just leaving as I pulled on to her street, so I followed her discreetly as she turned and headed south toward the highway.
Eventually, her convertible Mercedes pulled into one of her favorite destinations according to Pooley’s report, the Northpark Mall. I parked a few rows away and watched her as she crossed the lot.
Monique was beautiful, more than what I expected from the pictures Pooley had taken. She had natural beauty, high cheekbones on an unblemished face. Her hair was blond and stylish, not piled high like most of the Texas women heading across the parking lot. She wore baggy clothes over what must have been an athletic figure.
I followed her inside, trailing furtively. She crossed through the department store, Neiman Marcus, and headed into the mall proper. I waited while she window-shopped, using the glass of the storefronts across the corridor to watch her as she disappeared inside a Pottery Barn.
I waited for her to come out, but when she didn’t, I made my way over to the store as casually as possible, face blank, hands deep in my pockets.
I could hear shouting from outside the store, but the voices grew clearer as I moved closer. Monique was standing at the sales counter, her face contorted in rage, screaming obscenities at two clerks on the other side of the table. Her face had transformed; where I had seen beauty before, now I saw raw ugliness. The dispute had something to do with a promised item not being in stock, and the poor clerks were cowering from this woman, this privileged woman, this mistress, who was lording over them, raging over them, simply because she could.
She would not be raging for long.
I watched her across the parking lot with narrowed eyes, allowing my hatred for this woman to build. Pooley had mentioned a “difficult” personality in the file, but I had a special enmity for those who treat others like shit. The mark of character is how we treat people who can do nothing for us—the secretaries, the waitresses, the bank tellers, the check-out lady at the grocery store. She was making this job easier.
I followed her to a medical building and waited in the parking lot while she met with her doctor. Whatever illness she was attempting to cure would cease to matter as soon as she returned to her apartment.
She didn’t have any other errands and so headed for home in Deep Ellum. I sat in my car for a good hour after she entered the building.
Most professional assassinations take place in the target’s home. It is important for an assassin to let his prey settle into a routine, to get comfortable, to drop his or her guard in the familiar surroundings of where he or she lives.
I checked the clip on my Glock and headed inside, then took the elevator up to the fourth floor.
Her door had a standard Fleer lock. It took me less than ten seconds to pick it and quietly crack the door. Quickly, I entered the apartment, ready to strike if need be, but she wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen off to the side. I heard the unmistakable sound of a shower faucet being turned in the master bedroom and moved in that direction.
Silently, I turned the bedroom door handle and pushed the door in at the same time. I took a step forward and only had a second to duck my head as a golf club swung my way. I managed to avoid a direct hit from the club head as she only grazed my skull with the graphite shaft. Still, I had to fight off the surprise of being discovered in the act, and I wasn’t ready for the intensity of this woman.
She whipped the club back and prepared to strike a second time. She was only half dressed, and something about her bare legs caused me a moment’s hesitation, which she took advantage of, swinging the club low and connecting with my left shin. I felt the bone crack and a flash of stars blurred my vision, but instincts took over and reminded me that whatever this woman was, she wasn’t an experienced killer.
She tried to pass me, to get out of the bedroom to the more advantageous battlefield of the living room, and she almost made it, but I lunged for her and caught her arm, twisted her wrist back and jerked her body to the floor.
From there, it was a scrum. I had a hundred pound advantage, and although she had the desperation of a cornered rat, I used the pain in my shin to focus my intensity. I clawed at those bare legs until I was able to get on top of her. She tried to scratch me, to bite me, her jaws snapping like a turtle’s, her eyes wild, rolling in their sockets. She pounded the heel of her foot into my shin, but I was focused, feeding on the pain, and I managed to pin her arms down, straddling her torso while I hooked my fingers around her throat.
I was getting ready to finish the job when I heard Monique’s front door open behind me.
Fuck. I had to make a decision, had to time it right. While Monique struggled under my grip, I concentrated my hearing, listening for the telltale sound of footsteps approaching the door to the bedroom. Even with my bum leg, I could hoist myself backward off of her and use surprise and a solid forearm to get the new visitor down on the ground. From there, I would have to hope I had sapped the fight out of this woman so she wouldn’t be able to help.
“Columbus!”
The last thing I was expecting was Pooley’s voice coming from the living room.
“Columbus!”
Even as I processed this, I could feel my fingers loosening on Monique’s throat. She coughed and made her body go as limp as a possum’s.
Pooley appeared in the light of the living room, drawn by the coughing. He was sweating and breathing hard, and he peered in at me in the bedroom as I slid off the woman.
“She . . . uh . . .” He was trying to catch his breath. “She’s not the target.”
“What?”
As soon as I lifted my body off Monique’s torso, she scrambled backward to the corner of the bedroom, leaning her back against the wall, hugging her knees and sobbing between coughing spasms.
“I fucked up. I . . . uh . . . the double fee . . . the two names . . . I thought it was . . .”
“This isn’t . . .”
“She’s pregnant. The hit is on the baby inside her.”
“Fuck.”
I stood up and Monique screamed, flinching back, her hands on her stomach.
I put my palms up in a calming motion, but I was staring hotly at Pooley. “Fuck,” I repeated. “How do you make that mistake?”
“I didn’t catch it . . . I should have but I didn’t. That’s why I got here as soon as I could.”
I turned my eyes on Monique and she flinched.
“I’m leaving,” I said to her. “I’m not going to kill you or your baby. But someone put a professional hit on that child and didn’t care enough to explain it wasn’t on you.”
She nodded, but her mouth was still pulled back in a snarl, like she was ready to fight again if I made a move in her direction.
I limped out of her apartment and Pooley helped me down the stairs all the way to his car.
WHAT kind of person would put a hit on the child when hitting the mother would have served the same purpose? And what kind of psychological game was the person playing to sign off on the kill that way . . . name the unborn daughter but present it like it was the mother? Was it so the man or woman could rest easier knowing the assassination was little more than a forced abortion? So the person could blame the mother’s death on the shooter, since it wasn’t in the contract? The sin of omission easier to stomach than the sin of execution? Maybe I didn’t want to know the answer. But I didn’t finish the job that day, didn’t go through with the assassination, because I didn’t like being manipulated.
IN Portland, the sky is cloudless for the first time in weeks and it feels as though someone has lifted a blanket. The horizon is clear, endless.
Abe Mann is heading to Sacramento, his last stop before heading to a convention in Los Angeles he will never reach. I am watching a news clip about Sacramento and Mann’s impending arrival on the
