The Love You Crave

13.

One Week Earlier… Maybe Taylor.

The man who likes to be called Daddy said Professor Jonah Toth could be found teaching civics at Viceroy College in Charleston, South Carolina. Maybe didn’t ask why Daddy wanted him dead. You’re not supposed to ask, he’d told her months ago, shortly after they began their unusual telephone friendship. That was fine with Maybe. It wouldn’t help to be sidetracked by questions or doubt. She would trust Daddy, kill the man, and move forward, toward bigger and more important assignments. Lucrative ones.

This will be Maybe’s first murder for hire. She’s going to receive ten thousand dollars for what will probably amount to a few hours work. She’s already received the down payment, along with the murder weapon, in the handbag wedged under the spare tire in the trunk of her rental car. Maybe doesn’t know how Daddy managed it, nor does she care. What she’s thinking is, this is almost too easy!

The handbag contains five thousand dollars in cash, and a handgun equipped with a silencer. She’s been told she won’t need to remove the gun from the purse, she can just reach in and start shooting. If she’s within ten feet of the target, the bullets will pass through the handbag and into Toth’s body with relative accuracy. Since the gun is small caliber, she should be prepared to take multiple shots.

It’s Wednesday morning.

Maybe locates Toth’s 10:00 a.m. class and monitors it from the back row. Toth is in his forties and dresses as pretentiously as possible, with his tweed jacket, crew neck sweater and designer jeans. He wears his dark brown hair seventies style, and has a short, well-groomed beard. All that’s missing to complete the picture of what a hip professor is supposed to look like is a pipe.

Professor Toth’s class is as boring as most of the classes Maybe attended her freshman and sophomore years. It’s classes like this that made it easy to leave college after her second year. When his lecture finally ends, Maybe’s one of the last students to file out. She lingers fifty feet down the hall, holding her large handbag to her chest. For this occasion she’s wearing a cinnamon-colored wig and non-prescription Sarah Palin glasses.

Maybe’s plan is to follow Professor Toth at a distance and wait until a killing opportunity presents itself. She’s prepared to tail him all day and half the night, if necessary, but she catches an amazing break when Toth exits the classroom and walks into the men’s room directly across the hall!

Don’t professors pee in the teacher’s lounges?

Apparently not always.

Maybe seizes the opportunity, and quietly slips into the bathroom after giving him a twenty second head start. The bathroom is laid out with two sinks on the right wall as you enter, then a divider, and four urinals beyond the divider. On the left, across from the urinals, are two stalls. Maybe can’t believe her good fortune. They’re alone in the men’s room, she’s at the sink, he’s peeing at one of the urinals behind the divider, and neither can see the other. But she can hear him peeing. She removes the gun from her handbag, even though she was told not to. But Maybe’s thinking if they’re interrupted, she can shoot her way out of the bathroom, if necessary. She turns the water on in the sink so Toth will think someone’s washing his hands, and then moves behind him, as if planning to use one of the stall toilets.

Toth never turns his head, content to stare straight ahead at the cement block wall eight inches in front of his face. Probably been taught all his life not to look around in case some other guy thinks you’re checking him out.

It occurs to Maybe that this is one of the great differences between men and women. A woman will always turn her head to see who’s entered the bathroom.

Maybe watches Toth moving his right hand up and down and realizes he’s shaking his penis. How odd, she thinks. She’s never had a penis, and hasn’t seen but a few in her life, but she can’t imagine it requires that much effort to get the last few drops of pee out. When Toth tucks his butt to stuff his mighty sword back in his pants, she walks right up behind him and fires two shots in the back of his head from less than a foot away.

Big mistake.

Maybe’s never shot anyone before, and hasn’t allowed for blood spatter. It’s everywhere, including her face. There’s so much blood she can hardly see out of her glasses.

But she can see enough.

She steps out of the way while Toth falls to the floor. He lands sideways, and rolls onto his back, and…

He’s still alive!

The back of his head is gone, and the man is still alive! His mouth is moving like a baby bird that’s waiting for its mama to drop a worm into it. What a wondrous machine the human body is, Maybe thinks, as she squeezes another shot into the space between his eyes. She goes to the sink, checks herself in the mirror, removes the bloody windbreaker she’d worn to give the impression of being twenty pounds heavier.

She stuffs the jacket in her purse, along with the glasses, and quickly scrubs her hands and face with soap, water, and paper towels. Then she stuffs the towels in her purse and heads out the bathroom door at a brisk pace.