Harry Is A Dead Man

This one is also a few years old. It's a bit frantic, but stay with it. It's in a different voice to my usual writing but I always enjoy reading this, and most likely for this reason:

Harry is a dead man.

He is running through the streets now, run Harry, just run a little faster and you might get away, but he knows, sure as he knows his heart is beating too fast and he knows the heat rising through his veins is slowing him down, he knows he is trying to run from the inevitable. And he is a fit man, young and trained for just such an event as running for his life, but he is being chased by an assassin so silent and so skilled that his run is for his benefit only. In his pocket rests the evidence that has damned him, damn it, and he has no intention of throwing it away. He carries a photograph of his wife, his now dead wife, and the small memory stick which took her life and now threatens to take his.

But there is more to Harry, as you might well imagine, than this frantic, desperate, and ultimately fruitless tirade through the city. And yes, it is fruitless. There is no way Harry can make it to the acknowledgements at the back of the book. Like I said…

Harry is a dead man.

Harry

If I had known, when it was starting, that it was starting, then maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard to get involved. I was at the top of my game, highly sought after and known in the business as capable and discreet. Reliable and efficient. The business cards wrote themselves- not that you use anything so crass in this business as advertisements, but then again, I didn't need to. Being a government trained assassin turned ‘native’-a term I always loathed-it was well known that I was the best of the best. I don’t doubt for a moment it was also known that my fingerprints were on the government databases as ‘Do Not Intervene.’ Basically, untouchable by police should I ever be so careless as to leave a thumbprint at a crime scene, and let me tell you, it’s been a hell of a while since I've done that. But I was known as well to have a conscience, and to pick my work based on more than money-again a rarity in this business, but it earned me something of a reputation for being elitist, for picking only the best jobs. I didn't discourage people from thinking like this-it had a tendency to leave more money in my pocket anyway, because people offer more when they think they’re one of a few.

And I had just gotten married, which was having a strange and worrying effect on my morals and priorities. Suddenly, I gave a shit. And don’t get me wrong, I had known there were some changes happening to me-after all, I had fallen in love with my wife before I married her, but I had spent our relationship convincing myself that I could have walked away when I wanted to, that I didn't need her, that she didn't need me, and that if the money was right, I could put a bullet in her if I had to. I'm not a bad guy for thinking this. I'm an assassin. It’s no different from the cop who accepts that they’d arrest their own kid for taking drugs or the bank manager doing a loan for his brother in law who wants an RV but got convicted of drink driving a year ago so can’t get shit.

I was wrong about it anyway. I couldn't have hurt her had my life depended on it. And the terrible thing is, when you start thinking like that, that’s very often what it comes down to. Her life or mine. Anyway, I'm skipping ahead. So, I had just got married to Karen Stenowicz. I always joked with her she only married me to get away from that hell of a surname, but she would always look at me so seriously and tell me she’d have married me no matter what my surname, and then I’d get all choked up and have to look away from her, wishing I hadn't brought it up.

My marriage was having a strange effect, too, on my workload. Being the perfectionist I am, I very often worked alone, but I did do some work with The Company-notice the upper case. This was serious shit. The Company dealt with high profile cases, often involving politicians, celebrities or members of various royal families. At any one time, The Company held no more than five active members, one of which was always an older assassin, who assigned cases and deemed the targets worthy of The Company’s attention. If you knew anything about the world, to be accepted as a victim of The Company was almost as prestigious as being chosen to work for them. Since I had become a husband, I had not received a single phone call from my colleagues there. This was mildly concerning to me, because three of the five other members were married and their spouses were not given a second thought. If anything, I’d have thought my peers would be glad I was no longer trading my wares across the continents as I had been before. Nothing says domesticated like child maintenance payments.

I’d been married for a year when I got the first call. It was from a man known to me only as Gray, a British former marine, and my main contact within The Company. The last time I had seen him, we had been stood over the body of an English Minister I had just killed, and we were cleaning evidence. I remember getting a paper the following morning and reading the Minister had died from a severe heart attack. I had smiled to myself. Murder by natural causes. It was one of my specialties.

When Gray called, I had never heard the Brit sound so frantic. It is a call of our profession that we are not easily panicked, but Gray was clearly on edge.

“Harry. It’s me. Have you heard? Have you spoken to any of the others? Ah, shit. Is this line secure?” His pause was only to let me answer. I could still hear his rapid breathing down the line.

“Of course it’s secure. What’s going on? I haven’t heard anything. No one’s been in touch with me for over a year. Jesus, Gray, what’s wrong with you?”

“We need to meet, mate. Today. Away from your house. Away from my fucking house. Can you get to New York by tonight?”

He already knew I could. 

Telling your wife you’re going to meet your contact in the association you work for which murders people by trade is never an easy conversation to have. Fortunately, my lie had been securely in place from very early on in our relationship. As I mentioned before, I often worked alone, and my jobs for The Company were only a small part of what I do. I did contract work mostly, and that very often took me away from home for a few days. I told my then girlfriend I worked in blood and organ donations, and although I could for the most part regulate my work, there was a certain peripatetic element. Of course, I worked in the administrative side of it all, locating possible recipients rather than having any medical knowledge. It’s amazing how quickly people buy your lies, and then lose interest completely. Karen was by no means materialistic, but I know she’d only have started asking real questions had the money stopped coming. It’s human nature.

“Ok baby. When do you think you’ll be back?” She’d been making coffee. In her left hand she carried a small leather handbag-not her own. She’d not long come home from work, and she was winding down for the evening. Fortunately, she hadn't been home when I’d gotten the call. She played with the strap of the bag absently as she poured water into her mug.

“Where did you get that?”

She’d stared at me blankly then, her wide brown eyes innocent. “Oh, my god. I never even asked you. Did you want a coffee?”

I’d smiled and moved across the kitchen to be closer to her. Her skin was cool and soft, like always, and her chocolate skin was glowing in the early evening light. She smelled of coffee and something else. An echo of the perfume she’d most likely sprayed over herself at lunchtime, lingering on her, not wanting to leave her skin. I could empathise.

“I didn't mean the coffee. I meant the bag.”

She’d smiled too, dropping the bag on the table. “Oh, this? Well, it was the strangest thing. This morning when I went to my car, it wouldn't start. You’re gonna have to have a look at it for me honey, before you go. So I had to take the subway. And there was this woman, just staring at me the whole way there.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. “This morning?”

She nodded. “Well, I haven’t been on the subway since I graduated from college, so I don’t know; I figured this was how people act on the subway. Maybe she was amazed to see a black girl wearing a suit and flashing a badge.”

I rolled my eyes. When I’d first met Karen, she’d been investigating a murder for which I was responsible, but it was a Company job, and I’d been required to stick around to make sure the cops made the right mistakes and thought it was a suicide. Karen had been the only black woman on the job, and she was Detective. Being such a high profile case, she’d interviewed me four times. By the end of the first interview, I was hooked. She wasn't the first black woman I’d dated-hell, I’ve dated pretty much every race God has to offer-but she hadn’t made a big deal about her skin colour. She very rarely did. Her father was white, and she’d grown up with plenty of prejudices, but she was tough and smart, and had no time for people judging her on how she looked. It had taken me all of two dates to fall in love with her. And all of two years to admit it.

“And what then, baby? This woman throws her bag at you?”

Now she rolled her eyes. “No, Harry, get this: she was on the subway home as well. She sat herself next to me, but never said a goddamn word to me. Then she got up the stop before mine, but she left her handbag on the seat. Well, at first I figured it was a bomb, but I had a look inside and there’s nothing in there. There’s a Kleenex and a tampon, but that’s pretty much it.”

“Ouch. Hope she doesn't get those two mixed up. Either way, it’d be pretty messy.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I wasn't going to bring it home, but I was thinking, y’know, maybe she knows I'm a cop and she’s trying to get a message to me, like her husband’s abusing her, or she knows something about a case.”

Or she knows I'm an assassin and she’s trying to trap you. “Did you recognise her? Have you questioned her about anything?”

She thought hard for a moment, the skin between her eyes tightening as she concentrated. “I don’t remember her, no. And I'm pretty good with faces.”

This story had my back raised, although I couldn’t pinpoint why. Years of lies and lying, I guess, should have made me better at judging when there was falseness to a story. Not that I doubted Karen, no, my wife, despite her profession, saw innocence everywhere. But the tale was strange, and I should have known that Karen wasn’t safe. That I wasn’t safe. Like I said, if I’d have known it was starting, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. At that moment, standing in my kitchen with my wife, we were already involved, but dammit, it was our last chance to step away.

“Harry?”

I was far away, thinking about her story, wondering if there was anything I should do. No, I thought, I'm just rattled by Gray. That stupid son of a bitch has got me seeing shadows around every corner. I tightened my arms around her. “What, baby?”

“You’re gonna miss your flight, honey. Isn't someone waiting on a kidney and you’re standing here grilling me about this handbag?”

“Right. Shit. I gotta go. You want me to look at the car on my way?”

The eyebrow was raised again. I didn't give her enough credit. She was a cop after all, and I was lying to her on a daily basis. Maybe she knew more than I realised. There was a beat before she answered.

“Only if you have time, Harry. It can wait. I’ll take it to the shop tomorrow.”

“Hey, hey. I got time. The flight isn't for another forty minutes, and the kidney, well, it’s still with the donor at the moment,” she wrinkled her nose at this prospect, “So I got five minutes to look in the car and see what’s burnt out. But only five minutes. Don’t expect me to take off my shirt and starting rooting around in there.”

Her smile turned wicked. “You still talking about the car?”

I slid my hands down her soft arms. “If you wanted, I could leave the car and put my five minutes to better use?”

She was back to playful. “Five minutes? I’ll wait until you get home, baby. Then I might get the longer show.”

I let my hands drop. “You definitely will. I’ll see you in a couple of days, honey.”

She kissed me quickly on the lips, but neither of us lingered. I had to get out, I wanted to see Gray and find out what had spooked him. On my way past, I popped the hood of the car and peered inside.

It was one of those moments you relive so many times and wonder if you had just done this one thing differently; the outcome of almost everything else would have been different too. The oil cap of the car had been screwed off. I screwed it back on, and as I did, I saw a hanging cable which looked severed on one side. Now, I've disabled cars before. I know what each cable relates to, and there is no way in this world that the cable I saw hanging was the severed brake cable. Of course, the police report said that it had been ‘clearly and systematically destroyed’. But the last time I saw that car, the brake cable was perfectly intact. The wire that was severed was the indicator light.  

©Nicola Pearce