Well Out of It

I clenched the bird feed, quickened my pace.

The fog was thick, enough that the streetlights flickered to life at 1:00pm, turning the pavement ghostly-white. Just one other person was here, and there were no cars to shake away the silence. It wasn't the kind of day for going out – that meant fewer crumbs for the pigeons if I hadn’t come.

It was also because it was so quiet that the man fifty meters behind me was as obvious as he was. He wore bulky black sunglasses that covered half his face. Was he trying to be noticed?

I'd followed all the protocol for witness protection; it was probably, hopefully, unrelated. What did he want, then?

I arrived at the church gardens. The fog decapitated the stone carving of a crucified Jesus, and concealed St. Augustine's spire, making it appear monstrously huge.

The pigeons knew me, and their heads jigged back and forth as they approached. I sat on a bench. They used to be domesticated, before we started treating them like rats. Outlived their usefulness. As though dogs were much better.

Sunglasses-man sat on a bench nearby, at the edge of visibility, and flicked open a newspaper.

I chucked bird feed onto the pavement. More fluttered down, to peck at it. Unlike gulls, these were polite creatures. They took what they could but did not squabble.

An hour later, the bird feed was gone, and the man had read the same two pages over five times. I rose, and marched through the pigeons.

“Good story?” I asked him.

He smiled, held the paper so I could see it. “It's from a couple years ago. Massive drug bust. $239 million worth of cocaine in one sweep. Of course, it wouldn't have been the biggest we've ever seen, if things had gone according to plan.”

I squinted. He hadn't had a beard, coming down to his chest and tangled as it was, when I last saw him. “They said I was good to go whether it was successful or not.”

“And you are.” He took his sunglasses off. He had golden irises. When the sun hit them just right, they glowed. A decade back I’d often catch myself staring.

“I'm married now,” I said. “Funeral director. Big business.”

“Not the largest you've been involved with,” Zuhair said.

“Why are you here?” It was useless to ask him how he'd found me. “Seeking more of my inside knowledge?”

“I'm a trucker now. I was laid off not long after we, uh... parted ways.”

“What do you want?”

He stared as though weighing me with his eyes. "I have a joke."

“I'm laughing already.”

“There's this guy who works for the cartel, and they have a shipment planned. It’s good money! But he's not feeling the crime life. He wants an escape. So, he runs to the police, but before he gives them a dime of information, he gets them to guarantee him unconditional protection. A new life elsewhere, whether the cartel is stopped or not. As the authorities in this situation, what would you say?”

There was no point avoiding the obvious bait. “I would say he's planning to warn the cartel of the bust.”

“And if some underling of yours vouched for this rat? Told you to trust him despite the warning signs?”

I twisted my lips into a bitter smile. Operation: Weasel, it had been called. “I'd say this employee had a pretty big crush.”

Zuhair chuckled, crumpling the paper into a ball. “Don’t even need to say the punchline.”

I glanced up. The fog was beginning to clear, enough that the Jesus-sculpture’s eyes stared down upon me with an air of judgement.

“I’m in town for a few days,” he said. “Are you aware they have paintballing here? It would just be the two of us, of course, seeing as Jerry got his brains blown trying to find what wasn’t there.”

I looked away. He wouldn’t get a rise out of me. “They free tomorrow?”

 “I’ve already got a booking. Two tickets.”

“See you there,” I said. “And learn some beard-grooming, for Christ’s sake.”

.  .  .

My house was at the end of Tanith Lane, made from eroded rock slabs, cracks bursting with moss. Dangling vines concealed the windows. I’d put a ‘Warning: dog’ sign on our front gate; we hated mutts, but the message gave me security despite the hollowness of its warning.

I strolled up the jagged stone path through the front garden, readying my keys. Only, the door was ajar. Sansa wasn’t to be home for another three hours. I approached it slowly, eased it open.

The floor was a mess of face-down oil paintings, and our monstera had been knocked, vase shattered and spilling dark soil. I slammed the door shut behind me, and strode directly to the bedroom, up a flight of stairs. The wardrobe had been flung open. Clothes were strewn like carcasses around the bed. I fell to my knees and shunted aside a blouse. I took a Swiss-army knife from my pocket and prized up a loose floorboard.

Stacks of notes, fifties and twenties, awaited underneath in doubled-up twilight-blue elastic bands. Zuhair hadn’t found it.

I sat back, panting. Why had he been looking for it, anyway? The law knew I had it – I was exempt. A personal revenge? The extents he must’ve undergone to find me were tremendous; no name or number, no trace of my old identity to go off of.

He’d never married, was a hermit outside of work. But he’d known I could never have been that for him. Was this for Jerry? It wasn’t like I’d pulled the trigger; I hadn’t even been there. A spurned career, then.

But he hadn’t found the money. That was the vital part. Now I needed to clean up before Sansa came home.

I hung the clothes back up, re-hung paintings on the hooks. A few other jars and vases were on the floor, but none had broken, so I placed them back, dusting up the soil. The monstera I transferred to a new vase, a little cramped for its roots but I’d buy another soon. I would say I knocked it.

When her keys wrenched open the door, I was slumped on the couch, staring at my distorted reflection in the television.

“Can I have a cup of tea?” came her voice.

I nodded, moved through to the kitchen, and filled the kettle.

“How was work?” I said.

She sat on the pink-tiled floor and prized off her heels. “Not busy – always a good thing. We had two clients.”

“What plans did they go for?” One of the tea bags ruptured as I took it out the box. I stared at the spilling leaves.

“First one was after a cremation, so I sent them over Josie’s way. Second said her grandma was a prolific gardener. Wanted a grandiose bouquet array.”

“Wasteful.” I brushed the tea into my palm, popped the bin open, and slapped my hands clean.

My wife shrugged. “People want they want. A death should have some occasion to it.”

“Did they have enough money?”

She made a face sideways at me, as though chewing through a cork and wincing.

I smiled. “A discount.”

“We’ve been in the green for ages. Surprising, with how many discounts I give. Shows the greed of these other places that they don’t do the same.”

I thought of the money under the bedroom floorboards. She didn’t need to know who I’d been.

I poured the tea. She hefted herself up, almost toppled head-first into the corner of a table.

“You okay?”

She straightened. “I’m not tired you’re tired.”

We sat in the living room and watched some drama. She gasped and laughed and slapped me on the shoulder whenever there was a reveal, as though to ensure I paid attention. She smelled of wool and maple syrup.

“I’m going paintballing tomorrow,” I said.

“At our age? You’ll do your back in.”

I shrugged. “It’s for old time’s sake.” One last act to dismiss my past for good.

.  .  .

The next morning, I slipped my revolver into the back of my belt, under my shirt. Bought it from my friend Mike before I left the old life, snuck it away with me.

What was I expecting? A shoot-out?

“It’s only for safety,” I muttered.

I took two connecting bus routes. Paintballing was on the other side of town, next to the swimming pool and close to the trampoline park. It was indoors, under black ceiling and between black walls. Usually, this place was bustling. It was eerily empty today, the car park void.

There was a man at the desk. I approached him, then froze.

Zuhair had shaved his beard to tight stubble, like how he’d used to look only with more grey from age. He smiled without his eyes. “Good morning, sir. Here for our intimacy package?”

“How much money did it take?”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“To buy out the whole place for a day.”

He dropped the grin. “You never were much good at roleplaying. I work hard for my earnings, what can I say?”

Did truckers make that much? “Whatever. Which arena?”

“Five. We’ll be starting at opposite sides. To the death.”

That was good. Capture the Flag and games like it were muddled, gave me to many things to think about; it was purer when it was just will against will.

He led the way. The arena was a sprawling maze of brick textures plastered onto wooden frames, with holes and slits from which to snipe. He loaded two paint guns, his with yellow and mine with red. A deliberate choice, no doubt.

“May the best man win,” he said.

“Machismo doesn’t suit you,” I said.

We’d silently agreed we wouldn’t wear protective jackets. He winded his way around the outside of the maze. I crouched, and waited for the signal to start.

.  .  .

Ten years back I’d been in a taxi with Jerry on my way to an outdoor paintball arena, where we’d meet Zuhair.

“You sure it’s okay for us to be doing this?” I said.

“You going to tell the boss?” he said.

“No.”

He shrugged, as though this brought conclusion to the matter. We stopped at a red light. He stared at a gaggle of pigeons. A small girl in a white-and-green beanie too large for her head was chucking seeds over them, and laughing. The sky was grey, but mercifully it held back its rain.

“They used to be domestic, you know,” Jerry said. “Then we kicked them out on the street.”

“They were messengers,” I said. “Now we have cell phones.”

“So it's all based on utility? What about when Zuhair stops being useful to you?”

I stared at him. “I don’t have much choice.”

“As you said, we have cell phones.”

“My life's at risk.”

“Please,” Jerry said. “I haven’t seen my brother this happy in years. At the academy he was the fastest, the strongest, and… the quietest. In the changing rooms they hit him for it. He’s never been any good at friends.”

I thought of the previous night. “He’s still no good at ‘friends’.”

Jerry winced “Let’s not be gross.” The lights turned green, and the taxi rolled forward.

“How you feeling about Weasel?” I said.

He yawned. “Another day on the job, all it is.”

“Might be the biggest of your career.”

He grinned. “That would be nice.”

A death should have some occasion to it, my wife would say, all these years later.

.  .  .

A horn blared, and I took my first steps into the maze. It was lit white from above, like we were in a dentist’s examination room.

I crept between the walls as fast as I could while keeping my footsteps silent. I ducked under the sightlines, dashed across the long corridors. Slow progress. I’d drag it out and catch him when he lost focus, ideally from behind.

He didn’t seem to care so much for stealth. “You know what I found out about funeral homes the other day?” he yelled.

I held my quiet.

“Flower arrangements can be a hundreds of dollars, if the client wants more than a dozen roses for their dearly departed.”

I frowned, but kept moving. It was likely coincidence. Plenty of folks wanted proper ceremony, and for many that involved killing over 250 flowers. It was a generic piece of trivia.

“This is how you move, isn’t it?” he said. “I remember this from last time. Quiet, devious. You never let your opponents know what you think. Problem is, you didn’t let us allies in on your plan, either.”

I whipped around the corner with my gun readied, but I must’ve imagined the movement. My phone was buzzing. I ignored it.

“That’s how we lost Capture the Flag, round after round.” His voice came from somewhere else, then. Was he sprinting between sentences to disorient me? Imagining that made me smirk. “I wonder if your brain operates like that within itself,” he said. “Poor observation of your own needs. Kind of thing you should see a therapist about.”

He was close, maybe three walls away, for those last couple words. Maybe I’d try his tactics. “Therapy is for those seeking to get back with their ex after a decade,” I said. “Classic post-breakup trauma.”

Before I could run something splatted on the wall beside me. I jumped, but it wasn’t paint. I looked down. A twilight-blue elastic band was on the floor.

 “I’m sorry about the monstera,” he said. “It was huge. I never had enough discipline to water mine.”

I stared down. Was this how he’d paid for the whole paintball venue? Why not take all the money? Because he knew I’d gotten careless, and stopped counting how much of the original million I had left.

Footsteps rushed around the corner at the other end of this corridor. I glared down the barrel of a paintball gun, and ducked. The wall behind me was splattered in yellow. I dived through a sniping slit, and sprinted away.

“If this is about your brother,” I yelled back, “I don’t know what happened. The cartel wasn’t even there. What logical reason would they have-”

Three rounds of paintball were fired up. It was like the ceiling leaked bug’s blood.

My phone was buzzing again.

“I’ve been thinking about your joke earlier,” I said. “Maybe it’s more of a riddle. There’s a guy who wants to escape the crime life, but the men he works for have connections everywhere, not in every country but in any country. How’s the guy to know he’s safe, even under witness protection? Easy. He finds a way to make no enemies.”

“Rare to find such a schemer with no enemies,” said Zuhair. It was impossible to tell where his voice was coming from. I had to focus. Who was ringing me?

I looked at my phone. Two missed calls from Sansa. I scrolled through her texts.

They’re accusing me … someone cooked by books … Cocaine on the bank notes … Please call me back.

I was rooted in place, long enough for Zuhair to find me. He fired. Two good shots. One hit the base of my spine, the other my shoulder blade. It was like ice stabbing, bruising.

“To the death,” he said.

I reached under my shirt and rounded my revolver on him.

I was hoping he’d at least look surprised. He raised both his hands in defeat, but he was smiling. “Want me to drop my deadly weapon?”

“Why’d you drag her into this?”

He contorted his mouth out into exaggerated shock. “Your poor wife has been arrested? And you accuse me of- Bless her cotton socks. But laundering is laundering, I suppose.”

“I’m allowed that money.”

“She didn’t even know where it was coming from, did she? The stuff of tragedies.”

I blinked quickly, drenched in sweat, revolver rattling in my grip. I wished the adrenaline would wear off. “What about the cocaine traces? Your lot made sure it was clean.”

“Must’ve come from somewhere else, then.”

“I was finally-” I stopped. “Surely you could’ve been happy, if you hadn’t spent God-knows how long rooting me out of the woodwork.”

“I had one good thing for most of my life." His smile was gone. “Briefly, two good things.”

“You could’ve made something of yourself, for yourself - left me well out of it.”

“The stuff of tragedies.” He plunged his hand behind him for his belt.

I didn’t think. I compressed the trigger. A bang. A bloody hole opened over his left eyebrow. He lifted the hand from his belt to reveal a middle finger. Why? Pettiness. Because his own murder was his last trap to keep me out of this new life I’d scrambled together.

His smile faded. His eyes went glassy. He slumped towards me.

I dropped the revolver. It clattered. I caught him, slowed his fall. Fell with him. The ground was cold, he was still warm. I held him against me, and ran my fingers through his rough, oily hair. He stank of vinegary cologne.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”

Eventually I gasped, shoved him off of me. I couldn’t let him win. It was his fault the venue was empty; I’d use that to my advantage. I'd take the body to the river, or cut it up, or dissolve it in acid. There were a hundred ways to get rid of a body. As for my wife, I would buy a good lawyer, find someone else to pin the cocaine traces on. Grieving clients weren’t the most inclined to being sober.

But what would Sansa’s conclusions be? Even if we both avoided jail, there was a good chance I'd have to start all over again.

I stared at the back of Zuhair's head, matted in blood.

"Leaving me well out of it was never on the cards, was it?"