Assassin

Rockwell sure knew how to swing a party, I can give him that much. Especially for a dead man.

I arrived a few minutes after everyone else, just so that I wouldn’t have to meet him beforehand. You see, it makes it so much harder to kill someone when you’ve spoken to them. It gives them a personification, instead of being just another cardboard cutout in your life, devoid of emotion or comprehension. At least, so my shrink tells me.

I was smartly dressed, and the goons at the door never so much as glanced at me as I sauntered in. I don’t know how Mahoney does it, I really don’t. I just ask him for the invitation and he gets it for me, no questions asked. Not that there should be any questions asked, the amount I pay him.

I started well, mingling with guests, never staying in one group for long enough to let anyone get a good look at me. I chatted casually, always smiling. You don’t want to go shouting your mouth off to everyone you see when you’re in a situation such as I was, but you don’t want to be silent either. Most people don’t realise that the silent ones are remembered more than the loud ones. That’s because the bigmouths are common. There are a hundred bigmouths to every small-mouth. Or so my shrink tells me.

Most of the talk was about how big and grown up Samantha looked. That’s Rockwell’s daughter. It was on her account everyone was there. Everyone except me, that is. It was her eighteenth birthday and her dad had decided to throw her this party.

I know what you’re thinking. The White Oyster Hotel isn’t typically the kind of place that someone would go to celebrate their eighteenth birthday, and you’re right. Crimson carpets, cascading curtains, buffet tables longer than freight trains; it’s a real classy joint. The sort of joint where the women wear flowing dresses and the men don’t take their jackets off. Sure, most people wouldn’t go there, but Rockwell isn’t most people, and he wants the world to know it. When you’re in a position like his, flashing your money and class isn’t optional. It’s a part of the package. A rich man has to have rich thoughts if he wants to stay that way. Or so my shrink tells me.

I myself was wearing a white tux. It doesn’t stand out as much as you might think. The security always watches the ones in black. Believe me, I should know. I used to be one of them.

The tux wasn’t the only thing I was wearing. I also had a short, broad blade strapped under my wrist and a cloth wallet of rather unusual powder in the inner pocket of my jacket, which is reversible. I was hoping the blade would never come into play. That was only there in case things got ugly, which has happened to me in the past.

I spotted Rockwell five metres or so from where I stood at the buffet table, laughing with someone and holding his pretty daughter’s shoulder. Samantha Rockwell herself looked decidedly uncomfortable. This wasn’t her idea of an eighteenth birthday party either, I guess.

As I started to zigzag subtly through the crowd towards them I caught a glimpse of someone that I had seen before. It was an uneasy-looking woman with a pale face that complemented her red dress. The only thing on her face that wasn’t white was the narrow scar running down her cheek, which I recognised immediately. The last time I saw her she had looked just as pale. That was three days earlier, when she asked me to kill her husband.



We met in Corey’s Diner, a shabby roadside place that is a favourite of mine for business meetings. The coffee tastes like shit, but they do a mean milkshake, if that’s your thing. Myself, I don’t touch anything with sugar in it on the orders of my dietician. I have to keep in shape. I normally just smoke.

“You want anything?” I asked her when she sat down. “I highly recommend the coffee.”

“No,” she said. “I just want to get this done and get out of here.” She was on edge. If she sat any further forward on her seat she’d just be squatting.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Whatever you say, Mrs. Rockwell. Mind if I call you Emily?”

“How do you know my name?” she asked, looking sharply up from the cigarette she had been shakily lighting.

“Your husband is an important man, Mrs. Rockwell,” I pointed out. “I knew your name long before you ever contacted me.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” She went back to her cigarette, and took a deep drag once it was lit. “It’s him I want to talk to you about.”

“I see,” I said. My left hand crept into my jacket pocket, checking that the tape recorder was still running. I always record conversations with my clients. It’s easier in the long run, especially if they get a little difficult when the bill arrives.

“I want him dead, Mr. Mason,” she told me bluntly. “I want you to kill him.”

“Why?” I asked, sensing the answer before it came.

“I think that’s my own business.” I sighed.

“With all due respect, Mrs. Rockwell, it’s my business now. I need to know these things. Why do you want me to kill him?”

“It’s complicated,” she said.

But it wasn’t.



I’ll give you the abridged version of her story.

He found out she was having an affair and beat her within an inch of her life. Then he held her in captivity within her own home for two days without food or water, down in the cellar. After that he beat her some more and then told her he forgave her. Unfortunately for Rockwell, she didn’t forgive him. So she came to me, and I said sure, I’ll do it, even though I hadn’t ever taken out a man of his standing before.

Three days later I found myself at the party. Mahoney, my partner (receiver of 30% of the handsome sum I was getting paid) used his contacts to get me in, and I had enough poison in my pocket to kill ten men while Rockwell himself stood only feet away.

I kept on moving, pretending I was in the buffet queue. As I picked up a fancy china plate from the pile- there were no flimsy paper plates in a place like The White Oyster- I put my hand into the inner pocket of my jacket and removed the cloth wallet. Opening it under the plate, I slipped out one of the three glass vials inside it and dropped the wallet into my trouser pocket. The move took less than three seconds, and was entirely concealed by the plate, under which the vial was now hidden.

I had seen Rockwell’s wine glass, half full, standing on the buffet table next to him. It was the perfect target, and an easy one. As I passed Rockwell and the group of people he was talking to without so much as a glance from them, I reached out. To an observer it would have seemed I was just taking a prawn sandwich and putting it on my plate, but I actually emptied the contents of the vial into Rockwell’s glass. Then I moved on down the line calmly, taking a few more delicacies, before stepping aside to observe.

By the time I turned to watch a full minute had gone past, but Rockwell still had not touched the glass. While I waited I tasted the caviar I had put on my plate, but it sucked. I never really got my head around that fancy stuff.

Finally, after several minutes, Rockwell and his group separated all went their own ways. However, he did not take the glass; instead, his daughter Samantha did. I watched, frozen in horror, as she drifted away into the crowd, her arm linked with her father’s.

For almost five seconds, I did nothing. I simply stood, watching the glass of poisoned wine travel away in the wrong hands. Five seconds may not sound like long to you, but believe me; in my profession it’s a lifetime.

Then I started walking. I had to be quick, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I had to walk indirectly and fairly slowly. I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead as Rockwell and his daughter kept on moving. I could see the glass through the crowd, in Samantha’s hand. At any time she could drink from it, and even a little sip would mean it was all over.

For a few seconds I thought I had lost them, but when I looked carefully I saw they had stopped and were chatting idly in another group. I just carried on walking. In seconds I was going to be up next to them and I had no idea what I was going to do. I would just have to think fast.

The daughter was raising the glass to her lips as I reached them, so I did the only thing I could. I pretended to bump into her. The glass slipped from her grasp, shattering on the marble dance floor.

“I’m so sorry,” I lied. “I can’t believe I just did that. I’ll go get you another one. I didn’t get any on that pretty dress did you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Rockwell, before Samantha could speak. “Do I know you?”

“An old friend of your wife’s,” I said smoothly. And with that I disappeared into the crowd.

That, of course, was the end of the operation. I had made a massive error and the target had even spoken to me. My anonymity was lost. I had to leave. God, such a stupid mistake too!

I was heading for the door when I heard the strangled screech. I turned to see that the crowd were backing away from someone, forming a wide, empty circle around them. I saw moments later that it was Samantha Rockwell they were backing away from. I had poisoned her after all.
Her father was by her and a man had come forward and was attempting the Heimlich manoeuvre. He must have thought she was choking. She was, after all, unable to breath and staggering around clutching her throat. He didn’t know that a powerful drug was seizing up her muscles one by one.

Rockwell himself was shouting for help, though who he wanted help from I don’t know. Then Emily Rockwell, the woman who hired me, came into the empty circle. She took one look at her dying daughter, who was going into convulsions in the arms of her father as foam frothed from her mouth, then turned to look straight at me, tears already forming in her eyes. She knew. She knew it was me who had murdered her daughter.

I ran then, dropping my act of confidence. Maybe it was because I thought she was about to set Rockwell’s men on me that I ran so fast, but I don’t think that was it. I think it was guilt, and the horror of what I’d done, sending that innocent girl to such a horrible death.

I reversed the jacket and took my pre-planned escape route down an alley. A bag with a pair of trainers in was waiting for me there and I put them on, which allowed me to run faster. So I ran and ran and ran until I collapsed in a back street when I could run no further, and there I came close to crying. That was only my sixth job. The first time I’d killed someone other than my target, and I’d hit a pretty teenager with her whole life ahead of her.

It was my last job, too. Not by choice though. I would have gone on despite my mistake if I could have, though I don’t think I’d ever have forgotten it. No, it was Emily Rockwell who forced me into early retirement.



I had another meeting four days later, with a man called Eddy Clark who wanted a mistress with revealing tapes iced. My contact said to him, under my instruction, that we would meet in Corey’s Diner, as always. That was a very big mistake.

I arrived before the man I was supposed to be meeting, not knowing that there was no Eddy Clark and there were no revealing tapes. I had been waiting about ten minutes when Emily Rockwell came to the table with three men behind her. She sat down without looking at me and I made no attempt to escape. The men were very large. She was looking down at the table as she lit up a cigarette. She didn’t shake this time.

“I think you need to come with me,” she said in a steady voice.

“So do I,” I said, the quaver in my voice all too apparent.

“Let’s go.”

And we went. Like I said, I haven’t done a job since. Never will be able to either.

She’s seen to that.