Red Tape

Of Men and Monsters

When I was younger my father once said to me "There are monsters in the form of men." I didn't understand what he meant until I took up my vocation. In the world of hitmen, I am known as the "the jinx", because my specialty is to take care of someone and make it look like the fates have intervened. Sure, a high-powered sniper rifle or a knifing in a dark alley sends a message, but some people want their problems to go away quietly.

My usual modus operandi is to stake out the target and find a weakness in their life. A health problem, that certain drugs that are difficult to detect unless you're looking for them, will aggravate. Perhaps you haven't serviced your old car in a while, and the brake failure was to be expected. The overworked police will see the grim reaper behind the act, not me.

When the priest approached me with three targets, I was not in a position to refuse his money. Certain people had started to get wind of my methods and I had to lay low for a while. Unfortunately, I was also having a cash flow problem. Eliminating some low profile plebs for some cash in hand, was too good an opportunity to pass over.

I didn't like it. What's worse, he insisted on meeting in a public place. As someone who spends all my time calculating how to hedge the odds. I know how dangerous variables would be spinning in the air.

I chose the meeting place. A small, cozy place to make him feel at ease (a lot of people get nervous when they meet a trained killer, face to face, ). A small café, off the beaten path but popular enough to be busy.

I watched from a safe place as he went in first, to make sure he was alone and not being followed or watched by someone else. I was glad to see he had enough sense not to wear his dog collar. I entered the café, with my newspaper under my arm, like I expected to arrive first and be the one waiting. I sat at the same table removing the reserved sign I'd arranged to have put there, and ordered us two teas.

A plump old man conservatively dressed sat in front of me. He looked surprisingly cool, considering the circumstances. I guess if you think God is in your corner, it gives you a pair. As the waitress arrived with our teas, he began to pass the gym bag to me. My hand shot out and stopped him. I looked him straight in the eye, my steely grip tight on his arm. I waited for the waitress to leave before speaking.

" Leave the bag, I 'll take it with me, drink your tea and leave first," I told him in a low but firm voice.

He nodded, "You have all the information on the..."

I raised my hand to cut him off. " We have a deal, there's no need to go over the details here. Besides I like to do my own research. So finish your tea and be on your way. Trust me all your problems are about to be over."

We stayed there for a few minutes, in uncomfortable silence. He looked at me and then the tea. Anyone hiring my services would have known I use poisons a lot. I smiled and switched teacups, giving him mine and taking his. Then the priest did as I instructed, sipping on his tea. He left a few minutes later.

I waited a while and read my paper and then I left with the gym bag of cash in my hand.

The priest had sexually abused three children in the local parish. Now as adults they wanted justice and even the Roman Catholic Church couldn't keep them quiet. So, a little charity money had gone missing for my services. I was to make sure they all had a series of tragic random events happen in their lives.

What the priest didn't know was that one of the kids had some distant ties through the family to the local mafia. They hadn't taken too kindly to having a hit called out on this guy. Just so happens, that this particular clan of the mafia were the ones I was lying low from. So I made a little deal with them. The cousin third time removed from some "made guy", wouldn't have any bad luck (nor would the priest's other two victims). They'd leave me be and even pay for my services, that along with the priest money made me a pretty little profit.

The Priest? Well, when I took his arm to stop him publicly handing over my payment and looked him straight in the eyes (keeping his attention on my face), I poured the powered drug laying in the folds of the newspaper into my cup, knowing that the tea I'd ordered would seem suspicious to him. I switched cups and told him to drink the tea. In a couple of hours, the overweight old man will suffer a nasty heart attack that will kill him. The kind of thing that would seem sad, but normal for a man of his age and physical condition.

As my father said, there are monsters in the form of men.