The End

          I woke up to the end of the world. The sky was a tapestry of fire, a five-alarm sunset howling on the horizon. The wind screamed in the distance. Or maybe that was just me. Either way, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes with balled fists as I stumbled towards my dresser, lurking in the corner like it always did, a monster in the shadows. The wood complained in a shrill tongue of creaks and screeches as I forced the top drawer open, finding inside the companions that had proved invaluable in my years as a private investigator. They were a .45 revolver, a smudged vagrant with a nasty temper, and a hip flask, an austere gentleman embossed with ornate tangles of steel. In my line of work, these had been the best friends the world could offer. Moving from the oak behemoth to the door, I took a generous swig of whiskey from the flask, the fire in my gut winking knowingly at its big brother outside. Then I flipped over the sign on my door, the one hanging limply from a rusted nail a foot above my head.  The side facing me now implored clients to enter, while its twin regretfully informed any future visitors that I was closed indefinitely. I guess I’m a sucker for symbolic gestures. I hobbled back to the perch I’d woken up in, a black leather recliner hidden behind the ossified skeleton of a metal desk. Kicking my feet up on the rickety tin I did all of my legitimate business on, I took another gulp of the elixir that inspired less savoury dealings. I raised my flask to the inferno outside my window and proposed a toast to absent friends. Like I said, I’m a sucker for symbolic gestures.

          I guess I should start at the beginning if I’m going to talk about the end. It all started with a dame. The best stories do. So do most of the mediocre ones. I’m still trying to decide which this is. She walked into Callohan’s one night in August, cutting through the room like a knife through a phantom limb. Guys swivelled to stare as she passed, jaws descending to the ground like Autumn leaves. I could tell she was trouble the moment I saw her; she had the curves of an hourglass and the edges of a bayonet. The constant roar of the bar faded to a simmering murmur, the kind of hush you can hear heartbeats in. So everyone heard as she offered to buy me a drink, draping herself across the suspect surface of the bar. And everyone heard me when I turned her down. Her blush spread like wildfire across the delicate contours of her face until it matched the hue of her auburn hair. I heard a while ago that redheads are going extinct. I guess we’re all going extinct now. I told her loud enough for the bar to hear that I didn’t drink on the job. Of course, that was a lie, but it was the kind of lie that would save her some face. Way I saw it, she had a face worth saving. And to my credit, I was working, staking out the joint in case Fast Eddie Donnelly decided to make a cameo appearance. He’d been on the lam for weeks, and most cops thought he'd shot the moon and skipped town, but my connects told me he was laying low in the city until the force was off his back. Smart kid. Too bad for him that a smart kid’s got nothing on a grown man with ears in the right places. So there I was, waiting to get the jump on a two-bit hustler a bit too smart for his own good when she came in. Just my luck that Eddie chose the same moment to drop by. In a silent room, he took one look at a guy like me saying he was on the job and knew the score. Smart kid, makes sense he could put two and two together. I swore when I saw him spin at the door and start running. I tore after him as the crowd parted in wary awe, a stumbling Red Sea. My right shoulder crashed into the entrance like a battering ram as I gave pursuit. I winced a moment later. I was getting too old for this. Fast Eddie was already making a fleet b-line for a getaway car, and he didn’t get his nickname for nothing. I was wheezing already, running on bravado alone. I thought he was guaranteed to make good his escape; chasing the kid was like trying to lasso a lightning bolt. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a leg stretch languorously out in front of him. I saw it before he did, and he careened across the pavement, landing spread-eagled on the street corner. The redhead from the bar yawned with her heel on his back and asked about that drink. That was how I met Nikki Rouge.

          She told me she used to be a model, one of the ones pacing back and forth across thin platforms in the City of Light. Looking at her, I could believe it. But her career had been cut short by a freak lighting accident that left her back with a jagged scar, one that traced her spine with a Glasgow grin. After that she was damaged goods. I told her that I used to be a private eye, still was. She laughed and told me she knew. She had a Giaconda smile, wry with a secret lurking behind it. As luck would have it, she was in need of my services. Figures. The first dame to buy me a drink in years was getting married in a month and wanted to make sure her groom was the gentleman promised. Wanted to make damn sure there wasn’t another woman tucked away behind the curtain, or skeletons snickering in the closet while her fiancee pledged eternal fidelity. Struck me as a bit insecure until she dropped the bombshell: she was getting married in three months to a guy she’d never met. This mark was looking like the luckiest man alive to me and it turns out she didn’t even know what he looked like. It was an arranged marriage brokered by the groom’s family, a mining dynasty from India, the kind of people so wealthy they could buy themselves anonymity. That’s what they told her at least. She was skeptical until the first million arrived. I laughed softly to myself; the most gorgeous woman to ever set foot in Callohan’s had a million dollars and wanted me on payroll. I told her my costs were steep. She said her pockets were deeper. I let her buy that drink.  

          All she had was a name: Raj Patel. I spent the next week foraging through public records, uncovering everything I could about the would-be bridegroom. Which was precisely zilch. The man was a ghost, invisible and untraceable, for all intents and purposes dead to the world. Then again, if my bank of information was restricted to public accounts, I’d have gone broke years ago. If this guy wanted to be a ghost, I knew just the people to set up a seance for me. There was a group of hackers that owed me a favour and right now it seemed like high time to collect. They had my intel within the hour; the ingenuity of kids raised by the television never fails to amaze me. Turns out Raj Patel was the assumed name of one Osmium Singh. If my parents named me after a rock I guess I’d have changed my name too. Little Os was a science prodigy, reared in the finest technical institutes India had to offer. He graduated top of his class from MIT and was snatched up by a multinational think tank to lend his considerable intellect to their cause. Within the decade he was running it. This had all been accomplished with a shocking lack of fanfare, with any news of Os’ achievements immediately smothered by the boot of the Singh dynasty. That’s why nobody heard when the brain trust he headed up sold state of the art weapons to the American government, or when it peddled those same instruments of war to North Korea. During the past quarter of a century, Pandora International had been working as a glorified arms dealer; Osmium Singh's think tank was looking more and more like the Panzer type. I felt a lump in my throat. Ms. Rouge had been promised a front. I had to get to the bottom of this.

          As the weeks went on, I delved deeper and deeper into Pandora International, attempting to get a menial job at the local plant of one of their subsidiaries. They caught me on my first try to investigate the premises and had me ejected faster than I could wave my fake badge at them. Doubt that would’ve worked anyways. I thought I saw Patel though, as surly men in kevlar costumes escorted me from the facility. He was in a room full of white coats, bipedal lab rats scurrying back and forth. He was as still as death, elevated on a small platform. There was a leering smirk scrawled across his face as he surveyed the workers below.  If this was the guy, I had a bad feeling about him, the type that set off klaxons in your head and send shivers down your spine. There was only one way to be sure though; wearing my best poker face I yelled “Os!” at the top of my lungs. As he turned towards me, the grin remained on his face, but his eyes told me everything I needed to know. They told me that I was an ant in a giant’s gaze, and that Os Singh was a kid with a magnifying glass. They followed me like an assassin in a rental car as I was dragged out in the grips of paralytic stillness. I felt a shiver of panic for Nikki. I realized that that was how I’d started thinking of her. Not as a contract. Not as Ms. Rouge. Nikki. I sighed. I was getting in too deep, and now a rogue wave threatened to drown me. 

          I met Nikki the next Saturday at another bar, less of a dive than Callohan’s, but a long shot from the Ritz. I told her I was afraid. She rolled her eyes. They were a shimmering green in the glow of the bar; I kicked myself for noticing. She asked what a seasoned private investigator could have discovered that would turn him into a coward within the course of a few weeks. She was teasing me, but the words cut like a Stanley knife. I told her about how I'd seen him, playing God in the lab, the look on his face as a host of white-coated insects swarmed beneath him. I told her about the secret deals he had brokered with hostile nations, the sticks and stones he had passed around to every kid on the block, the gasoline he was selling to the fire. I told her that Patel himself was a facade, a costume to disguise the monster lurking beneath his alias. She asked what proof I had, voice heavy with the gravity of revelation. I told her the truth: all the proof I had were some files stolen from thin air and a klaxon screaming in the back of my mind. I’d chased down monsters for the better part of my life, and in that lab, I knew that I’d found another one. She nodded slowly. Turning her head away from me, she started to cry. As tears traced trails across the contours of her face, I did my best to console her. Regretting it instantly, I offered to walk her home. Smiling between tears she said that would be nice.

          Home for her was a motel on the outskirts of town. I asked why she chose to stay there when with the money from Singh she could hole up in a five-star suite for the rest of her life. Her voice said the motel reminded her of her childhood. Her tone said to leave it at that. I got the hint and did my best to keep the conversation away from arms dealers and broken homes. A couple times I managed to make her smile. The city was a pale ghost of its former glories, but it seemed a little brighter with her smiling in it. We got to her place, heralded by a flickering neon banner. It shouted CHEAP ROOMS tactlessly in flashing green. I thought to myself that for a girl whose cosmetic mask had been marred by the passage of tears, she was remarkably beautiful. I started to turn as we approached the doors. I’d come too far already. Still, I felt like Orpheus as I walked away, and when I turned Eurydice lay before me. Neither of us said a word, we just fell into each others’ arms. Her lips tasted like December beneath the neon lights.

          Later that night, hours later as we lay together beneath the glow of spastic cathodes, she told me she loved me. I ran my fingers absentmindedly over the red seam that ran along her back, gingerly tracing that dream-shattering scar. I chuckled, saying she moved fast. She asked if I loved her. I had to concede that I did. She smiled, drawing me into a long kiss. We didn’t say much after that. Our bodies talked for us. They spoke in a language they were rapidly becoming fluent in. 

          She was gone when I woke up, replaced by a post-it note written in deliberate cursive. I took the hint and made myself scarce too. I didn’t know what to make of the note. It was a collection of sweet nothings, but it had a strange air of finality that I didn't understand. The grace of the written word has eluded me all my life; apparently now wasn't the time for me to wise up. I had to clear my head. And the only way I know how to do that is to work. It was only an hour before I was back at the Pandora facility, and this time I wasn’t in the mood for subterfuge. I punched out the first guard I saw at the perimeter and took his uniform behind a drooping fir. It was a size large on me, but with a gun in my hand, I don’t think the white coats cared much about the fit of my sleeves. I wandered the maze of corridors until I noticed a sign winking at the end of the hall; in embossed steel it whispered Agni. Recalling the name from Patel's files, I palmed the steel door beneath, surprised as it swayed ajar at my touch; I pushed it open further, entering slowly, weighed down by trepidation. In a laboratory this secure, an open door in a restricted area seemed eerily convenient. Inside the room, the furnishing was sparse, and a single hulking computer dominated the centre of the room. State of the art, chrome beauty. I couldn’t figure out how to work the damn thing. I thought to myself that I was getting too old for this. It wasn’t the first time. I noticed another desktop set up in the far corner, a much older model. Scanning its contents, I noticed most of it pertained to a Project Agni. As I read on in growing horror, I realized Singh’s endgame. The jargon was foreign, but the intent was crystal clear. Osmium Singh had no political aspirations, no dreams of control; he was just a little boy who wanted to set the world on fire. My eyes were glued to the screen, dilating in fear when I heard the door slam behind me. It was Nikki. I ran towards her, not sure how she’d gotten in, not caring. All I wanted was to get her out, to get both of us out. I told her we had to leave immediately. Her face was empty, but she said the .38 revolver in her hand was full. She told me we’d be staying right where we were. It was at that exact moment that my heart broke. 

          Patel came in a few minutes later. I wanted to beat the grin off his face. He looked across the room at me, his incessant leer unchanged from our previous encounter. To add injury to insult, he took Nikki in his arms, bent her over his knee and kissed her, the pose straight off the cover of a bodice-ripper. He winked at me when he finished, rictus expanding to his gums. I couldn’t suppress the yelp of pain that escaped my lips. He revelled in it. I stared at the woman I loved and the man who had stolen her. All of a sudden the end of the world didn’t seem like a terrible idea. All I could ask was why. And, bastard that he was, Patel had the gall to answer. Because he could. The world was his to burn. My heart was hers to break. He was Siva, the destroyer, looking to bring the world burning to its knees. She was Devi, his consort in the dark. Smirking, he bid me watch him. Against my better judgement, my eyes followed his hand as it veered towards Nikki’s face. Without warning Patel clawed at the flesh beneath her eyes, revealing the steel sheen of chrome plating. She did not move, face retaining the same pretty vacancy it wore when she pulled the gun on me. Laughing at my outrage, Patel destroyed me with the cold truth. He told me I’d fallen in love with a machine. I’d given my heart to a creature of his design, an angel of electric pulses and titanium veins. She didn’t have the capacity to love, he told me gleefully, rubbing his hands like an excited virgin at a science fair. Finding refuge in the only sanctuary I knew, I told him to go fuck himself. His eyes narrowed. He had created life. But he couldn’t stand it in its disobedient form, obscene, flawed. Me. But I realized, looking at his child-like joy that he had needed to confess his accomplishment, needed to prove his worth to a primitive creature like me before he destroyed them all. Seeing the epiphany written across my face, his smile returned. He called himself Prometheus, creating life, then leaving fire within its grasping reach in hopes it would burn itself. The venom in his voice was pervasive. I felt it in my blood. I told him smugly that he was mixing his metaphors, claiming to be the Hindu destroyer and the Greek creator. He looked at me like a parent, proud of their precocious progeny. All myths are the same, he informed he with calm condescension, all religious dogma the same. There are only two stories, those of the creator and the destroyer. And here he was, both, the alpha and the omega. With that said, he told Nikki to take me to the woods and kill me. Automatically she moved to oblige. I fought against her, batting madly at the arms that had held me the night before. They clamped down on me with unexpected strength, and she dragged me screaming from the room. I tried to get the attention of labouring scientists, shouting as we passed. As my cries fell on deaf ears I realized with a sinking feeling that they were machines too, Singh’s instruments of oblivion. They were cogs in a clockwork bomb. Giving up, I let the world fade to black. 

          The next thing I knew I had woken up to a burning world, alone in my office. The post-it note was placed with care in front of me. The sweet nothings that had baffled me before were now painful to read. “Some people think I can’t love. But I can learn. And you taught me how. Thank you. For everything. If I don’t see you again...I love you.” To my credit I didn’t cry. I came from an era where any man worth his salt didn’t. I had no spirit left to break. But I took a swig from my flask and pledged it to absent friends. Then, with a front row seat to the apocalypse, I set the Post-It Note on fire. The struck match was my little Siva. The flame was the colour of Nikki’s hair. Like I say, I’m a sucker for symbolic gestures. 

                                                                   ***

Take Your Son To Work Day

          The sky was a particularly bleak shade of grey, draped in gunmetal clouds. This was nothing unusual in the heart of the city; it was always some kind of grey here. At least that’s what Scott Larson thought as he shuffled through the urban haze that invariably cloaked the streets. The worn straps of his backpack weighed down mercilessly on his shoulders, which threatened to buckle under the volume of their burden. This was understandable considering the bag contained, in no particular order, five voluminous textbooks, ranging from Biology to Comparative Civilizations, a notebook featuring prominent illustrations in lieu of less interesting lecture notes, a copy of Hitman borrowed from Scott’s friend Jamie and a nickel bag of marijuana from the same source. Among the scholastic texts and recreational indulgences, a bulletin printed in an outlandish font on fluorescent green paper gleefully heralded the upcoming Take Your Son To Work Day. The notice was crumpled between Scott’s Geometry textbook and an anthology of American poetry. 

          Scott didn’t get home until half past four. Even with the weight of his bag’s contents casting him as a modern Atlas, he had elected to walk home from school. Despite competition from hefty texts, the heaviest thing in his bag was the green slip promising fun and filial bonding with a sincerity painful to anyone younger than forty. While his classmates were heading home to present the notice to their parents with adolescent ambivalence, Scott was consumed by a dull dread. After Scott’s mother passed, his father had devoted himself to his work, which he insisted on keeping from his son, cloaking it in a vexing shroud of secrecy. Scott had brought it up on many occasions, each ending in a more stern refusal by Scott’s father to discuss his vocation, this trend continuing until the younger Larson sullenly resigned himself to his father’s ‘cloak and dagger bullshit’. Anticipating the discussion that the crumpled missive would invariably provoke, Scott hoped in vain that he could indefinitely postpone the frustration of that inevitable conversation. As he crossed the threshold into the humble apartment he shared with his father, he realized the futility of such hopes. 

“How was school today Scott?” Gabriel Larson asked as his son passed the glorified closet an architect had had the audacity to label a guest bedroom. Over the years Scott’s father had managed to transform it into a makeshift den, a feat of considerable ingenuity. “Good,” Scott replied, trying to escape to his room. To his chagrin, fate would not release him that easily. “Really? Just good?  C’mon sport, you’re not giving me much to work with,” Scott’s father chuckled. “I’m gonna cut the bullshit Dad, Take Your Son To Work Day is coming up at school, I need to do it to pass Planning 10.” Planning 10 was a hollow syllabus that had aspirations of one day growing up to be a real class. Scott had no intention of failing such a miserable course, but his true intent lay in the discovery of his father’s clandestine occupation. “Scott, I really don’t think you’d be interested in what I do. It’s pretty technical...I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you tagged along with Jamie’s dad.” Jamie’s father worked at a video game studio, a fact Jamie was insufferably proud of, constantly pointing out titles his father had worked on whenever he and Scott were browsing the latest releases. “I don’t know if I’d be bored by what you do, because I don’t even know what you do!” Scott protested emphatically. He felt his forehead knotting in the grip of an imminent headache. “I’ve told you Scott, I work in a troubleshooting area of mathematics. I handle problems.” The response was cryptic enough to provoke an outburst from Scott. 

“That doesn’t explain shit! Every other guy in my grade can tell me exactly what it is his father does, and when it comes to me I end up standing there looking like an asshole saying that I think you do math equations. Then somebody tells me that’s not a real job and that’s why we live here instead of the ‘burbs like everyone else.” 

“Who says that?” Scott’s father asked quietly, a glint in his eyes betraying a dormant anger. Scott sighed, knowing he had gone too far, hesitant to admit that those were as much his own misgivings as they were those of his peers. “Look, it doesn’t matter Dad, I just want to see what you do and actually get to spend some time with you. Since Mom died it seems like you’ve been working way more late shifts. I don’t mind...I know you work hard and I’m proud of that. I just miss having you around.”

There was a long silence in the room, Scott’s father wincing at the mention of his late wife. In the absence of sound, Scott noticed his father appraising him with a foreign expression, like he was trying to look through Scott into the man Scott would become. “If it means that much to you son, then I’ll take you to work with me,” Scott’s father spoke in a hoarse whisper, his grey eyes radiating a sadness Scott had yet to understand.

***

          The day arrived faster than either of them could rightfully expect, time’s fluid progression seeming to accelerate as it approached. Scott had returned the permission slip to his school and had subsequently slipped into a nervous anticipation, unable to really focus on any of his classes with the prospect of visiting his father’s work on the immediate horizon. Not that in the throes of raging hormones his classes were foremost on his mind anyways. But, in the week that stood obstinately between the present and the impending visit, Scott did his best to shelter himself in the usual refuges of youth, blazing in the parking lot with Jamie, strumming his pawn shop guitar, and writing awkwardly sincere poetry about unreciprocated love. His father seemed to be home more often as well, and Scott suspected that their conversation had resonated with him on a deeper level than he had intended. Still, Scott wasn’t surprised when he came home one afternoon to a note and a frozen dinner. Nor was he surprised when he heard the familiar clockwork of the key twisting in the front door and his father’s footsteps in the hall hours after midnight. Scott barely registered the sirens in the distance.

          Scott woke up Thursday morning at 6 AM to his father standing over his bed rattling a wooden spoon in a cast-iron pot with a wholly unnecessary vigor. 

“Rise and shine!” Gabriel chuckled while Scott murmured various obscenities. “What time is it?” the younger Larson asked incredulously, brushing sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. It was still dark outside, as dark as 6 AM had any right to be. “Business time,” his father responded with surprising gravity, face stern, voice heavy with consequence. Scott was dressed and had composed a meager breakfast of burnt toast and orange juice within five minutes. He made small talk with his father as he ate, discussing the mundane subjects people do when topics of import lurk beneath the surface. 

“I’m sure you can still catch a lift with Jamie if you decide to go to his dad’s work instead.” Scott gave his father a look. There was nothing to discuss.

           The pair arrived at the train station at 7 AM, the marble walls glimmering in the early light. Pockets of commuters stood around, eyeing their watches with glum resignation. As with most forms of human transit, the trains obstinately refused to arrive as scheduled.
“I didn’t realize you took the train Dad,” Scott said, puzzled as they moved to the mezzanine. “I don’t,” Gabriel answered with a wry smirk. Scott was thoroughly confused as they approached an anonymous locker, his comprehension unaided by Gabriel procuring from it a jet black duffel bag. His quizzical stare went unanswered as Gabriel turned on his heels and began to head calmly for the exit, his gaze steely and pace constant, a relaxed stride. “What’s in the bag?” Scott asked, eyebrow arched in concerned skepticism. “Nothing,” Gabriel responded smoothly with uncharacteristic brevity. “If it’s nothing then why did we come here to get it?”
“Think of it as punching my clock.” With that, both the elder Larson and his perplexed protege stepped into the sunrise waiting beyond the revolving doors. 

                                                                    ***                  

                                                          

          Scott was beginning to lose his patience, his muscles growing tense, mind fumbling for an explanation as to why his father was leading him up a derelict fire escape onto the roof of an equally dilapidated hotel. His father had done nothing to give any indication of where he worked, or for that matter any reason for anything they had done so far that morning. He certainly gave no explanation for their clandestine ascent of a broken down hotel. Scott was trying to bottle his irritated confusion, but this became completely impossible when his father carefully extricated a scoped rifle from the black duffel bag. Eyes wide in fear, Scott shouted in wordless protest. Whatever vexation he had felt with his father had been usurped by abject terror. 

“I’m going to need you to be quiet Scott,” his father’s voice was gentle, the same soothing tones that would be employed to calm a spooked animal. However, they had little impact on the spooked animal that his son had become. “Be quiet?! Why do you have a fucking gun?! What the fuck are we doing here Dad?!” Scott yelped, frenzied, sweat streaming profusely down his temple. “If you calm down for a second I can explain Scott. Here.” Gabriel patted the ground next to where he was now kneeling, assembling a small tripod. Scott moved towards him, pace of his timid steps slow and trepidatious. Gabriel handed a pair of binoculars to his trembling son as he brought the rifle’s scope to his right eye. “You see the guy in the leather jacket in front of the cafe?” Scott nodded in tremulous affirmation. Even a fifteen-year-old scraping a C- in math could put two and two together. “His name’s Joey Giovanni. He runs some cocaine rackets on the South side. Consequently he’s run afoul of some people who have no qualms paying me a lump sum to take care of him.”
“You’re telling me you’re a fucking hit man?!” Scott exclaimed incredulously. “If that’s what you want to call it. I prefer to think of myself as a mathematician. I’ve never lied to you...I solve problems, I remove variables from equations.”
“You never lied to me? You sure as fuck didn’t tell me the truth!” Scott protested. His voice was shrill with indignation as a tapestry of deception evaporated before his eyes.  “I’m sorry about that Scott. But can you blame me? Do you think I wanted to tell you that I kill people for a living? Honestly until now I didn’t think you were old enough to know. I’m not even convinced I made the right call. But you’re fifteen...you’re standing on the precipice of young manhood. I realized I couldn’t keep you in the dark any more,” Gabriel said, grey eyes baneful as the morning light caught tears threatening to escape. “Jesus...did Mom know?” Scott stuttered, struggling to stay calm. “Oh she knew. This is how we met. She was better at this than me.” Gabriel smiled at the bittersweet memory of the art his late wife wrung from a brutal craft. “She gave it up to look after you when you were young. I told her it should be me, but she just laughed and said she didn’t want to harm my fragile masculine ego by admitting she was the better...mathematician...of the two of us. I think she just wanted to make sure she got to spend time with you. I’m glad she did.” Scott was speechless, his mouth oscillating from gaping to shut as he tried and failed to articulate his thoughts. The revelation that he was the progeny of assassins was overwhelming. All he could manage to say was: “Hey, where did Joey go?” His father cursed, turning back to his rifle, scanning wildly for his departed mark. To Joey’s misfortune, Gabriel Larson caught him in the fiberglass snares of his crosshairs half a block away. Five pounds of pressure and a silenced pop later and a departed mark was all that was left of his quarry. Recoiling instinctually, Scott was still in shock as Gabriel took him by his arm wordlessly and began to run. They moved across rooftops, cutting a fleet swathe through amassed mobs of indignant pigeons with their progress. The wailing of sirens faded to memory as Scott’s lungs burned with exertion. After a few blocks of being dragged at an all-out sprint he hunched over, hacking up hot saliva. Despite the ephemeral high they afforded him, smoke sessions with Jamie had stolen his stamina. “Mr. Rodriguez told me he caught Jamie smoking pot the other day,” Gabriel remarked casually as his son struggled to recapture his errant breath. “Oh yeah?” Scott responded nervously. This line of interrogation made him justifiably uncomfortable. He could imagine the pungent baggy of faded green leaves hidden in his sock drawer pulsing like Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart. “I was just wondering if you got the weed in your bag from him,” Gabriel said, looking pointedly at his wheezing son. Scott moaned in the low anguish of someone who has just been found out. “Yeah, we blaze together.” Scott said, attempting to find sanctuary in simple honesty.  “I’m disappointed Scott. Marijuana is a gateway drug. It can lead to some bad stuff and I’m sure it’s not helping your studies at all. It certainly doesn’t seem to be doing much for your stamina.”
“...Dad...you kill people for money.” Gabriel was silent in the face of this retort. “I’m sorry...I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. Look, it’s just something I do, y’know? I promise it’s not doing anything to my grades...sometimes I just need to tune out all the ugliness in the world. When I’m high, it seems like there might be some beauty left that’s just hiding,” Scott murmured, finding it hard to believe he was perched on the sloped roof of an Asian diner discussing his drug habits with his assassin father, As snub chimneys belched white smoke in the distance, Scott smiled grudgingly at the surreal direction his life had taken. “You might have a point about my stamina though,” Scott conceded, launching into a violent coughing fit. His father smiled in spite of himself. “I’m not going to lie and said I never lit up back in my day, and I hate having to be that hypocritical parent but would you rather I didn’t care at all?” Gabriel Larson asked, pulling the classic parental guilt trip. “No Dad,” Scott sighed wearily “It’s just that in light of recent events I think your moral pedestal is a bit suspect. That’s all.” His father nodded slightly. “All right. I’m not going to say you can’t. Because I know how little that means, especially now. But don’t let me catch you again. That’s the mantra of my trade anyways. Just to make sure, if  I find out that you’ve been smoking again, I’ll kill Jamie.”
“Joking!” Gabriel added hastily in scandalized response to Scott’s appalled expression.
“That’s fucked up Dad.” But Scott began to laugh in spite of just how fucked up it was, and soon he and Gabriel were bent over in stitches on the roof, howling at just how fucked up life could be. 

                                                               ***

          The rest of the day was spent running down a short checklist Gabriel had been handed by an anonymous benefactor, who in turn was contracted by an alternately disgruntled, greedy, or simply bored clientele. First there was Jake O’Donnell, a crooked beat cop who insisted on collecting an exorbitant fee in exchange for looking the other way. Gabriel and Scott saw to it that he collected some loose change in the back instead. Then there was Janet Sullivan, whose extramarital escapades broke the heart of a neurotic and wealthy spouse. She never made it to the next rendezvous planned with her Brazilian gardener. Next was Sidney Stark, thrown into a shark tank for trying to run a lending racket out of an aquarium. Scott had to concede that the irony of an aspiring loan shark being fed to his aquatic counterparts was darkly amusing.
“One more name,” Gabriel told Scott as they walked down the boulevard. “I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy this one.” His lips curled upwards into a Cheshire grin. The name was Taylor Townsend, a young singer/songwriter who had managed to climb the pop charts with saccharine ditties extolling the respective virtues of abstinence and temperance. Like many of his ilk, he had a cocaine habit and a set of aberrant sexual proclivities that would appall de Sade himself. It was becoming increasingly difficult for his label to keep the smudges on their angel out of the public eye. That coupled with his cracking voice and insistence on eschewing ghostwritten numbers in lieu of his own ponderous compositions had led his label to believe that he was worth more to them dead than alive. From Greatest Hits albums to tribute compilations by celebrated peers to R.I.P. Taylor <3 (already trademarked) coffee mugs, there were a myriad of merchandising opportunities that shimmered in the eyes of enterprising executives. After all, as gutter poets have long observed, a supernova is far more beautiful to observe than a dying star. Gabriel got to 'Taylor Townsend' in this rationale before Scott agreed enthusiastically. The duo arrived at Townsend’s hotel just as the sun was starting to fade into the west, though it still peeked out from behind the clouds.Even it seemed curious as to what would happen next. Through a series of elegant deceits, Gabriel and Scott arrived at the room Taylor was staying in. There was no security, a token of goodwill by the record label. There was just a locked door, easily battered open, and a shocked young divo whose jolt upon the sudden intrusion caused a small mountain of cocaine to erupt in a miniature narcotic snowstorm. The singer yelped inarticulately, dialogue laced with profanity as the Larsons approached, duffel bag hanging ominously from Gabriel’s left hand. “Calm down Taylor, we’re big fans. Isn’t that right Scott?” Gabriel spoke in a soothing tone that smothered a lurking smirk. Scott couldn’t find it in himself to lie so guilefully. “You’re an artless fraud,” Scott spat venomously. “So I lied about the fan part.” Gabriel cracked, laughing openly as Taylor’s eyes widened in growing horror. Opening his duffel bag with a theatrical flourish Gabriel presented a gleaming pistol to his son with pantomimed reverence. “I bequeath unto thee Excalibur, Arthur.” Gabriel smiled as Scott took the weapon and leveled it at Townsend’s terrified face.

“Whoa, guys...let’s just talk about this guys...call up my people, they can give you money! Hey, you can even have some of my blow!” Townsend smiled pitifully as he offered a handful of the suspect powder. “We’re here for your people Taylor. They think you’re a piece of shit too.” Scott looked directly at the quivering specimen in front of him, and even as venomous intent surged through his every fiber, he felt his trigger arm begin to tremble, that shiver increasing in a violent crescendo, culminating in full spasms. He dropped his arm and stood for a moment, absolutely still, before dropping to the floor, crying. “I’m sorry Dad, I just can’t do it. I’m not like you. He deserves it, but I’m not the one to do it. I’m too weak for this.” Scott’s voice was apoplectic, muffled by tears. “No. This makes you stronger than I’ve ever been Scott. I’m proud of you,” Gabriel told his son, meaning every word of it. Townsend, seeking to take advantage of this touching moment was slinking slowly towards his bed in hopes of vaulting the pair of Larsons and escaping through the splintered door. Gabriel’s shot hit him before he could mount the mattress. “Heaven waits for those who are pure.” Gabriel whispered with a rueful smile, quoting Townsend’s biggest hit. With that, the two Larsons fell into the embrace of father and son that accompanies the conclusion of so many coming of age tales. Leaving the room through its battered entrance, the pair made their way to the lobby, striding calmly through the foyer, resplendent in wood splinters, cocaine, and blood. They passed through the revolving doors like proud specters, drifting into the gloaming. The sky was a vibrant grey as they disappeared. 

          

                                                                   ***