Withering Heights

My eyes flit between the dregs of coffee in this mug and my watch. I’ve spent roughly fifteen minutes or so in this cafe waiting on my briefing and the cappuccino wasn’t remotely worth it. The watch is though, roughly $40,000 worth with a diamond-studded face and gold hands and the charcoal suit, tailored by my employer’s finest from imported silk, makes a solid case for the costly timepiece. The pants are kind of riding up my ass, as the tailor must have taken a wild guess at my measurements without so much as observing my figure in a photograph but until the job is done, I’ll have to grin and bear it. 

What’s that buzzing noise? Oh, that’s my trusty phone giving me the info on the soup of the day aka the target. Here we go. 

My mark is one Helena Seydoux, a 28-year-old, conventionally attractive, self-made billionaire eco-friendly designer from France who also happens to be terminally ill. The disease and the cause are unknown but she was given eight months to live roughly seven months ago. My mission is to cut that time dramatically. She’s here in New Aurora to open up a pop-up shop and I have to somehow murder her without raising a fuss. With every news outlet in town and her probably needing to make the rounds with press junkets, she’ll be a tough woman to pin down, literally. I’ve got an hour window to snuff her out because that’s how long she’ll be in town and then she’s at the complete mercy of her disease. 

Luckily for me, the cameras in there only record up to three hours of footage at a time before requiring a fresh lens or whatever. Being the occasional genius I am, I chose to enter the cafe at their busiest hour exactly after the camera captured three hours of footage and selected a barista with his face in his phone engrossed in some game to serve me. Thankfully, the mug is biodegradable and the baristas are too occupied to notice me dump the mug in the trash and slip out. Especially the moron with his phone glued to his hand. 

I pivot around chewing gum on the sidewalk because I can’t afford the Italian leather, wing-tipped shoes I would have ruined. Another buzz from my phone fills me in on potential spots she could be located where she frequents such as Bingo’s Boba Parlor, Candy Plaza and Rachel’s which is some overrated sit-down pizzeria where the building’s namesake smokes pot and saunters in every two weeks to bitch and moan and suffer mild paper cuts from counting her registers after hours. Additionally, I’m reminded that if any article of clothing on me incurs any damage, my payment will be docked at an astronomical rate. With that knowledge, I think I’ll take my chances driving to Bingo’s Boba Parlor in this car which I do not own either and will be docked for wrecking whether minor or major. 

The car has a voice activation option and I feed the car the destination as well as the command to drive on auto because I have yet to scroll through my messages from Hida. Having a partner when you’re a contract killer leaves a gaping hole in your armor for enemies to squeeze through but she’s my ex-wife and we had no children together and that means her head is safe. In a perfect world, the two of us were inseparable: me, a deadly assassin disguised as a lowly telemarketer and her, a screenwriter who didn’t know I wasn’t truly a telemarketer. When she was ignorant of my actual occupation, it was blissful because we got married right as our careers began to take flight. However, an attempt on her life from another assassin who had her as a mark jeopardized our relationship when I knew it wasn’t an option for her to be ignorant anymore. 

I feel as though I can read between her messages about how glad she is that she moved out of New Aurora and wondering when I’ll do the same. Between those lines, it’s as if there’s this hidden code she wants me to decipher for me to discover that she desires for us to try again as a couple distant from the life that chose me a year before our marriage. Hida, you know I can’t do that, I want to respond with that yet I opt for some trite mush about how someday, we can try again. 

“You have reached your destination.” 

The timing cannot be better because Bingo’s Boba Parlor is closed in broad daylight which only happens if there’s a celebrity or a rat infestation and since Bingo’s Boba Parlor has an A rating from the inspector, it has to be the former. As the doors swing out like bat wings and I step out of the car, I realize that it’s Bigo’s Boba Palace. Someone fed me the wrong information and in turn, I communicated that misinformation to the car which arrived here anyway. Someone must not want me to land this mark or there was an error. I notice a brunette through the store window coughing violently and that has to be her. 

Anyone who is anyone in downtown New Aurora dresses to the nine meaning being inconspicuous is a breeze. I pat the handgun I have strapped to my right ankle and iron out almost microscopic wrinkles in the pants. Every step down the sidewalk is a step closer to putting Helena out of her misery and onto the top of the waitlist for the pearly gates. All I have to do is wait for these cars to whiz by at the crosswalk and I can take her out. 

Oh, wait a second. I forgot to equip the silencer on my handgun. I duck behind a nearby SUV and make the quick transition from loud and obnoxious rookie killer to silent, trained professional when I twist the silencer on and reattach the weapon to my ankle. She’s ordering the taro boba tea, nice choice and it’s a good thing she’s flanked by those bodyguards or else she would have collapsed and possibly broken her neck. If I don’t want some checkered tile floor or degenerative disease to steal my kill, I have to be discreet about this. 

The sign says “WALK” and I oblige with one sluggish foot in front of the other but not enough to hold up traffic. Helena is taking brief pauses between each sip of the tea and she’s using her right hand. Not to mention, the two of us have cinnamon eyes. I pray this isn’t gonna be like murdering a soulmate or a long-lost sibling because that’s how it feels now. 

My pulse is rising as she and her bodyguards push through the glass double doors, oblivious to what’s about to happen, what apparently needs to happen. My right hand, my shooting hand, it’s jittery though. It’s hesitant and she isn’t swarmed by anyone yet because she has only been seen by me and the employees at Bigo’s Boba Palace. I have a clear shot and there are coincidentally no witnesses other than her bodyguards but my hands are clammy and the pounding of my heart is blocking out any other sound. 

In a flash, there’s a ringing in my ears and I clutch my chest. The suit, the dress shirt, the pants, the shoes; all of it comes on my employer’s dime and all of it is stained bright red. The world is falling, falling, falling and I hear a piercing voice screaming from across the street. There’s blood flowing from beneath me and the only thing I can think is, My employer is gonna be pissed when I have to be stripped for some poor saps to thoroughly clean all this shit off. 

“Someone, please call an ambulance! Somebody, please call an ambulance for this man! Help me please!” 

That sounds like Helena and maybe it’s a dream or maybe that is Helena but the world is fading now and I have to sleep. I don’t want to sleep but from where I’m laying, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter. 

Christian, I didn’t want to murder you especially not from 30 feet away but you weren’t built for a job like assassinating a dying fashion designer. I was the one who fed you that misinformation about the name of the boba place but I know it was the clearest shot I could have. The trip to the cafe, the knowledge you would deduce that Helena would show up to Bigo’s Boba Palace, and even the messages were lined up for you to trigger every trap I had waiting. 

I wish I actually got to be a screenwriter like I wanted to be but the life someone else carved out for me was one I couldn’t leave though I don’t think you could genuinely say you wish you actually got to be a telemarketer. I wish I could have tried again with you too but God knows with all the notches under my belt, they wouldn’t allow us to be together with each other the way we wanted. Consider this my eulogy and apology at the same time because I had a boatload of screenplays collecting dust around the house and I figured that would bait you into believing I was as ignorant as you thought. I knew you were a killer when I first met you from the way you ate mandarin salad like you had a stick up your ass to the way you tied your laces as if you had nowhere to go. 

I’d love to do a proper burial for you after taking down this Helena girl. She seems nice enough for there not to be a warranted reason to blow her brains all over her hulking bodyguards and I have a few of her pieces. The patchwork sweater I have from her is a personal favorite so this could read like one of those crazed fans killing an idol type of deals. Maybe it does seeing as she’s sought out a positive change in the world before she could walk but as this bullet blends with the center of her unsurprisingly attractive supermodel face, I have to shrug off my conscience when I consider how I’m able to pay my bills and not have to worry when my next meal is coming. 

Breaking news: I’m weeping as I sink against this freezing concrete wall in this abandoned building only to turn and peer over the window to witness the scene unfold. The former love of my life is finished and the bodyguards step over him to cradle Helena. One of the guards relinquishes himself of his suit jacket to cover what’s left of her face and my job is done but at what cost? Now, my conscience can’t be shrugged off when I need it to be more than when I’m committing to a target. Damn you, Hida, you heartless soul. 

I disassemble my sniper rifle, place it neatly in a violin case and duck out of the building into the subway station. I want to be by your side, Christian but I can’t be unless I want to risk getting exposed as the killer or a suspect and getting terminated. Of course, they’ll return you to our employer, peel the clothes off of you to have them cleaned, bury you in the New Aurora Cemetery since you were one of the better killers, and say a few words about your contributions before erasing your name from all of existence. Meanwhile, I’ll be paid in respect and cash and I’ll proceed to wipe out targets until I’m dead or they’ll deem me dead to them aka I’d have reached a ripe old age they won’t accept.