I came home from work early that day, but she wasn’t there. Night closed in — still no sign. I tried calling her doctor, but his phone was engaged. Finally, as I was growing frantic, the door opened and an ashen-faced Belinda walked in. She staggered past me as if I didn’t exist, poured herself a huge vodka, downed it in one. Then she stared at me with wide, frightened eyes and said, ‘Cancer.’
And she collapsed into tears.
‘Oh, Ed,’ Andeanna sighs. ‘I’m sorry. You should have told me before. I never –’
‘Save the tears until you’ve heard the rest,’ I snort.
It was tragic and awful. It felt like the end of the world. I had a hard time getting specifics out of Belinda – she broke down every time she started to explain – and it wasn’t until I discussed it with her doctor that I learnt how serious it was.
‘It’s a rare form of cancer,’ he explained plainly. ‘It’s in her brain. By rights she should be dead already, but luck’s on her side and it’s spreading slowly. But it will kill her soon unless treated.’
‘It can be treated?’ I asked, sensing hope.
‘Yes,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Surgery is out of the question, but there’s a new procedure involving an advanced form of radio-surgery. There’s no guarantee it would work – it’s still at an experimental stage – but she’d stand a chance.’
‘When do we start?’ I asked.
‘It isn’t that simple. As I said, it’s experimental. Her insurance won’t cover it.’
‘I’ll make up the difference,’ I promised.
He grimaced. ‘I’m talking about a serious shortfall. Just to be accepted, you’d need three hundred thousand dollars.’ I gawped at him, unable to even contemplate such an amount. ‘I wouldn’t mention this procedure to most clients,’ he continued, ‘but I know Belinda had some wealthy boyfriends over the years. I’m guessing she must have stored away jewellery and cash. If she can raise the money, and if we can enrol her on the programme within the next few weeks, she might pull through. Otherwise . . . ’
Sitting down with Belinda later, I told her what the doctor had said, and she laughed sickly. ‘I haven’t been as frugal as he thinks. I don’t have much set aside. We might as well start looking at coffins.’
Refusing to abandon hope, I made her list everything of value that she owned, added my meagre possessions to it and rounded it up to the nearest thousand. Belinda was worth more than she’d thought, but we still came in two hundred and forty thousand short of the sign-up fee.
I spent the next days desperately angling for money. Tapped old friends – no joy – then hit the loan sharks. I knew that no one would advance me such a huge lump sum, so I intended borrowing smaller amounts from several lenders. A cunning plan, but I wasn’t the first to think of it, and the sharks weren’t fooled. The first two deals went without a hitch, but when I hit the third, alarm bells rang and I wound up having to immediately pay back the money I’d borrowed. There should have been harsh reprimands, but when they found out why I’d been trying to play them for suckers, they took pity on me and let me off with a beating.
I was back where I’d been at the start of the week, facing the prospect of Belinda’s slow, painful death. That’s when the crazy schemes started. I could rob a bank. Run drugs. Kidnap a millionaire’s child. Train a gun on the doctors with the miracle machine and force them to treat her.
Belinda listened to my wild plans with a sad smile. She’d shake her head every so often, tell me I was insane, then let me carry on plotting. It wasn’t long before I hit on the idea of calling Carter Phell. Belinda didn’t dismiss that one as she had the others. She didn’t jump at it, but her lips pursed, her eyes went distant and she leant back thoughtfully. Seizing hope, I ran with the idea, barely aware of what I was saying.
‘I could get him to advance us the money. Training shouldn’t take more than a few months, maybe less. A couple of early hits will cover the next crop of invoices. After that, we can take it a treatment and a hit at a time.’
‘You’re not a killer,’ she whispered.
‘I could be. For you.’
‘I couldn’t ask it of you. There must be another way.’
But of course there wasn’t, and over the next seventy-two hours I convinced her to let me give it a go.
I had reservations – I wouldn’t have been human if I hadn’t – but I called the number Carter had given me. He was surprised to hear from me, but agreed to fly in for a meeting. I didn’t tell him about Belinda, just said I needed the money badly. He agreed to forward me an advance. I gave it to Belinda, then went into training.
‘As simple as that?’ Andeanna asks sceptically.
I nod. ‘I didn’t have time to waste and Carter wasn’t a man to drag his feet. Neither of us knew if I’d be able to kill — that’s something you only learn when you come to the crunch. Carter had trained men before who’d backed out when it came time to strike. He said he’d bear no grudges if I couldn’t go through with it and would give me as long as I needed to pay back the advance.’
‘Nice guy,’ Andeanna grunts.
‘Not nice,’ I correct her. ‘Professional.’
Training was laborious. Two months with virtually no rest, no chance to see Belinda. I kept in contact by phone. She’d been accepted on to the programme and treatment had commenced. Her doctors were pleased with how she was responding.
My apprenticeship was gruelling, physically and mentally exhausting. Endless drills, dismantling and putting together every known make of gun, learning how to turn ordinary objects into weapons, how to shadow people, how to plan a hit, how to arrange transport in and out of countries. But I took to it with the ease Carter had predicted. He had a keen eye for potential.
By the end of my training, I still didn’t know if I could kill. Doubt had set in. I went to visit Belinda. She looked drained but healthy. Her doctors were hopeful, though it would be months before they’d know if the cancer had been whipped.
I told her of my fears. I didn’t want to kill. Wasn’t sure I could. She took me in her arms and said she expected nothing of me. She said it was a terrible thing to ask, so she wasn’t going to. If I could find it within myself, she would be grateful to me for ever. If I couldn’t, she wouldn’t hold it against me. Either way, she’d go on loving me to the end, be it sooner or later.
Her calm resignation decided me. She was battling bravely and with dignity for her life. If I could swing the battle her way, I would, no matter what the cost to myself. I rang Carter that afternoon and told him I was in. A few days later, I was given my first assignment, a businessman in Germany. I flew in, shadowed him, slipped into the apartment he shared with a mistress one night when she wasn’t there, drowned him in the bath, making it look like an accident. I was on a plane out in the morning, home with Belinda by nightfall.
‘How did it feel?’ Andeanna croaks.
I pause. ‘Honestly? It was exciting. Terrible, but thrilling. I came away on a high. Later, I felt empty, wretched. I didn’t cry, but for three weeks I lived in a nightmarish fugue, replaying the hit over and over, unable to put it behind me.’
Although I don’t mention it to Andeanna, not wanting to reveal the complete picture of my fragile mental state, that was when the first of my ghosts appeared. He materialized as I was sitting in a bar, drowning my sorrows. Walked through a wall and hurled himself at me, cawing wordlessly. I fell from my stool and screamed with terror, shocking everyone else in the bar. Fled into the night, the ghost trailing behind, wrapping himself around me, seeking revenge. I finally curled up in a ball in an alley, shut my eyes and rocked myself to sleep. I told myself I was hallucinating, that the ghost was a by-product of the drink, but when I woke in the morning, he was still there.
I went crazy again. I lashed out at the spectre, trying to make it go away. I didn’t think it was a real ghost. I was sure I was insane, that the phantom was my subconscious way of punishing myself. I made appointments with psychiatrists, then broke them. Tel
ling someone about my ghost would necessitate unburdening myself fully, explaining about the hit. I wasn’t able to do that, so I had to deal with my demons on my own.
I survived by putting Belinda’s needs first. She had regressed. She told me the doctors wanted to move up a level, but that would require more money. I’d have to continue killing or Belinda would die.
I thought the first would be the worst, that I’d grow accustomed to murder and take the subsequent assignments in my stride.
I was wrong.
Second time, Carter sent me to kill a woman, a reporter who’d been waging war on major drug cartels. I begged him to give it to someone else, but he said hit men couldn’t afford sensitivity. If I turned the hit down, he wouldn’t offer me another.
I tracked her for a week. From a technical point of view, it was a fascinating exercise. The authorities knew she’d been targeted, and an armed guard travelled with her everywhere. I treated it like a game of chess. I was able to distance myself emotionally until the time of the actual execution. But when I outwitted her guards and the moment came to pull the trigger . . .
I shudder at the memory. Instead of taking my shot, I hesitated, which gave her time to beg for her life. If she’d stopped at that, I might have crumbled and let her go, but she made the mistake of breaking for freedom. Acting on instinct, I fired. Hit her low in the back. Brought her down but didn’t kill her. As she lay there like a wounded crab, gasping, sobbing, begging for mercy, I had to walk across and fire directly into her face, finishing her off.
‘Please,’ Andeanna interrupts with a trembling wave of her hand. ‘Spare me the details. You’re a sick son of a bitch. I don’t want to know how you killed them.’
She gets to her feet. I gently pull her down. ‘I’m almost finished,’ I promise. ‘You have to hear me out.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘I know. But you must.’
She stares at me, then nods. I continue, quicker now, rushing to the finale.
I sank into depression after killing the journalist. I hated myself. I hated Carter Phell. I hated Belinda. I tried to leave her and drink myself to death. We’d both die young and horribly. It would be simpler than way. More humane.
I got as far as the airport. My feet wouldn’t take me any further. Try as I might, the lure of Belinda was too strong. I slunk back to her, ashamed of myself for almost deserting her. I accepted another assignment and went about it mechanically, listlessly, professionally.
The third hit went without a hitch. A gangster, deserving of death. Not that it made much difference to me. Innocent or guilty, what did it matter? I’d abandoned morality and given myself over to the darkness. At least I thought I had.
The fourth hit broke me. A minor Russian politician who had made too many enemies. The locals didn’t dare tackle him by themselves – he had powerful allies – so they hired me. As with my first hit, I had to make it look like an accident. But after ten days of trailing him, I realized he was too closely guarded at home and work. It took another week to figure it out. He owned a villa in the mountains and went there most weekends. The road climbed steeply. A sharp drop if you went over the side.
I didn’t hit him on the way up. Instead I chose my spot and settled in, rifle trained on the road, until late Sunday evening, when he started back. He was alone in his BMW – or so I thought – sandwiched between two other cars. I sighted on a rear wheel, waited for the ideal moment, then fired. The tyre exploded, the car veered off the road, down the cliff. I returned to my hotel.
The next day, waiting for a taxi to take me to the airport, I saw his photo in one of the papers. There was a photo of a girl too. I asked the guy behind the counter to translate the headline – Family Horror! Two Die In Tragic Crash! – then paid him to read out some of the article for me. The mark hadn’t been alone. His nine-year-old daughter was asleep on the rear seat. Killed along with her father.
That was the end. It didn’t matter what happened with Belinda. I couldn’t go through something like that again. I was out of the game. I told Carter and he accepted my decision. Paid me the money I had coming. No hard feelings.
Belinda didn’t argue with me. She was a tower of strength. Told me I could cry on her shoulder if I wanted, but I still couldn’t find tears within myself. I felt nothing but self-loathing. I spent the days numbly studying the faces of my five ghosts, especially the young girl I’d inadvertently killed, as they swept around me in a hateful whirlwind, silently trying to break my mind, drive me to suicide or nudge me towards having a fatal accident.
I was in the process of withdrawing completely from the world, waiting for the visions to break me, at my lowest ebb, when I had an unexpected visitor. A face from the past. And that was how I learnt the brutal, crushing truth about how low I had actually fallen.
Belinda had gone away for another treatment. I was asleep, dreaming of the people I’d killed, unable to escape them even when I retired at the end of the day. An alien click brought me snapping back to my senses. I awoke facing up into the barrel of a revolver. A man said, ‘It won’t trouble me in the slightest if I have to use this, so I’d keep still as a corpse if I was you.’
I didn’t recognize the voice. It was only when he stepped back and switched on the lamp that I realized who it was.
‘Simon Dale?’ I gasped.
‘Wait,’ Andeanna interrupts. ‘The guy who killed your friend in the army?’
‘Yes.’
‘What the hell was he doing there?’
‘I’m coming to that.’
I thought I was still dreaming. Then Dale fired and the pillow where my head had been resting exploded in a shower of feathers. I knew then that this was real.
‘That bullet was meant for you,’ Dale said, grinning viciously. To my surprise, I wasn’t afraid. Dying didn’t bother me. In many ways it would have been a relief. The ghosts pressed in eagerly, faces alight at the prospect of my execution. ‘Is this personal or business?’ I asked.
‘A little of both,’ Dale replied.
‘Did Carter set you after me?’
Dale shook his head. ‘He doesn’t know about this.’ Pulling out a chair, he sat and made himself comfortable. ‘Did you ever try to find out what happened to me after I got out of prison?’
‘No. I didn’t give a fuck. You don’t matter to me.’
‘I do now,’ he chuckled. ‘Carter recruited me.’
‘So you’re still in the assassination business,’ I noted bitterly.
Dale’s smile dropped. His gun didn’t. ‘Wise guy,’ he snarled.
‘Bored guy,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.’
‘But I’m not going to kill you,’ Dale said softly. ‘I’ve been paid to, but for once I’m going to renege on a deal. It’ll be more fun this way.’
My eyes narrowed. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘A woman came to see me.’ He lowered his gun, but I made no move to attack him. ‘She knew about the bad blood between us. Asked if I’d accept a lower rate than usual for the privilege of bumping you off. I’m not sure how she found out about me. I guess through Carter. I have a feeling she tracked him down, seduced him, humped him senseless and got him to talk when he’d spent his load and was feeling groovy. You know what guys are like — please us in bed and we’ll tell you how many times we wipe our ass after we shit.’
‘Who was she?’ I asked hoarsely, knowing already but hoping – praying – he’d prove me wrong.
‘I thought it was a trap,’ he smirked. ‘I checked up on her. Found out she was a scam artist with a taste for exotic risks. Her latest scheme was a doozy. She’d convinced some sap that she was dying of cancer. Hired a fake doctor to fool him. Persuaded her distraught husband – yes, the dumb bastard only went and married her – to become an assassin. Took the money he earned, said it was for treatment, then squirrelled it away. When he lost his nerve and retired, she came to me.’
‘No,’ I moaned softly,
pointlessly.
‘I wasn’t going to accept the hit,’ Dale went on. ‘I try not to mix business with pleasure. But then I had an idea.’ He got up and crossed to the door. Paused and looked back. ‘What if I accepted, but instead of killing you, I told you the truth? You and your asshole friends fucked up my life, Severs –’
‘That’s my real name,’ I interject. ‘Brad Severs.’
‘Very American,’ Andeanna says drolly.
‘– and now it’s time to return the favour,’ I continue in Dale’s voice. ‘Killing you is too easy. This is far sweeter. Say hi to the missus from me.’ He winked and slipped away, leaving me to suffocate in the coils of the vile, inhuman truth.
There’s a long silence. I’m thinking about that night. Andeanna is putting all the pieces of my story together. ‘It was a set-up?’ she finally asks.
‘A beauty,’ I whisper, staring dead ahead at the pond, through the misty shapes of my ever-vigilant ghosts. ‘She planned it all in advance, once she found out about my secret past. Fake cancer, make a fortune by tricking me into becoming an assassin, use Dale to get rid of me when I was of no more interest to her.’
‘There must have been easier ways for her to make money,’ Andeanna objects.
‘Sure. But the cash was secondary. She got off on the danger. The game. The thrill. That’s what she lived for.’
Andeanna gulps. ‘Did you kill her?’
I close my eyes. My head aches. I wish I had something to drink.
‘I tracked her down the next day. Found her sharing her doctor’s apartment. They were fucking in the living room when I arrived. I kicked in the door, put a bullet through her boyfriend’s forehead –’ my eyes open and I gaze at the angry-looking shade to the far right of the six ghosts – ‘then took aim at Belinda.’
She didn’t plead for mercy. Just sat on the couch, naked, covered in her dead lover’s blood, staring at me with eyes as cold as diamonds. There were so many things I wanted to say, but nothing would come out. Eventually I told her to wash, get dressed and take me to the money. ‘No need,’ she replied without missing a beat. ‘It’s here.’