Silence

Three months ago, the Client had cried and begged to my liaison to help fulfil his vengeance. I don’t remember why I agreed to the first meeting, but I’ll never forget the excuses I made for every meeting since.

I won’t forget when the excuses dried up, either. Hammerhead and I had been driving down to a café once; he’d asked me why I didn’t cut the deal. I didn’t have an answer for him. I just turned to the window and took a long drag of my overpriced cigarette. It was easier to admire my hazy reflection in the side mirror than to think too deeply about it.

Maybe I thought I’d find an answer reflected somewhere there in those tired lines. They only had more questions and half formed accusations.

Anger at myself, anger at the Silence that the Client brought with him.

Two weeks ago, the Client had finally scraped together the small fortune he’d need, to the surprise of even himself. He’d passed authentication and security and the funds were laundered for later collecting. I remembered a small knot in my chest, an unfamiliar trepidation that surrounded a task I’d seen through a dozen times before. Something was different this time.

Four days ago, I attended the wedding doomed to end with the grooms’ death. Hammerhead had arranged my invitation to oversee Plan B, insurance to cover everything from a minor miscalculation to divine intervention. The revolver felt heavy in my purse, its silver barrel itching to see the sun.

I knew I wasn’t the only one. The groom’s father was a spider in the web of the underworld; the hawkish men and women overlooking the perimeter would drop those clammy, half-hearted smiles in exchange for firepower in an instant.

Everything proceeded like clockwork. The bride and groom exchanged their vows, eyes reflecting the deep, overflowing love of true passion, ignorant to the cruel strings of fate closing around them.  The reception started slow, steadily building into a frenzy of contagious excitement, a cacophony of laughter that infected every guest in attendance. I joined in and tried not to sound too disinterested with the casual conversation and predatory attention swirling around me.

The attention would be redirected soon enough. All eyes were drawn to the first dance between newlyweds. A practiced routine paced to slow, near hypnotic music at odds with the vibrant energy of just moments before. I remember turning away at some point, trying to appear busy on my cell. Raucous applause and a new round of drinks let me know it was finally time to get into position. Back against a nearby exit, purse opened slightly, a hundred paces from the nearby escape vehicle if worst came to worst.

Imagining the beads of sweat rolling down the drivers’ forehead brought me the first genuine smile of that night.

When the groom finally collapsed still holding his liquor of choice, the first sound was a sparkle of uncertain laughter. It melted away in the same second as the gravity of the situation settled in and hysteria blossomed.

The man’s life faded before emergency services arrived. Though the official autopsy was still underway, I knew that they’d figured it out within the hour. Poison in the ice. Simple to detect, though it would never be traced to my people, so it didn’t bother me. The Client was quite specific about how he wanted his perfect vengeance to unfurl.

It was impossible to forget the little specifics that the Client requested. Every time he paused to think, there was that blasted Silence. When I’d realized later that I’d never have to hear his dreadful metronome grinding again, I felt… something adjacent to relief. Not quite, but close.

I thought that was the end of it. Just as I was beginning to steer my thoughts elsewhere, Hammerhead told me the news.

That brings us to today, when I learned that the Client had earned a pittance of a bounty across the local community and was expected to expire within the week.

In hindsight, it wasn’t that surprising. The man hadn’t been subtle about his involvement. I’d heard that he even taunted the groom’s family afterwards. Family that, mind you, had their finger in the pie of every half-crooked officer and politician of our fair city.

The paltry sum offered for his disappearance filled me with a strange melancholy. It didn’t even break five digits. A fraction of what the Client had paid for his vengeance, paid by men who could afford a standard fee without breaking a sweat.

It felt insulting. I knew it was beyond stupid to feel that way, but I couldn’t fully suppress that little curdle of indignation on behalf of the loathsome Client. All that planning, all that fiery obsession, to be met with a price so lukewarm that it was hardly worth the time or risk for any serious contractor.

I’d told Hammerhead to pin down the Clients address; until now, communications had been exclusively through a liaison or burner phones. He told me he’d get it within the day, which was his modest way of promising six hours at most. Now I had a free afternoon with no choice but to relax, unwind and enjoy the latest trashy thriller on my shelves in silence.

A peaceful, serene silence, interrupted only by the turning of pages and the sound of my own breathing.

A longing, fragile silence, fractured by every car that sped by before being pulled back together.

An impossible, unwelcome silence, unfamiliar after so many conversations with the Client. Every time I turned a page, I could feel it echo in the back of her head. Gnawing, gnashing, grinding, yearning—

I snapped the book shut more harshly than the innocent paperback deserved. It wasn’t the novels’ fault. It didn’t bring the Silence. It wasn’t judging me. It wasn’t watching me. It certainly didn’t think any less of me for these unwelcome thoughts.

Minutes passed as I did everything I could to try and clear my mind. Reclining one way, then the other, draping over every piece of furniture in my apartment like a particularly restless cat. I poured out the cheap red wine kept at the front of the counter for emergencies, took a single sip and divorced myself from the glass a moment later. I curled my hands and flexed my fingers, pulling them from my lips time and again, resisting the instinctive urge to bite at my nails like thin mints. A nasty habit I thought I’d kicked to the curb decades ago, resurrected in the wake left by the Silence.

I gave up eventually, of course. There’s no way I could get my mind off it. The dreadful cloak that the Client had wrapped around himself during every conversation. That unnerving tic that had left her regretting the very first meeting and second guessing every interaction thereafter. I turned back over to the book, finding myself seated right back where I started.

I knew what it’d say if it could talk. If those words could rearrange to write a query, or better yet, split down the middle and enunciate with a grotesque, half formed mouth, the question that had no sane answer.

What the hell are you so worked up about?

There’s no way I could explain to anybody, but I knew that anyone who heard the Silence would understand instinctively. Hammerhead knew as well. It didn’t seem to bother him as much, but I’d seen the way his face contorted into a subtle, uncommon grimace when I’d mentioned it to him the first time all those weeks ago.

In the three months that I had been in touch with the Client, we’d exchanged seven conversations over the phone. Every single one of them had been punctured by what I liked to call the Silence. That word came with a capital S, and no dictionary in the country would dispute it once they’d heard the evidence.

The Client was the sort to take long pauses between his words, especially after rants about the various injustices of the world and the depths of his despair. These rants were never rare; he was blessed with an unrelenting loathing that would put the grudges of ancient Greek and Norse myths to shame. In these times when he caught his breath, I’d feel my shoulders tense up just a little as I listened to the Silence.

It wasn’t anything occult or mystical. A simple grating of teeth, at least I assumed. I’d never heard a man who could grind them with such audible zeal before. It was as if his molars were stones wearing at each other as they had since the dawn of time. A chilling gnashing that left me a little on edge just imagining it.

With that piteous grinding of teeth came the long, ragged breaths. They weren’t deliberate; they came too erratically, but not at a pace or labour that suggested actual exertion. Too quiet to be panting yet too loud to pass off as regular breathing… and every so often, just a little, sickeningly wet.

It was a disastrous combination of noises that came to be known as the Silence, and it was always at its worst when the Client discussed his vengeance. At those times I swear I could hear the trickling of feral saliva dripping down from his maw, an odious bile that would surely sizzle through the floor beneath him.

I hated the Silence. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal; it wasn’t the first person I’d met with an annoying tic. There was something about it that felt… off. As if the Silence was expecting me to acknowledge it.

Every gnash of molars was a command. Every longing breath was an invitation. It wanted recognition.

I never did. That would be surrendering. I knew that the Silence was hungry, yearning for attention, yearning to invite more questions so that the Client could rant on and on about the deep seated loathing that had become his very being.

The Silence and his romanticized, all-consuming vengeance were two sides of the same, oozing, rotting coin.

It made me wonder if it was gone, now. That was why I’d sent Hammerhead to find him so quickly. I hadn’t even realized it at the time. The self-realization filled me with more shame than I care to admit, and I returned to my long-abandoned glass of wine to finish the job.

As if he could sense the way that every passing minute dug its hooks into me, darling Hammerhead was ready with the location of the Client within a single hour. It hadn’t been hard to find him, with the bounty up for almost a full day before I’d been told.

Night had already fallen, and the soft padding of rain kept it company, but the location was surprisingly close. A seedy motel with dirt-cheap prices perfect for the sort of hanged man that had cashed over every dime he’d ever earned on a contract killer. 

Strapping on my boots and weathered coat, I stepped out with umbrella in hand and purse over shoulder. The firearm in there had never felt more vital, like a second heartbeat. A reassuring presence, a companion in the rain, promising that everything would be alright.

It promised me that it could drown out the sound of Silence with a single pull of its trigger.

Keen awareness of surroundings was vital in my line of work. Hardly an insect would escape my notice on a bad day, and I could count the heads in a crowd in less time it took me to finish a breath. Tonight, that usual alertness was muddled- and I knew it. I could scarcely pay attention to the cars that rushed past, nor anything ahead of me until the motel finally came into view.

It was a ten minute walk. I couldn’t tell you a single thought that had entered or left my mind throughout. My hand was shaky as I pushed open the door to a motel half as lively and twice as decrepit as I had expected. The man at the counter didn’t even bat an eye at me as I walked right past to go upstairs.

The alarm bells that should’ve been rattling in my skull were nothing but a muted recognition of the surreal edge that tonight held. It was dangerously easy to accept these strange tells.

A single, flickering light stood sentry over the upper hallway of the motel, guarding a total of three rooms. The one that I was looking for had its door already ajar. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, a creeping dread infused with crouched adrenaline ready to spring. The hallway was silent- truly silent, and I walked with quiet, trained steps with a hand in my purse.

He was already dead, of course. I didn’t need to open the door to confirm that, yet I still felt a small stain of disappointment when I saw the body. He was slouched over his mattress at an uncomfortable angle, head turned away from the door to hide his visage yet unmistakably deceased. At first glance, it looked like his throat had been quietly slit.

Stepping into the room at the same time an overgrown cockroach skittered out, I inspected the scene more closely. The room was filled with empty bottles of cheap beer and take-out boxes; the Client had been here for an extended stay. Either this motel didn’t provide daily room cleaning or he’d explicitly told them to delay it.

He didn’t look as gaunt and sallow as I’d expected, even in death. I looked over my shoulder. The aloof attitude of the man at the counter flashed back to mind. He must’ve been paid off to turn the other way for today. He might’ve mistaken me as a cleaner, or maybe he was keeping his distance from the unsavory dealings tickling his nose.

I needed to leave as soon as possible in case other would-be bounty collectors came along. I knew that, but I couldn’t move. My feet were glued to the floor.

The Silence was gone. Tension that had weighed on my shoulders invisibly for weeks melted away like butter on hot pavement.

The Silence was gone- but that wasn’t enough. After a moment, I stepped forward to confront that burning, unknowable question. I grabbed the corpse by the chin and turned his head with an almost reverent gentleness, to face me.

Empty, baby blue eyes met my own. In them I could see my reflection, so like that hazy visage in the car an eternity ago when Hammerhead first asked me to explain the impossible. This time, I could muster an answer.

I’d never really believed in peaceful or dignified death. Every corpse was one of two ways for me; gormlessly staring up at the heavens, or too mutilated to do even that. When I looked upon the face of the Client, however, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that the man, surrounded by his own squalor and murdered for a pittance, was content.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that in those last few days he’d been free of the Silence. The Client had invested everything into his vengeance, and he’d never looked back for even a second. It made me wonder, for the first time since my earliest clients, what it felt like to cling to something so passionately. Clawing at a romanticized, pointless vengeance like it was a divinely instilled purpose, throwing away every shred of your life to chase it and sacrificing even your own future?

I refused to open his mouth. I didn’t want to see what condition his teeth were in. When I finally turned away, I couldn’t help the shadow of a smile that touched my lips. The question that I’d never known I had was finally answered.

The Client had died in enviable peace, and the Silence died with him.