Loose Ends

A Killing Machine Story

A warning for the faint of heart: as brutal as George can be, he’s a pussycat compared to some of his peers. Take Tommy Song, for instance…

The Killing Machine

The Coin Collector by Vilhelm Hammershøi

“Why not do it yourself?” Tommy said.

“It’s personal,” George said.

They were sitting in Tommy Song’s rented Ford Escort. It was dark blue with tinted windows, the kind of car that wouldn’t draw attention.

“That thing you got, huh?” Tommy said. “You won’t do nobody unless you get paid?”

George nodded.

“Don’t always work out for you, huh?”

“Will you do it or not?” George said.

“Why not ask Jeph? Last I heard, he owes you one.”

“Jeph settled up with me a couple months ago.”

Tommy whistled. “You must be in some kinda trouble you start calling in markers. Me? Jeph? You gonna call Starkey, too?”

George pursed his lips. It was bad luck to mention Starkey.

“You starting to slip, George?” Song said.

“I don’t think so,” George said. “I ran into some complications. This is a loose end.”

“Loose ends,” Tommy said. “My specialty.”

Tommy Song’s weapon of choice was a whip. He never rushed a job, sometimes taking hours to bleed his targets, flensing them but delaying the kill. George didn’t like him, but Tommy had dropped everything and flown down to Texas when George called.

“One thing,” Tommy said. “I gotta kill this guy for free, you’re going with me.”

“Not a chance.”

“You think I don’t know how it is with you and me? You think you’re better than me because I like what I do, but it’s the same as what you do. Nothing wrong with liking your work, George. You could learn a thing or two from ol’ Tommy.”

“You owe me.”

“We’ll settle up some other time. You ride along on this or I head on home, no hard feelings.”

George considered his options. He couldn’t see any.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go.”

“Well, hey, this calls for a celebration,” Tommy said. “Let’s go kill somebody!”

He started the car and they pulled away from the curb.

“I always wondered about you, George. Don’t take this the wrong way, it’s just my opinion, but you should learn some kinda skill doesn’t tie you up in knots.”

Tommy merged onto the Mopac Expressway and headed across the Colorado River. George stared out the windshield. Every few miles, Tommy glanced at George’s profile, but neither of them spoke.

***

They took the private detective as he left his office. The strip mall was deserted and Wesley Tucker had his back to them, locking the glass door. Tommy hit the private detective behind his left ear and Tucker’s legs buckled. Tommy Song weighed fifty pounds less than Wesley Tucker, but the private detective was already folded up in their trunk before George got to the door. Mall security pulled into the lot as they were leaving. George nodded at the cops and the Escort rolled past them to the street.

***

They sat and waited for Tucker to open his eyes. It took a long time. The detective was duct-taped to a broken wooden chair they’d found outside an empty storage unit behind a high fence in a quiet industrial park. The unit itself had been easy to break into, but the facility wasn’t climate controlled and the tin roof retained the heat of the day. By the time Tucker woke up, the men in the room with him were sweating and surly.

“Finally,” Tommy said. “Last couple hours been pretty tense in here. I was starting to worry I put too much of a tap on your head.”

“Take whatever you want,” Tucker said.

Tommy laughed. “Appreciate the offer.”

“What is this?” Tucker said.

“Ask him.” Tommy jerked his thumb at George. “You been following the man around, poking your nose where it don’t go.”

“A case? Something recent?”

“Don’t matter which case. They all closed now.”

“You can have my files,” Tucker said.

“Oh, we took those already,” Tommy said.

“Then you don’t need me anymore. I don’t have any evidence to—”

“The name George Coleman ring any bells?”

“I know the name, but I couldn’t identify him, even if someone asked me to.”

“George kills people for a living.”

“Oh, God. I didn’t know that, I swear.” He looked past Tommy at George. “I was just supposed to look into you, your background, but there wasn’t much of anything to find. I won’t talk to anybody. I never saw you do anything. Please, I don’t know anything.”

“You know something now, I guess” Tommy said. “Stupid me. Shoulda kept my big mouth shut.” He turned and grinned at George.

George understood that this was why Tommy had kept the detective alive. Tommy wanted Tucker to beg. He wanted the fear. Tommy Song needed a different kind of control than George did. He wondered what his therapist would have thought of Tommy.

Tommy stood and dragged an empty plastic tub from the shadows at the back of the storage unit. He had his tools arranged on the lid: his whip, a cricket bat, a pair of pliers, a small serrated knife, a clear plastic tube of bungee cords in various lengths and colors. George guessed the bungee cords would be pressed into service as tourniquets.

“I promise I won’t say a thing,” Tucker said. “This is a bad dream is all. I’ll chalk it up to an extra slice of pepperoni and I’ll never mention it to anyone.”

Tommy shook his head and picked up the whip.

The detective remained conscious for nearly three hours. George didn’t watch Tommy work. He looked at the floor and went somewhere deep inside himself, a trick he had learned in childhood. He concentrated on breathing. There was an unsettling period during which Tucker stopped pleading with Tommy and addressed George instead. He asked George to make Tommy stop; he appealed to George’s humanity.

When it was done, Tucker was unrecognizable. There were no fingertips, eyes, or teeth that might help anyone identify the remains. Tommy didn’t bother cleaning up. There was nothing in the storage unit or in Tucker’s office to connect them to the corpse on the wooden chair.

They were miles from the scene of the crime when Tommy broke the silence between them.

“You didn’t like that, huh?”

George motioned for Tommy to pull the car over. He hadn’t told Tommy where he was staying and he didn’t want him to know. Snow was asleep in their bed and George didn’t want her to meet Tommy. Or anyone like Tommy.

He opened the door and had one foot in the gutter when Tommy grabbed his arm.

“Remember you asked me to do that, George.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“You know who I am, how I do things, and you called me to come help. Don’t be acting innocent now.”

“I’ve never seen you work before.”

“And it made you sick, that right?”

“Oh yeah, Tommy. It made me sick.”

“But you never left that room. You stayed in there the whole time.”

“Staying was the condition you put on the job.”

“What, you walk outside for air, I’m gonna use my whip on you? No, you stayed cause you wanted to stay. It’s why I told you to come with. You needed to see you ain’t better than nobody. You’re no saint, George. You and me, we’re the same.”

George’s jaw clenched.

“Anyway, we’re even now,” Tommy said. “Next time you see me, walk the other way.”

“Next time I see you, Tommy, you won’t see me at all.”

“You threatening me?”

“Are you?”

Tommy grinned. “You got nothing to worry about, my man. Maybe I buy you a beer next time and we laugh about this.”

“No offense, but I won’t be seeing you again.”

“Sure you will, George. Every time you look in a mirror.”

Tommy peeled out from the curb and George had to jump back to keep from tumbling into the street. The passenger door slammed shut as the Escort accelerated into a turn and disappeared from sight.

George looked at the sky. The sun would be up soon and he had miles to walk.

Well, we’ve nearly reached the end of this little experiment in serialized fiction. I have thoughts, but we can talk about them next time. Now that we’ve wrapped up some of the “Loose Ends” of George’s recent life, the next story (“A Funeral Family”) will finally bring this chapter of George’s life to a close. See you in a week!

Take care and thank you!

Your friend,
Alex