Gloria

Anyway, she called herself Gloria. I’m not naive enough to believe that it was her real name, but that’s what she called herself. We met her in what I guess you would call the usual way, if such a thing exists. I don’t really know, I mean, this is the first time I’ve done something like this, and from the looks of the blood on the floor, this is the last time too. There was an add in a magazine, and no, I’m not going to tell you which one. The add read: The Problem Solvers: We clean up your mess. No job to big, no job too small. Discretion guaranteed. And then there was a phone number. We looked it up. Turned out it was a pay phone in some small town in Iowa. We had it checked out, and apparently someone had done a little rewiring, and it was rigged up to one of those answering machines where all you have to do is call up the machine and push a bunch of numbers to get your messages. So anyway, me and Stevie called up this number and said we would like to hear about an estimate on your problem. No, don’t bother asking Stevie, he packed it in five or six minutes ago.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so she calls us back, and sets up a meet for last Friday. She wanted it to be here. In fact, she wouldn’t have it any other way. We should’ve known. And she had this voice, you know, low, but not in a masculine way, and sexy. And so we met.

When she showed up at the door, I was taken by her right away, but I could tell that Stevie wasn’t really impressed. Either that or he was nervous as hell. He kept asking her all these questions, and I guess she was getting a little irritated, but she answered them all the same. A satisfied customer is a quiet customer, I think she said. So she told us how it was going to go down, how she was going to make it look like some ex-lover or something. One of those skeletons from the closet of his youth. We gave her half the money up front, which I know Stevie wasn’t really happy about, but Stevie wasn’t the one with the gun, was he? If he was, he wouldn’t be lying dead on the other side of the room, and I wouldn’t be telling you this story.

We gave her the money, and we waited. A week went by, and then two. Stevie developed a drinking habit, and I’ve been smoking like a chimney. Nervous men with nervous habits. I felt like a kid again, but not that nostalgic feeling that you get, I mean I was there. I had the butterflies, and the knots from unfamiliar territory, that half-fear, half-thrill of being found out, and knowing the consequences and doing it anyway. Adults don’t do that, only kids get to enjoy that little nugget of freedom.

But it happened, and apparently without a hitch, because no police came knocking on our door, no newspaper men came around asking questions that neither of us could answer. Gloria called about the drop for her last payment, and Stevie’s eyes got wild. I could tell that he didn’t want to pay her. I told him to stop screwing around. Our problem was gone, our mess had been cleaned up, and now he didn’t want to pay the maid. I told him that this wasn’t the kind of thing to mess with, but he didn’t listen, and he withheld the money. Damn him. I mean really, I hope that God has sent his carcass to rot in the burning pits of Hell for getting us killed.

Because we were stupid from the get-go, she showed up at our door, a place she should never have been, and place she should never have even known existed. I guess that was about ten minutes ago, now. She was wearing these jeans, not tight, but not baggy either. Just right to show off those legs, but not to stand out. There was something small and hard in her purse, just as knew there would be.

Stevie didn’t even see it coming, which was odd. I never pegged him for being a complete moron. He didn’t even recognize her. I think he was dead by the time he hit the ground, the bullets hitting way too many important bits for him to do anything but die.

She turned to me, but I was already crouched down behind the couch, making my way to the back door. But hey, she’s the professional, not me, and here I am, lying in a pool of my own blood, talking to what is either a paramedic or a house plant. In my weakened state I’m not sure what’s a hallucination, and what isn’t.

Once she had killed me, she was gone. She didn’t even bother to look for the money, or check to see if either of us was dead. Maybe she was sloppy, or maybe she thought she heard someone coming to the house, or maybe she just had a date or something. Who knows?

That’s it. She called herself Gloria, and she had long legs, and luscious eyes, and she killed me and my buddy Stevie, because we were stupid. My dad always told me that I could sleep when I died, and I think he was right. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep.