Ugly Hearts

The reason I’m so good at killing people is because they never see me coming. All they see is a pleasant-looking woman dressed by QVC and shod by Sketchers. By the time they realize they’re in danger, the bullet is halfway to their head, or the knife is slicing through the carotid.

Janie Latham is no exception.

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The Jeep crept to the gate, followed loyally by dust, crunching to a stop, expelling a brown-haired woman in athletic shoes and clothes not fit for eastern New Mexico. She had a phone in her hand, staring at it with a puzzled expression.

“You lost?”

Janie Latham opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. The afternoon sun and the laws of physics put her in shadows, but the shotgun she held was easy enough to see.

Becky Thompson pretended not to see the shotgun.

“I believe so. My phone is telling me I’m in — let’s see — ok, outside of a town called Floyd,” she held up the phone and waggled it, like she was waving at someone.

Janie leaned the shotgun against the railing and made it halfway to the gate before she stopped, a gun pointed at her.

“Janie Latham. Testified to a triple homicide committed by Rico Vitale, son of Aldo Vitale. Rico gets life without parole and Papa Vitale, being big in the world of Chicago crime, wants revenge.”

Janie blanched at the words. Tears sprang from her eyes and she slumped, as if the gravity had suddenly tripled. Becky took her by the arm and escorted her inside. She handcuffed Janie and sat her in a chair, wrapping her up with duct tape. Janie, for her part, allowed it to happen without a struggle, just another docile farm animal led to the slaughter.

Becky retrieved the shotgun, broke the action open, and tossed the shells on the kitchen table. When she returned to the living room, Janie had stopped crying and was praying, her whispered words not comforting her but, being faithful, she kept them coming.

“Papa Vitale wants you to die hard. You know what that means?”

Janie shook her head and continued to pray. “It means,” Becky put a finger under Janie’s chin and raised it, “that I’m supposed to torture you first.”

The tears came again. And begging. Janie’s voice cracked with fear, her terrified mind not allowing her to speak properly. Janie watched her impassively, and patiently. She took photographs, lots of them.

“All I can tell you is that it’ll all be over in about thirty hours. It’s gonna feel like thirty years, though. Prepare yourself,” Janie said as she walked to the Jeep.

When she came back, she had a bag heavy enough to qualify as a lethal weapon. Janie watched as Becky spread out the contents of the bag on the coffee table. She renewed her crying and begging when she saw pliers, an ice pick, a saw, pruning shears, and a propane torch laid out before her. Becky took a photo of the tools and sent it to Aldo.

“Ok, let’s get those shoes off and take a toe.”

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The toe is for DNA proof of death. Besides being unbelievably cruel, Aldo was also very thorough, which partially explains why he’s the head of a crime syndicate. He wants to make sure he gets what he pays for. In this case, half a million for the life of the woman who put his son away forever.

The screaming begins, and I am not prepared for it. I have never cut off a digit from a live person, but this is necessary. I wrap some tape around her mouth and cut off the little toe on the left foot. Clean and neat. Janie’s screams shriek in her throat and exit through the nose as snot. It gets even worse when I cauterize the stump.

I bag the toe and put it in the refrigerator until I can mail it to Aldo.

Janie’s head is slumped forward, like a rag doll that lost all the stuffing in its neck. I slap her awake and force her to take some pills I have for her. She doesn’t know what they are, but she swallows them anyway. I know what she’s hoping, but she won’t die by poisoning. Her fate is in my hands, and I don’t poison the people I’m paid to kill. Too many variables.

Janie looks out of it, so I take off the tape and bind her legs, handcuff her to a bedpost, and put her to bed. I ask her if she wants me to read to her and she gives me a look. Well, I was trying to be helpful.

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Janie was awakened by rough shaking and water from a sprayer. She spluttered and tried to sit up, but the handcuffs arrested her movements. That’s when it hit her: she was going to die a horrible, pain-filled death.

“C’mon sleepyhead. We have a grave to dig,” Becky said cheerily. Janie spat at her, her eyes filling with tears and hate.

“I would take that personally, except I know you’re not feeling yourself. Here, take this pill so we can get going. No time for breakfast, I’m afraid.” Becky handed Janie a pill from a z-pack. Janie threw it on the floor, glaring at Janie.

Becky picked it up and handed it back to Janie. “Take it, or I’ll jam a tube down your throat and force it into your stomach.”

Becky wiped the spittle from her face as Janie did as she was told.

Janie felt defeated. The woman about to kill her seemed implacable, like Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers or any other killer that can’t be killed without superhuman effort. She wondered what Jamie Lee Curtis would do in this situation. Cry, probably, like me.

The trek to the proposed gravesite was a half-mile from Janie’s house, a distance she covered in handcuffs and boots.

“You can’t run away in boots, can you?” Becky understood escapist footwear and body disposal.

Becky dug the grave, pausing often to drink water and enjoy the day. Janie alternately cried and cursed, neither one giving her much satisfaction.

“My toe hurts like hell,” Janie said to the woman digging her grave.

“I cut it off and cauterized it. It’s supposed to hurt like hell,” Becky replied sensibly. No use denying the existence of pain when a digit had been lopped off.

The sun reached the ten o’clock position in the sky at ten o’clock, something that Becky found soothing and logical. Life, sometimes, made sense.

Becky stopped digging soon thereafter, climbed out of the hole, and ushered Janie back to her house. She gave the woman a pain pill and made her a sandwich, but Janie didn’t seem interested in meat between two pieces of semi-stale bread. Becky shrugged and ate it.

“You have any tattoos?”

Janie stared at her would-be killer, blinking in surprise at the question. She couldn’t find it in herself to answer, so Becky started taking off Janie’s clothes.

“Stop! Ok! I have a small heart tat on my right shoulder.” Janie didn’t care to know why Becky wanted to know. To her, all questions not concerning her mortality were moot. Like asking a death row inmate if they had washed behind their ears.

Becky took a picture of the tattoo with a different phone, studying it closely. The heart was blood red, outlined in black. Nothing more. A simple adornment that said nothing to the viewer, except possibly that the recipient of the tattoo was willing to put up with a lot of pain for inartistic ink.

Becky spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon testing out different blowtorches on pieces of firewood. Satisfied with her efforts, she made another sandwich, offering one to Janie. Janie declined, but would like some water.

“Fine by me, but it’s a terrible weight-loss program. You’re just gonna make yourself weak and miserable.”

“I’m already miserable!” Janie screeched. She struggled to stand up, discovering that she was indeed weak, as Becky had stated. The world was a very dark place when your killer was right about everything.

“I have a few things to do before we get this show on the road, so you have to go to bed.”

Janie glared at Becky. “I don’t want to go to bed.”

“But you’re going to anyway. Take this pill and lay back. It’ll help with the pain, in case you’re wondering what it’s for.”

If one can swallow a pill rebelliously, then Janie did it. She felt herself drifting off to sleep, hearing a buzzing noise coming from the kitchen, and not giving a damn about it.

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I’ve taken care of everything. Janie Latham is dead, and her worries are at an end. I feel bad about the toe, but needs must when the devil takes the wheel.

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Janie woke up in bed, sans handcuffs and duct tape. She sat up quickly, looking around the room and wondering if it had all been a bad dream. The throbbing pain in the region of her missing toe told her it had been real.

“Ah! You’re awake, finally. I guess I gave you too much hydrocodone yesterday,” Becky handed Janie a cup of coffee and a croissant.

“Pretty good pastry for New Mexico. I’ve scarfed down two of them already.”

Janie stared at the croissant, at Janie, and then back at the croissant. She set it aside.

“Am I in hell?”

Becky laughed, shaking her head slowly, like a proud parent witnessing their small child trying to spear a piece of broccoli on their plate.

“I can understand the confusion. This room,” Becky held out her right hand, as if waiting for an underling to hand her a napkin, “is just the type of place Satan would create to increase misery.”

“Hey!”

“Anyway, you’re dead. Buried. Never to be heard from again.”

Janie rolled out of bed and stood on the side opposite Becky. She still didn’t trust her, and good fortune had lately been noticeably absent in her life. Becky, sensing that Janie wasn’t in the mood to eat, took her croissant and munched on it, also sipping Janie’s untouched coffee.

“But I’m alive,” she said. Janie had never been the brightest bulb in any of her classes, but she knew the difference between being alive and being dead.

“Yes, well,” Becky stood, wiping her hands on he jeans, “Aldo doesn’t know that.”

Aldo. The origin of her problems the past seven years. She regretted filming his son killing a trio of sex workers, but she knew it was the right thing to do. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t.

“He’ll find out someday,” Janie sighed the sigh of the truly put upon. A teacher with a roomful of recalcitrant kids. A plumber tired of hearing yet another butt-crack joke.

“No. He’s dead.”

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Aldo needed to die, so I killed him. Despite my profession, I have a code. Killing scumbags is no problem, but killing a relative innocent is where I draw an admittedly dubious moral line. Aldo’s parenting skills had to have been terrible, and for that alone he deserved to suffer. Knowing his kid routinely killed women hired for sex was the dubious line of mine he crossed.

By now, Aldo would have been discovered. Still, I send photographs of the real Janie Latham to his phone, validating that I had no knowledge of his death. The toes is in the mail. Whoever eventually winds up taking over for Aldo will take it at face value. Job done. We’ll call you when we need you.

And they will. Someone always needs to die.

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“But — but,” Janie started a question but didn’t know quite how to finish it off. Like apologizing to a spouse.

“I found a woman that resembled you, in body type. I dug her up and brought her along for the ride. Gave her your tattoo and then burned the hell out of her before burying her again. I made sure the tattoo showed.”

“Oh my God! You dug up a body?” Janie’s lips tightened and spread, a pale red slash across a white horizon.

“The woman did you a favor. I find it comforting to know that we can still be useful after we breathe our last. She’ll feed the worms, of course, but she also helped save a life.”

“Pretty gruesome. Really gruesome. I just —”

“Don’t understand? Aldo was trash. I know we have to have criminals, but they can be a better class than him.”

“But I was so scared! That was a terrible thing to do to me!”

Becky nodded, as close to contrite as she was going to get. “It had to look real. The photos. But I gave you clues all along the way, girlie.”

“Like what? Cutting off my toe and hinting at worse to come?”

“I cauterized your toe. Why would I do that if I were going to kill you? And the z-pack of antibiotics. And the pain pills.”

Janie’s mouth drooped open as she stared at Becky, her eyes widening, comprehension arriving fashionably late to the party.

“I need a shower.” As far as exit lines go, it wasn’t her best.

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I don’t think Janie and I will be BFF’s, but she doesn’t want me to die horribly any longer. I call that a win. I have low expectations when it comes to people forgiving me for my actions.

Nico got early release from prison on account of him being dead. Without his dad protecting him, he became the target of individuals who didn’t care for his treatment of women. He’s being buried beside his dad. Again, the universe comes through.

Janie, despite not caring much for me, says that I was divine intervention, an angel that she hopes she never meets again. I understand, Janie.

I don’t see sainthood in my future. Besides, wearing a halo would probably give me a headache, and I’m afraid of heights. I’ll continue to do what I do, with my feet planted firmly on the ground, decreasing the population of bad people and increasing my bank account.

Maybe get a decent heart tattoo along the way.