WE’RE PROFESSIONALS AND WE’RE THE BEST. Whatever the job is, if the money’s right, we get it done - the dirtier the better.
Prologue
“The thing with the cops, Mrs. Cullen,” the public defender’s greedy eyes looked her slowly up and down, “what they want is someone they can put in jail. Unless you can hand them somebody better, you’re going to be holding the baby.” Thanks for that handy reminder, I thought. Will I be able to get a test kit in custody?
And this was MY lawyer, the professional that was paid to be on my side. But I couldn’t give my lovers up. Not for anything.
CHAPTER ONE
“His eyes are opening now, do you see?”
“Ah so they are, look at them flickering away there. He looks a bit like that blonde did last night when you were sucking on her pussy.”
“More like the redhead while she was swallowing the length of your cock. I saw the tip of her tongue tickling you under your balls there. Oh, look now, Declan, I think he’s recognized you.”
“I should fucking hope he would. If the fucker didn’t recognize me, that would be a very bad start to the proceedings.”
“That it would. Your man would be in a pretty horrible predicament if he didn’t know who we were.”
“Even more of a horrible predicament than the fucker’s in now, if you could fucking believe it.”
“Imagine waking up in a big, damp, empty warehouse, strapped to a high back chair.” The clack of Liam’s heavy shoes echoed as he stalked around the chair to stand behind it, “Two big, evil motherfuckers in black suits and shades, looming over you and you’d no idea why.”
Declan nodded as he stepped towards the man in the chair, “That’d be pretty fucking tragic.” He leaned down to put his face level with Abe’s. “Wakey, wakey, Abe.” Abe’s flabby jowls wobbled like jell-o as Declan’s massive hand slapped him.
Abe started to jabber, his eyes fled from one man to the other and back. “It’s a misunderstanding. Come on, we can fix this, get it straight. Make it right.”
From behind him, Liam’s voice drooped. “The misunderstanding,” and he shook his head, “That’s five bucks I owe you Declan.”
“‘We?” Declan said, “What does he mean?” Liam’s head shook.
Abe struggled in the chair.
He said, “Look, I’ll give you more. I’ll give you double what we said in the first place.” He looked at Declan and strained to turn and see Liam. Then back, and again. “Each!”
“Now here it comes, you see?” Liam stepped back and reached inside his suit coat. Pulled out a shiny black wallet, “I thought he’d be coming with the big offer first. But, no. He had to start with the misunderstanding.”
Then he put his face beside the bulging eyes of the man strapped in the chair and spoke next to his ear. “Ya bollocks. You know that you just cost me another five bucks.”
“Goes to show,” Declan accepted the five-dollar bill, “The man doesn’t think his bargaining through. Kicks right off. No negotiating strategy whatsoever.”
Liam nodded, “Just winging it.”
The man’s bald head shrank against the high back of the chair as Declan leaned towards him, “Thought you’d wing it with us,” he grinned as he raised an eyebrow, “Was that it? ‘I’ll just wing it,’ and you thought, ‘What can go wrong?’ Am I right?”
His head was shaking, “Guys…”
Declan cut him off, “It’s ‘guys’ now is it?”
“We’re all in this together,” Liam said, “Is that the sort of thing?”
Liam asked Declan, “Would you say that we’re all in this together?”
“You mean like us two and those three girls last night? We were definitely all in it together there. You and I, we were in Miss Popsicle together.”
Declan sighed, “Oh, yes. And the other two, we were all in it together there in so many ways.”
Liam said, “And sure, we’re all in this cold fucking warehouse together, there’s no doubt about that. For reasons not of your choosing or mine, we’re all together in this dank, deserted tin shed, out in the rust and decay of a light industrial wasteland outside of Southeast fucking nowhere.”
“All that is true.” Abe’s head jerked between the two big men as they prowled around him and Declan went on, “A place where, I might say, the atmosphere is doing nothing good for my Valentino suit, nor for yours either if you don’t mind me mentioning it, Liam. But I would add in the fact that one of us, namely Abe here, is trussed into a fucking chair, while the other two, yourself and I, are plainly not.”
Liam nodded, “That’s a distinguishing feature, right enough.”
Abe’s face was wet and he was red around his eyes.
Abe shook as Declan dropped a hand on his shoulder, “Would you say that we were all in it together when the little bollocks here decided to set a discount on the work we did for him?”
“And after the work was done, too.” Liam’s head shook, “Just reduced the final payment off his own bat.”
“Unilaterally.” Declan prowled around the chair. “Without even an attempt at coming to terms.”
“Not even the hint of a haggle. Hardly a star negotiator, it has to be said. Not a class act.”
“No, Abe, I’m sorry to say, attempting to rip us off was the lesser of your transgressions.” Declan and Liam shook their heads sadly.
Liam said, “You provided the time and the place for the job and when we arrived, there was a youngster, there on the scene.”
Abe shook against the straps and the chair wobbled noisily. “What, you charge extra for collateral?”
“OH!” Liam and Declan said, one after the other.
“Now, that’s offensive,” Declan’s face wrinkled.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Liam said, “If you set the time and place, then a clean target zone is your responsibility.”
Declan stepped back, “Bad manners, is the least of it.” Then, to Abe, “There are a couple of ways that this can go.”
Nodding excitedly, Abe said, “Yes. Yes. Anything, just say. Whatever you want.” Declan held up a hand for him to stop.
“Aw,” Liam said, “He thinks you’re going to be making a deal. Like you’d be laying out offers. Presenting him with alternative scenarios.”
“He does, Liam. You’re right.”
“It’s a wonder he built a business empire at all, wouldn’t you say?”
“With his negotiating skills, Liam? I’d say it’s practically a fucking miracle.”
“You shouldn’t let me hear your names,” Abe blurted from the chair. There was a pause. Then Declan and Liam’s laughs crackled and echoed in the big metal shed.
After a moment, “Abe,” Liam said, “In this godforsaken asshole of a town, is there one decent brothel that you could seriously recommend?”
“Oh, god yes.” Abe said, “Dalia’s. Big old Victorian house on 13th street. Set back and double fronted. She’s got a couple of sisters in there, used to be TV weather girls in Chicago. Suck the buttons off your shirt. They’ll do you both together, all ways around, you know, plays in every port? Massive jugs, all natural. Pussies that could milk an elephant.”
Liam’s face folded. “He’s all charm.”
“Must have been a great one with the ladies.” Declan’s voice was hollow with disappointment. “Has this fuck got one redeeming fucking feature?”
“If he has then he’s saving it up for a special occasion.”
“Now, Abe,” Declan prowled clockwise now. “When you hire a couple of men to come and kill your business partner, do you expect them to be the kind of people you want to dick around and cheat?”
“Did you think you’d be getting hitmen recruited from a Sunday school, Abe?” Liam asked him.
Declan thrust his face near Abe’s. “That’s the bit that I don’t get either. Did you think the men who came to do the hit on your business partner would dissolve his body in vile chemicals, then turn into fluffy bunnies and hop away?”
Abe started to speak, but Liam said, “Did you think we’d be the kind of men who couldn’t count all the way up to two hundred and fifty thousand? Or was it just that you’re such a big noise around here that when you decided to lighten the second payment by fifty K, we’d shrug it off and slink away?”
“Should we light him up now, Liam?” Abe winced at the sound of Liam’s name.
“There’s a couple of ways this can go, Abe.”
“Anything,” the chair shook and his voice did, too.
Liam said, “You’ll have caught a whiff of gas there, Abe. It’s all over the floor and there’s a tin bath full of the stuff right behind you.” Abe’s eyes flicked to the side at the rickety table, stacked with the tall candles that Declan was now carefully lighting.
“You see right on the side, on the very edge of the table there, those two little pills.” Abe’s face was melting in misery. Liam went on, “Super powerful anesthetics. Put you into a coma in no time.”
Declan said, “’Course, you’d have to lunge at the table with your mouth to get them. Quite tricky I’d say without knocking the table over.”
“Can be done though,” Liam said.
“Now for the choice,” Declan planted himself in front of Abe and from his suit coat he drew out a long, gleaming blade. He looked at Liam, “Femoral, carotid or forehead?”
“No! WAIT!” Abe’s voice was as wet as his face.
Softly Liam said, “You’d be as well to listen to this part you know. It could make a lot of difference to you.”
Declan told him, “See, a femoral artery, that’s the one in your thigh there, if that’s severed it’ll pump out like a geyser and you’ll have a few minutes at the most, but you’ll likely be conscious till pretty near the end. Start to get cold as the top half of your body drains, numb fingers and then slowly you’ll drift into unconsciousness. The carotid artery, now, it takes about the same time to bleed out or maybe even a little longer but, because it takes the blood to your brain, you’re likely going to lose consciousness after a minute or so.”
Declan’s head cocked to one side at Abe’s blubbering red face. “The forehead, though,” he drew his thumb across Abe’s forehead, “Blood pours down into your eyes and into your mouth. It looks very dramatic, doesn’t it Liam?”
“Oh, it gushes,” Liam said, “Very dramatic indeed, Declan.”
Declan nodded, “But it could take you an hour and a half or even two to bleed out.”
“Can be even longer, Declan.”
“I’ve not seen that.”
“Don’t you remember the man in Phoenix?”
“Oh, yes, Liam, I do now. That was a very long time. Three and a half hours nearly, wouldn’t you say?”
“He didn’t die happy.”
“Ah no. And that was what his wife wanted, wasn’t it. I remember now.” Declan’s head shook sadly, “We don’t get so much flourish from a client these days.”
“No, you’re right there.” Liam chuckled, “There’s never any of this, ‘Make them understand the terrible thing they did,’ or, ‘Be sure they get this message and they know who it’s from,’ not these days. No, it’s just ‘bump the fucker off and make sure no-one finds him.’ No sense of style.”
“No élan.”
“You’re right, Declan, that’s exactly what it is.”
Abe jolted as Liam’s big hand clapped on his shoulder from behind. Liam’s big paw squeezed him as he leaned down to speak into his ear, “They’re going to find you though, Abe, there’s no getting away from that.”
Abe wet his pants. His lips trembled and he blubbered.
“The joke of it is,” Liam said and turned to look into Abe’s streaming profile, “You know who they’ll credit with all this, you know who’ll be held responsible?”
Declan smiled and said, “You’ll never believe who’s going to be famous for your horrific murder.”
“I believe that’s what they’ll call it in the media.” Said Liam, “They love that kind of a lurid turn of phrase, don’t they? A ‘Horrific Murder.’ Or is it ‘An Horrific Murder’? I can never remember, can you, Declan?”
“I never can. What do you think, Abe?”
Abe just shook his head rapidly. Liam said, “Abe can’t remember either. Isn’t it a terrible thing, a failure of education?”
“Anyway, Abe,” Declan lit the last of the big candles and placed it unsteadily on the table with the others. “The award for your grisly slaying as they might term it,” Liam nodded,
“Oh, that’s a good one. ‘Grisly slaying.’ They might use that.”
Declan smiled. “That distinction will go to your former and as we know now, very deceased business partner. Whom, as I believe we’ve established, nobody is ever going to find.”
“There isn’t a lot left to find.” Liam’s voice was low.
“Well no. And what there is, honestly, nobody would want to go near it, much less look at it. And not smell it.”
“Oh, no, Abe, not smell it. Not for love nor money.” Declan put the Zippo back in his pocket. “Candles are all lit now, Abe, as you see, and balanced if perhaps a little unsteadily, on the little table. So, fish to fry and all that. We’ll have to love you and leave you.”
“Well, leave you, anyhow. And thanks for the tip about Dalia, although I think you may have spoiled my appetite for her establishment.” Holding out the knife to Liam, Declan said, “Would you like to do the honors?”
Liam smiled. “Under the circumstances we could take one each, do you not think?” Declan nodded once and Liam said, “So. After you.”
The two thin red lines across Abe’s forehead leaked and ran then suddenly poured like red waterfalls. He gurgled and spluttered, coughed and choked.
As they left Liam called out, “Don’t forget the pills, Abe.
Declan tossed him the car keys and said, “Double or quits. What do you say?”
“Sure. Time or distance, you choose.”
== == ==
The Range Rover slowly gnawed up the flat, gray road across the flat gray landscape.
Declan said, “Do you really want to check out that brothel you asked him about?”
“Would I want to go anywhere that slug has been? I was thinking about those three singers in the Hilton last night, though.”
“Oh, I just bet you were. But we both know the rules.”
“I know. And there’s bound to be another Hilton on the way.” Liam’s voice was dreamy, “What I was thinking, though, wouldn’t it be grand if there was a woman who’d got what all three of those girls had.”
Declan laughed and said, “Then we’d both be wanting the same woman.”
“True enough.” The road didn’t get any more interesting over the next minute or two. “I need something to take my mind off the next job. I hate these back to backs.”
“Right. This next one coming up, it’s hard to tell who you want to kill more, the target or the fucking client.”
“He does sound like a ginormous douche. Let’s hope we don’t wind up having to do them both again.”
Declan said, “Like this one you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“And it’s in Asscrack fucking Ohio.”
“Ah, no, my friend. Where we’re going, they work and save for a family trip to Asscrack.”
A sound in the distance was like a huge cardboard box being suddenly flattened. Liam saw a rising plume of black smoke in the rear view mirror. He stopped the car and they both peered at the dashboard. Liam smiled, “One point two miles.” He held out his hand. “I’ll have that ten bucks now, if you don’t mind.”
“Fair play to you, you read him right that time,” Declan said as he handed Liam the ten.
“When it came down to it, he couldn’t make the decision. Wouldn’t know which shoe he’d try to tie first.” Liam said as he swung the Range Rover back onto the road.
“Putting things off and putting them off until it’s all too late.” Declan shook his head. “What were those pills?”
“Tylenol.”
I want to say that I hoped it was quick. That it wouldn’t be drawn out or too painful.
After all that he’d done to me, though, I’d be lying if I did.
It was a bright, sunny May day on Main Street when the hitmen came to town. From the window of the DeLacey Doily Café, cups paused, halfway to red lips that waited, open in anticipation. The ladies of the town, and that included me, all watched a squat, matt black Range Rover pound with a lot of noise and no hurry, up our quiet little main street. It stopped at the curb right opposite the café, in the tow-away zone. By the hydrant. Right next to Officer Jaycey.
A wicked smile stretched Jaycey’s thin, bloodless lips as she took out her fat little book of tickets and her cheap, scratchy ball-point pen.
Even from across the street we caught a flash of the driver’s dark, golden brown eyes over his black shades as he stepped around the car and tilted his red lips towards Officer Jaycey’s ear. Before she got a ticket ready to write he had loomed up, tall and black suited behind her shoulder.
Her neck flicked like there were hornets in her hair. Her eyes glazed when she turned to look in his face and we all saw her knees sag. His dark head low as he turned it to talk in her ear. Her shoulder went up and head cocked to one side like she was being tickled.
He said something else to her and her face flushed. Jaycey fumbled as she put her book of tickets away in her back pocket. She jumped back when the passenger door opened and another dark haired man got out. From across the street they looked like they could be twins. Jaycey hurried, bustling away with her head shaking and low.
Both tall, broad, and dark in sharp black suits they wore bright white shirts with high, open collars. We all studied the huge, angular frames of the two men, dark silhouettes in the bright sun. Feet planted wide apart, they looked right in the café window. You could feel a thump of shock and the temperature in the café rose as a distinct perfume hit the air.
All of us, all of the ladies in the DeLacey Doily Café licked our lips slowly as we took in the tight Italian cut suits stretched hard over the bulges in front of their hips. And we all breathed in sharply as they stepped off the curb, heading right this way.
Even insolent, pouting little Kylie, the tattooed tart who hid in plain sight as the DeLacey Doily’s laziest waitress drew herself up straight, touched the back of her neck and lifted her chin towards the door as they approached.
The little bell jingled like a hysterical toy fire alarm as the door sprang open. They let it slam against the frame as they strode in the middle of the room.
The air in the café quivered as they stood and their eyes swept the room. I know mine were not the only thighs that shook and fell ever so slightly apart as they gazed around, tall and smoking hot. Their eyes cut across all of the ladies of the town and the first voice rolled like a massive bowling ball.
“Who knows where Hollis Cullen is?”
It took a moment for me to speak. My breath fluttered in my breast. These strangers, these huge hunks of raw animal power wanted something that I could give them. I felt the jealous gazes of all the other women in the café as their eyes swiveled my way.
When the ladies all looked at me I felt their thin breaths of envy, the two men looked me. Their hard eyes froze on me and held me. I could hardly move my eyes to look from one to the other and my stomach fluttered like a tiny sparrow, caught in a huge jar. Slowly then they looked at each other.
My mouth dried. There was a definite moment between them before their eyes turned back to me.
Should I have been so ready to take them to Hollis? In my girlish, unrealistic soul, I wanted to do whatever these two hunks wanted me to do. More than anything I wanted them to want me to do something for them.
Anything. Really. Anything. Some things maybe more than others. I knew that was just girlish fantasy, though. That kind of a thing would be with Hollis from the day we met and forever after till the day I died.
Hollis had been a ‘good catch’ when we were in high school, as my momma never failed to tell me, with Daddy nodding like a donkey behind her, watching me over her shoulder with his eyebrows raised.
Was Hollis the great ‘catch’ because he was the football star with the looks of a Michelangelo sculpture, a floodlight smile and the super magnetic personality that made everyone feel magical and alive, the man that every girl adored and every boy wanted to be? No.
Hollis was the ‘catch,’ because his daddy owned the lumber mill. The mill where my daddy and almost everyone else’s daddy worked. The mill that kept every other business in our little town in business.
With an ax and a cart when there was nothing here but the trees and a few cabins by the river, Hoagie started Cullen’s Lumber. Now, the town of Cullen has over fifty thousand inhabitants, all of them with a debt of gratitude to Hoagie Cullen. He carries debts of other kinds for most of them, too. Hoagie is not an easy man to like, but he’s almost impossible not to admire. I should know since he’s my father-in-law.
His son Hollis, my husband, on the other hand, was impossible to like and I never heard of anyone admiring him. Not after they’d actually met him.
A rustle went around the café as the two men prowled towards me and stopped to stand on either side of me. Uncomfortable I looked up, but I couldn’t see their eyes through their dark shades. Then I couldn’t stop my gaze from following the buttons of their white shirts, down to the dull gleam of expensive looking belt buckles and farther down to the strained Italian fabric suit pants at my eye level.
Their manner was polite and my thoughts were distinctly not. A thing that Hollis has made me do, that I never would have done if he hadn’t forced me, that I thought disgusting. He made me do it all the time, and always complained about how I did it. How I had no ‘enthusiasm’ for it. And I didn’t. Not until a shocking half a second ago. My throat tightened and I had to moisten my lips. Little Kylie glowered at me with hot pokers in her eyes.
The broader of the men was on my left. With a New England brogue he said, “Would you take us to him, Miss?”
And the other said, with the trace of Pennsylvania, “If it isn’t any trouble to you.”
They were on either side of me as I stood and I felt light-headed. There was an air of danger about these men, something that troubled the air, but one touched my hand. The touch was soft, but a shudder like a sonic boom went off deep inside me.
At the same time I felt the warmth of the other man as his accent breathed softly into my ear, “We’re here. You’re alright now.” For a moment I could only stand still. A need came over me and my eyelids fluttered as I moistened my lips.
There was nothing I wanted more than to lead these two lusty, dangerous men out of the café, in front of all the small town’s fine ladies. And nothing I wanted less than to take them to my husband.
As the two men in black followed me back out into the hot sun, a long sigh dragged out of the women in the café at once.