Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I am beyond saving, or so it seems, until I am shaken loose by the only thing that could have saved me. A text comes in, and I prepare to phase back into the land of the living for a little while, at least. The land of the living and the nearly dead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

MY FIRST THOUGHT is an inward groan. Reflexive. Then I realize an assignment might be just what I need. I am growing pale in my inactivity. If nothing else, an assignment will get me out of the house and away from newscasts for a little while. I try not to think about the irony of that: a phase in my life when I consider leaving the house in order to kill someone for money to be an expedition that at least gets me into the fresh air.

Unusually, it is not an overnight assignment. A few hours’ drive to the major center nearest me. It looks easy peasy. Straight in and out. I opt to take my own car as far as the suburbs, then jump on light rapid transit for the move into the core of the city.

LRT is always a good move for me and I take it when I can. I like that it’s the most environmentally friendly choice. Also, I think there is even less risk of detection or observation when I’m just another face in a sea of commuters.

Being anonymous gives me room to breathe. Allows me to focus on the job at hand. I can’t afford to get things wrong. In my line of work, there can be no mistake.

So I take the LRT downtown. Living in the sticks has gotten me sensitized again to the sights and sounds and even smells of the city. Once I’m there, it is like I am a child again. The buildings so tall, towering above me. I think about the birds up there, among the tallest buildings, silently winging their way above the symphony of human sound below. Even that’s not correct. Living in the country, I have learned that birds don’t fly silently at all. In the quiet of the forest or the stillness of an open field, you can hear the wind move through their wings. It’s a gentle “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh,” which startled me the first time I heard it: made me crane my head up to see what could be making the sound, endlessly surprised to find it synchronized with the flight of a bird.

Now in the city, though, I don’t hear that sound. Endless noise drowns it out and the smells overwhelm me, too. Sun on concrete. Restaurant grease at full heat. A salad of flowers beneath a dressing of motor oil. Nothing smells quite like a city in full sun.

I find my target easily enough. The instructions I was given are good. He is younger and better looking than my targets tend to be. Maybe close to thirty, but not yet there. It will be a shame, though it mostly always is. You can’t think about that part. It just makes it worse.

He is beautifully dressed: pressed trousers, trim sports coat, loafers shined. In general, there is the look and air of Ivy League and old East Coast money about him. I wonder vaguely, as I mostly never do, about who might want this splendid young creature taken out, but the possibilities are too numerous, and it’s a fool’s errand in any case. Jealous sibling, angry stepfather, jilted lover: whoever paid for this hit has their reasons. Thinking about it only makes one despair for the fate of the world. It’s possible my heart could have held that at one point. But not anymore. Not today.

As a target, he proves to be as easy as he looks. From his office at a blue-chip investment firm downtown, I follow him to a tidy apartment building on the west side. There is no doorman so it is easy to watch for a while and wait for an opportunity.

It doesn’t take long. It is early evening and I follow a pizza delivery person into the building. When the pizza goes left, I go right and set off on the coordinates I’ve been given. The target’s apartment is on the top floor of a modest but well-kept older building, and all of that is in keeping with the old money vibe I’ve had from him since the beginning.

Aware of the peephole, the Bersa is behind my back when I knock. I can stand up to that: I’m not at all scary-looking. Even if I were trying to be scary looking, I wouldn’t be. He swings the door open right away, meets my eyes, friendly but not overly curious. He likely thinks I am here on some neighborly call—a cup of sugar, an open house—or that maybe I’m a political canvasser who sneaked into the building and will be easily sent away. I just have that look.

With him standing and smiling in front of me—“Can I help you?”—I step out of my own way, bring the silenced gun up without hesitation, and plug him solidly between the eyes. I note as he collapses that my shot has been eerily accurate. If he’d had a solid red “X” marked on his forehead, I could not have gotten it more dead on. With that shot, I figure he is dead before he hits the ground, and so I know it is impossible to believe in the questioning look I think I detect on his face. A sort of partly formed “Why?” If he’d articulated the question, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. But, of course, he is beyond articulation.

The door opened inwards and he has fallen backwards, into his apartment. There was a spray of blood, but what has flown into the walls of the hallway has only been a spattering. Anyone passing this way would be unlikely to notice.

I pick up my spent cartridges, then move his leg a few inches