Chapter 1
The Voices
It was
early on a damp Tuesday morning. I sat crouched in the top of the clock tower,
waiting and watching. It was just 6:59, in about one minute the target should
be arriving.
I'd
observed the man's routine for the past two days. Every morning he arrived in
his silver car at exactly 7:00. It took him two minutes to get up to his office
and he didn't come back out again until 12:00 for lunch, then he left the
building for home at 4:30. The man, whose name I oddly didn't know, was president
of Worldtech Communications, one of the most powerful companies in the world.
That would soon change.
The vice
president had been knocked off three days ago, which had prompted my client to
hire me to take out the head honcho. And sine the president had no heirs and a
new VP hadn't been appointed yet this would throw Worldtech into chaos.
Sure enough
right on time the silver car pulled up in front of the building, and he stepped
out in his long gray coat, carrying a leather briefcase. Four bodyguards
flanked him, for the VP had been killed right on the sidewalk. But they weren't
prepared for me.
As the car
started to pull away the president and his entourage began their walk up the
ten feet of red carpet to the doors. I aimed and slowly followed the president
all the way to the door. Just as he reached the door I made my move, with one
pull of the trigger my job was done. The president's back sprang a leak of red
as he crumpled to the ground.
Goodbye
Worldtech.
My rifle
was silenced so the guards didn't realize what had happened for a few seconds.
I easily could've killed them all but that'd just be a waste of bullets.
Instead I used their stupidity for my escape.
I quickly
concealed my weapon and ran for the ladder down to the ground. Just before I
opened the door to the street I donned my grubby street garb so I didn't
attract any unwanted attention.
I walked
down the street hunched over like a cripple, with the tattered rags draped over
me. As I looked back I saw three police cars pull up to the Worldtech building,
and two cops break into the clock tower. I quickly turned away and sped up my
pace a little. The job was done, now it was time to collect the pay.
****
Apparently
my client owned the restaurant, or he'd made a deal with the owner. Because
that's where we'd agreed on for the pick up. As I entered Platinum Pizza I
threw the peasant garb in the trash and walked in looking like a half normal
citizen.
I walked up
to the counter and began the sequence.
"Hello, I'd
like a large pizza with cheese, ham and pickles. On second though no cheese,
onion instead." I recited; this was supposedly the phrase that would get me the
money.
"Thank you
sir that will be 17.09" said the counter worker.
I handed
them twenty gil and in return received 3.5 million, large coins of course. A
year ago this would've bothered me, getting paid over a counter for taking a
man's life. But now it didn't faze me a bit.
I didn't
bother hang around for the pizza, not exactly my favorite toppings. Instead I
walked right out the front door with my money and headed for my apartment.
****
I reached
my dingy little apartment later that evening. Upon entering my humble abode I
immediately put the day's earning in the safe. The safe was a rusty old
fireproof metal box hidden under one of the floorboards.
I counted
up what I'd saved, almost 50,000,000, not bad. And with today that was 53. I'd
only spent a couple hundred at the bar. Three rounds for everybody, and about
five for myself. I'd been watching my spending though, one night I'd blown a
whole job's pay at the bar.
Suddenly I
realized I hadn't cleaned out my weapon. That thing had earned me quite a lot
of money, and I'd never let go of it. After spending an hour making sure it was
in the best possible shape I put the gun away.
I trudged
over to the little bathroom and took about five painkillers, one for each
drink. Although it didn't hurt yet it sure as hell was gonna hurt later.
I looked in
the mirror, to admire my good looks. But instead found a 19-year-old kid with deep
circles under his eyes, gaunt cheekbones from lack of food and long, messy red
hair. Not satisfied with what I saw I splashed some water on my face and looked
again.
This time I
saw the face of my kid sister, Angie. Beautiful red hair tied up in pigtails,
ice blue eyes sparkling, cheeks gaunt from no food. This was the way she'd
looked the last day I saw her, before she disappeared. That day was 13 years
ago.
Then the
voices came.
She's
dead Reno, 13 years? I mean come on.
No she's
still alive. She could fend for herself, get a job…
She was
only 4 when she vanished, who would want a 4 year old?
She
could find something to do, she'd survive somehow…
Face it,
she's dead. Either that or in some child labor factory.
Angie's
face was still there, but something was different; her mouth was moving. There
was no sound but he could read her lips.
"Reno,
please help me! Reno…"
And a
single, solitary tear trickled down her cheek. Then suddenly it turned red like
blood, she was crying blood.
Dead.
"No!"
roared Reno in agony.
He grabbed
the bottle of painkillers off the sink pedestal and hurled it with all his
strength at the mirror.
Angie's
face shattered into a thousand pieces and vanished, just like she had, so many
years ago.
One piece
still remained, defiantly wedged in one corner. Reno looked at himself once
more, seeing the same scared underfed adolescent from before. But this time he
was crying, crying blood like Angie.
Slowly he
moved his thumb and index finger up his cheek. They came away covered with warm
red blood. One of the mirror fragments had cut his cheek.
Slowly he
sank to his knees. That night he slept on the cold bathroom floor. His thick
blood sluggishly flowing through the gaps in the tiles like a crimson river.
****
As Reno's day
was ending, the investigators' day was just beginning. They'd been called in
for the Worldtech case, which had turned into quite a catastrophe. Don Korenzo
and his new partner had been called in to work on the homicide case. Korenzo
had been at this for almost five years, and his partner one, so this was
nothing new to them. Some one else was dead, which was never a good thing, but
never a rare one either.
The two sat
in a small room, which almost had the feel of an interrogation chamber. The
sole pieces of furniture were a banged up card table and two rusty metal
folding chairs. Korenzo looked over the papers with the dim light of an
overhanging lamp while his partner poured some caf for each of them.
"So what's
it this time?" Korenzo asked rhetorically as he rubbed the sleep grit out of
his eyes, the call had come in the middle of the night.
"Victim was
Erwin Stoff, president of Worldtech. Shot this morning at 7:00 as he was
walking from his car to the Worldtech tower. Whoever did this is no amateur."
Observed Korenzo from the report filed earlier that morning.
"One
ambitious bastard all right." Muttered his quiet partner, baldhead illuminated
eerily in the dim light.
"Yeah well
people will do just about anything for the right money." Remarked Korenzo as he
sipped some caf.
"Sniper I
presume?"
"Of course,
that's the easiest way for a coward, besides they gotta be original. Says here
the VP of Worldtech was taken out earlier this week right on the street. They
wouldn't want to make it look like the two are connected." Said Korenzo as he
tilted his chair back a tiny bit.
"Could be
the end of the company." Uttered the baldheaded partner, Rude.
"Hell
that's right!" cried out Korenzo, causing his chair to come out from under him,
leaving him on the hard, cold cement floor.
"…"
Rude didn't offer a hand or
anything, just stared at him with his arms folded.
"The two
cases wouldn't even have to be connected! Say one guy took out the VP, and was
gonna take out the head bigwig but then another guy came along! The
possibilities are endless." Shouted Korenzo, still on the floor in a heap.
He had no
idea how close he was.
Note- All right that is the first in a new series of
mine. Which will tie my two prior stories: Close to the Ground and Parachutes
together. And I will try to write some more In the Absence of the Sun
soon. But with it being the end of the school year things can be kind of
hectic. Adios!
