Before long, Nicole was Victor’s go-to girl when he had a problem that needed to be taken care of. Among Victor’s circle of associates, her reputation grew. There was always work for a woman like Nicole.
She never told him who she used to be, and he never asked. One time, in 2004, he brought her into his office to give her an assignment, and the Athens summer Games were playing on the television. Victor told her how much he loved the Olympics, how he watched as much of them as he could, while Nicole stood there, watching Carly Patterson on the uneven bars. He had no idea, and that was for the best.
She spent five years working for him and was paid well. At one point, Victor introduced her to a former NYPD officer by the name of Lewis Blocker. Victor had hired Lewis do some surveillance work for him, and in addition wanted him to teach Nicole the craft. She learned a great deal from him.
Finally, Nicole reached a point where she did not want to work solely for Victor Trent anymore. She was indebted to him in many ways, but she believed that theirs had grown into a mutually beneficial relationship. She had eliminated many problems for him, and now she wanted the freedom to eliminate them for others, as well.
Nicole invited him for dinner at Picasso in the Bellagio. Told him what a wonderful mentor he had been to her, how much she’d valued his friendship and guidance these last few years. Worked up to it as gently as she could, finally telling him that she wanted to go it alone. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t still work for him, but she would be a free agent from now on.
“I need this,” she said. “For myself. This is what I have to do. And I’d never be in a position to do this without your support and guidance.”
“You fucking ungrateful bitch,” he said, and left without finishing his Maine lobster salad with apple-champagne vinaigrette.
When you got down to it, men, they were really all the same.
AND she’d done pretty well on her own, until now.
Nicole didn’t know anyone in her line of work have something go this wrong. Not that hired killers got together that often and compared notes. But you heard things. There was a grapevine. There were people out there whose work you knew. Some were good at it, some not so much. Sometimes, they made mistakes. It happened in any line of work.
But Nicole’s mistake, even she had to admit it was up there.
It was bad enough she’d killed the wrong person. That alone would have pissed off any client. But to have the intended target then show up, see what had happened, and get away?
Not the sort of thing you put on your résumé.
Sure, there were other killers out there who’d screwed things up. Sadistic sex killers who convicted themselves by recording their crimes on video. Husbands who were so dumb they turned to the Yellow Pages to find hit men to take care of their wives. Wives with the same thing in mind for their husbands, who didn’t know the contract killers they were conspiring with were actually undercover cops. Desperate businessmen who torched their operations, taking a few lives in the process, and put their gas-soaked sneakers back in their bedroom closet.
These people got caught, and went to jail. Why? Because they were amateurs. Ending lives was not their day job. They were accountants or stockbrokers or car salesmen or dentists.
They might be professionals in their own world, but they were not professional killers.
Nicole was supposed to be a professional. This was her day job. She took it seriously. She had no particular ax to grind with her targets. She didn’t know them. It wasn’t personal. She wasn’t ruled by jealousy or greed or sexual obsession. Those were the qualities that tripped you up, that blinded you to your mistakes. Nicole wasn’t in this line of work because she took pleasure in ending someone’s life, although there was the satisfaction of a job done well. If she could be said to actually enjoy any of her assignments, it was when the subjects were male. She always imagined them to be her coach. Or her father. Or Victor.
Having screwed up a job, she had an obligation to make it right. All anybody had in this life was their reputation, and she wanted to do what she could to restore hers. Besides, they were expecting it of her.
Too bad it was taking so much longer than anticipated.