“Of course I’m sure. Don’t you trust me?”
Junior and his father didn’t trust another soul on the face of the earth. Most people who did business with them soon figured that out. Ruben went behind the bar and returned with a credit card receipt, which they both checked to make sure they were going to kill the right guy.
“What’s Chubby’s deal?” Junior asked.
“Fat Boy’s harmless. He can’t hurt anyone unless he sits on them,” Ruben said.
“Are he and Pretty Boy together?”
“Nope. Chubby’s been here a few hours. Pretty Boy arrived a little while ago.”
“So they’re not together.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“Just making sure. Can you draw Chubby outside?”
“Sure thing.”
“What about the security camera over the cash register?”
“I unplugged it.”
“You’re smarter than you look. Nice talking to you.”
Ruben returned to his post and refilled the mugs of the two men at the bar, neither of whom were feeling any pain. The song on the jukebox had reached its painful conclusion, and Junior heard Ruben tell the chubby guy that he had a hot stereo in the trunk of his car for sale. The chubby guy hopped off his stool and followed Ruben out the back door.
Junior and his father approached the bar. They had done this enough times that verbal communication was no longer necessary. Wilmer believed that silence was the fence around wisdom and that the spoken word corrupted the soul. Junior played along because arguing with his crazy father was a waste of time. They took stools on either side of Cunningham.
“How you doing?” Junior asked.
“Doing great. Anyone ever tell you that you look like twins?” Cunningham asked.
“Come to mention it, yeah.”
“Have you heard the one about the suicidal twin? He killed his brother by mistake.” Cunningham slapped the bar, clearly a fan of his own humor.
“We’re looking for a guy named Billy Cunningham. Is that you?”
“The one and only. What can I do for you?”
“We heard you were the slickest guy in town and knew every trick in the book.”
“Trick? You want to see a trick?” Cunningham extracted a ten-spot from a pile of bills laying on the bar. “Ten bucks says I can tie a cigarette into a knot and not tear the paper.”
“Is the cigarette wet? I’ve seen that one before.”
“Nope, it’s dry.”
“Will you be able to smoke it when you’re done?”
“You bet.”
“Okay, smart guy, you’re on.”
Cunningham grabbed a pack of Marlboros off the bar, carefully removed the cellophane wrapper, flattened it out, then tightly rolled a cigarette in the cellophane. Done, he tied the cigarette into a knot without tearing it.
“Shit, I didn’t see that coming. Guess I owe you ten bucks,” Junior said.
“I’ll let you win your money back,” Cunningham said. “Another ten bucks says I can light this cigarette, take four puffs, and it will be the same length as when I started.”
“How you going to do that?”
“Put your money down and I’ll show you.”
Junior’s curiosity was gnawing at him and he tossed down the money. Cunningham removed the cigarette from the cellophane and rolled it on the bar so it looked like a cigarette again. Then he lit it with a paper match. Only he didn’t light it on the end, but instead lit the cigarette at the center and took four puffs.
“Hah, that’s a good one,” Junior said.
Wilmer was balanced on the edge of his stool. Reaching into the sleeve of his denim jacket, the older man ripped away the ice pick secured to his forearm with electrical tape. The ice pick had a piece of cloth wrapped near the tip, called a blood arrester. When stuck into the victim, the cloth would stop the blood for a good minute.
“You’re a clever guy,” Junior said.
“Who did you say gave you my name?” Cunningham asked.
“Jack Shit.”
“Who?”
“You heard me. Jack Shit.”
“What is this, some kind of joke?”
Wilmer brought his hand around Cunningham’s head as if giving him a hug. The ice pick was pointing inward, and Wilmer plunged the tip into the soft flesh of Cunningham’s ear until he reached the brain. Blood spurted out of the wound and was soaked up by the cloth. Cunningham pitched forward and hit the bar with his face, instantly dead.
“Thanks for the tricks,” Junior said.
They scooped Cunningham’s personal items off the bar and together dragged him through the front door and outside to the gravel parking lot beside the building. Not a drop of blood had hit the bar or made its way to the floor. Their ride was a beat-up 1998 Cadillac Seville that Wilmer refused to part with. They dumped the body into the backseat, which they’d covered with sheets of plastic. Then they got in and drove away. To anyone watching from the street, they appeared to be giving a drunk friend a ride home.
Of all the neighborhoods in Vegas, the area east of the freeway and directly south of Nellis Air Force Base had the highest crime rate and was considered the town’s worst place to live. The chances of being raped, burglarized, or murdered were off the charts. You took your life into your hands every time you came home and unlocked your front door.
Junior and his father didn’t have a problem with that. In fact, they liked it. Living in a killing field afforded them a level of privacy that a respectable neighborhood didn’t have. Their neighbors rarely showed their faces and ignored Junior and his father’s strange hours.
As they pulled into the driveway, Wilmer used the Magic Genie to open the garage door. They entered, and Wilmer lowered the door behind them, thrusting the car into darkness.
Junior’s breathing grew accelerated. As a child he’d regularly seen monsters spring from the ceiling of his bedroom. As he’d grown up, those monsters should have departed but instead had grown more pronounced. Junior tried to get out, and his father grabbed his sleeve.
“Let go of me,” Junior said.
Wilmer grunted no.
“You know I hate the dark.”
Wilmer did not let go. The fear passed and Junior became himself again.
Wilmer’s cell phone hummed. His father hated cell phones, and owned one only because their clients demanded it. The cell phone was tossed into Junior’s lap.
“Hello?” Junior answered.
It was the client who’d hired them to kill Cunningham, asking how the job had gone.
“It’s done.”
Their client wanted proof of death. The smart ones usually did.
“I’ll send you a picture,” Junior said.
Their client said that worked and hung up.
They got out of the car. Junior turned on the overhead light and, with his father’s help, pulled the stiff out of the backseat along with the plastic sheeting and laid his body onto the concrete floor. Junior snapped a photo on his father’s cell phone, which he sent to their client via text.
Moments later, the cell phone hummed.
“Are we good?” Junior answered.
Their client read the riot act to him.
“You’re kidding me. I’m sorry, man. We’ll make it up to you,” Junior said.
Junior ended the call feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. Kneeling, he took the stiff’s wallet from his pocket and found a business card. The guy they’d whacked was a water softener salesman, not a cheat. Junior showed the card to his father. “We took out the wrong guy. I guess there’s more than one Billy Cunningham in town. Our client said he’ll come by tomorrow with Cunningham’s address. He wants us to take Cunningham out where he lives.”
Wilmer’s eyes flared in anger.
“I don’t like it, either, but what the hell else can we do?”
They went inside the house. Junior headed straight for the kitchen where he fixed himself a roast beef and pickle sandwich. The first time he’d killed a man, he’d vomited. Now killing produced different sensations, and all he wanted to do was stuff his face with food.