Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (12 page)

“I’m sorry to break this to you, but your happiness, important as it may be, would not be my top priority at that moment.”

“Of course it would.  Besides, I’d bust you out.  It’s really easy.”

“Is it?” Frank asked.  I’d never met anyone who was so open to believing the things I had to say.  Especially when my knowledge came with an
As Seen on TV
sticker.

“Piece of cake.  Or maybe a whole cake.  With a file.”

Frank shook his head hopelessly, with a look like I’d failed him.  “That would take too long.”

“There’s lots of other ways,” I said, trying to gain back my credibility.  It wasn’t my fault.  It was my stomach talking.  “You just have to wait for me to spring you, okay?”

“You had better do it quickly.”

“I will.  I promise.”

“Are you finished here?” he asked.

I threw another rock.  It missed too.  “Yeah.”

Frank and I walked back to the car, windshield wipers moving in time to the blinking hazard lights.  He’d managed to park really straight, as if he’d pulled over deliberately, and not because I’d screamed at him.  “Do you want to help me change the plates?”

I shrugged, watching as he popped the trunk.  I almost expected to see a dead body in there, but it was just his leather duffel bag and our trash, and a plastic roadside emergency kit which instead of containing flares, contained a giant stack of license plates.  “Would you like to pick?”

The plates on his car now were from South Dakota.  I wondered how many people he killed there before heading to Chicago. “Where are we headed?”

“Florida,” he said. “For Charlie.”

“Florida plates?” I asked nervously.

“Never the same state,” he said, and he placed his hand gently on my back, silently reassuring me that I hadn’t fucked anything up.  “And not one we’re driving through.  How’s your geography?”

“I’m an American.”

“Georgia will do,” he decided, taking the pressure off of me.  He leafed through the alphabetically stacked plates until he found what he was looking for.  Then he changed the driver’s license in his wallet, also South Dakota, to match.  They both said Frank Smith.

Vincent
Smith.  “Is that really your last name?”

“Of course not,” he laughed. “And it’s Moreaux, before you ask.”

Vincent Moreaux.  It sounded good.

I took the plates, pausing in my assignment not because the pocketknife I got to use as a screwdriver was the same length as the one that had been in me, but because of how many there were.  All fifty states.  And Canada.

“You must put a lot of miles on this car,” I said, thinking of all the truckers driving through my home town, with all their different license plates.

Frank shrugged.  “I just ask Charlie for a new one.  The plates are legitimate.  Well, in a way.”

“You have fifty of these?”

“More or less.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“It’s just money, V,” he said, and he pressed a wad of cash into my hand as thick as my wrist.  He had an expression on his face like he’d just as soon set it on fire with our trash, so I pocketed it before getting started on the plates.

Screwing a license plate onto the back of his car hardly took a thorough understanding of auto mechanics, but I felt more secure when I was making myself useful.  That was probably why he let me do it in the first place.  Frank may not have been fluent in teenager, but he understood me better than anyone ever had.  And anyway, I liked doing things for him.  That way I could pretend like I was courting him, and I was one door held open away from getting into his pants.

When we stopped for gas—always with a quarter tank left—I got to do the pumping, and he let me buy him coffee with his money, along with anything my little heart desired; candy and soda and magazines that got thrown out at the next station.  But once the excitement of actually leaving the state wore off, along with the sugar rush, it all looked pretty much the same and I started feeling really tired.

Having been company to two murders, an attempted rape, and no sleep the night before, I could imagine falling asleep, then waking up screaming and startling Frank so bad he crashed his car and killed us both.  Or worse.  Me surviving.  Alone.  Again.

I couldn’t count the number of guys I’d lived with for less than one night, who’d kicked me out after I woke them up screaming from night terrors when they had an important business meeting the next day.

When the sun finally started coming up it was a relief, even though it was brighter than I’d ever seen it, and without the dullness of Illinois to dim the glow, it felt like being punched in the eyes.  “Do you have sunglasses?” I asked. I’d purchased a pair seventy miles back, but they broke when I yanked off the tag, and Frank refused to let me return them because he thought it would make us too memorable to the clerk.

“Glove compartment.”

I opened it, freezing in my tracks when I saw a handgun.  “Is that loaded?”

Frank glanced toward me, then back to the road.  “It’s a fair assumption.”

“Will it go off if I touch it?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the weapon.  Frank’s sunglasses were behind it, thoroughly guarded.

“Depends how you touch it,” Frank said dryly. “The safety’s on, V.  Just give it here.”

I carefully lifted it up, remembering another time I’d touched something of his; the torn up copy of
Jane Eyre
had been worse for the wear after I was through with it.

The gun was heavier than I thought it would be, likely more from my apprehension than the actual weight of steel.  I couldn’t help but think of all those stories of kids finding their parents’ pistols and accidentally shooting themselves in the face.  I pointed it at the dashboard as I handed it to him, keeping my fingers as far away from the trigger as I could.

He smiled, removing the clip one handed and briefly letting go of the steering wheel to release the round from the chamber, giving the gun and the magazine back to me separately.  He tossed the bullet in the cup holder, already sticky from me spilling my Coke.

I set the clip in the cup holder with the bullet and the gun on my lap, then put on his sunglasses and kept going through the glove compartment.  It was too tidy in there, everything perfectly in its place.  He had a U.S. map that had seen better days, but even that was still pristinely folded.  Then I found something that caused more panic than the pistol.  “Is this a wedding ring?” I asked, holding the small gold ring like it was the pin from a grenade.

“It was Bella’s idea,” he said nonchalantly.

Of course it was.  I could imagine her proposing to him.  He would be too shy to do it.  But why had he referred to her as a friend if she was his wife?  “Getting married was her idea?”

“Wearing a ring,” Frank said. “I still do occasionally.  People don’t look at me the same way if they think I’m someone’s husband.”

I smiled, unable to hide my elation at his unwed status.  I’d slept with married men before, but Frank was too loyal to ever cheat on someone.  It didn’t change the fact that he was straight, though it did restore my hope of someday screwing him.

I slipped on the ring.  It was too big, but I liked the way it looked so much that I shut the glove compartment without putting it back.  Sunglasses, check.  Frank’s wedding ring, check.  My wardrobe was complete.

“They find you more intimidating if you’re single?” I asked, admiring my left hand in the morning light.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “When I came to the U.S., I was a bit naïve.  I misjudged someone and got burned because of it.  Bella didn’t want to see that happen again, so she suggested I take myself off the market.”

“A girl broke your heart,” I said, somehow understanding what he was saying through his vagueness.  “What a cunt.”

“V!” He gasped.

“What?  I bet Bella called her the same thing.”

He laughed.  “She did, as a matter of fact.”   

“You two are really close, huh?”

“Yes,” he said, “we are.”

“If you were seeing someone else, then Bella isn’t your girlfriend?” I asked, trying to disguise my optimism with curiosity.

“Subtle, V.”

“Well?”

“No, Bella’s not my girlfriend.  She’s seeing our boss.”

“Charlie?” I croaked, unable to enjoy my moment of bliss through such a revolting thought.

“Charlie is
not
my boss,” he said firmly.  “He’s my handler.”

“Handler?  That makes you sound like his pet.”

“Don’t remind me,” Frank said. “Charlie and I work for the same person.  Technically, I’m closer to being
his
supervisor, but only because our boss doesn’t care for him.  Our professional relationship is symbiotic.  He needs me to do his job, and I need him to do mine.  It’s safer for both of us if Charlie never commits the crime, and I never meet the client requesting it.”

“Your boss must be pretty cool if he doesn’t like Charlie,” I said.

“Believe it or not, Charlie does have some redeeming qualities.  And he helped me out when I was younger.  I owe him a lot.”

“You only say that because you’re Catholic.  If you were a Baptist you’d have dumped him like a bad habit.”

Frank smiled at me.  “Maybe.”

“We’re gonna work on this guilt thing, Frank,” I said, kicking my shoes off and putting my feet up on the dash.  “You’ll see.  Soon you’ll be doing all sorts of things without feeling any remorse.  You might even have sex with a minor.”

I glared at my newly sworn enemy the mirror, a stranger looking back at me.  Frank had practically shaved my head after going through the trouble of dying it mousy brown, using his straight-edge razor blade to give me the manual equivalent of an electric buzz-cut.  I had to admit that I was unrecognizable, though I didn’t know whether that was from the color or the style.

People always cry on makeover shows.  Now I understood why.  It was God-awful.  I looked average.  Worse than average.  Completely unattractive.

How was I ever going to seduce Frank, make him fall in love with me, if I was brunet?  It wasn’t like I could astound him with my intellect, or my ever-increasing skill of putting my foot in my mouth.  Being pretty was all I had.  I may as well have let Charlie buy my death.  My life was over.

I touched my face, my skin no longer luminescent, my eyes grayer than usual and stormy.  This was pure punishment, and not the good kind.

“You okay?” Frank asked, glancing up at me from the edge of the bed.  He was plowing through
Wuthering Heights
, working on wearing it out as much as his other novel while I tried to adjust to my new look.  It wasn’t me.  I supposed that was the point, but it wasn’t V either.  At least not the idea
I
had for him.

In my mind, V was like Frank.  Cold.  Detached.  Tall.  I knew that reducing my name to a mere letter wouldn’t affect my height.  Nor should it change my personality.  But it had, and it made me aware of something:  V was the one who’d stabbed a person to death.  Vincent would’ve died on the floor like a good boy.

“It’s only temporary,” I sighed, something he had been reminding me every few minutes since he made me steal the dye from a drugstore.  He claimed that it would look suspicious to buy it, as if dying the child’s hair so he doesn’t look like the missing posters was part of
Kidnapping 101
.  This was my first time out of Illinois, and I would forever associate it with a drab Tennessee motel room and an unpleasant makeover.

It didn’t help that the room had evidently been the stage for many changes of appearance over the years; there were multiple dye stains on the bathroom walls, reds and browns, even some green, though that could’ve been anything.  Apparently, Tennessee was a good place to go when you were on the lam.

Frank set down his book and motioned for me to come over.  The way he avoided speaking made me feel like I was in a church
.  Use your inside voice, Vincent.  This is a sacred place.  Remember your manners.

I sat beside him, carefully moving his book out of my way.  This was as far out of his possession it had been since I gave it to him.

“I’m worried about you, V,” he said, and he stood up.  I stood too.  I’d already learned that if Frank did something, it was a good idea to replicate.  The one time I hadn’t followed his subtle lead, I hit my head on a low-hanging sign that he’d wisely ducked.  The slight pain had been worth it though.  Not only had it gotten a good laugh out of him, I hadn’t felt short for once.  “You look tired.”

“I look brunet,” I said contemptuously.  I wasn’t planning on telling him just how much I hated what he’d done to me, but he’d sort of asked.

“You didn’t sleep in the car,” he said.  He’d quickly gotten into the habit of ignoring comments that may be construed as
lippy
if he had something important to say to me.

I shrugged.  Nothing got past Frank.  “I wanted to see where we were going,” I said, slumping back onto the bed to put a little distance between us.  I didn’t want to talk about how much Charlie had scared me.  I was V now, and V wasn’t afraid of shit like that.  He didn’t have nightmares over things that were in the past.  He stayed up all night because Frank did.

“Vincent―”

“You’re not supposed to call me that anymore,” I said, trying to remain standoffish though I couldn’t help but smile and swoon a little over how he said my name.

“Have you ever been in a fight?” he asked, completely changing the subject.

“I’ve been beaten up before.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No,” I said.

He slapped me.  I gasped and held my face.  He’d surprised me, but it hadn’t hurt.  Just a slight stinging where his fingers grazed my cheek, and the all-too-brief rush that faded before I opened my mouth.  “What was that for?”

“I’m going to teach you how to fight.”

“Okay,” I said, shaking my head. “Um, thanks?”

He slapped me again, this time harder.

“Fuck, Frank!  Knock it off!” I yelled, the adrenaline making my hands shake.  I was all for playing rough, but tonight wasn’t the best night for it, and I drew the line at taking blows to the face.  My face was my best feature.  He’d already done enough damage to my appearance by butchering my hair.