extremes. Especially emotions. She closed her eyes and rocked, still seated behind her communication console, hoping for a moment of calm.
What did Buchner mean, she’d killed the wrong man?
Sweat pooled under her arms. Metallic bile collected in the back of her throat as her swallow reflex shut down. She clenched her rectal muscles, trying to slow her loosening bowels.
She remembered this feeling. Naked, primal fear. A documentary of prior experiences with the elemental emotion played across her closed lids. The shadow of a man slipping into a darkened bedroom. The stench of whiskey churning her ten-year-old stomach. The sound of a belt clearing his trousers. His massive hand reaching for her hair, pulling her from beneath the covers and throwing her to her knees. The belt around her throat. Tighter. Her head yanked back against the ridge of leather at her neck. The stinging slap forcing her mouth open. The slippery flesh jammed in deep before a scream could escape.
“Suck, Little Cracker. Suck Daddy’s cock real good.”
She snapped her eyes open and spun her chair around just in time to avoid covering the console in vomit.
The Fixer never resurrected a character and she never saw a client twice. She broke both rules that Thursday when she pulled on latex gloves and picked the lock on Walter Buchner’s back door a few minutes before midnight.
She’d rented a vehicle as Darlene Ritz, a pregnant redhead with a taste for Pucci prints and faux fur. But it was Carr, the young Goth, who parked the green Subaru three blocks from Buchner’s University District bungalow. He’d demanded she meet him at the Seattle warehouse on Sunday. Perhaps he was allowing her travel time from whatever arctic lair he imagined served as her headquarters. He didn’t know she was less than seventy miles down I-5. She’d give him two minutes to explain. His story would help her decide what role the Ruger. 380 holstered in the small of her back would play.
The Fixer eased the back door open and slipped into Buchner’s darkened kitchen. The glow of a television played in an unlit room straight ahead. She stood in the shadow of the refrigerator and listened as David Letterman and Paul Schaffer traded one-liners about Madonna’s latest adoption. A studio audience laughed. No other human sounds. Buchner was alone. She let her eyes adjust and surveyed the room. Pizza boxes and soda cans littered a table to her right. Dirty dishes filled a small sink. A gallon milk jug, uncapped and two-thirds empty, sat on the counter next to a stack of junk mail and two rotten bananas.
The Fixer reached behind her, released the Ruger’s safety, and left it in the holster. She entered the living room as quietly as her work boots would allow. Buchner was on the couch, facing the television. Feet propped on a coffee table covered with beer cans and text books. The back of his head tilted to the right. The acrid odor of marijuana filled the room.
“Turn the television off, Wally.” She planted her left foot four inches in front of her right, ready to kick if Buchner got frisky.
Letterman urged the audience to stay tuned for Tom Hanks but Buchner didn’t move. The Fixer snapped her attention to the large window that dominated the east wall of the room. Curtains pulled closed. She spun, pulled the Ruger free of its holster, and gripped it with both hands as she headed down the short hallway.
She shoved the first door open and leaned aside. Nothing. She reached in, clicked on an overhead light and saw an unmade bed, orange crate nightstand, and fiberboard desk. An aromatic pile of clothes covered the floor of the closet. She stepped inside the empty room, pulled Buchner’s driver’s license from her jacket pocket, tossed it on the nightstand, and made her way to the second door.
Buchner’s bathroom made the local Texaco toilet look like a photo shoot for Architectural Digest. A dingy yellow curtain was pulled halfway across the filthy tub. Her first instinct was to fire a shot through the mildew- stained plastic on the chance someone was hiding there. But a bullet in a wall would leave a trail. Spending a shell was always a last resort. A can of shaving cream sat on the side of the sink. Steadying the Ruger in her right hand, she heaved the can with her left. The curtain offered no resistance as the can clanged to the tub floor.
She opened the third door and found a room filled with boxes and cheap bookshelves. More books on the floor. A black Telecaster and amp sat in one corner, covered with a heavy layer of dust. The Fixer closed the door, confident she was alone.
She knew Buchner was dead. She just didn’t know how. Any speculation of suicide, overdose, or natural causes was eliminated when The Fixer rounded the sofa and faced him. Wally had been restrained. Duct tape bound his hands together in a ragged silver ball. Heavy white plastic cord trussed his legs and feet. Lifeless grey eyes stared straight ahead. A golf ball-sized hole where Wally’s nose should have been left a cruel exposure of tissue, muscle, and bone. The powder residue on Buchner’s bruised and bloated cheeks showed he’d been shot at close range. The black plastic handle of a cheap steak knife protruded from his chest about an inch above his shirt pocket. A gelatinous sheet of blood made it impossible to determine the death blows’ sequence.
She’d learned as a child that if she could unplug her essential core from the torture that was rained upon her she could survive. Like flossing her teeth or driving a standard transmission, The Fixer viewed the skill necessary for day-to-day living. So it wasn’t the grisly detritus of Buchner’s body that brought the bead of sweat to The Fixer’s upper lip. Nor was it the savagery of his slaughter that rang the tinny pierce in her ears. It was the legal sized sheet of yellow paper held in place by the knife in Wally’s chest. She read it and reminded herself to breathe.
Hello, Fixer
Warehouse.
Come now.
Taped to the paper was a photograph of the very pregnant Darlene Ritz standing at the airport Avis counter, smiling as the agent handed her keys to a green Subaru.
The Fixer lay in the mixture of ice and rain that collected on the roof of the Pier 37 warehouse opposite the one to which she’d been summoned. It was nearly 3:00 in the morning and her body ached from the frigid forty minutes she’d spent watching. No one entered. No one left. No light flickered inside. She rolled onto her back and stared at the starless sky.
Someone had tracked her. She bit the inside of her cheek until the warm metallic taste of her blood filled the back of her throat. She spit and reviewed her vulnerability. Buchner hadn’t been dead long. It was unlikely whoever took the photo of her at the Avis counter would risk Wally’s body being discovered by somebody else. How many people were involved? Had they staked out the airport rental agencies? How did someone know she was posing as Darlene Ritz?
The cold penetrated her wet clothes and numbed her from ankle to shoulder. The thought crossed her mind that she could stay there on the icy roof. Let the frigid rain pelt her body until she drifted into sleep. Be done with it.
You killed the wrong person. Wally’s frightened words echoed in an unending cry. But Bastian was a butcher. Untouchable. Unstoppable. He met every criterion The Fixer set for her assignments. You killed the wrong person. She’d seen Ortoo’s beheading. The disc hadn’t been edited or staged. You killed the wrong person. More than thirty targets over six years. Never a doubt. Never a mistake. You killed the wrong person. Always justice. Never revenge. You killed the wrong person.
The Fixer willed herself to stand. It was time.
She jimmied a side door and a pinpoint beam picked her up four steps past the threshold. She froze mid-step and reached behind her waist for the Ruger.
“Raise your hands, Ms Carr.” Barbara Streisand’s voice called out from overhead speakers. “Or shall I address you as Ms Ritz today?”
The Fixer stood still.
“There are several automatic weapons trained on you at this moment.” Now the synthesized male voice with the Boston accent spoke to her. “Raise your hands or die.”
She lifted her arms to the side and squinted into the black expanse of the warehouse.
“Pull your gun out slowly with your left hand. Hold it high so we all can see it.”
A chill colder than the night’s sleet raced up her spine. She shivered once and pulled the Ruger free with her left hand.
