on the heel of the woman in front of me. She stumbled. The crowd, pressed so tightly together, wobbled as one body. As I jostled against Moretti, my hand slid inside his open jacket. A deft jab followed by a clumsy shove as I “recovered” my balance. Moretti only grunted and pushed back, then clambered onto the train with the crowd.
I stepped onto the subway car, took a seat at the back, then disembarked at the next stop, merging with the crowd once again.
Job done. Payment collected. Equipment discarded. Time to go home…almost.
Outside the city, I sat in my rented car, drinking in my first unguarded moment in three days. Although the scent of the city was overpowering, I swore I could detect the faint smell of dying leaves and fresh air on the breeze. Wishful thinking, but I closed my eyes and basked in the fantasy, feeling the cold night air on my face.
This was my first hit without a gun. Distance shooting was my specialty, but my mentor, Jack, had been pushing me to try something else. Carrying a gun these days wasn’t as easy as it had been five years ago, and there were times when using one just wasn’t feasible. So he’d trained me in poisons—which to choose, how to deliver it, how to carry the syringe and poison disguised as insulin. Then he’d encouraged me to find an excuse to try it. With Moretti, it hadn’t been so much an excuse as a necessity.
The Tomassinis had confirmed that Moretti had suffered a fatal heart attack on the train. There had been some commotion and the police had been summoned, probably because Moretti had realized in his final moments that he’d been poisoned. That, Jack said, was a chance you took using concentrated potassium chloride in a public place, on a victim who knew he was a target. It didn’t matter. With Moretti, the Tomassinis wanted to send a message, and it was clearer if his death wasn’t mistaken for natural causes.
As for what else I felt after killing Moretti, I suppose there are many things one should feel in the aftermath of taking a life. Dean Moretti may have earned his death, but it would affect someone who didn’t deserve the pain of loss—a brother, girlfriend, someone who cared.
I knew that. I’d been there, knocking on the door of a parent, a spouse, a lover, seeing them crumple as I gave them the news. Your father was knifed by a strung-out junkie client. Your daughter was shot by a rival gang member. Your husband was killed by a man he tried to rob. I’d seen their grief, the pangs made all the worse by knowing they’d seen that violent end coming…and been unable to stop it.
Yet in this case, it was the other victims I saw—the teens Moretti sold drugs to, the lives he’d touched. Killing him didn’t solve any problems. It was like scooping water from the ocean. Yet, the next time the Tomassinis called, if the job was right, I’d be back. I had to.
It was the only thing that kept me sane.
On my way out of the city, as the lights of New York faded behind me, the radio DJ paused his endless prattle with a “special bulletin,” announcing that the Helter Skelter killer may have struck again, this time in New York City. “Speculation is mounting that the Helter Skelter killer is responsible for the rush-hour subway death of Dean Moretti…”
My calm shattered and I nearly ran my car off the road.
* * *
TWO
Cool under pressure. If they posted employment ads for hitmen, that’d be the number-two requirement, right after detail-oriented. A good hitman must possess the perfect blend of personality type A and B traits, a control freak who obsesses over every clothing fiber yet projects the demeanor of the most laid-back slacker. After pulling a hit, I can walk past police officers without so much as a twitch in my heart rate. I’d love to chalk it up to nerves of steel, but the truth is I just don’t rattle that easily.
But driving up to the U.S./Canada border that morning, I was so rattled I could hear my fillings clanking. How could Moretti’s hit be mistaken for the work of some psycho? Any cop knows the difference between a professional hit and a serial killing.
Had I unintentionally copied part of the killer’s MO? The case had been plastered across the airwaves and newspapers for a week now, but I’d