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The man his customers knew as Striker had two one-pound packages of hamburger in the cooler on the front seat of his deliberately ordinary Toyota Corolla. One was laced with poison; the other contained only a strong sedative. At three in the morning, he parked the car in the deep shadows next to the road and walked the hundred feet to the wire fence surrounding the target estate. It was not much of a fence, obviously meant only to keep the guard dogs inside. He would need to cut only one strand to cross into the house’s expansive grounds.
He whistled softly. Out of the darkness two German shepherds came to stare at him through the fence with faint growls of greeting. Striker returned to his car and took the hamburger containing the sedative out of the cooler. He could not bring himself to poison a German shepherd. Daisy had been a German shepherd, his unit’s dog who had sniffed out the IEDs. Striker figured he owed that breed big time for the multiple times Daisy had saved him from a mangled death.
If the dogs had been Rottweilers, it would have been a different story. He would have poisoned them without a thought. He wasn’t sure who he hated more: the old man, or Snap, his Rottweiler. His father’s lashing tongue had always been reflected in the slavering menace of that hideous animal.
He returned to the fence, broke the hamburger into two pieces and tossed them over the fence. The animals devoured the meat. Striker waited patiently as the fire went out of the German shepherds’ eyes, their heads drooped, and they finally collapsed into slumber.
He cut the top wire of the fence, climbed over it and headed for the mansion a hundred feet ahead. The rest of the job would be straightforward. Harold had told him how to reach his aunt’s bedroom. She was reportedly a sound sleeper. He would not have to listen to useless pleading.
As always, he found the box where the phone line connected to the house and ripped loose the wire. Harold had said she had no cell phone, only the land line. He had also told Striker there were no alarms. Apparently, the old woman relied totally on the two dogs for her protection.
Striker quietly forced the front door. He had refused the key Harold had offered, telling him the job had to look like a break-in. He climbed the quiet carpeted staircase to the second floor, turned left as instructed and pushed open the second door on his right. There was a small night light aglow on a table next to the bed. A figure lay in the bed, her head turned away from him and wearing a thick nightcap.
He took the automatic from the inside pocket of his jacket, approached the bed, and fired three shots into the sleeping head. She must have died instantly, Striker thought, as her body did not even twitch.
He started to turn back to the door when there was suddenly a fourth shot from somewhere behind him, a bullet passing close by his left ear. A woman’s voice spoke, words of firm intent, “Don’t turn around. I fired that shot so you would understand that I have a gun in my hand and not try something stupid.”
Striker froze. Sweet little old lady, my ass was his major thought.
“Toss your automatic over beyond the bed,” said the voice.
He did as he was told.
“Now lie face down on the floor and put your hands behind your back.”
He lay down and felt a pair of handcuffs snap on his wrists.
“I think it best you stay right there for now,” said the woman’s voice, “while we have a little chat. As you’ve probably figured out, I’m Harold’s aunt, and that was a dummy in the bed. Understand?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice muted by the rug he was speaking into.
“First of all, thank you for only sedating Stark and Madame, my two shepherds.”
“How did you know that?”
“I was watching. Night vision goggles. It’s nice to know a piece of shit like you can show some compassion even if only for animals.”
Striker said nothing. He felt this was perhaps not the right time to discuss his feelings about different dog breeds.
“Understand,” the voice continued, “I’m showing you similar compassion. If you had poisoned my dogs, I would be killing you right now.”
Striker remembered the insurance he kept for situations like this. “I think it would be a mistake to kill me,” he said. “There is evidence back at my house that Harold is the one who hired me. An investigation of my death would find it.”
“I’m not planning to kill you. I’ll explain why in a minute. But first, exactly why did Harold hire you to kill me?”
“He was afraid you were going to take him out of your will.”
“That stupid boy. I was simply going to change my will to say he got nothing unless he divorced that silly doxy of a wife. She’s twelve years his junior. The poor boy is totally infatuated with a piece of bar-trash.”
That piece of trash must have put Harold up to hiring me, Striker thought. That explains why she was right there when he hired me to do the job. “If you don’t plan to kill me, what are you going to do, turn me over to the law? That move would also drag Harold into this business.”
The voice laughed, with a little more triumph in the sound than suited Striker’s taste. “I think it will be simpler to remove that tramp altogether rather than force Harold to divorce her.”
“Am I thinking what you’re suggesting?” Striker suddenly felt a lot better about life, or more precisely, his own life.
“Yes. I want you to do the job but not for free. If I don’t pay you, you’ll simply disappear, figuring my turning you in to the police would involve Harold. So, if I’m hiring a professional—albeit a stupid one—I’ll pay the going rate, seeing as you’ll have to refund Harold’s deposit.”
“You have a deal,” Striker said. “Now how about letting me stand up.”
He felt the woman open the handcuffs. He shook some life into his hands, pushed himself to his feet, and faced the aunt. She was indeed someone who might pass for a sweet little old lady. However, standing ten feet away, holding a Luger that pointed directly at his gut, she did not come across as such.
“World War II souvenir,” she said. “It’s been in the family for several generations.”
She pointed to an envelope now lying on the bedside table. “There’s three thousand there for starters. I’ll mail you the rest when I know you’ve done the job. What’s your full price?”
“Ten thousand,” he said.
“Write your address on that piece of paper on the table. Now you may want to get going before the dogs wake up. Just don’t mess it up this time.”
He wrote down the address, then said, “There’s one problem with all this. How do I explain to Harold and his wife why I messed up?”
“Did he tell you that I had no alarm?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him you set off the alarm and had to take off.”
“But you don’t have one.”
“I do, actually. I just turned it off so I’d get to meet you.”
“I see.” He paused, and then said, “One other thing. Could I have my automatic back?”
The aunt’s lips parted in a thin smile. “Of course not. I look at it as insurance in case I want to turn you in if you mess things up again. Even though you’re wearing gloves now, I’m sure the gun is still covered with your fingerprints.”
“I’ll be on my way,” Striker said. He was getting very tired of watching the Luger following his every move.
He left. The dogs were just beginning to stir. He climbed back over the fence, got in his car, and drove home to his very ordinary house in a very run-down section of town. He carried the cooler into the kitchen and put the remaining hamburger meat into the freezer. There might, after all, be Rottweilers on his next job.
* * *
Striker called his customers the next morning on the number Harold’s wife had given him. When she answered, he simply said, “Ten tomorrow night,” and hung up.
They all met, as previously arranged, at the concrete picnic table in the back end of Sturgess Park, well out of sight of the road. Striker sat on one side of the table, the couple on the other.
“Bad news,” Striker said. “You said there wasn’t an alarm. There was. I wish I could help you in the future, but once I’m detected in any way, I never go back.” He pushed an envelope across the table. “While it was your fault for giving me false info, I’m still returning your deposit. Next time you hire someone, make sure you give them the facts.”
The woman took the envelope without comment and put it in her handbag.
“Do you suppose,” Harold said, “you might recommend…”
“Shut up.” His wife cut him short. “We’re done with him.”
Then something strange happened. The woman across from him ran her bare foot up the inside of his left leg, rubbed it there for a moment, and then removed it. “Let’s go,” she said to Harold. They left.
Striker sat for a moment in stunned delight. This job was going to be a lot easier than he had expected. This couple’s sex life was apparently not that spectacular, at least from wifey’s viewpoint. One phone call would get her to come over to his place some night, obviously without Harold’s knowledge. He’d knock her out with a sedative and then smother her. It would be a completely painless and compassionate death. There would also be no problems with bloodstains inside the trunk of his car. He’d get rid of her car and the body in the usual ways.
The nicest part was this. If Harold suspected Striker had eliminated his wife, he couldn’t very well go to the police and say, “I hired a hit man to kill my aunt, and I think he’s just killed my wife instead.”
Striker smiled to himself, got up, and headed through the shadows back to his car. Money in the bank, he thought, Money in the bank.
* * *
Loretta knew who it was when her phone rang. It had been easy to smell horny when it was only a picnic table away.
“Is Harold around?” Striker’s voice said when she answered the phone.
“He’s sound asleep. He goes to bed early a lot.”
Striker chuckled. “And that implies?”
“Damned right it implies.”
“I just might be able to help you out with your problem.”
“Tonight?”
He gave her the instructions for finding his house. “Go in the driveway; there’s a place to park in back. No one will see your car.”
“See you in an hour.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Loretta grinned. First of all, if this guy was as horny as she thought, just once was not going to be enough for him. Once he was thoroughly habituated to her semi-professional sex, she’d easily persuade him to give auntie a second try. For free, of course.
* * *
Loretta sat on the couch in Striker’s sparse living room. Something did not seem right. On previous occasions when she had found a man with her idea of great sex, he had grabbed her as she came in the door and started to take off her clothes. Not so with Striker. Instead, he had proposed having a drink. Strange.
She got up, edged over to the kitchen door, and watched as he poured the gin over the ice cubes and added the tonic water. He then took a bottle of something and poured some liquid into just one drink.
It suddenly all fit together. Striker had failed to kill the old lady, and that crafty bitch had turned him and hired him to kill her instead. The old bag had probably figured out that as soon as Harold inherited auntie’s bundle she would dump him and be long gone with her half. That theory was not quite correct. If Harold died unexpectedly after auntie was gone, she’d walk away with the whole boodle.
She went back, got the Glock out of her handbag, and held it behind her back. It was a small weapon, but it fired real bullets. “Striker,” she called in her best frightened-girl imitation, “Come help! I think there’s a spider in my hair.”
“Of course,” Striker said, his voice holding a touch of annoyance. He left the drinks on the counter and came through the kitchen door. She shot him three times, twice in the chest and once in the right eye. His mouth opened in genuine surprise, and he fell like a stone.
With this loser gone, Loretta knew she would have to do the job of eliminating auntie all by herself.
She figured no one would worry about the sound of a few gunshots in that neighborhood, but it was important she leave no fingerprints or other traces of her presence. There was a box of latex gloves sitting on the desk in one corner. She pulled on a pair of them and checked out the desk. In the second drawer on the left she found a single sheet of paper with Harold’s name and address on it. She stuffed the sheet into her handbag. In the bottom right-hand drawer she found a bundle of century notes with a rubber band around them. That bundle also made its way into the bag. It would be nice to have some money she didn’t have to beg from Harold, and with no cash around, the motive for the shooting could well be seen as robbery.
Loretta looked around the apartment for anything else she should take. Striker’s cell phone was on his desk. That disappeared into her bag. There was now only the matter of cleaning up the kitchen. She eased around the body in the doorway, took the two glasses and poured their contents down the sink. She then thoroughly rinsed them and put them in the half-full dishwasher. She also poured the contents of the drug bottle down the sink and put the bottle in her handbag. All evidence of her presence in the house was now gone. She shouldered the bag and went out the kitchen door.
She was halfway to her car when she realized she had forgotten the tonic and gin bottles. Was it worth her while to go back? The bottles seemed innocent enough. However, the police might deduce that their presence on the counter indicated Striker had had a friendly visitor the night he died.
You can never be too careful. She still had on the latex gloves. She re-entered the kitchen. She placed the gin bottle in the cabinet where she found the other liquor bottles, and put the tonic water bottle back in the refrigerator.
As she closed the refrigerator door, she had a thought. Sometimes idiots put money in their refrigerator freezers, thinking it would be safest there in case of a fire. She opened the door of the freezer compartment. There was nothing there but a package of frozen hamburger meat.
What the hell, she said to herself, old Striker isn’t going to need that.
There was a small cooler sitting on the kitchen counter. She put the meat in the cooler and let herself out the door again. Tonight, she wouldn’t have to live with that crazy vegetable diet Harold demanded they eat. After Harold was asleep, she would cook herself a hamburger.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Stan Dryer is the pen name of an author who lives in southern New Hampshire. Back before 1990, he published stories in Playboy, Cosmopolitan and Fantasy & Science Fiction. More recently, he has published stories in a number of magazines including Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Fabula Argentea, Mystery Magazine, Spank the Carp, and Write Launch. If you check out Stan’s blog site (www.standryer.com), you’ll find a variety of stories and short humor pieces. Help the sheriff of Dustville (circa 1880) bring a few killers to justice. Learn about the latest Placebo Meadows lecture series (Bits of Humor). Find out if Harry Fredder succeeds in killing his mother-in-law in Finishing Off Gammie (under Published Stories).
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “Compassion”:
Author Stan Dryer has appeared several times previously in our magazine. He gives us strong writing with a compelling story.
Compassion moves smoothly along with interesting and amusing characters and situations and an ending we maybe could have seen coming if we’d considered the longstanding concept of Chekhov’s gun with regard to good story craft. While that concept is not the same as foreshadowing, Stan Dryer uses the poisoned hamburger as both to wonderful effect in this.