Diary of an Assassin (16 page)

CHAPTER
42

Gustav drove on the freeway a long time. Hours. Until his gas tank was empty and the car sputtered
. He pulled over on the side of the road and checked his watch: it was 12:27 in the morning. He got out of his car and began walking along the freeway. The rain had stopped but it was cold and wind was blowing. He could see headlights behind him as cars sped past him, his hair tussling in the wind and irritating his eyes.

He looked back and saw a
lone car coming up. He stepped in front of it and stood staring at the headlights. The car slammed on its brakes, swerving into the next lane, the driver blaring the horn. Gustav walked to the driver’s side door. A woman was driving. He tried the door and it was unlocked.

“Move over please.”

“Who the f—”

He pulled out his pistol and placed the muzzle against her cheek.
The look that came over her eyes he had seen dozens, hundreds, thousands of times. It was a look of resignation to fear. Her brain had shut off, all except the limbic system. Only two emotions remained inside her, fear and rage, and she didn’t know which one to feel. He didn’t allow her a chance to decide.

He
directed her to the passenger seat, took over her spot, and began to drive. Placing the pistol on his lap, he put on his seatbelt. A Johnny Cash song was playing over the radio and he turned it up as he merged into another lane and continued down the road.

He looked to her. She was young and stylish with a scarf around her neck and a Tibetan Buddhist symbol dangling from a leather necklace. Jack Kerouac’s
On the Road
sat on the dashboard. The copy looked worn.

“Are you in college?” She didn’t respond. “Are you in college?”

“Wa…was.”

“You left?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

She swallowed. “You can have the car and my purse. Please, just let me out here. I won’t even call the police. You’ll—”

“Shhh…why did you leave college?”

“What?”

“College. Why did you leave college?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? One day you just woke up and were sitting in class and you went home and never went back?”

“Something like that.”

“What did you study?”

“Poetry.”

“Mmm, you know my people invented poetry. Who was your favorite poet?”

She shook her head.

“Mine,” he said, going into the car pool lane, “was
Baudelaire. Are you familiar with Baudelaire?” She shook her head. “He writes mostly about love. But his love is always tainted with death. He understood death. Most poets have to force themselves to write about death but it was natural for him. Nous aurons des lits pleins d’odeurs légères, / Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux, / Et d’étranges fleurs sur des étagères, / Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux. Do you know what that means? Did you study French?”

“No.”

“We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes, divans as deep as graves, and on the shelves will be strange flowers that blossomed for us, under more beautiful heavens…‘The Death of Lovers.’ It’s my favorite poem.” He glanced to her and back to the road. “What’s your name?”

“Billie.”

“Billie? That is an unusual name for a girl, no?”

“My parents wanted a boy.”

“I see. I wasn’t my parents’ first choice either.”

“Where are we going? Because you can just drop me off right here. I can just walk until morning so that you have time to—”

He reached over and slapped her face hard enough that her hand went to her lip. It was cut and began to bleed and he let the moment hang in the air a while. “You will speak when I ask you a question, not before. But since you are curious, ask me again.”

She was silent a moment. “Ask you what?” she said softly.
“Where are we going?”

“Hell, my darling Billie. We are going to hell, all of us.”

CHAPTER
43

Henri sat in the terminal of the airport and called his wife. It was early morning there but he knew she would be up. She could never sleep without him there. His six-year-old answered and they spoke about what was planned for the day and what he was having for breakfast.

“Will you be coming for breakfast, Papa?”

“No, my darling. But I will be home soon. Put your mother on please.”

“Okay, love you
, Papa.”

“Love you too.”

“He misses you,” his wife said, getting on the line. “He thinks you went out to the store. That’s what I used to tell them when you would be out all night. That you were at a faraway store getting very special groceries. It made them feel better but now I think it was a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep much last night. Perhaps the neighbor should come over and warm my bed? He is just twenty.”

He grinned. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”

“No, I’m just saying a young woman like myself perhaps needs a younger man.”

“You shouldn’t say such things. Men age better than women. Our stock grows while yours dwindles.”

“Such things you say. Will you say that to your daughter?”

“No, I won’t.” He exhaled. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too. How much longer?”

“I don’t think too much longer. I’m going
one last place, and if I don’t find what I’m looking for I’ll just leave.”

“Do you think it will be there?”

“I don’t know.” His phone buzzed, indicating an incoming call. It was his assistant at Interpol. “I better go. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Henri switched lines. “This is Henri.”

“Bad news
, my friend. They found both marks.”

“Where?”

“About two hours from where you are.”

Henri had
to change flights and rent another car. He followed the GPS directions and only got lost once when he missed his exit on the interstate. The town, Hurricane, was small and the police precinct was in what looked like a confined, one-story office building. He parked outside and smoked a cigarette to steady his nerves before going in.

Two uniformed police officers
stood by the front desk, snacking on bagels and coffee. Henri smiled at them and showed his badge.

“I am Henri Abbott. My assistant should have called.”

“Yeah,” one of the officers said, “he called. “I’m the deputy sheriff.” He held out his hand. “Tom Wasden.”

“Nice to meet you,
” he said, shaking hands.

“You too. You here for the bodies, huh?”

“I just need to see them.”

“Well they’re at the hospital morgue up there about four blocks. I’ll go with you.”

“I appreciate it.”

They rode in a police cruiser and Henri had the urge to smoke again but stopped himself. Instead he took out a cigarette and let it dangle from his lips unlit.

“Helluva nasty habit.”

“I know,” Henri said. “My wife is trying to get me to quit. She may succeed soon too.”

“I quit some odd five or six years ago. The money I saved I’ve been puttin’ in a college fund for the kids. You got kids?”

“I do.”

“Well there ya go. Their college could be paid for.”

“College is paid for in France.”

“No shit? Everythin’?”

“
Mostly.”

“No shit. How about that.”

They parked in a police parking stall and went inside. The harsh fluorescent lights made Henri squint, and it smelled like antiseptic. The floors squeaked from a recent mopping. Tom said hello to the front-desk staff and then they rode an elevator down to the bottom floor. Morgues were always on the bottom floors.

They walked down a quiet hallway and to a room at the end of the hall. A woman
worked inside, surrounded with a few metal machinist’s tables with wheels. Henri could smell formaldehyde.

“Suzie
, this is Henri. He’s with the French police and needs to take a quick peek at the bodies.”

“Sure thing.”

She walked over to a wall, which had several metal squares with handles over them, appearing almost like ovens. She opened two of them and pulled out metal platforms with bodies on top. They were nude and Henri noticed Tom suddenly grow uncomfortable.

“There they are
, in their birthday suits. Have at it.”

“Thank you.”

Henri examined the first body. It had the Y shape of an autopsy and the skin was white, the face frozen in an expression he couldn’t identify. Three holes about four centimeters in diameter perforated his chest. All of them were over the heart: one in the left ventricle and two in the right. Another hole was in the forehead. Henri took out his phone and looked at the picture of Isaac Rhett he had been sent. It was him.

He turned to the other body. A beautiful young woman
, whose radiance even death hadn’t taken away. She had a single gunshot wound to the back of the skull and Henri could only see it by bending down and looking directly at it. Small caliber. Enough velocity to enter but not to exit. Henri felt ashamed for her that he was allowed to stare at her nakedness and it dawned on him why Tom had looked away.

“Thank you,” Henri said to the woman in the lab coat.

He turned away and walked with Tom, who thanked the woman as well, saying something about seeing her at church on Sunday. They walked outside and Henri looked up to the moon, which was shining brightly in the night sky.

“Helluva thing. We don’t get many murders up here. Last one was some odd ten years ago. Two teenagers out in the swamps
. They were shooting bottles and got into a tussle over somethin’ and one shot the other one with a twenty-two rifle. Wouldn’t have killed him if it hit him anywhere but the liver, but it did and he died in the hospital.” He shook his head. “Now we got two of them right here.”

“Where did you find their bodies?”

“Swampland about thirty minutes from here. Some kids found him, and she floated up when we were out there for him. Helluva thing. And on top of that, we had a carjacking too.”

“Carjacking?”

“Yeah, car robbery. Right there on the freeway about an hour from here. See our county’s pretty big; we don’t have a big population but the county’s big. And we picked that one up too.”

“What happened?”

“One witness said he was driving by and he saw a man step out onto the freeway and just stand there. Didn’t move or anything, just stood there. A car had to stop so as not to hit him, and when it did, he got into the driver’s side. We know it was a carjacking ’cause the witness saw a gun. Well he says he saw a gun.”

“Sheriff, can you forward me the make and model of the car and the
registered owner’s information?”

He shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, come on
, I’ll give you a lift back to your car.”

“I appreciate it but I feel like walking. I could use the air.”

“Okay. Lemme know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you. And, Sheriff
, if you see this man, or capture him or think you have captured him, please know that he has killed several people in a few days for nothing more than pleasure. He will do the same to you if he is given the opportunity. Do not take any risks.”

Tom looked to him but didn’t say anything. He just turned away and got in his car and drove off. Henri watched him go and then glanced back to the hospital. He had seen Gustav put many people in morgues just like this and each time felt like the first.

He sighed and walked away, keeping his head down to the ground, lost in thought.

CHAPTER 44

The motel was old but clean, and the clerk behind the counter smiled and spoke softly. Billie Gell felt the man’s hand on her bicep, and as he was paying for a room, he signed everything with his left hand. She didn’t know why she made a note of that, but she did.

After he was given
the room key, he walked her down the hall and her heart dropped. She was frightened he would rape her. She didn’t know how she would react. Her friend had been raped at a frat party once and she said she was so drunk she didn’t fight. She had just lain there. Billie didn’t see herself doing that. She thought that even if he killed her, she would fight.

At the room’s door,
he unlocked it and pushed her inside. He looked down both sides of the hallway and then followed her in, locking the door behind them. He quickly checked the bathroom and underneath the beds and then out the window. Billie stood against the wall, staring at the door. No, she wouldn’t have the chance to escape. He would just fire into her back.

He looked to her as he turned from the windows and then kicked off his shoes
before sitting on the first bed. Pill bottle in hand, he swallowed two white pills without water and lay back on the bed. He reached over to turn off the light, the pistol lying across his chest. She stood silently a long time before slowly walking to the bed and sitting down. She kept looking at the door.

“You could try,” a voice said from the dark, “but you wouldn’t make it.”

“Why don’t you just let me go? I’m no use to you.”

“Even sharks have pilot fish to keep them company.”

“Is that what this is about? You just want company?”

There was no response.

She sat silently for a long time. Eventually she lay back on the bed. Sleep was going to be impossible, so she just thought about being back home in her apartment, in her bed. Her two roommates were probably drinking and having guys over right now. They wouldn’t even notice that she wasn’t there for at least a couple of days. They may call the police then. But a couple of days seemed like an eternity. She was on her own.

Billie looked over to the man. He wasn’t snoring but she could hear his breathing. He took long, deep breaths and then let them out slowly through his nose. Neither of his hands were on
the pistol, which moved up and down with his breaths.

Putting the toe of one shoe on the heel of the other, she slipped off her shoes, making sure to do it close enough to the floor that they wouldn’t make noise when they fell. She used her hands to push herself up, closing her eyes tightly as if that would prevent any noise. Getting to an upright position, she gently slid off the bed until her feet touched the carpet.

Billie looked to the door and then back to the pistol. The door had a chain and a lock. He would certainly hear her, fire into her back. The pistol had a silencer and, though she’d never heard one outside of the movies, she guessed it would be quiet enough that none of the neighbors would be alerted. And even if they were, so what? She’d already be shot. But if she could get the gun…

She rose as gingerly as she could, stopping every second to try
to prevent the old mattress from creaking. It creaked twice and both times she froze and looked over to the man before continuing.

Now on her feet, she felt an overwhelming urge to run to the door and go screaming down the hallway. She had to take slow, deep breaths to calm herself. She felt like crying but kept telling herself she
could be frightened later…she would be frightened later. There wasn’t time now.

The first step
toward his bed was the most terrifying, but the second and third were easier. She walked between the two mattresses, the only thing she could hear a rhythmic pounding of her heart. She briefly thought about grabbing the nightstand’s lamp and hitting him over the head with it. But she’d never seen it done in person, only in the movies. What if it didn’t do anything but piss him off?

She was less than a foot away from him now. She swallowed and held her breath as
her arm gradually reached for the gun.

Billie stopped right above the weapon. Her hand was trembling in the moonlight
creeping in through the thin openings in the curtains. Gently, she lowered her hand until she was touching the warm steel of the gun. She felt the ridges of the handle and tenderly wrapped her fingers around them as she began to lift it off the man.

Pain shot through her wrist.

The man’s arm had come up like lightning and was tightly wrapped around the bones of her arm. She tried to pull away but couldn’t. She screamed and he grabbed her and flung her on the bed, twisting around on top of her as his hand clamped over her mouth and muffled her.

“Brave girl,” he said.
He lifted the weapon, the muzzle against her chest, pressing against her pounding heart.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and the man sat watching her.
A long moment stretched by. He lowered the weapon. Lifting her up by her arms, he dragged her into the bathroom. He ripped the wire out of the back of a lamp and hogtied her, forcing her arms behind her back and tying them to her ankles. He tore a long piece of cloth from a sheet and tied it around her mouth.

Leaving her
crying, he shut the door, and she was enveloped in the dark.