The Trashman Read online

  I’m an upbeat kind of guy, but at that moment I hated myself. There are few bright lights left in our brutal, hate-filled world, and I was about to extinguish one of them because some nasty piece of work with big boobs and the price of admission hired me to. Mr. Delvin might technically be my client, but we both knew whose idea snuffing out his daughter was. I also knew a certified, licensed, and bonded Shooter shouldn’t have thoughts like that. Regret was the first step on a slippery slope to somewhere I didn’t want to be.

  Dawn greeted me with neon white teeth. “Hi!” She bounced on the balls of her feet like a kid waiting for an ice cream cone. “My name’s Dawn, what’s yours?”

  I would have classified Dawn as a blue, with a lot of yellow. That meant she loved to have fun but also had a passion for helping others. It was my favorite combination of traits, excepting the combination on her chest.

  Damn.

  And yet I only saw red. Dawn herself was the danger.

  If it had been a physical reaction, I might have been able explain, but how do you explain a feeling? I only knew what my mind told me, and in that moment it registered danger of a sort that I’d never felt before, until without warning another feeling overwhelmed that one. This was an emotion I’d only known once in my previous life. It compelled me to stare into eyes the same shade of cobalt blue as a sunrise sky in winter.

  “I’m a friend of your dad’s,” I said instead of answering her question directly, absolutely enraptured by the most wonderful face I’d ever seen in my entire life. She wasn’t gorgeous-beautiful in the classic style of a model or movie, she was…desirable. In that moment, and despite our age difference, I only wanted to hold her in my arms forever.

  “Oh,” she said. The smile faded, like the petals of a buttercup after an early frost. “Oh.” It was obvious she knew what this meant.

  She shooed the kids away and sat in a folding camp chair under a banana tree. In a matter of seconds, the girl who seemed closer to twelve than nineteen changed into an adult. Lines I hadn’t seen before creased her smooth face. The apples of her cheeks now seemed feverish rather than rosy.

  “It’s Lila, isn’t it?”

  There seemed no point trying to deny why I was there, so I nodded. I had liked Dawn Mary Delvin from the moment I saw her image on her dad’s phone. Not just in the way I like all women, although that, too, but Just Jim’s report made it clear that she had no flaws he could find and was exactly as she seemed: a completely selfless young woman who genuinely loved life and people. The world needed more like her, not less. I needed more like her. My face flushed with guilt as I questioned her motives.

  Then I paused, as if thinking about how to answer her question. In reality my mind was hitting the inside of my skull with a hammer.

  What’s wrong with you, it wanted to know. I only had one answer, The hell if I know. I felt…stirrings, for this girl. Not those kinds of stirrings, although I had those, too, but emotional stirrings. I never believed in love at first sight, until now. Part of me found it absurd, but the rest of me shouted that part down and kept hitting me with a hammer about an oncoming freight train. My head was at war with itself.

  Kill yourself, a new voice whispered. Eat your gun and save this precious flower. Your life is worthless compared to hers.

  “Lila’s not the president of your fan club,” I said, reverting to a cliché because I couldn’t think of a nicer way of saying it, and because I felt like my brain was being drawn and quartered. Women can tear a man up with the merest glance, I knew that from experience. Dawn’s face was heartbreaking in its beauty and innocence. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, protect her from anybody with harmful intent, including me. Not to kill her.

  “So, how does this work? Do you pull out a gun and shoot me?” She sat with her hands between her legs, blinking up at me with the roundest, clearest eyes I’d ever seen, like an animé character drawn by a master of that art form.

  I was stunned by her matter-of-fact attitude. Once I show up most people lapse into denial, which is much better all around. They never think it’s really going to happen, until it does. When the truth sinks in, they invariably beg for their lives, show me pictures of their kids, grandkids, dogs, cats. I even had one lady show me a photo of her llama, sobbing that if she was gone her husband would shoot the beast before her body was cold. It takes all kinds, I guess. But Dawn Delvin was different. She accepted death as easily as an exhausted salmon that has battled its way upriver, spawned, and was ready to die.

  Even in my late 30’s, I was still young enough to appreciate a teenager with a hard body and bright eyes, and with the stamina to make her glad she’d met me. She was the kind of girl you never thought would give you a second look, the kind that guys envision having children with, the kind of girl you’d die for. Whatever she wanted, you’d give it to her, whatever you had to do to protect her, you would do, as long as you could be around her.

  I considered myself a consummate professional, and no matter how attractive I found her, I had accepted money to put her down. I didn’t have a choice, did I? And, unlike others in my profession, I wouldn’t sleep with her first. My friends laughed at my antiquated code of honor, but at the end of the day, it’s all I had.

  “Shooting is customary,” I stammered, nervous, which was out of character for me. “It’s also the fastest, and I can make sure you don’t suffer. But if you have a preferred method, please tell me.”

  “Old age?”

  I smiled politely. I’d heard it a million times.

  “I wish I could. I really mean that.”

  “Do you know why she wants me dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “She told you?”

  “She didn’t have to. Your stepmother is reaching that age where curves are beginning to sag into folds and folds into fat. She’s lived her whole life on her looks and once those go there’s nothing to fall back on. Your father’s her last shot at living the good life forever. She’s still attractive enough for men to follow her around like panting dogs, but in the mirror she’s seen the changes. Surgery can only do so much, so it’s time to ride her latest meal ticket to the end.”

  “My dad?”

  I nodded. “Not only do you distract him from her, but you two obviously don’t get along. No doubt you want the best for your dad, and you realize she’s like one of those fish you see in aquariums sucking the algae off the sides of the tank, she’s got a big mouth and knows how to use it…”

  Dawn laughed, her flawless teeth shining like diamonds in the tiny oval of her mouth. How she could laugh knowing the buzzards were circling was beyond me.

  “But there’s not enough algae in the tank for two sucker fish… Okay, maybe that’s a bad analogy. All I know is that as long as you’re around she can never dig her claws deep enough into your father to be certain he’ll keep her around. She’s a quick divorce away from haunting bars looking for traveling businessmen again. Your father can’t divide his love between you and her, and her still be secure. And by love, I mean money.”

  “You’re a wise man.”

  “No,” I said, sounding tired in my own ears, “not wise, just experienced. I’ve seen a hundred Lila’s in my life. Human nature doesn’t change.”

  We were heading toward the inevitable ending. I was giving her a lot of leeway because I liked her so much I ached, and wanted her to have all the time she needed to put her mind in order. Plus, I really didn’t want to pull that trigger. But just then Walter stormed up, waving his arms and trying to act macho. Not only did this piss me off, I also felt a twinge of jealousy.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Paquito Paula said you looked scared, Dawn. Is this man bothering you?”

  “Stand down,” I said. I showed him my credentials, which were good in most countries around the world, including Guatemala. He gasped like an actor in a bad movie.

  Instead of leaving he started fishing around in the underbrush. You wouldn’t catch me doing tha
t in a snake-infested jungle, but hey, I didn’t care if he got bit. He picked up a long, heavy-looking tree branch. Unfortunately for him, the perpetual moisture made the wood mushy and it fell apart in his hands. I figured he’d slink away then, in embarrassment if for no other reason, but Walter must have been as smitten with young Miss Delvin as I was, because he started rummaging for another stick.

  “Enough,” I said in the sternest voice I could muster. “Take a hike, Walter. I haven’t got all day.”

  “Never!”

  He bent over to search the jungle floor again, so I laid the muzzle of the Sig behind his left ear. “Walter, for the last time, leave or become collateral damage.”

  I’m authorized to use all necessary force if someone tries to prevent the execution of a contract, pardon the pun.

  “He means it, Walter,” Dawn said. “Go. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  From her perspective I wouldn’t have said things would be fine, exactly, but maybe she had read me better than I read her; maybe she knew me better than I knew myself.

  As the touch of warm metal left his skin, Walter lost all thoughts of being a hero. He ran off, slipping in the greasy mud until he was out of sight. I was worried about that guy? No doubt he was calling the policía, which was fine by me. It would save time on the back end.

  Since I already had the pistol out and there were no kids around, I figured this was as good a time as any to get it over with. My mind was busy planning ways to not shoot this radiant young woman, but to make it appear that I did. If I didn’t do it soon, I wouldn’t do it at all.

  “Ready?” I said.

  “If you are,” she said, once again turning those huge blue eyes up at me so I could get lost in them. Breathing became hard. “Would you do me a favor when you get back to Guatemala City?”

  “What kind of favor?”

  “Just a phone call. When someone answers you leave a message and then hang up. That’s it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Sure, I can do that.”

  She slid a plastic card out of her back pocket and handed it to me. The big LEI logo in the upper left corner struck me first because I knew it so well. Then I recognized the format, a phone number followed by a case number, in raised letters like an old-style credit card. All of my clients got a similar card. This should have set off more alarms in my head, but if it did I couldn’t hear it over all the others.

  “Which one is it?” I asked. “Her or him?”

  “I could never hurt my father.”

  “So, Lila.”

  “I’m worried about what she will do to my dad to get all of his money right away. Do you think she’d hesitate having him killed?”

  “Not even for a second.”

  An awkward silence followed.

  “It works best if you kneel,” I said.

  She smiled and cocked her head, and I realized that other guys had probably been telling her that for most of her life. At the sight of her lopsided grin I could barely breathe.

  I walked her into the jungle far enough so the kids couldn’t see, careful to make sure no pit vipers were out for an early afternoon slither. She knelt, facing me. Some of my thoughts at that moment were less than professional. I pointed the gun in the general direction of her head and pulled the trigger twice.

  Chapter 3

  I knew the Guatemalan authorities would take a while to get there. In the meantime, I found a fallen tree to sit on, after making sure no snakes, spiders, or other creepy-crawlies lurked under it. I took out two cigarettes and a miniature bottle of a black label whiskey from my small belly pouch. In strict accordance with the personal ritual I performed after the fulfillment of every contract, I smoked the first cigarette, savoring the hot smoke with my eyes closed. The allure of those toxic fumes was like the song of the sirens, calling me to wreck on the rocks of nicotine addiction. I’d cut down to a pack or so a day but could easily have gone back to lighting one from another with little encouragement. Walter watched me from a distance as I toasted my victim, drained the bottle in one gulp, and then enjoyed the second cigarette.

  By this time, Walter had told the rest of the club members why I was there, and they gathered in the shadow of the half-built school a hundred yards away. None of them were armed, which was a relief to me. Invariably, some asshole always thinks he’s an action hero and tries to take vengeance on their friend or loved one’s killer, and I have to play rough. This time I didn’t.

  The Guatemalan police started to hassle me about filling out reports until Ben Franklin showed up and made their acquaintance. They took a second look at my license and permission vouchers, spoke for a minute in Spanish, and slapped me on the back like we were old friends. I took them behind the tree and showed them where Dawn lay. They nodded to each other, grinned, said what a shame it was, and told me I was free to go. I made them promise to keep their mouths shut. They agreed and I wasn’t worried about them keeping their word. People not about to die rarely lie to assassins, even corrupt cops.

  Every time I saw Mr. Delvin in person, food similes came to mind. This time I saw him as a lump of Crisco melting into the chair in front of my desk, the viscous fluid congealing into a man-like form. Unlike his previous visit, he didn’t smell so good, more like sour cheese than hotel soap. I wanted to throw him out. Unfortunately, there were protocols involved, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t speed things up.

  “Initial here, here, here, then sign and date it here,” I said offering him the pen. He took it and started scribbling, blubbering the whole time.

  “Who could want her dead?” he cried. “Who, who?”

  I cocked my head, intentionally misinterpreting what he meant. “You did.”

  “Not Dawn, you idiot!” he snapped, forgetting I wasn’t some bond salesman kissing his ass for a better cubicle. “Lila! Who could want Lila dead?”

  You mean aside from everybody who’s ever met her? I thought. But the bond-daddy bully had confused me with one of his toadies, and I couldn’t let that go.

  “Would you care to rephrase calling me an idiot?” I asked through clenched teeth. It’s amazing how much this changes people’s reactions to what you say, especially when you have a license to kill and a loaded gun.

  “Oh,” he said, suddenly remembering where he was and what I was. His eyebrows went up and his flabby cheeks puffed out in horror. “Oh my, oh my, please forgive my rudeness. I blame it on my grief over losing my precious baby.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “My wife!”

  “Right. Well, don’t yell at me again, particularly in my own office. I won’t tolerate it a second time. It’s bad for business if people get the idea they can push you around.”

  “Of course not.” He smiled and mopped his face with a handkerchief. I wondered if he’d ever seen his doctor about his perspiration issues. I’ve seen frosted mugs sweat less on a hot day. “I just… I just don’t understand who could have wanted Lila dead. It will always be a mystery.”

  “There’s no mystery.”

  I gathered up the signed documents and separated out his copies.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who killed your wife isn’t a mystery. At least, who paid for her murder isn’t.”

  “So who did it?” Mr. Delvin jumped to his feet and seemed ready to attack somebody. For the first time since I’d met him, he acted like he had more testosterone than estrogen.

  “Dawn did. She was quite a girl. Too bad your wife wanted all of your money instead of splitting it with your daughter, because then they’d both be alive. I guess that’s why greed is one of the seven deadly sins. She—meaning your daughter, that is—saved the money from her allowance and took out a contingency policy with one of my colleagues. It seems she read you and her stepmother like a deck of marked cards. If something happened to her, then something would happen to Lila.”

  “How—how do you know this?”

  I shrugged. “She t
old me, before I pulled the trigger. She even asked me to make a phone call to put it into motion. I figured it was the least I could do.”

  “Y—you helped her kill my precious wife?”

  “No, Mr. Delvin, you did. If you hadn’t hired me to kill your daughter, Lila would still be alive.”

  “But hiring you to kill Dawn was Lila’s idea.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  He stood rock still. His face looked like a dead grouper hung from a hook behind a sport fishing boat, bloated and gray, mouth hanging open and bulging eyes. The only thing missing were sunburned anglers squinting into the camera. I was sick of Mr. Delvin so I steered him into my outer office. The devastation in his face looked like the famous photo of a weeping Parisian as the Nazis marched into the French capital. Before I turned back to my desk, I slipped a business card into his breast pocket. I patted it to make sure he knew it was there.

  “In case you want to join Lila,” I said. “I can’t do it myself, LEI doesn’t do suicides, but I can refer you to somebody who does. A company called Charon’s Ferry.” And I’ll get a referral fee in the process.

  I didn’t think Delvin had the guts, but you never know. Once he was gone, I booked a flight to Guatemala and cleared my calendar for the next week.

  I had a hot date.

  Or so I thought.

  It’s an old story, so you probably know what’s coming.

  Mr. Delvin stepped out of my building and signaled for a cab. Before one could pull over, a friend of mine named Mad Mok put two rounds into the back of his head. Through the LEI private database I later discovered that Lila took out the contract before they ever came to see me about killing Dawn.

  When I heard he was dead I couldn’t stop smiling. It couldn’t have worked out any better.