and way too much security. Not to mention the half-domes of tinted plastic that protruded downward at regular intervals from the ceiling-security cameras, watching every inch of the room.

The room I was about to pop a guy in.

I told myself that I should walk. That the chances of success-as defined by both me and Rigby getting out of here alive-were slim to none. That to do this job right, I would've had to scout the place a week, maybe identify the button man ahead of time. And I wasn't wrong.

Problem was, I had two million reasons to try anyway.

Least I'd come prepared. Job like this, the key is blending in, so I'd gone full-on gambling cliché. A red-and-white-checked cowboy shirt with white trim. Dark blue boot-cut jeans over a pair of alligator boots. Brown leather jacket with a ceramic knife stashed in the lining of its right sleeve, and a homemade pen-light zip gun in its left-hand pocket. On my head, an off-white Stetson, a pair of BluBlockers, and a big-ass fake mustache. Did I look ridiculous? Absolutely-but then, so did everyone else in here. If I'd walked in dressed for stealth, any hitter worth his salt would've made me in an instant. Just like I made the guy I was gunning for.

Seems he went the cliché route too. Black turtleneck. Black jeans. Black jacket, beneath which lurked the telltale bulk of a shoulder holster. Coarse, grim features, and hair so slick it glistened beneath the lights. He was sitting down in front, his hands under the table, casting surreptitious glances around the room while waiting for Rigby to take the stage. In front of him a gin and tonic sat untouched. As I watched him from behind my tinted lenses, he glanced back my way a moment, but his eyes just slid right off me. And why wouldn't they? I was just another two-bit gambler playing cowboy, one of thirty in the room.

Seemed to me the key was tagging him all quiet-like, then getting out of here before the crowd got wise he'd died. Figured I'd sidle up beside him acting tipsy while everyone was still milling about, then lean in quick and slice his femoral. He'd bleed out onto the floor beneath his table in seconds, and the floor-length linens would hide the worst of it. Long as he didn't fall out of his chair, he'd probably just look like another sloppy drunk too soused to play the tables. By the time the room cleared and his body was discovered, I'd be half a state away from here.

That's what I told myself, at least.

But that's not quite how it went down.

Oh, sure, I sidled up just like I'd planned, dropped the knife into my palm with a practiced flick. Spied Rigby standing in the wings as I approached the stage, straining to see the audience past the stage lights and looking like he had a king-fuck case of stage fright. Then something kind of weird happened.

And by "something kind of weird happened," I mean my target doubled over coughing, and then the room erupted in a hail of gunfire.

When the shots rang out, Rigby hit the deck, drywall pocking just behind where he'd been standing. I hit the floor as well, but not quickly enough-a bullet tore through my right side and spilled blood all over where my target should've been. But he wasn't there anymore. He'd turned his double-over into a roll, vacating his chair just before his buddies blew it all to hell and taking cover behind the bar as its patrons fled.

Did I say "target"? I should've said "bait." And did I say "Rigby"? I should've said "shit-bag." Because as I said before, by the time you hear the shot, the bullet's come and gone, only Rigby managed to duck those ones just fine. And no way could he have seen someone pull a gun past all the stage lights. Besides, it was clear my would-be target's cough had been the go-ahead to open fire. The fact that Rigby ducked in time meant he hadn't reacted to the gunfire, he'd reacted to the cough-which meant that he'd been tipped to listen for it.

Which meant the fucker'd set me up.

I kicked a table over, darted behind it. The shooting continued unabated. Staccato, automatic, and so fucking loud I could barely hear the screaming of the crowd. I counted three shooters, alternating fire so that each could reload in turn. Two guards were down, and maybe a dozen civilians, all for the sin of standing too damn close to me.

My wayward target poked his head out around the bar and popped off a couple shots my way. I yanked the zip gun from my pocket and discharged it at him, its single.22 round hitting the bullet-riddled bar just inches from his face. Damn. As he ducked back behind the bar, I tossed the spent penlight casing aside. Then I spotted all the ruined, shattered bottles atop the bar and smiled. Grabbed the tacky red-glass candleholder from the table beside me, the candle still flickering inside, and lobbed it toward the bar. It shattered on impact, and there was a whoosh as all that spilled liquor caught fire. For a few seconds the dude behind the bar shrieked so loud I could hear him over all the automatic fire. Then he fell silent, and the sickly sweet scent of burning flesh filled the room.

One down. Three to go.

Pop, pop from somewhere far away, and one of the shooters was silenced. That made two. Then a manic spray of bullets from his compatriots, and the guard who bagged him was repaid in kind. Kid should've turned tail and run-this was way above his pay grade. Still, I knew a good diversion when I heard one.

I stood and threw my knife at the nearest shooter, aiming to bury it in his eye. Guess I was a little rusty, though-it wound up three-deep in his throat.

One to go.

I dove across the floor to the nearest fallen guard and grabbed his piece out of his holster. Had to pry his fingers off the still-closed snap. Poor bastard hadn't even unfastened the damn thing before they got him.

The last shooter returned his attention to me, or tried. Wound up ventilating the bodies sprawled out in the spot I'd just vacated. In the dim banquet hall light, I could barely see him against the backdrop of the curtains, but I caught his muzzle flash just fine. Squeezed off six quick rounds, and he went down. Pretty sure I landed five at least.

My ears rang in the quiet that followed, so bad it took me a few seconds to realize that the quiet wasn't quiet at all. Gunfire and gaming had given way to shrieking and wailing, and over it all, I could hear the shout of security drawing closer. Iffy as my hearing was, I couldn't tell which door they'd be coming through-just that they were headed this way. So I did the only thing I could think to do.

My gun hand pressed tight to my bleeding gut, I sprinted for the stage. Damn near stepped right over Rigby, who lay cowering where he fell. Then I figured maybe I ought to take him with me. I grabbed his collar and yanked him to his feet.

Eight uniforms sprinted into the room, four through each door. When they spotted me, they opened fire. Looked like it was time to make my exit.

To one side of the stage, a half-assed backstage area had been set up. Looked to me they put it there to take advantage of a door that led to a service hallway, allowing easy access to the stage for employees and talent both. Like every service door in this place, it had a PIN pad and a spot to swipe your employee ID badge. I had neither. Good thing for me, then, it was propped.

I kicked the chair that held the door open out of the way, and then I threw Rigby into the hall after it. The guards converged on us, firing shots off all the while. Thirty yards, twenty. I dove through the open door as, just behind me, one of them shouted into his radio, "Suspect retreating to south hall! Lock down! Repeat- LOCK DOWN THE SOUTH HALL!"

And as I pulled the door shut behind me, I heard the snick of thirty bolts locking, trapping me and Rigby inside.

So I'd been shot. That was bad. It was a through-and-through, though, and it looked to me like it had missed my major organs, which wasn't too shabby. But then again, I was trapped inside a casino chock full of security guards who, along with the entire Chicago Syndicate, seemed to really want me dead. I guess on the balance I'd have to say my day wasn't going all that well.

Least I'd managed to snag that turncoat douchebag Rigby by the collar and drag his ass with me when I'd made my exit from the banquet hall. Score that one in the plus column. At first he was biting and scratching at me like a rabid raccoon, so it wasn't all roses, but once I slammed his head into the wall a couple times, he got docile in a hurry. Which was good, because I couldn't afford to kill him yet.

Emergency lights strobed all around us, though the main hall lights stayed lit. There were no cameras I could see, which was a plus, but as promised, every door leading from the hall was locked, their PIN pads blinking red. After the bloodbath in the banquet hall, I figured security aimed to sit on us till Kansas City SWAT arrived. Which I figured meant I had three minutes to get out of here-maybe less.

Plenty of time to teach Rigby a little lesson about loyalty.

I pinned him against the wall, got up in his face.

"You set me up, you son of a bitch."

"Dude, I got no idea what you UNGFH!"

Truth is, I've got no idea what I UNGFH either, but I don't think it was so much a question as the noise he made when I punched him in the solar plexus. I let him go. He doubled over but kept his feet. Then he puked, which I could have done without, but at least it stopped him lying.

"You want to try again?" I asked.

"Okay, okay," he said once his breath returned, "I set you up. But they got to me just after you did, and they offered me a deal. Said they knew you were tapped into their communiqués. Said they made sure you'd think they were gonna pop me here, and that if I helped them draw you out, maybe did a little digging for 'em, they'd let me walk."

"Digging? What kind of digging?"

"You know-bank shit. That's why I needed your account info."

This day kept getting better and better.

"Don't worry, though, dude-you covered your tracks pretty good. I mean, this shit is my bread and butter, and I couldn't hardly find nothing-no name, no address, hardly even any cash. Aside of that Evelyn chick you've been paying off, you're a fucking ghost, dude."

All the air drained from the room. I thought I was going to faint. I pulled Rigby close-so close I could have bit his fucking face off. And right then, I had half a mind to do it.

"What do you know about Evie?"

"Nothing, really-I swear it! Name and address, that's it!"

Son of a bitch. "And did you pass along that information to your friends at the Syndicate?"

"They said if I didn't help 'em they were gonna kill me! The fuck was I supposed to do?"

I swallowed hard, willed myself to stay calm. But I knew then I couldn't let them take me here. That I had to get to Evie before the Syndicate did. Even if it meant I had to let this fuckwit live.

I let go of said fuckwit. Smoothed out his shirt a bit. "It's cool," I said. "I understand. What's done is done."

Rigby flashed me a cautious smile. "Yeah?"

That's when I hit him again-in the face this time. Broke his nose. Blood sprayed crimson down his shirt and onto the institutional tile floor. When Rigby saw the blood, his eyes fluttered, and he went down. Barely got an arm out in time to catch himself from smacking his forehead.

I kicked him, hard. Heard ribs snap. He screamed, and rolled onto his side. Eyes wide with fear, snot and blood pouring from his nose as he cried like a child.

That was good.

That was how I needed him if I was going to get out of here alive.

I knelt next to him, slapped him once or twice. "No, you stupid shit, it isn't cool. My line of work, it doesn't pay to be forgiving. I ought to put you in the ground for what you've done. But the fact is, I need your help to get out of here, and if you cooperate like a good little boy, then maybe-just maybe-I'll let you live."

His head bobbed up and down, and he blubbered something unintelligible I assumed was a heartfelt pledge of undying allegiance. Which should hold until he got a better offer.

"Good. Now I'm going to need you to override the casino's lockdown-can you do that?"

"Are you fucking nuts?"

I grabbed his ruined nose and pinched. He thrashed like I'd hit him with a live wire. I let go and asked again. He just stared at me all mute and big-eyed, too terrified to even answer.

That was no good. I needed to keep him calm enough to do the job. So I changed my tone, replacing steel with what I hoped would pass for warmth. "Listen, Rigby, you can do this. I mean working for the Mob, you've dealt with systems a thousand times scarier than this one."

"Yeah, but-"

"And you beat Pendleton's system once before, right?"

"Well, yeah, but I had time-time and tools…"

I pulled a Leatherman from my pocket, handed it to him. Then I jammed the dead guard's Glock under his chin, barrel aiming upward toward his brain.

Warmth has never been my strong suit.

"That right there is all the tools you've got to work with. That and a couple minutes. You fail, or try to stall until the cops arrive, and I swear to you the last thing I do before they take me is blow your fucking head off, you understand? But if you get that door open, you have my word I'll let you live. I'll just walk on through and you'll never see me again, okay?"

Rigby nodded.

"Good-now get moving."

He got moving, prying the cover off the PIN pad for the stairwell door we'd stopped beside. Even shaking as he was, I could see the kid was good. Give me an hour or two, and maybe I could pop a lock like that. Rigby had it open in just under ninety seconds.

When the light went green and the locking mechanism clicked, I let out a yelp of joy that set my bullet wound throbbing. But Rigby didn't look like he was up for celebrating. He was just kneeling there beside the door lock, face pale, eyes clenched. After a moment of watching him, I had to ask.

"Rigby, what the hell are you doing?"

He opened one eye and looked at me. "Waiting for you to kill me."

"I told you, you get that open, you're free to go."

Color flooded his cheeks. "Yeah, but I didn't figure you were serious!"

I shoved him aside. Stepped through the door into a dingy fire stairwell, dimly lit and obviously unused.

"I always keep my word," I said. "Besides, once the Syndicate catches up with you, you're dead anyway."

"What? No! They cut me a deal!"

"Yeah, and you figure they aim to honor it? You stole damn near thirty million dollars from them-they can't just let you live. My guess is, you'll be dead within the week."

"You don't know that," he said, but there was no force behind it.

"Hey," I said. "Maybe I'm wrong. It's been known to happen."Just look at this gig, I thought. "Either way, guess you'll know soon enough."

Then I closed the door and fled, leaving a weeping Rigby in my wake.

Getting out of the stairwell was a breeze. Security figured they had me dead to rights, locked up in the south hall, and since the hallway contained no cameras, they had no idea I'd gotten out. And sure, they were probably watching all the building's exits, but that was only a problem if I headed down. So instead I headed up.

The upper floors of Pendleton's were nothing but hotel rooms. By the time I got there, most of them were empty, on account of some folks downstairs had started shooting at each other and the building was being evacuated. Found a room abandoned midclean-ing by the housekeepers and helped myself to a clean pillowcase to dress my wound and a change of clothes, swapping my silly cowboy getup for a pair of khakis and a crisp blue oxford. Even with the ad hoc bandages, the oxford was a hair too big for me, and a little loose about the neck, so I left the collar undone and threw on my unwitting benefactor's charcoal sport coat. Then it was a matter of peeling off the fake mustache and walking out the front door looking confused and frightened like the rest of the good people with the misfortune to be caught up in this sordid mess.

My phone clocked Springfield to Morgantown at sixteen hours. I figured I could make it in eleven. Stole an Audi from one of the casino's satellite lots, kept the needle pinned at eighty-five the whole way. Even chance they'd try to pull me over, I knew. Even chance I didn't care. They could chase my ass the whole damn way. All that mattered now was Evie. All that mattered was I kept her safe. And leading a parade of cops to her front door was as good a way as any to do it.

But they didn't. Didn't try to pull me over. Didn't chase my ass at all. And so I wound up on Evie's front porch alone.

The Syndicate hadn't beaten me here-that much I knew. If they had, they would have made a show of it-trashing the place, causing a scene, maybe leaving me a grisly souvenir. A finger, or perhaps an ear. But all looked normal, and quiet, and dark.

Still, they'd be here soon enough. And I had to be ready for them when they did.

My head was throbbing. My stomach churned. A sheen of cold, acrid sweat covered every trembling inch of me, and the gunshot in my side itched and burned. Moving hurt. Hell, standing hurt.

And still I kept on pounding on that door.

"Evie!" I shouted, my voice hoarse from exertion, and oddly tinny and distant to my own ears. Loss of blood. Lack of sleep. But I'd had worse. Least, that's what I told myself. "God damn it, Evie-open up!"

Did I mention it was late? Well, it was. Pushing five A.M. So late I guess you'd have to call it early.

If I were Evie and had some nutjob banging on my door at five A.M., shouting my name, I might be reluctant to answer too. Which is to say, I should've figured on what happened next.

The inside light came on, spilling yellow through the decorative panel in the door. Then the door flew open. As I squinted against the sudden light, a hand grabbed a fistful of my new shirt, its medium starch no match for Stuart's angry, sweat-jlick grip. Next thing I knew, I was up against the doorjamb, the business end of a baseball bat in my face.

Fucking Stuart.

It was all I could do not to end his ass right then and there.

But I didn't. Instead I tried to talk. To calm him down. It didn't take.

He was all riled up, the king defending his castle. Lots of "Who the fuck are you?" and "The fuck you think you're doing, pounding on our goddamn door in the dead of fucking night?" And I admit, I was a little bummed he didn't recognize me. Guess Evie didn't keep too many pictures of me around.

Then again, maybe I should go a little easier on the guy-it's not like anyone expects their wife's dead first husband to come knocking in the middle of the night. But he just kept on working himself up-spit flying, veins pulsing, nose almost touching mine-and the whole time, all I could think was, This is the guy who gets to sleep with Evie.

So I took the bat. Pushed him back into the house and closed the door. And okay, I might have pushed him a little harder than was strictly necessary. He toppled backward into the hallway, crashing ass over teakettle through the console table along the wall and coming to rest amid a hail of keys and cell phones and spare change.

Of course that's when Evie showed up.

When Stuart took the table out, Evie half ran, half stumbled down the stairs calling his name as though she'd been listening from just out of sight the whole time. Then she spotted me standing over him with the bat, and the air around me seemed to gel. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe-I just stood there staring as fear turned to confusion, as recognition turned to shock.

"Jake?" she said, her voice thin and frail, like that of a frightened child.

Hearing her say my name-a name I'd walked away from long ago-tore at my insides worse than any bullet could. It hurt like love. Like dying.

Her hand to her mouth, she sank to her knees. Slowly, as if through water. Seeing her like that-mouth open, chest hitching beneath her husband's borrowed undershirt, no noise coming out-she looked like a scream set on mute. And all I could think was, I did this. I made her feel this way.

The bat clattered to the floor, forgotten. The distance between us melted away. And for a few blissful moments, I held her-her swollen belly warm against my own, her face buried in the crook of my neck as she cried.

"So let me get this straight," she said, gripping her coffee mug in both hands, her bare legs curled under her on the couch. "There are men coming. Coming for you. And you don't know when they'll get here. But you mean to kill them when they do."

"Coming for you," I corrected.

"But to get to you."

"Yes," I said. "But that distinction doesn't make you any safer."

"No, I imagine it doesn't."

"But I can protect you. Protect you both. You just have to trust me and do exactly as I say."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" This from Stuart. "I don't know why the hell we're even listening to this bullshit! You let her think you fucking died -why in God's name should we trust you now?"

"Because I have no reason to lie. I let Evie think I was dead to protect her. From this life. From this job. Why the hell would I show up and ruin that now, if it wasn't to keep her safe?"

Stuart snorted, rolled his eyes. And it's not like I didn't see where he was coming from. I'd just told them both that I kill people for a living. That I'd been hiding from my wife and from the law for the better part of the last decade. That I'd been funneling Evie blood money for years. And that by doing so, I'd put her life in danger-both their lives in danger. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have trusted me either.

So I told him the bit that I'd left out. The bit I didn't want to say aloud. The bit that, once he'd heard it, he couldn't dare ignore.

"Look, Stuart, you want the truth? Fine, here it is. They need Evie. They need her alive, because they think that they can use her to get to me. Now that doesn't mean they need her in good condition. And the guys they send on missions like this, these are not nice guys. In all likelihood, they'll beat her. Rape her. Torture her, just to hear her scream. And you won't be able to do a thing about it, because you'll be dead. See, they need Evie, but you? You they don't give a shit about. They don't give a shit about you because they figure you're not worth a thing to me-you're just the guy who's been fucking my wife."

Stuart made like he was going to object, but I raised a hand to silence him. "I know, I know, that's not how it really is. Any claim I had on the title of husband died in the desert a long time ago. But you've got to understand just what we're up against."

Evie's face darkened in thought. "Say you kill these men," she said. "Their employers will only send more, won't they? And they'll keep sending more until they finish the job. We'll never be safe."

She was right. I knew she was. And suddenly I realized what I had to do.

"There is one way," I said. "One way to end this all for good."

Stuart looked confused. Evie didn't, though; tears brimmed anew in her eyes, streaking down her cheeks, and the hand she raised to brush them away shook like a leaf in the wind. It was clear she understood.

"Jake," she said, "you can't."

"I have to. It's the only way."

Stuart looked to her, and then to me. "What? What's the only way?"

It was Evie who answered. "He means to let them kill him."

Stuart laughed. There was no humor to it, only incredulity. "Hey, good riddance, I say!" Then he saw my face-her face-caught on it was no joke. "Wait-you're serious? You're going to let them gun you down?"

"It's the only way I can be sure they never come back. Once I'm gone, they've got no use for you. You'll be safe. All three of you," I said, my gaze pulled toward Evie's swollen belly.

"But you only just…" she said. The sentiment died on her lips, though. It was for the best, I guess. She had a new life, a new love, a new path. All I had was the beginnings of a plan, and a pretty shitty one at that.

"Look, if this is going to work, we have to get you out of here, and fast. You remember my family's old camp?" Evie nodded. "Good. I want you to pack a bag and head up there, okay? Take only what you need, and leave your cell phones so you can't be tracked. I've holed up there a time or two myself-there's food enough in the cupboards for at least a week, and the generator's all gassed up."

"How do we know when you're… how do we know when it's over?"

"There's a radio. Keep it on. If I'm going out, I'm taking as many of those fuckers with me as I can. When it's over, you're sure to hear it."

"And what do we tell the police?"

I shrugged. "Tell them the truth. Tell them whatever you like."

"Jake, this is crazy."

"Maybe. But it's the way it's got to be."

She didn't want to listen. Didn't want to leave. But eventually she acquiesced; she and Stuart packed a bag, hopped in her truck, and together they disappeared into the hills.

I watched until they vanished from sight, and then a couple minutes more.

Then I went inside and made my call.

Rigby answered on the seventh ring.

"H-hello?"

"Oh, good," I said, "They haven't come to kill you yet."

He swallowed hard, made a little keening noise in the back of his throat. "Dude, you don't know for sure they're gonna."

"Sure I don't. Listen, I want you to do me a favor, on account of I let you live."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"When your Mob friends come to kill you, I want you to tell them if they go after Evie I'll be waiting. That if they plan to take me, they'd best send every guy they've got. And that if I were them, I'd bring a fucking armory."

A long pause. "Uh, you sure you really wanna tell 'em that?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Now say it back."

He said it back. "But really, dude, they might not come for me-"

I hung up. I had nothing more to say to him. And I had no interest in anything he could say to me. What was the point in wasting either of our time? Soon enough, we'd both be dead.

My call made, I wandered Evie's empty house, drinking in the scent of her that lingered in the air. I closed blinds. I shut off lights. I busted stemware up in a paper bag and spread the broken shards across the windowsills. I nailed shut the front and back door both, and barricaded the French doors I'd watched Evie through with the kitchen table and Evie's grandma's china hutch.

I stuck a can of cooking spray and a couple tins of Sterno in the microwave. Then I tossed in the contents of the silverware drawer for good measure, and set the timer for ten seconds. I figured maybe when the shit went down, I'd have a chance to trigger it.

I hoped so. Dying didn't seem so scary, but I'd be damned if I was going to do it alone.

In the living room, I spied Evie's dad's old hi-fi and smiled to find it working after all these years. She'd lost him to cancer our sophomore year of high school; we'd sit and listen to his records for hours, tears streaming down her smiling face as, for a little while at least, he lived among the vinyl's hiss and scratch.

I fired it up and dropped the needle. The opening strains of Ex-ile filled the house. For one beautiful, painful moment, it felt like Evie was standing right beside me-she always had a soft spot for the Stones.

Took me clean through "Sweet Virginia" to make Molotov cocktails of Evie and Stuart's liquor cabinet. When I finished, I made a quick trip to the kitchen to fetch a chef's knife and one of Stuart's longneck PBRs. I tested the heft and balance of the knife in my hand and decided it'd do. Then I cracked the beer and retired to the couch, to sit and listen in the darkness.

As I sat there-eyes closed, listening-I wondered if Rigby'd pass along my message, or if they'd pop him from afar before he got the chance. I wondered if they'd think that I was bluffing. I wondered if they'd come in full-jorce or sideways-some way I hadn't thought of.

But in the end, I knew, it didn't matter.

Eventually, message or no, they'd come.

Could be it took them hours. Could be it took them days. But soon enough, I knew, they'd be here; all I had to do was wait.