Chance Assassin: A Story of Love, Luck, and Murder (3 page)

I smiled.  It had been a long time since I considered myself remotely lucky.  But I suppose I was.  I was
alive
, after all.  And it looked like I might stay that way.  At least for now.

Charlie came to visit me every day around lunch time, bringing something greasy to eat and a deck of cards; although it took another week before I could sit up to play with him.  We watched TV instead, but the first time he turned on the news there was a story of an arson investigation in a very familiar neighborhood, where the owner could not seem to be located.  There were no leads.  There was no evidence.  I’d gone pale enough for Charlie to be concerned, and after that we stuck to game shows, since he refused to let me watch soap operas and I couldn’t handle the news.

It was obvious that the man I
hadn’t
killed was nonetheless just as dead; bleeding men didn’t accidentally leave the gas on and then go on vacation without telling anyone.  And it had to have been Frank who finished him off.  Charlie could barely open a packet of ketchup without my help, let alone change my bandages; his hands were gnarled with arthritis.

I spent hours thinking about what it must have been like for him to walk into that house and see what I’d done.  Had my assailant been making the mess worse, dragging himself across the kitchen tile, unable to reach the phone and call for help?  Did Frank stab him as I had?  If he did, he would’ve done it better, correctly so he didn’t slice his hand.  And he certainly wouldn’t have gotten stabbed first.

The idea that Frank was a murderer discouraged my affections less than the knowledge that he hated me.  In fact, I was flattered.  I liked to think that Blackbeard the stock broker had been killed because he hurt me, not because his survival may have led to Charlie’s incarceration.  Visualizing Frank telling him “This is for Vincent” before making him walk the metaphorical plank gave me a hard on.

I tried to get more information about him, my intrigue only heightened by the fact that he had never returned.  But Charlie seemed less than enthusiastic to help me out.  He just laughed a lot, saying
Frank’s just this
or
Frank’s just that
, explaining away his strange and interesting behavior with words like
shy
or
moody
and then dropping it completely.

I thought I’d never get any answers until I was five hundred imaginary dollars in debt to the man thanks to the ever changing rules of poker playing.  Then I decided to try a different approach.  Winning.

Instead of going further into the red, I started betting for information.  I’d match his twenty bucks and raise him a “Where’s Frank?”  That gave me the determination to pay more attention when Charlie was cheating, and cheat right back.

Still, he was a hell of a lot better at cards than I was, and even when he did lose he wouldn’t give me complete answers.  Then if I tried to press him he got angry, and that was when I saw his true colors.  The more I asked about Frank, the less time Charlie would spend with me, making up excuses that meant I’d be going without lunch, or dinner, or sometimes both.  It wasn’t as if I could go out and get something on my own.  I had no coat, no shirt, a still healing stab-wound for all to see, no room key, and no money, since he never had given me that fifty bucks.  So I behaved myself, making small talk and not mentioning Frank at all.  And then he showed up.

Frank came in while we were eating dinner in front of the TV, and stupid me just stared at him with my mouth hanging open.  He looked thinner, though it had only been a little over a week since I’d last seen him, and the dark circles under his eyes were even more prominent.

I watched him stand there, keeping close to the door as if he didn’t want anything to do with either of us.  He was wearing all black again, looking funereal from head to toe, his clothes hanging off of him like he was no more alive than the person he seemed to be mourning.  His body was so tense it made
my
muscles sore just to look at him.

“Hey, kiddo.  Want something to eat?” Charlie asked.  I had a feeling my food was the meal up for grabs, but Frank got a sour expression on his face when he glanced at the paper bag spotted transparent with grease.  Then he went and sat down in the same corner chair without a response.

That was generally my reaction to what Charlie brought, but I’d gone hungry too many times to pass up the opportunity of having something in my stomach.  The fries may have been cold and soggy, and the burger may have tasted like Charlie used it as an ashtray before handing it over, but it was better than nothing.

“Vincent’s been asking about you, Frankie boy,” he said with a sinister grin.

I turned as far away as my neck would allow, feeling my face flush and silently cursing Charlie with every bad word I’d ever heard.  I couldn’t believe he said that!  It was bad enough that Frank hated me.  Did Charlie really have to make it worse?

Frank was watching me, I knew it.  And I was sure he was angry.  How could I have been dumb enough to think that we shared a connection?  He’d probably only sat with me because he was still on evidence destroying duty, and he wasn’t expecting me to pull through.

Charlie laughed and turned up the TV.  I continued to focus on the door until not even ten minutes later Frank stormed out of it again.  Then
I
stormed to the bathroom like the teenager I was, slamming
my
door as hard as I could.

Catching sight of my reflection in the mirror was the last thing I needed at that moment.  My hair was a disaster that the world’s strongest styling gel couldn’t fix, the surgical tape was gray with grime and peeling away from the gauze because I’d been picking at it again, and I hadn’t had a proper shower since I’d used up all my shampoo trying to scrub out the stain on my jeans.  No wonder he didn’t want to be in the same room with me.  I could barely stand to look at myself, and I was the vainest person I knew.

I sat in the corner and brought my knees to my chest, pulling at the frayed bottoms of my pant legs and trying not to cry.  It wasn’t fair.  I’d been waiting for days to see him again, and I didn’t even have the chance to make myself presentable before scaring him away.

By the time I cooled down enough to go scream at Charlie, he’d thrown out my dinner and gone home. But Frank had left his book.

I looked around suspiciously before approaching it, as if I were being watched.  The thing was so torn up that I was afraid it would crumble in my hands.  I carefully picked it up anyway, feeling the mostly missing front cover further disintegrate under my thumb.  The title page said
Jane Eyre
.  That was the
last
thing I thought he’d be reading.

I’d never read it.  I never even saw the movie.  But I knew it was prissy English shit, because Eric Harrison told me so.

Eric had been a few grades above me in school, and I’d seen a copy of it in his backpack while he was unzipping his fly and acting like he had no idea what I was doing on my knees.  He’d slapped me for looking at his stuff, and then he said that it was “Prissy English shit” he was forced to read, and I’d probably like it because I was a fag.

I flipped through the book, almost expecting to find a more appropriate novel inside, and gasping in horror as one of the middle pages came away from its friends.

“Fuck,” I said, then suddenly felt someone behind me.  I turned slowly, and there was Frank standing in the doorway, watching as I dismantled his book.  I’d known it would be him, but his presence still startled me enough to make me drop the thing to the floor.

He tensed as if
I’d raised my hand to hit him, that same wounded expression on his face that I’d seen when I woke up, like I had betrayed him.

I quickly picked it up, gathering the multitude of pages that had spewed out like the petals of a wilted flower and trying to shove them back in.  But the harder I tried to fix it the faster it came apart.  I set it on the chair before I made it any worse, deciding it better not to go near him to deliver it.  He didn’t move.

“It must be a good book,” I said amiably, “unless you bought it this way.”

I groaned.  I’d always had trouble shutting up when I was under stress, and the more I talked the more frazzled I became.  I glanced down at the pile of loose pages carelessly inserted where they didn’t belong.  Of
course
he didn’t buy it that way.

“Reading something like this, even as much as
you’ve
obviously read it, isn’t really an indication of sexual preference.  You’re probably very butch when it comes right down to it, and I’m sure lots of manly men like this sort of prissy English shit—I mean
literature
,” I closed my eyes, shuddering at the nonsense I couldn’t prevent from coming out of my mouth. “Sorry.”

When I opened them again, he still hadn’t moved.  Then the phone rang and I jumped halfway to the ceiling.  Frank just glanced toward it indifferently.

It had to be Charlie.  Probably to tell me that I’d be going hungry tomorrow.  Great timing as usual.

“I’ll get it,” I said, and as I moved toward the phone Frank moved away from me, almost like he was going to attempt to rescue his property but he didn’t make it that far.  He just kept a measured distance between us, never taking his eyes off of me.

“Hello?”

“Vincent, dear, something came up.  I won’t make it for lunch tomorrow.  Oh, and Frank’s coming over to get that road kill book of his, try not to get in his way.”

“Thanks,” I said, and rolled my eyes as I dropped the phone on the receiver. “That was Charlie.”

He nodded once, the first time I’d ever seen him respond to me.

Then I opened my big mouth again and ruined it.  “How come you have a key and I don’t?”

Frank stared at me for a second, then took out the key card, thoroughly wiped it off on his shirt, and tossed it on the bed without touching it again.

“I didn’t mean―”

He walked as far from me as he could on his way to the door, and avoided touching the handle with his fingertips. 
No evidence.
  I was too busy watching him walk away to even notice that he hadn’t bothered to grab the reason he came back to begin with.  I picked it up and ran after him, only to see his shiny black BMW pull out of the parking lot; the sleekly sexy but still conservative M5 Series sedan, V8 engine with an MSRP that could just as easily buy him the entire trailer park I grew up in; license plate South Dakota of all fucking places.

A second later, I heard the room door shut behind me with the key still inside.

I threw his book to the ground and sat beside it in a huff, angrily picking up the pages that had fallen out.  I was furious, though much more at myself for being an idiot than at Frank for being so weird.  It was about ten degrees out, and I was stuck outside with no shirt and no shoes, only his stupid book to keep me warm.  I didn’t even have any matches to make it useful.

Poor Frank.  He was probably completely normal when he didn’t have to deal with someone like me.  Everyone I spent prolonged periods of time with ended up wanting to cause me harm in one way or another.  I likely would’ve driven my parents to child abuse if they hadn’t wisely gotten themselves killed before I reached my hormonal teenage years.

But then something unexpected happened.  In less than five minutes, Charlie stopped by to let me back in.  Even though he was laughing pretty heartily at my expense, I couldn’t help but smile.  Frank must’ve told him.  There was no other explanation.  But I didn’t mention it.  I just thanked him, pretending to have forgiven him for humiliating me, and I hid the book as soon as I could.  I didn’t want Charlie to return it to its rightful owner.  I wanted Frank to come by again.

It happened sooner than I would’ve thought.  Much, much sooner, and at what couldn’t have been a worse time.

I’d gotten used to having the mornings to myself, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed with a towel around my damp hair, watching
The Young and the Restless
and absentmindedly fondling myself.  Since there was no point in getting dressed until noon, I relished in the fact that I could laze around with no clothes on and not be expected to perform.

This had been the first time since I’d run away to Chicago that my living arrangements hadn’t been purely in exchange for sexual favors.  For the most part, I considered myself homeless.  But I’d never had to sleep on the street.  There was always someone to take me in; a businessman separated from his wife, a retiree whose grandsons had grown past the point of delicious boyhood, or a guy with mommy issues who needed someone with a pretty face to wear a size four dress, and tell him to clean his room while hitting him with a wooden spoon.  They gave me somewhere to stay, and I did my best not to wear out my welcome.

But I always wore it out eventually.  They’d want more than I was willing to give, or I’d say something I shouldn’t have and get smacked for it, and I’d be back to the street with a renewed feeling of worthlessness, looking for the next lonely guy with extra room in his bed.

I supposed that was why the aspect of being a prisoner didn’t bother me.  Apart from my brief escape to try and catch Frank, I hadn’t so much as seen the other side of the door since I’d been bleeding to death.

Charlie had never actually come out and said that I couldn’t leave, but he made it pretty clear by keeping me dependent on him for food and things I might be going without if I were on my own.  I was still waiting for him to bring me a new shirt, a promise he’d been breaking from day one.

Other than that, Charlie took pretty good care of me.  He’d occasionally provide clean sheets and towels, stolen from the maid I had yet to meet, and he supplied toothpaste and any other reasonably priced personal effects I may have needed as long as I kept pestering him about it.

In fact, the loneliness got to me more than the feeling of being imprisoned.  My only contact with the outside world was Charlie, who had the tendency to be creepy, and occasionally Frank, who wasn’t company at all.  At least I had HBO.