《Business As Usual》


 Chapter 1

    Business As Usual


    Chapter 1


    The sun had been a memory for almost two hours, which meant it was time for the man to go to work. The iguana in his hand, while still captivating and beautiful, was free to go, just as all the countless iguanas were before this one. The man didn¡¯t know what it was about iguanas that compelled him to get to know them a bit better whenever they crossed his path, to chase them back to their homes, and to drag them out (albeit gently), and examine them from tongue to tail. However, there were two things he knew for certain: with iguanas it was strictly catch and release; with people it was catch and kill.


    He gently put the lizard back on the sand and stood up. It took a couple of tentative steps then just turned back and looked at him for a long time, frozen. The man always locked eyes with the iguanas when this happened and waited for the moment when they shot forward and ran away, off into the desert. He was ready to get back in his pickup and get to work. It would take some time to get this job ready and the first step was to drive. He loved the drive, the radio, the dry night air.


    ¡°Pancho and Lefty¡± played on the radio, a great story song. As he listened, he thought for a bit about a life, what adds up to a person¡¯s story, which ones are worth writing songs about. As the song went on his mind brought him back to the task at hand, another job, another life not worth writing a song about. He drove and readied himself for what needed to be done tonight.


    He made sure to park the truck out of sight of the main road, behind some mesquite trees near the canal. The road nearby had a nasty curve, one you had to be ready for to avoid an accident, it was just right. He knew every road and patch of land for 200 miles having grown up running around and raising hell in this hot and wild place. He was much older now, age was kicking his ass, but he was still useful, productive and strong, much smarter than first glance might let on.


    He hopped out of the truck and started measuring. This was the trickiest bit; it had to be just right or the job would have to be done another way. Tonight was ripe, the time was now for this son of a bitch to wipe out. Meticulously measuring and jotting down the figures in his notebook until he knew just where to put the spike strip and then the ramp. If he calculated just right, the truck would blow just one tire, veer slightly to the left and hit the ramp in such a way to flip the car so that the driver''s side ends up face down in the canal.  Things like this happen all too often after a night in Mexico. Drinking and driving in this area is damn near expected. From what he knew about the target, it seemed almost too easy and definitely far too painless a way to exit this world, considering the lifetime of broken souls he left in his wake. However that was never the point of the job, he was just in charge of making the target go away completely and for good. He put some seeds onto precise parts of the road to mark where to lay the spike strips and the ramp. Chalk could be erased, but erasing took time. Seeds might blow away their own or be taken by some bird or insect. They¡¯d never be questioned at the crime scene.


    Next, came the waiting, another part of the job that he did not mind. He loved to listen to the insects as they became more alive in the night. He found a nice, soft place to hunker down and watch the sky, it was a clear night with a million stars brightly beaming. He had set this job in motion yesterday when he walked over the border and had found three of the kid street vendors that were always around and about selling their Chiclets. He gave them each a new lighter, a handful of bottle rockets and $5 US. He showed them a photo of the target and promised each kid another $20 to be paid tomorrow if they lit their rockets when they saw the old man leave the brothel. The hours went by as he waited to see the purple fireworks in the air. If the children did their part, the target would be driving towards this curve in approximately seventeen minutes.  It was a weekday, which helped avoid the party crowd of teens that frequented the bars in Mexico every weekend. That helped minimize the traffic, in four hours only fifteen cars had gone by, that¡¯s fewer than four cars an hour, the odds were good that if he placed his trap up in exactly sixteen minutes after seeing the firecrackers go off, he¡¯d get his man.


    While he waited he thought about why this man was his target tonight. He¡¯d been preying on little kids for a long time, using his little dogs and the promise of ice cream to use their innocence against them. He was a very old, feeble looking man, a winter visitor in this town, someone who most people would think was absolutely harmless. Hell, some parents actually encouraged their kids to go with the kind old man. However, he knew better now.


    One week ago, one of those parents walked into his shop and asked about buying a used double door refrigerator/freezer, but the look on his face clearly said he was not there to buy a fridge.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    He took this customer into his private office and closed the door. Sure enough, he was not looking to buy anything sold in the store, he wanted a man dead. Occasionally, these requests came his way. It was sort of an open secret in these parts that the man provided a pest removal service of sorts. It was even rumored that the police knew about him and did not care one iota. Anything that made their jobs easier was appreciated, especially given the care that went into making most of the killings look like plain old accidents.


    When these jobs came his way, he had only one question he needed the answer to before deciding to take it on¡­what did they do? He¡¯d look in the customer¡¯s eyes, size them up, and figure if they were lying or telling the truth. Of course, he¡¯d always do a good amount of digging on his own before deciding whether a particular pest needed removing. He understood that even he could be lied to. If he felt the target needed removing, he took the job. If not, he refused and did not worry himself about it a moment further.


    Over the past thirty plus years, he¡¯d turned down far more jobs than he¡¯d ever taken. He learned that there were a lot of reasons a person may want another one dead, but one man¡¯s reason might not amount to much compared to a man¡¯s life. Anger, jealousy, and revenge were most often cited as the reasons to seek the man¡¯s professional services, but he found that these reasons were rarely good enough to get him out of bed at night.


    The strangest job he never took was to kill a woman who kept stealing a guy¡¯s grapefruits. She¡¯d creep up his back alley and use a little hook to snatch his grapefruits right off of his trees and then run off giggling. Sometimes she¡¯d brazenly use a golf cart and flee the scene with a little honk of her horn.


    In any case, unless he deemed the target as truly evil, one who has and will continue to cause pain to those who cannot stop it, he would just say no and walk away. Yet, when he took a job, he¡¯d make sure to get the job done come what may. These jobs became his singular focus until done as cleanly and simply as possible. Most of his targets were never missed, and if they were, what their loved ones did not know couldn¡¯t hurt them. It never mattered that the world knew about the target¡¯s crimes. It was enough for him to know and to make sure they were put to a full stop. Once a job was done, for him it was out of sight, out of mind, no need to ever think about it again. There was just too much still to do, like figure out how to keep his used furniture business in the black without firing any of the help.


    His thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of pops and booms and bright purple lights shooting into the air a few miles away. He started his timer. As minute sixteen approached, he ran out and carefully placed the spike strip and ramp where he¡¯d marked the road with the seeds. When he was sure of their placement, he went back into the bushes across the street from the canal and waited with strong resolve. The world would be free of one old piece of shit in a few minutes, but then the minutes dragged on.


    The piece of shit was late. He must have been held up at the border crossing. This happens sometimes with such frequent visitors as the target was.  He waited, stoic until after about ten minutes later, headlights appeared. A slight moment of wonder, what if it¡¯s not him? he thought. Nah, it¡¯s the old weasel, he told himself as he got ready for the impact.


    In the movies, cars have an annoying habit of exploding on impact. Balls of flame leap toward the sky in dramatic fashion. Reality is much less exciting but far more satisfying. The piece of shit¡¯s car hit the ramp as expected and veered toward the canal. Thankfully, the bastard¡¯s gin-soaked brain hadn¡¯t been working on all cylinders, and he never hit the brakes. Nobody would be wondering why there were only three skid marks on the pavement instead of four. The car, an old gas guzzler with plenty of room in the backseat, was still accelerating as it plowed through the scrub and finally flipped onto its back and slid down the embankment into the waters of the canal.


    The man quickly and efficiently collected his tools from the road. He hid them out of sight quickly and ran over towards the wreck. Why bother sneaking? If anybody were to come across the scene, he¡¯d simply be a good samaritan who got there first and was trying to help the poor soul who lost control of his car.


    Standing by the side of the water, the man watched. Waiting was his bread and butter. The deed itself never took long, but making sure it was done properly meant lots and lots of waiting. When enough time had passed without any sound coming from the car, no calls for help, no pounding on the door, the man was satisfied that the driver within had fully expired. He¡¯d know for sure when he read about it in the morning paper. The only thing left to do before turning in was to make an anonymous tip to the police from one of the few pay phones left in Arizona as a concerned motorist who thought they may have seen a car in the canal. It just so happened that one of these phones happened to be right outside his favorite greasy spoon about a mile and a half down the road.


    Now one last pass to make sure there were no footprints or other incriminating evidence. Once that was done, he hoped back in his truck and it was off to the payphone. The man spared a single look in the rearview mirror before pulling onto the road (he wasn¡¯t really a fan of looking backward) and saw only a roadrunner chomping down on the seeds. It wasn¡¯t often that the man smiled, but this instance was an exception.

 Chapter 2

    Chapter 2


    He pulled into the parking lot of Brownie¡¯s Restaurant a few miles down the road and turned off the engine.  He was tuckered out but always slept better with some food and time to unwind a little.  Most of the late night crowd was already there when he walked in and most gave him a nod, while a few called him over to their table.  Tonight he¡¯d sit with ¡°Fuckin Darryl¡±, a colorful, sun leathered wanderer who earned his nickname as every sentence out of his mouth contained ¡°fuckin¡±.  Darryl lived in an old converted covered wagon that he turned into a candle making caravan. He earned a living doing odd jobs between carnivals and fairs where he sold his candles. He went to High School with Darryl and knew him long before he was known by his moniker.  Darryl used to be a brainiac with dreams of going to MIT, that was before he went to Vietnam and his outlook on the world blurred along with his grasp on reality.  He sat down and ordered the usual, chipped beef on toast and iced tea.  Darryl was a perfect mealtime companion as he just rambled on about the fuckin government, fuckin gas prices, fuckin french toast, fuckin aliens...you name it and Darryl had a conspiracy theory to tell you about. Every once in a while Darryl would almost magically remember things from long ago and for a little while be the old Darryl he used to know.


    Darryl asked, ¡°Hey man, do you still have that old fuckin corvette, the candy apple one with the fuckin white stripes?¡±


    He smiled and said, ¡°No, Darryl I got rid of that one a while ago so I could buy my truck.¡±


    Darryl looked sad for a second, ¡°Wow, that fuckin thing sure could fuckin fly. ¡°


    He finished eating his meal and considered a slice of cake, he was a sucker for carrot and tonight he figured he¡¯d earned it so he ordered a slice from the waitress and wolfed it down.  He paid for his meal and covered Darryl¡¯s tonight too.  He saw his old buddy from high school, Sheriff Rojas was still here, drinking coffee and chatting up the others so he knew  for sure that nobody had called in the ¡°accident¡± a few miles back, around here, it may take until morning until anybody notices the car  in the canal.  He made sure to stop and chat with his old friend a bit about the family and grandkids and the old days before heading out.  The man was the type of guy to be out and about at all hours, working hard all the time and people were happy to see him and shoot the shit.  He got back in his truck and started off towards home, he looked forward to a good, hard sleep next to Rosa and hoped he would not wake her up when he got home.   So, he drove a bit more, his mind still a swirl of thoughts and a few emotions.  This type of work is not for the squeamish but even for him it gave him a bit of pause sometimes, wondering if he¡¯ll ever truly have peace.   He often thought of the targets like a mythical Hydra, once you cut off a head, two new ones grow back.  He felt like his job was meaningful but there was just so much more to do.


    He pulled up to the gate that led to his own little sanctuary.  He remembered how lucky he felt the day he found this house way out in the barrio.  It was surrounded by mobile homes that slowly he was able to buy up, once the meth addicts inhabiting them finally got arrested or moved out.  Over the past few years, he¡¯s taken over all of them and then gated the entire compound.  Rosa¡¯s extended family from Mexico now lived in the mobile homes as did their dogs, so many dogs, mostly chihuahuas yipping in a raucous symphony whenever anyone arrived or left the gate.  So much for a quiet return home.  He opened the wrought iron security door and then the heavy wooden main door and there in the kitchen stood his wife, Rosa.  Even after so many years, he still couldn¡¯t help feel a couple of  butterflies when he saw her after a hard day.  He met her when she walked into the store looking for a job to help take care of her 2 kids, she looked so clean and kind, he gave her the job and in time, she became his wife.  The kids were now grown and had families of their own.  The man had 3 daughters of his own that were grown and had families and lives.  He wondered if his affection for them was the catalyst for him taking on this side hustle of his.  He could not imagine them out there being hurt by some sicko and as long as he was alive, he would try to make this world a little bit cleaner, saner while he could. He loved that Rosa did not ask too many questions, did not wonder too much why he was away so much.   He could never bring her into this part of his life, never add to her stress or put her in danger.


    ¡°Extra deliveries tonight?¡± Rosa asked.


    ¡°Yep¡± was all he said as he shuffled to the kitchen to give her a kiss on the forehead.


    ¡°You should take a shower, maybe a dip in the hot tub¡± said Rosa.


    His gift for his 60th birthday was a little hot tub, his body was once so strong he could lift 100 pound boxes of lettuce or cantaloupes and throw them on the trucks 9 rows high with almost no effort. He was called a ¡°fruit tramp¡± in those days and travelled wherever heavy produce was being picked, those were golden days, filled with naive promise.  Now his body ached pretty much constantly, so much that the aches and restless legs stopped sleep.  His little hot tub helped just enough for him to sleep again.  He went to the bathroom, after a quick look in his shower, where Rosa commonly kept pet turtles, for some non logical reason, he opted to simply put on this swimsuit and head to the hot tub.  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    The hot tub was outside and he could smell the wet mesquite trees after the recent light rain, his favorite smell in the whole world.  He could hear the insects chirping and rustling around. Next to reptiles, insects always fascinated him to no end.  They are survivors and the way they each lived and persevered filled him with curiosity.  In another life or parallel universe he thought he¡¯d have become either an entomologist or herpetologist.  But alas, he lived the life he carved out for himself, selling furniture by day and often exacting some small form of justice by night. After about 30 min, it was too hot to stay in the tub so he carefully got out and dried off. If he hit the bed now, he¡¯d get a solid 6.5 hours before he got up and worked again. He quickly headed for bed and gently pushed the 2 little dogs that were on his pillow away just enough so they could share the bed with Rosa and him.  He never really liked pets until these two little helpless looking ding dongs fell into his life, both rescues.  One being a fluffy white Shitzu, now isn¡¯t that one hell of a name¡­ the other a deaf mixed breed with a bell around it¡¯s little neck. Now he found himself buying them little outfits for Halloween or hats for 4th of July, time can sure soften a person.


    He woke up feeling like he got hit by a truck, however like always he told himself he needed to get up and ¡°get er done¡±, there was much to do and he needed to shake a tailfeather and get a move on.  As he made his coffee he watched the little TV in the kitchen.  The newscaster said an apparent accident happened last night with a fatality, the name of the deceased was not being released as the next of kin were not yet notified.  Next of kin, that term struck him as it always did, kin what a strange word and it always stung when hearing this word tied to one of his targets.  There may be kin out there feeling sad for the target¡¯s passing, they may also feel relief, who knows.  It did not help too much to wallow in these wonderings so he grabbed a mexican pastry, his coffee and sunglasses and headed out for the day.   He got to his store, made a few sales, visited his warehouse and checked in on his appliance guy.  He¡¯d gotten a huge shipment of refrigerators from the local military base and they were in pretty poor shape, if they could be saved and cleaned though, they¡¯d turn a nice profit.


    He had not been at the warehouse long when his cell phone rang, it was Rosa at the store and she said someone had just come by looking for the man, she tried to offer her help but they only wanted to talk to the man or nobody.   She told them to come back in an hour and said she thought the person seemed strange so to be ready for a weirdo.  He finished up at the warehouse and got back to the store just as a nervous looking character was pulling up in a black El Camino.  The person got out of the car quickly and walked right up to the delivery truck to talk to the man.  This character seemed anxious and desperate.   At first the man thought it was just another thief looking to sell their booty.  He always got such a kick out of asking if the merchandise was stolen just to hear ¡®oh noway¡¯ by the thieves.  He offered $1 for anything people brought to him, notable buys are 5 pounds of prime rib, that had come out of a man¡¯s sweatpants, various DVD¡¯s, costume jewelry, makeup and CD¡¯s as well as large items such as generators and large tools.  This stranger today was not here today on thief fencing business.  He asked if anyone could hear them speaking and when told the coast was clear, he told the man that he was here for his other services.  This always made the man wary.  He knew it was not a super well kept secret, but still, he did not want any Tom, Dick and Harry walking in there announcing to the world that he wanted to kill people.  So, he asked the kid what he meant by other services.


    ¡°Fucking Darryl sent me.¡± he said


    Well, that sure made sense and Fucking Darryl had a big mouth.  So, he led the kid into a dusty inner office for a bit more privacy. He was a scrawny little guy, could not have weighed more than 110 pounds soaking wet, maybe 19 years old.  He had a stammer when he talked but once he got going it cleared up some.


    ¡°My name is Jesus, I, uh, uh want you to take care of a, a big problem, I heard you uh, you sometimes do that for people for money? ¡± he asked.


    ¡°That depends on the problem¡±, the man said.


    ¡°Oh, oh it¡¯s a big ass fucking problem, I can tell you that that for sure.  You see, there is a guy who gets girls hooked on bad drugs then sells them to people who do whatever they want to them, any anything at all.  After that, the girls are never seen again, never again.¡± Jesus said.


    ¡°How do you know this?¡± asked the man.


    ¡°It has happened to a couple of my buddies family before, now it happened to my sister, I think she is still with him, at least I hope so.   I don¡¯t think we have much more time.  You see, I have some pictures, from out by the old abandoned pig ranch, of my sister with the guy who took her.  I know where they are but not sure what to do¡± said Jesus.


    The man felt the familiar feeling of hairs standing up on the back of his neck.  It was at the same time exhilarating and sickening to know a job had to be done and he was the only one that could do it.


    ¡°Ah, okay God dammit, write on this paper all of the details that you have, any other info you have on him.  When did you last see your sister?¡±


    Jesus said, ¡°about 4 days ago, she looked strung out pretty bad, like hollowed out, she is in real danger.  I am worried for her life, for real.¡±


    The man slowly thought about the situation then spoke.


    ¡°Do you have the money?¡±  Jesus looked surprised and hopeful.


    ¡°Ah, ah yeah I do, I have got some from my buddies and family and we have  money, I hope it¡¯s enough?¡±


    The man said, ¡°okay give me the info that you have collected and a couple of days to do my own digging and we¡¯ll meet again.¡±