I never learned the man’s name, what he did, or why someone would pay enough to end his life that Santiago de la Rosa would take the contract. To me he was a pudgy middle-aged man in a chair with a bag on his head.
Santiago stood behind him, watching me. I couldn’t even see his eyes—his mask covers them with a pair of reflective lenses. He always wore a plain black mask that tucked down under the crisp collar of his dress shirt. I never saw him in less than the finest suits and formalwear, always immaculately clean and pressed so the creases had edges as sharp as the knives he kept in a padded leather case.
Santiago held out a suppressed pistol in his gloved hand, and I took it.
“Shoot him,” he said. He has an accent but no one can place it. It might be a blend of accents from other languages, places he’s been or trained. It might be to throw people off.
My palms sweated against the wooden grips, the checkering digging into my palm as I tightened my fingers around it. I snapped the safety off and slowly slipped my finger inside the trigger guard, as gingerly as if I’d never done it before. The trigger had three grooves on it.
“What did he do?”
“It doesn’t matter. The contract was offered, an advance was paid. If you don’t pull the trigger, I will.”
I aimed, and pulled it.
It wasn’t clean. I flinched. Santiago took the gun from my hand and fired twice more, and did it properly.
“What now?”
“Now we’re going to get rid of the body.”
My eyes snap open and I jerk to my feet, scrubbing at my face. I haven’t slept since I talked to Rose last night. The buzz is gone but I can still feel the bottle of Jack sloshing around in my guts, trying to burn its way out. Fuck it, I need pancakes or something.
There was only one person back then who could give me any comfort. I ran to her right away. Santiago knew it, the son of a bitch, and he used it later.
I lurch into the car and pull out. As I drive by the house I imagine the curtains fluttering, picture her standing there watching me pass. She probably hates me now, and with good reason.
You are such an asshole, Quentin Mulqueen.
I should be obeying all traffic control devices and driving five under the speed limit. The last thing I need is some local cop pulling me over and putting a blip in the system. That’ll bring Santiago down on me like ringing a bell. I should leave everything, even the car—go now, just put as much distance between myself and these people as I can.
Rose and her kids deserve more than they have but they also deserve better than me. I’m not doing them any favors lingering here. If I’m already being watched, they’ll know about her.
Fuck. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
I slam my hand on the steering wheel.
Oh, hey, it’s the pancake place.
I wheel into the parking lot, walk inside past the Please Wait to be Seated sign, and flop down in a booth. A scowling waitress comes over and stands over me.
“Can’t you read the sign?”
I slap a twenty on the table. “Can you read that?”
“Yeah,” she says, warily slipping it into her pocket. “Okay, what can I get you?”
“Coffee, and keep it coming. A short stack. No, two short stacks.”
“Don’t you just want—”
“I said two short stacks, and three eggs sunny side up. An order of sausage and a double order of bacon, and tell ’em to hurry up. There’ll be another twenty in it for you.”
She shrugs and walks off with the order slip. I lean back in the seat until the coffee comes. I down a cup of scalding-hot black coffee and wave the cup at her to fill it again from the carafe before she even gets to leave.
The heat cuts into my throat and the caffeine gives me a surge. I sit up and devour the pancakes when they come out, then the eggs and the meat. I take a hundred bucks from my pocket and slap it on the table with the check, and leave.
Fuck it, I’ll probably never see this place again. If I’m going to be an asshole about it I should at least brighten these people’s day a little, right? Maybe if I overtip a few hundred waitresses I won’t wind up in the sixth level of hell after Santiago gets done with me. That’s got to be worth at least a few million years in purgatory, right?
I’m a little swervy on the drive back. I roll right past the front of the neighborhood. I can’t stand looking at Rose’s house right now. I just keep driving, and maybe that’s what I should do, just keep driving until I go right over the edge of the earth.
I resolve to leave, right now. Get a full tank of gas and head west. I don’t have a destination in mind but the more distance I put between myself and Rose, the less chance Santiago will get his hands on her. God, what’s wrong with me?
I drive for maybe an hour then pull over. I can’t see the road anymore. All I can see is Rose’s beautiful face, her soft cheeks wet with tears as I rip the heart out of her chest. Quentin, you fucking piece of shit, look at what you did to her.