“I thought your folks were dead?” I take another sip of my coffee.
Dorian shrugs and stretches his arms behind him high above his head. “Yeah, they are, but you get the picture.”
“Sure I do,” I say, though I still wish he’d shut up already. “But somehow I just don’t see you settling down.”
The spot between Dorian’s eyes hardens as he rears his chin back. “I didn’t say anything about settling down.”
“Well, nice, quiet and respectable usually means settling down,” I point out.
He throws his head back and laughs lightly. “Maybe in your world,” he says. “Then again, you’re kind of sadistic and I highly doubt that a nice, quiet, respectable girl would get too close to you for you to find out.”
No, but I happen to have one in my basement. Granted, I have to keep her shackled inside the room so she doesn’t run away or try to kill me, but Cassia is the kindest, most respectable girl I’ve ever met. And I’ve met a lot of women. Broken a lot of women.
A short, stubby bald man wearing a waist-length thick coat steps outside of a black sedan that just pulled into the parking lot. Its headlights are on, beaming at us through the tall window, and the motor remains running. Puffs of exhaust pour out of the rear stimulated by the frigid December air. Snow is thick on the outskirts of the parking lot where a snowplow made its rounds this morning, shoving mounds of it off the parking lot and out of the way.
“It’s James Woodard,” I say quietly, keeping my eyes on him from the tall window.
Dorian turns his head to look as the target leaves the running car and heads to his own car parked three spaces over.
I glance at my Rolex. “Same time. Just like last week.”
“He’s consistent,” Dorian says.
“Yeah, fortunately for us, that’s his first mistake,” I reply.
I stand up and remove my black coat from the back of the wooden chair and slip my arms into it. I zip it up to my throat. Dorian follows suit. We wait until the drop-off car is completely out of the parking lot before we head outside into the winter air. James Woodard glances at us once as we approach my car on the other end of the lot, but neither of us make eye contact. Woodard passes us off as any other customer leaving the coffee shop. He’s not a smart man and it’s a wonder why he was ever employed by any organization like mine to do even the simplest of tasks.
His stupidity is one reason we have to get rid of him. That, along with his selling information of our new Order to another black market organization. It isn’t much and none of it’s true. Victor has been suspicious of Woodard since he took over Woodard’s Order last month. He has been feeding Woodard false information on us ever since. Just to see if he’d sell it. And he did. Twice. It just so happens that the man in the black sedan who just dropped him off was the buyer and one of our guys.
But where I come in, is interrogating him to find out if he’s been selling that information to anyone else. And to find out if anyone else is involved. It’s a perfect night to torture a man. And I have two hours left to make it back to my house with Woodard.
I told Cassia four hours, and I always keep my promises.
Dorian and I hop inside my car and the engine purrs to life. Woodard pulls out of the parking lot first, and already knowing which direction he’ll be going, I wait about thirty seconds before I put my car into reverse and set out to follow him.
“What a fucking idiot,” Dorian says with laughter. “How long did Victor say Woodard was employed under Norton?”
“Two years,” I answer while pulling out of the parking lot and heading east.
“Shit,” Dorian laughs again, “I’m surprised he lasted two days.”
“Yeah, I have to agree with you on that one.” I keep my eyes trained on the dark road, retaining the speed limit and trying to keep Woodard’s car in my sights.
“You don’t agree with me on much, do you?” Dorian asks, glancing over at me briefly. Not that he cares, really, but he’s not so arrogant that he doesn’t at least try to get along with others.
“No, I do agree with you on a lot,” I admit. “It’s just taking me some time to adjust to your guns-blazing methods.”
This time his laughter fills the car.
“Are you serious?” he asks with humor and disbelief. “You’re fucking scary, man. All I do is shoot people. You’re one step away from a full-fledged serial killer. Talk about adjusting.”
He says I’m scary, but I doubt he’s at all afraid of me, or much of anything for that matter. He’s too cocky and reckless to be afraid.
“I take it you’ll be sitting this one out then?” I ask as my head falls to the right and I grin over at him.
Dorian smiles and nods. “Yeah, man, he’s all yours. No arguments here.”
That’s good, because there’s much more to tonight’s interrogation than what a typical one entails.
And my audience will be limited to one.
We follow Woodard to a house he’s been staying in since Victor killed his employer and took over their operations. Woodard also has a house over in Roland Park, the one he thinks he’s led us to believe he spends most of his time at. Further proof this man is a lowlife piece of shit because he has a wife and two daughters he leaves in that Roland Park house, unprotected and oblivious to what he’s involved in and how much danger they’re in, while he hides out in the rental.
I think of killing him tonight as my good deed for the month, because his wife and daughters will probably live longer if he’s dead.
After Woodard pulls into the driveway and kills the engine he locks himself inside the house. Dorian and I park on the street in the cover of shadows cast by a thick of trees. One light glows from the window on the downstairs floor. I make my way to the front door while Dorian heads around back. I hear his boots crunching in the snow as he rounds the corner. After a few minutes, giving Dorian time to position himself at the back door and scope out the house through the windows, I raise my knuckles to the red-painted door and knock three times.
The curtain covering a tall, slim glass window running down the side along the length of the door frame, moves as Woodard tries to get a glimpse of me. The porch light flips on and I smile looking right at the peephole in the door, knowing that he’s looking back at me through it.
Still with a smile on my face, I raise two fingers and wave.
“Who the hell are you?” he asks nervously, his voice muffled by the thick block of wood between us.
He knows who I am, or rather, he knows why I’m here. There’s no way he’s opening that door freely.
“Open the door, James,” I call out in a singsong voice. “We have something to discuss.”
“G-Go away!” His voice is trembling. “I don’t know you and—I-I’ll call the cops if you don’t get off my property!” He says this with a sudden burst of confidence as if he actually believes the police are going to be able to help him.
But too soon the confidence fades when I don’t move from my spot in front of the door and the smile on my face doesn’t lose its potency. I stand with my hands clasped together in front of me.
Suddenly, I hear a rhythmic beeping noise, as though Woodard is punching in numbers on an alarm keypad next to the front door.
BACK DOOR OPEN, I hear a robotic voice say when he tries to set the alarm.
Then I hear a scuffle inside, a loud bang against the door and something similar to glass shattering against the floor inside.
“No! Please! I-I…please!” Woodard calls out with a straining voice as if something, Dorian’s arm perhaps, is pressed around his throat.