Last Job

*WARNING: Some violence, supporting character is a domestic abuse victim*

Today marks the second anniversary of my starting this covert job. All my clients were runaways; most of the times, their photo ends up on the news for being wanted by the authorities, or their house (their former house, of course) would be sacked by members of the mob that were looking for them. I am actually proud of my impartiality, therefore anyone with the right amount of money can just come up to me and disappear from their old lives within days.

Well, not anyone. After that one sport teacher appeared on the news for the most degenerate of crimes, anyone who comes up to me must reveal why they’re running, and I have every right to refuse. Six months ago, my appearance on the news (which was actually a very bad thing for a woman with my occupation) showed everyone in the underground why it would be very bad for them to threaten me after I refused their request. For an outlaw, I’d like to unironically thank the law for that event, for not making it a crime to kill robbers as a shop owner. Especially when there were ten of them and there’s only one of you.

As I said, I never handled a client that hasn’t actually done something wrong. Most of them looks like criminals anyway. Imagine my surprise when a woman and a boy showed up, asking for 5 bouquets of Lavenders, 4 English Bluebells, 3 Acacias, 2 Verbenas, and one Everlasting Daisy (that’s my password, the resulting acronym from that exact order, taking the first words only, would be L.E.A.V.E). She almost stuttered her order, continuously tapping the cashier machine as I stared at her in mild disbelief.

“Did I get the order right? You’re that flower woman, right? Please tell me you’re that woman.”

She was heavily clothed for a hot summer day. Leather gloves, expensive looking jacket with sleeves that goes up to her fingers, white scarf with pansy violet motifs, face mask, a very low worn cap and shades that almost covered up her swollen eyes. The day-old scar that goes from underneath her face mask was noticeable the moment you gave her a closer look. The boy, whom I correctly assumed was her son, was also wearing a similar cap and face mask, with an orange T-shirt and shorts. He was tall enough to be a five-year-old. At least the boy seemed unharmed.

“Yes, I am. Please, follow me.” She followed me beyond the counter, her sneakers making a low tapping noise on my ceramic floor. I led her to the basement, and asked for her ID and the boy’s passport. I never actually handled children before, but I’ve done passports plenty of times back in the black-op days, so I think I can pull this off. Clara Velvet née Watkins and Christopher Velvet.

“Do you have a next of kin? Other than the current ones, of course.”

The Velvets owned a huge area of land in the southern part of the city. They are famous for their charity works and for owning most of the major malls and entertainment centres in the city. In the underworld of this city, they are lords reigning over every crime category there is. Well, except mine. I’m sure they noticed me but thought (as I have shown) that I wouldn’t interfere with their business.

“No.” she replied. I asked her to remove her face mask, shades, and cap so I can take a new photo of her, for her new ID. Standard protocol, I usually can edit out minor scars and bruises with a few clicks.

“Chris, would you turn away for Mommy? Like you did this morning, honey.” Christopher Velvet turned around as his mother asked. Clara Velvet slowly raised her hands to remove her mask, not without many doubts and pauses along the way. Afterwards she removed her shades and cap, and looked at her feet in fear of me actually looking her in the face.

Her eyes were so red and swollen that I’m really glad she can still see with them. The cut I saw earlier ran across her face diagonally. “Please, I have 3x4 pictures of me, can you use them instead?” It was all too familiar for me. That was the face my mom wore the last three months of her life.

I caught myself staring into the nothingness behind Clara Velvet, and her calling beamed me back to reality. “Ma’am? Are these photos okay? Can you use these?”

“Yes, I mean, yeah I can work with that. You can...” I told her whilst gesturing her that she can put her face mask back on, which she did with such haste.

I processed her new ID and her son’s. “Any particular place I should know about? You definitely can’t choose any city you’ve stayed in, even momentarily.”

“Anywhere north of here is fine.” Clara Velvet sat on the sofa by the pillar. Christopher Velvet laid and slept on her lap.

I entered a small, sparsely populated town of my own choosing. Mostly old, kind people live here, so I never dropped any of my clients here. They took me in after –

“How long will it take?” asked Clara Velvet.

“Twenty-four hours, at least. You will stay here in the meantime, and leave all comm—”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry but I don’t have a day. I might not have until night time. You recognised my family name, don’t you? How long do you think it’ll take before they find out I’m gone?” She gently sat her son up and stood up, approaching me.

“If it’s more money you need, I have them. Just please get me and my son out of this town before sunset.”

Please take my daughter, Mr. Anders. Here, take my money. I was 9 years old. My mom took me to that small town after her new boyfriend found out she called the cops on him. As an adult I figured that he must have been bailed out by a powerful friend, so she thought she needed to smuggle me away to safety. North, where Mr. Anders, a student of my deceased grandfather, lived. Stay here, Meredith. You’re safe with Mr. Anders here. The next time I saw my mother was at her symbolic funeral, five years later, after she was declared legally dead. This ungrateful girl ran away that night, into the underworld she went and there she stayed until the military ad found her cold little dirty hands.

“No, Clara. Keep your money. You need it more than I do.” She was stunned by the chance that my sentence might be ambiguous. “What do you mean? You’re not going to help me?”

“No, I am going to help you, it’s just.. I don’t get many clients like you, not once really, so… You don’t have to worry about the cost. I’ll help you, free of charge.”

She’s not convinced. In our line of work, that’s the right thing to do. “Why would you do that? What’s in it for you?”

“History.” The fluorescent light reflected on her shades, in which I can clearly see my reflection. She retreated back to her seat.

“We’ll leave at nightfall. We should stop by the town by the lake to get you some winter clothes.”

I rushed the new ID card and passport. Registering her and her son into the system can be done anywhere with wi-fi, so it can be done later on. Thirty minutes to nightfall, and we were on our way.

The sunset was on our left side. Clara and Christopher were sitting against the walls of the back of the flower truck, Christopher sleeping lightly on the thin mattresses I set up. Seeing that it was dark enough that her son won’t be able to see her clearly, she took off her mask, cap and shades, and laid it on her bag. She noticed that I was watching her through the rear-view mirror.

“Are you sure they’ll never find us?” asked her.

“No, they won’t.” Truthfully, I’m not sure. The Velvets ran the city. Everyone working there would find themselves actually working for him. Eventually, I’m sure they’ll figure out it was me who brought her out. But I’m quite certain no one is going to come look at that town, and I’m more than certain I can handle myself should they come for me. Wait a second. “How do you mean by they?”

No replies.

And you are Meredith, Lisa’s daughter? The bank manager asked me, ten years after the funeral. She did store something here. The man led me into the vault. I remember fifteen years ago, a young chap claiming to be her boyfriend tried to take it on her behalf. I denied him entry, of course, he was not her legal heir—I cut him on his words, asking does he remember his name and what happened to him. Well of course, my dear, he died last year. Heart attack, if I remembered correctly. He was dining at the hotel right across the street, that’s how we at the bank all knew about it.

I remember freezing right in front of the vault’s doorway. The pillars that gave my life a purpose crumbled into salt, then dissipated into the void. I didn’t even notice it but the bank manager was panicking at my shortness of breath, and helped me sat down. It should’ve been me, I told him. I waited fifteen years for this. I worked hard for this. I went to the hells of war and back for this. It should’ve been me, not some damn heart attack, ME!

“His father was there.” Clara broke the silence as I parked the truck at the department store. Christopher was snoring softly. “I called the cops, one of them was his father’s friend. They told him.”

“And then?”

“His father called us to his house for dinner. Told us his son would be out of town. He wasn’t, he was there with his father.” Clara’s voice trembled, but steady enough to not let her speak aloud to wake her sleeping son. “The butler took Chris outside, and he did this, his father watching him. The old man then walked slowly towards us, and warned me to never betray him again.”

I remained in the driver seat, looking ahead. If old man Velvet’s in on it, we’ll never be truly safe. Perhaps not even me.

“You should go and get those winter coats. Here’s the key, and you should find some amount of money in that envelope attached to the wall. Buy whatever you need, then go back here, lock the door and turn on the heater. Wait for me, okay. If I’m not here by morning, you should drive this truck – it’s automatic, don’t worry about it – and drive to North Point City, and find Mr. Anders. Tell him…” Damn, I haven’t used my real name in a long time. Saying it out loud almost feels unreal. “Tell him you’re a friend of Meredith. Tell him everything, and give him this necklace,” as I hand her my mom’s necklace from the vault. “You’ll be safe.”

“Wait, who’s Meredith? I thought your name was –” I opened the door and tossed her the keys. “Where are you going?”

“Sunrise, Clara. If I’m not here, you should leave immediately.”

I took a cab and went back to the city, to my flower shop. Picked up my emergency supply, new IDs, money, weapons by the lot, and spare car I kept for this situation. I set the timer on the wall to fifteen minutes, and I left, headed south. Velvet Manor.

The hard part was getting through twenty security guards, all academy-trained and armed to the teeth. Luckily, I brought with me more bullets and better aiming skills. I blasted the main door, and five more armed men rained bullets on me. One bullet grazed my shoulder, but I handled the five men. The butler entered the main hallway, arms to the air.

“You’re the flower woman, aren’t you?” asked him. “You told her about me, didn’t you, Sir?” He nodded. I let him go.

I found them in the master bedroom. Velvet Sr. holding a 9-mm handgun, and Velvet Jr. hiding behind his old man. Senior was a towering man, with white moustache and balding hair, probably in his late 60s, and while I cannot take a good look at Junior, he was significantly shorter than Senior. “No need to hide, Junior, I’m here for both of you.” Junior peeked through his father’s shoulders.

“Why are you here? You think you can walk away from this? Do you know who I am? I own this city, bitch, the police are already on their way –” Junior screamed following the gunshot, curling into a foetal position.

“Please, don’t kill me… You can have it, his turf, his bank, whatever ma’am just please don’t kill me!”

He crawled to the corner of the room in his bathrobe, wearing only a white underwear underneath. I reloaded, and slowly paced in his direction. “You—you’re here for… Who are you?”

“I’m here for Clara. You’re not coming for her ever again.”

“Okay, okay, just please, let me walk away and—”. He was much quicker at the draw than I thought, my bleeding right shoulder being a testament to that. His lifeless body lied there as I left the room, lighting the entire house on fire.

I knocked on the truck’s backdoor, fifteen minutes to sunrise. Clara haven’t left, and was eating sandwich from the nearby 24-hour minimart.

After gazing at me with great shock, she asked: “Did you just…?”. I nodded to her question. She helped me clean up parts that I cannot reach with my disabled right shoulder. After biting into one of the sandwiches she bought, I started the truck and left for North Point.

She was having doubts about what I’ve done, but she’s getting the gist of it. I think.

“May I turn the radio on?” asked her. “Sure, why not.”

“…. At least twenty-seven found dead at the Velvet Manor, presumably includes Kerry Velvet Sr. and Jr. after a possible gas leak caused the entire manor to explode. We are still waiting for the autopsy results; however, police suspect there may be some foul play involved. We are also getting report that Lisa’s Flower Shop, owned by...”. Static noises, bad signal. “… have also suddenly caught fire, in a very similar manner with the Velvet Manor explosion. Authorities are still investigating whether these two cases are related.”

“They’re going to be looking for us, aren’t they?” asked Clara.

“Yes. They will.”

“They’re going to look for you too. What are you—”

“I quit, I guess. Can’t stay too long in this business anyway.” I sipped the black tasteless coffee that she bought with the sandwich.

“Thank you.” I looked at her, and nodded.

“Will you be staying with us?” “I expect so. Sooner or later, you got to go home, don’t you?”.

“Meredith, that’s your real name, right?”

“Yes.”

“The butler told me, that when people come to you, they need to tell you why they’re leaving. You didn’t ask me that.”

“No, I did not.”

Clara looked at me. The sun is rising from behind her back, forming a halo over her head. She wanted to ask why I didn’t ask her that, but she felt it was self-evident, and not something needed to be asked. So instead…

“What happened to you, Meredith?”

History.