Hitman's Holiday

Much to my surprise, this has turned into a series, of sorts. The stories are designed to both stand alone, but also tie together. I'm calling the saga Derek Kills People.

The previous stories:

1. My Knife Can Cut
2. Strangled Sunlight
3. On The Moon

And now, number 4....



Hitman's Holiday

“I can’t do this anymore,” I tell the boss.

“Do what, Derek?” he asks, pretending not to know.

“I can’t do my job anymore. I can’t do it. I’m done. It’s too much.”

The boss sighs. He leans back in his chair. Thinking. Staring at me.

We’re in a pool hall, a back corner table. It’s one of the places we meet. Dark, shadowy. The syndicate owns the pool hall. They own strip joints. Bars. Restaurants.

The boss assigns me targets. I find them. I strangle them. I kill people. I can’t remember how many I’ve killed. Maybe 25 people, now. I’m not sure. I remember some of them. Most, I forget.

The boss is still staring.

“I can’t do it anymore,” I repeat.

“Listen,” the boss says. “I get it. You’ve been doing this a long time. You’ve never had a vacation. Take some time. Two weeks. A month, if you want. Go somewhere nice. A hot beach. Or something cultural. France. See some art galleries.”

“A vacation isn’t going to help.”

“You’re tired,” the boss says.

“I’m not tired. It’s not like that.”

“I’ve had other workers like you,” he says. “You’re one of the best. No questions. Efficient. You do the job right. So you feel off, now. I’ve been using you too much.”

“I’m not tired. I don’t feel off. It’s not like that.”

The boss looks at me, curious. “What, then?”

“I’m starting to like it too much,” I say. My words almost turn into a sob at the end. I quickly re-establish control.

But the boss sees it. He hears it. He pinches his lower lip. Stares at me.

“You like it too much,” he says, weighing the words.

I decide to be honest. The boss has always been good to me.

“I used to be cold,” I say. “I used to be blank. Something is changing, inside me. It’s like a thaw. The ice is breaking apart. And I don’t know what to do. I can’t have feelings and do my job. I have to be detached. When I have someone’s throat in my hands. I love it. I enjoy it. That’s the only time I’m happy. I can’t do it anymore.”

“You love your job,” the boss suggests.

“That’s not it at all,” I say. And again, there’s an emotional croak. A croak, that I quickly crush.

The boss rubs his chin. He leans in and he whispers. “You love killing. Strangling.”

I nod.

“And it scares you,” he suggests.

I nod again.

The boss leans back. “Take a vacation. A month. Give yourself some time off. You’ve earned it. Come back then. Tell me how you feel. See if you feel the same way. If you still want to quit, you quit. We’ll try something else. Give you another job. You’re reliable. There are other things to do in the syndicate.”

“I don’t know how to go on holiday. I’ve never done it before.”

“Not even as a kid?”

I shake my head. I consider talking about my childhood. Then I change my mind. I stay quiet.

“No wonder you’re so tense. Okay. I’ll set something up. Get you tickets. A resort. A beach. White sand. Lots of chicks in bikinis. Booze. If you can’t figure out what to do, look around. Copy other people. Do what they do. Okay?”

The boss has never led me wrong before. “Okay,” I say.

***

Everyone is sitting on the beach. On towels. So I steal a towel from my room and join them. My towel turns out to be too small. So I throw it away. I sit on the sand. It’s too hot. I don’t like the sun. The sand hurts my feet. And I feel exposed. Out in the open. Nowhere to hide. I feel ridiculously pale. It’s too noisy. The smell of the ocean makes me feel sick. After ten minutes, I go back inside.

There’s a restaurant bar off the lobby. It’s bright and cheery. I hate the look of it. Wandering through the hotel, I find a second bar. I don’t know why it’s there. Hidden on the third floor. It looks like where the serious drinkers go. It’s quiet and dark. More intimate. Bamboo walls. I find a corner seat. A waiter comes by and I order a diet cola. Later, a burger and fries.

I sit. I stare at nothing. I drink diet cola. I think about nothing. Eventually it gets late. I go to my room and I sleep.

I get up in the morning. I go back to the secret bar. They’re serving breakfast. Hardly anyone is there. Everyone is in the main bar, off the lobby. I eat bacon and eggs. I drink coffee. Then I walk around inside the hotel. I check out the shops. I go back to the bar. I have lunch. I walk around the inside of the hotel again. Nothing to see. I go back to the bar. I have dinner. I sit around. I go to bed.

I do this for three days. I eat the same thing at each meal. The wait staff look at me funny. They find me mysterious and weird. I don’t give a shit.

I’m having lunch. A burger and fries. Diet cola. And I mull over my boredom. I think to myself. Wow. This is what it’s like to work in an office. Same thing every day. Sitting. Waiting for time to go by. How do people do this?

A woman across the room is watching me. I notice her staring, discretely. Not sexual. More evaluating. I know the look. She’s sizing me up. I carefully pretend not to notice her. At the same time, I watch her watching me. She doesn’t seem like a threat. Who knows for sure? Did the boss decide to get rid of me? Send me on holidays. Get my guard down. Send someone to rub me out. I know too much. I literally know where the bodies are buried.

The woman is not wearing a uniform. But I can tell she’s hotel staff. Or trying to pass for staff. She doesn’t have that wide-eyed tourist look. A white blouse, loose scarf. Jeans. Cowboy boots. She’s slightly older than me. Functional. Proud. Efficient. Lean.

She watches me for maybe ten minutes. Then she comes over.

“Hello,” she says. “How are things?”

Something about her seems sparkly. But she’s toning it down for my benefit. She’s trying to speak my language.

“Fine,” I say flatly. “Nothing beats a burger and an icy Coke.”

“Enjoying yourself?”

“In my own way.”

“You’re not really the vacationing type,” she says. “I can see that.”

I shrug. “I’m not sure what to do,” I admit.

“I’m Nancy. I work for the hotel.”

“Derek,” I say.

We shake hands. Her handshake is firm, real. No girly crap.

“They call me for the tough cases,” Nancy said. “Tough cases like you. May I sit down?”

She sits before I can say anything.

“Am I a tough case?” I ask.

“One of the toughest. Four different staff called me. That never happens.”

“I’m being watched,” I joke, without joking.

“Sort of. We want our clients to be happy. We’re not religious about it or anything. Happy customers are repeat customers. Happy customers tell their friends they had a good time. So if we make people happy, we make more money. I don’t say this to most people. But with you, bluntness. I sense you appreciate that. Anyway. This place might look like paradise. But we’re a business. So when employees see someone unhappy, I get a call. In your case, four calls.”

“Sorry to be such a bother. I’m not unhappy.”

“You’re not unhappy,” Nancy says. “That’s exactly it. That’s the problem. You’re not happy. You’re not unhappy. You’re just you.”

She taps a fingernail against her teeth. She stares at me. I am a problem. She’s going to solve it.

***

Next morning, Nancy and I get in a touring van. She’s behind the wheel. I’m next to her. The van seats twelve. There’s just the two of us. It’s early. The air is already hot.

“I think you’ll like this,” she says. “Not everyone would. So it’s just the two of us.”

She starts the van. We drive off.

I have no idea where we’re going. Nancy wants it to be a surprise. I still don’t trust her. This could be a hit. But I’m so bored. I welcome the distraction. I’m sure I could take her, if I had to. Her throat is slim. Easy to crush. If she has a weapon, I can deal with it.

We drive for maybe 20 minutes. We go off a paved road on to a rougher track. There’s a gate of some kind. Rusted metal arch. Lettering on the arch. But I don’t know the local language. And some of the letters are missing. We’re past it before I can read the words.

We pull into a huge parking lot. It’s empty. The yellow lines on the ground are faded and worn. The pavement is buckled. Unkempt. Nearby are ticket booths, boarded up. In the distance, a dead rollercoaster. Other rides. Even from here I see they’re rusted and falling apart. Booths and buildings. All abandoned. It’s quiet except for the sound of birds.

“It was supposed to be part of the resort,” Nancy says. “It was open for a year. Then there was some legal battle. The place got shut down. Money fell through. It’s all still being fought over in the courts. Meanwhile, this place has been empty for years. Over a decade. There was a casino, a zoo. Rides. All of it a shambles.”

I don’t say anything. I walk towards the turnstiles. Nancy follows me. There’s an open gate. I step through. A sign shows a map. It’s peeling, illegible. Someone has spray-painted a scrawl on it. A statue of a clown is on the ground. Meant to greet us, he looks mugged. The face is half smashed apart.

I choose a path at random. I start walking. Nancy follows behind me. We pass all sorts of strange, rotting buildings. Each was once painted with clowns. Lions. All sorts of amusements. Stuffed toy animals, muddy and lost, watch us. Prizes for some game. Now dead and decaying.

Nancy says, “Locals come here. Mostly teenagers. At night. They drink. They climb the rollercoaster. They dare each other to enter the haunted house. Funny, to think of a fake haunted house, abandoned and haunted. There’s a hall of mirrors. All the mirrors are shattered. Broken mirror all over the ground. Sculptures of clowns and mermaids. Broken and rotting. It’s all beautiful, in its own way. Empty zoo cages. The casino. The roulette wheels are still there. Some of them still spin.”

I stop. I don’t look at Nancy. I stare off into the distance.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask.

“Your inability to have fun. You being a tough case. It reminded me of this place. A forgotten, rotting playground. I thought you’d enjoy it somehow. That it would touch you. I find this place beautiful. In its own way. I thought you’d see the beauty of it.”

“I do see the beauty,” I admit. “I wish I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“It hurts. I hurts me inside. I don’t know why. Just being here.”

I fall silent.

“Do you want to leave?” Nancy asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “No. I guess not.”

I walk along. I look at things. Nancy trails behind me, saying nothing.

I ache inside. In my chest. Something about this place. Fun gone to rot. Playfulness strangled by weeds. It’s inside of me. A crucified childhood. That’s what it feels like. A rotting child on a cross. I am that child.

Somehow, we end up at the zoo. Maybe I was going there all along. Empty cages. Six in total. All the animals gone. Bare concrete inside. I stop in front of a cage. A sign shows a weather-worn painting of a tiger.

“What did they do with the animals?” I ask.

“Sold them,” Nancy says. “To collectors. Other zoos.”

“Too bad. I wish they’d been set free.”

Nancy laughs gently. “No, that didn’t happen.”

I walk over to the tiger cage door. It’s open. I step inside. I walk around the inside of the cage. It smells damp in here. The cage feels so very empty. Dead. More like a tomb than a cage. Something died here. The tiger died. Why do I think that? Silly. Probably sold it. Somehow, that’s worse than death. If it died, it’s finished. A tiger sold is a slave. Is there anything sadder than a tiger bought and sold?

I look out through the bars. I look at Nancy. She’s just outside my cage. I imagine wrapping my hands around her throat. Strangling her. She gives me a grim little smile. I quickly step out again.

“We can leave now,” I tell her.

We walk back to the van. She starts it up. We head back to the resort. She gives me a funny look.

“Did you have a good time?” she asks. The words sound wrong, and she knows it. She doesn’t know how to talk about it. Something happened, and she doesn’t understand.

I don’t understand either. Something has changed.

“Yes. I did. I had a good time. I’ll tell all my friends to come to your resort. Except I don’t have any friends.”

We drive back in silence.

When we get back, I shake Nancy’s hand again.

“That was very interesting,” I say. “You’re good at your job.”

“Thanks, I guess,” she answers. “See you around?”

I nod.

I go back to my room. I call the airport. I make up a story about a death in the family. I arrange to swap my tickets for a flight leaving that afternoon.

I was supposed to stay a month. I’m leaving after less than a week. Some vacation.

***

“I quit,” I tell the boss. “All of it. I quit. The whole syndicate. I’m out.”

“You can’t quit,” he says. “No one quits the syndicate. No one.”

“I quit,” I repeat. “I’m grateful for everything. But I quit.”

The boss leans back in his chair. He’s silent. We listen to the sound of people playing pool all around us.

“Maybe you don’t understand,” he whispers. “Nobody quits. Anyone who quits somehow gets killed.”

“I know. I’m the guy that does the killing. Who are you going to send after me? You can’t send me after myself. I’m sick of that game. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m tired of crushing my own throat.”

“There are others. Other killers.”

“Fine. Send them. See what happens. No hard feelings.”

I get to my feet, slowly. No sudden movements. I hold out my hand. The boss takes it, reluctantly. We shake hands. We seem to have reached an uneasy agreement. I’m going to quit. He’s going to try having me killed.

“Where are you going to go?” he asks. “What are you going to do?”

I think about it. I smile. Then I say, “I’m going to work for a zoo. Cleaning cages. I’ll wait until no one is around. Until no one is looking. And I’ll set all the tigers free.”

I turn around and walk out. Out of the pool hall. Out of my cage. Before the boss can say anything else.

I breathe deeply on the street. It’s late. The air is wet and alive.

I’m a tiger, I realize. I’m free. I won’t kill for money anymore. I’ll only kill for me. For my pleasure. I am free and I can kill whoever I want.