Page 13 of Tank
A lazy target made for an easy target. But that wasn’t to say that I liked the easy. I liked to feel like I earned my money and shooting a dead horse didn’t feel like I’d done that. I could only hope that he woke energized and with a fresh renewal for life, because if this was what he was going to do the whole time, I might as well get it over with now. The last thing I needed was more boredom because I already felt like I was suffocating and I needed out.
With an odd fascination, I studied him in his sleep. I had an urge to get closer but there was no way to do that. What, was I going to just go knock on his door and pretend to be some kind of welcoming committee? I snorted out loud at the thought. I might have been in one place so long that I was going crazy. Yep, that had to be it.
For the next few weeks, he did nothing. Like literally. He only got up to use the bathroom. He barely ate. He only left the house to return not long after with more bottles of alcohol and on a very rare occasion, a bag of some kind of food. Then he would sit on the couch and proceed to see how fast he could go through said bottles.
It was the same thing on repeat. This guy was obviously a shell of a person and it made me wonder what the fuck I was even doing here. Why was I given this job? Because clearly, the guy was on his way to drinking himself into an early grave. It was like it was almost too easy. Like ending him would be his greatest gift. But something inside me felt wrong about it.
“Hey,” I said answering the call from Lucy the moment my phone rang.
“Hey. So how’s it going?” she asked with hesitation in her voice that was strange and unlike her. Sure, she was pretty much scared of anything outside of her apartment door, but she’d never sounded that way towards me.
“Not great,” I answered honestly. Though, I had no clue why I felt that way. “I mean this guy is boring as fuck and if I don’t kill him I’m sure his drinking will soon enough.”
And for a brief moment, I wondered what made him that way. What was it in his life that turned him into the man I’d been watching? I had a feeling that he wasn’t always like that. Call it a hunch, because I didn’t have any idea why I would think that. It wasn’t like I knew this guy at all. Or even cared to.
“It’s been weeks and you haven't made a move.”
My skin prickled at her words. She’d never said anything about one of my jobs before. Normally, we stayed out of each other’s shit. But there she was, making a statement that held so many questions behind it.
I let the silence linger between us as I tried to process everything in my head. She knew me well enough to understand the pause and so she stayed quiet on the other end of the phone, waiting.
“I got nothing,” I finally said because, well, I had no explanation for it any of it. I breathed out a huge sigh. For the first time in, I don’t know, forever, I didn’t understand what was going on with me.
A typical job should take me no more than a week. I get my target, set up, watch to find some sort of routine, then find a weakness in that routine. Once I figured out the perfect moment, well, there was a small window of waiting for that moment, thenbam. And done. This guy had a whole string of good moments for me to take advantage up but for some reason, I kept finding excuses to hesitate.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked, needing to get the focus off of me because I simply had no answers to give at the moment.
“You know…” she answered with her usual vagueness.
I couldn’t help but notice how she’d been a bit distant the past couple of weeks. We usually communicated a handful of times a week, whether it be a few text messages here and there or an actual pick up the phone talk. But I could only count four times that I’d been able to get a response out of her since this mystery guy had finally shown up. I was smart enough to pick up on that it had something to do with him.
The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how she even knew him. Part of me wanted to press, to ask her questions that I knew she would do her best to avoid answering. But we had an understanding. I didn’t pry into her world and she didn’t go into details about mine.
I knew she had the background to each and every one of my targets. She was that good and it wasn’t in her to just sit around. If not just for simply wanting to know. That was the thing about Lucy, she wanted to know everything but it didn’t mean she wanted to do anything with that information unless it pertained to whatever mission she was on. Usually, that was. This time I sensed the line blurring and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“Soon…” I said almost in a daze. “I’ll make my move soon.”
“Oh, look,” she almost squealed and I snapped my attention back to my phone, glad that I had her on speaker.
He wasn’t alone. There were two men standing in the living room talking to him. I cursed that I didn’t have any sound because I found myself desperate to hear the conversation. Who were these men? They were both wearing cuts from some kind of motorcycle club, but I couldn’t get a clear enough picture to see which one.
“Shit.” The word flew out of my mouth with a slight panic.
I may not have been able to hear what they were saying but I could definitely read the situation. And it was tense as fuck. While my target seemed relaxed enough on the couch, if not a bit irritated, and the other two stood a good distance away, the body language of all three of them was stiff. Then the oddest thought shot through my body.
What if he’s in trouble?
Hm, weird. Right?
I chalked it up to the fact that if these guys were there to off him then I might not get paid. That had to be it. Then all this boredom and sitting still would have been for nothing.
“No, I think it’s okay. It looks more like they are giving him some sort of lecture. Maybe they arefriendsand they are just checking on him.” I didn’t miss the way she emphasized friends but I had no clue what she was trying to say. “What did you say the name of this guy that hired you was?”
I hadn’t.
Not once had I ever mentioned one of my employers to her. And she fucking knew it. She was trying to get information out of me and I wasn’t sure why. For a heartbeat, I debated on if I should tell her or not. The situation was weird enough already, but then I opened my mouth and his name just sort of fell out of it.
“Savage.” My voice was tight and my throat suddenly felt dry.
I didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone, and since it was magnified by the speaker, it rang out in the empty room with an eerie feel. There were more pieces to this puzzle and she fucking held them.
However, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to know at that moment because he needed to stay a target, one that I needed to hit.
