Re: Termination of contract

To: GreatestHitsInc@gmail.com

Termination of contract

Hello Carla,

I trust you are getting over your bunion flare-up; what a shame you had to miss Mandy’s send off. I know I should probably address this to your Zack now he’s running things for you, but you know how I feel about that morally obese upstart.

Anyway, you’re a busy woman, so I’ll cut to the chase. As you can see from the subject line, I wish to tender my resignation with immediate effect.

I trust there will be no hard feelings and that you won’t resort to any grudgy-stuff. The family’s always been good to me, which is just as well since I never had one of my own. You took me in, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I would say you’d been like a big sister to me, but we both know there was one time when we did things to each other that no brother and sister should ever do. I have never breathed a word about that night to anyone and I don’t plan to now. Let’s just call it my insurance policy.

The job just isn’t what it used to be, and now that Mandy’s gone, there’s nothing to keep me here. Before they put her on the ventilator, she made me promise to go and see the world. Take all those trips we never got around to.

I miss the simple business of dispatching the scrap to the scrapyard, before all this recycling business - trying to get them to see the error of their ways and put things right. A wrong-un is a wrong-un, end of. And don’t even get me started on the e-ssassinations. I’m just not cut out to sit behind a desk. I like to come home after a job with aching muscles and dirty hands. I went along with the fright simulation thing because I thought it was a prank. It’s not my place to tell you what does or doesn’t make good business sense, but the budget on that Brad Bennett video must have been more than what he owed you. Just because Zack has a BTEC in Theatre Studies, doesn’t mean the rest of us should be expected to pander to his creative whims.

Another thing that’s got out of hand recently is the diversity remit. I’m a hitman, Carla, not a hitperson, or hithuman, or whatever it is this week. One of the simple pleasures of the trade was always sharing the graphic details with colleagues. It was a bloody good way to decompress: get everything out in the open and off the old chest; then home to Mandy for a nice evening watching the soaps and chatting about her day. No awkward conversations, no bad dreams or talking in my sleep. Now it’s all: don’t mention smashed kneecaps in front of so-and-so, don’t talk about suffocation when what’s-his’name’s around, don’t bring up drowning without warning her.

I suppose the final straw was this new push on property. I enjoy taking a sledgehammer to the Waterford Crystal as much as the next guy, but that’s always been foreplay. You make that the main event, and you lose all credibility. And let’s call it what it is, can we? Mindful vandalism, not deconstruction. I’m sorry to say it, Carla, but you’ve done a Masterchef. I don’t want to eat deconstructed toad in the hole, thank you. I like my sausage firmly tucked into its Yorkshire pud, where it belongs.

Modernisation is all well and good for the law-abiding, tax-paying mugs, but we’re the 6^th Sector. We’re not supposed to play by their rules. I think deep down you feel this way too. We’re cut from the same cloth you and me.

I will always remember my apprenticeship fondly. Everything I know, I learned from you. What a mentor. Do you remember the Beverleys? That was a career defining moment for me. To think I was actually contemplating just being a driver. How differently it might have turned out if your Wayne hadn’t been in A&E nursing a severely sore todger. Yes, my fate was determined by a DIY cock-piercing.

I don’t mind admitting now, I was shitting bricks that day. But once we’d forced our way in and got them all good and scared, my own fear just melted away like the skin on their pet Chihuahua when I gave it the acid bath. I’ll never forget the horror on the little girl’s face. She must have thought it couldn’t get any worse at that point. Only to be ripped apart from her darling brother and forced to watch him wear the bloody carcass for a scarf.

Poor Mrs. Beverley never recovered from the ordeal, did she? One particular image I often play back when I’m having a bad day, when I’m Zacked off, is the Bloodbath for Two Children in D Minor. It’s a bit of a cliché now, isn’t it? Setting violence to classical music. Brutality juxtaposed with the sublime. Very Post-Modern. But we didn’t do it to be avant-garde. Bach just happened to be on the Hi-Fi and you turned it up to drown out the screams. It could just as easily have been The Bay City Rollers. Any unfortunate onlooker might have thought we’d rehearsed it, the way she went slipping and sliding across the blood-soaked marble floor, arms pinwheeling in time to the strains of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Gave a real ‘meant to be’ vibe to the whole occasion.

The Lord of the Manor was a different animal altogether, wasn’t he? Didn’t bat an eyelid. Until we dragged him out to the garage. I’ve never understood the appeal of sports cars myself. You said that’s because I’m well endowed. Remember? Thanks for that, you big flirt. All the jobs I’ve done since, I’ve never known anyone refuse to carry out an order when I’ve had a gun to their head. Of course, he was a dead man either way, but that took some balls. Tiny balls, you said, remember? That’s what we called him after, wasn’t it? Tiny Balls. Good old Tiny Balls. Then we smashed up the cars ourselves, all three of them, just for the hell of it.

Pretty much the only thing left unscathed was the Steinway piano. Because some things are sacred, aren’t they? Like our bond. In our line of work the contract goes way beyond a piece of paper. I’m only withdrawing my labour, Carla, not my loyalty.

I’m going to honour that promise I made to Mandy. Thought I might get myself a little jazz bar somewhere on the Med. It’s been a while since I tickled the ivories, but give me a crowd and I’m sure I can still knock ‘em dead.

Maybe I’ll send you a postcard.