The Assistant

“He’s alone in the house and by the looks of it he’s up in his bedroom,” Al said.

I looked at the large house and saw one neat rectangle of light on in Tommy’s bedroom. The rest of the large house was dark.

“Bruce, that fucking lap dog, is out with Nance on a job and I’m taking advantage of it to go see my own for once. I suggest you use this opportunity to do the same.” With that, Al hit the button raising the window of his Escalade and drove off. The silver SUV sped away silently on fat tires.

Watching him go, I felt motivated. This was a good time to break away and go see my family. I haven’t seen my kid’s faces in months. I was dressed and had the keys to my car in my front pocket, but I wasn’t wearing any shoes. I figure I’d slip in quietly, put my shoes on, slip back out, get in the car and leave. Who knows, I might even find the courage to stay away for good.

I walked back from the street, passing through the large front gate and went up the driveway to the house. The lawn accent lights were on, but the entryway light was not. It made me feel stealthy and sneaky as I stepped soundlessly up to the front door and eased my key into the lock. I was turning the key in the lock quietly when I felt a cold, hard object press menacingly against the back of my head. A voice in a whispered rasp said, “Going somewhere, Steve? Go ahead, open the door and step inside.” It was Tommy.

I opened the door and entered the mansion, the gun barrel still pressed firmly against my skull. I was terrified. I thought for sure I would die right there – face down, blood gushing from a large bullet wound in my head and forming a growing pool on the marble foyer. I could barely move or speak. I heard the door close behind me.

“So, where the fuck do you think you were going? What the fuck did you think you were going to do?” Tommy said. My mind was blank. I had no answer. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t make my mouth work. With the terror, I felt I couldn’t think of words, let alone speak them.

With a shove, Tommy ushered me into the great room where there were leather chairs and couches, a large screen TV and a fireplace. Tommy shoved me toward a black leather club chair and told me to sit down. Never taking the gun off me he went to another club chair perpendicular to mine, the armrests nearly touching. Tommy sat in a slouch and switched the large nickel plated .45 from his right hand to his left, nearest to me, and angled the barrel in my direction. With the flick of a wrist, he could have that gun pointing right in my face. I knew Tommy shoots equally well with either hand, but as a righty, he was a little quicker than with his left.

I was ultra alert. Everything appeared in the sharpest contrast I’ve ever seen. Colors and sounds were loud and vibrant. I was going to die. I was going to be murdered by Tommy; like so many others. I wondered if he’d gut shoot me and make me suffer or put one in my heart and another in my forehead, which was his signature move. My body would probably end up in an incinerator. Even if it was going to be quick, I wasn’t ready to die, I didn’t want to die, but I knew I would.

Tommy’s eyebrows were knitted together, hooding his eyes and a vein pulsed in his forehead. His dark hair was uncharacteristically disheveled and his heavy-lidded eyes were half closed making him look sleepy. I’ve seen this before. It was his challenge posture, trying to make a victim feel like there might be a chance, that he might not kill them, or that they might get the jump on him. They never did. Beneath that relaxed, distracted demeanor was a coiled cobra waiting to strike with lightning speed.

Greg Nance used a different tactic. He’d use humor to diffuse the tension and disarm his victim. They always thought things were going to be okay and thinking they’d walk away this time. That was always before he began killing them. If they were lucky, Greg would use a gun, if they weren’t – he’d use a knife.

“So Mr. Writer, you’re good at telling stories. You’re gonna tell me a story. You’re gonna tell me a story about giving the benefit of a doubt?” Tommy said.

My mind raced but drew a blank. I didn’t know what he meant, and for an insane moment, I thought he wanted me to make up a story where one character gives another the benefit of a doubt.

Instead, I stammered, “I-I ca-can’t believe you’re putting me through this Tommy. I-I’ve always been loyal to you. Why are you t-treating me this way? Why are you d-doing this?”

“Are you gonna tell me why you were sneaking behind my back to try and get out of here, or am I gonna have to put a hole in your knee to get an answer? You know the drill.” Tommy said.

I was so scared I had an uncontrollable urge to take a shit. “Tommy, I thought you were asleep in your room and I didn’t want to wake you. I just wanted to take some time to see my k-kids.”

“You’re supposed to be here Steve, watching out for my shit, watching out for me,” Tommy said leaning forward, the sound of his voice reverberating off the walls of the large room.

Feeling emboldened I said, “I know that Tommy, I was gonna be back. You gave me the benefit of a doubt when I first started here and I never let you down. I just wanted a couple of hours with my kids. I haven’t seen them in a long time. Just being able to talk to them on the phone for a few minutes doesn’t cut it. It isn’t enough.”

I thought Tommy would see my point and be empathetic, but the depths of his selfishness knew no bounds.

“That’s right motherfucker, I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you never did let me down…until tonight. You were planning to sneak out on me. You were thinking about not coming back. With what you know about me and Greg, do you think that could ever happen?” Tommy said sitting back, a frown still on his face.

“No. That’s why I said I’d be back.” I said.

Tommy sat looking forward, his expression blank and said, “So, the issue is your kids then. If it weren’t for them you’d never have a reason to leave again.”

I felt my eyes grow wide and I dropped my head. I began to shake and sweat. I was never so scared in my life. I was no longer afraid of my dying. The image of Tommy finding each one of my kids and executing them terrified me beyond all reason. I began to cry holding my hands to my face, “Please Tommy, not my kids. I’ll never see them again. I’ll just be happy knowing they’re okay.”

Tommy gave me a squint-eyed sideways look and said, “But the temptation will always be there. Remove the temptation, remove the reason…”

Terror transformed into sudden, controlled rage. Tommy and Greg taught me well about the recognition of non-verbal cues and acting. I kept crying and took a tear-filled, blinking glance at Tommy and noticed his left hand still held the .45, but it was angled more forward now.

“…And as for your buddy Al, he’s gonna have to answer to Greg for…”

In one fluid movement, my right hand shot out and clamped down on Tommy’s left holding the .45 before he could react. I wrenched his gun hand down just as Tommy pulled the trigger, shooting himself in the inner right leg just above the knee. Tommy roared in pain and rage. The gun came out of his grasp and into mine. I saw his right arm slide behind his back and I jumped on his chest and arms with all my bulk and weight pinning him an awkward position in the club chair. He had no leverage. My knees pressed into the crook of each of his elbows pinning his right arm beneath him and leaving his left hand pointing straight up unable to grasp at anything other than my belt. I sat high up on his chest in a classic submission position.

My arms were free.

Tommy knew he screwed up. For the very first time since I’ve known him, I saw real fear on Tommy’s face. He was just about to try say something. With the heavy pistol in my right hand and I swung it down in a vicious hammer blow impacting over his left eye and opening a gushing wound. “Steve, I wasn’t gonna…” and I hit him again, and again. I hit him with every word I shouted at him. “You – aren’t – gonna – fucking – touch – my – kids – you – mother – fucker – you’re – fucking – dead – you –fuck!”

Amid the thudding impacts were the sounds of something cracking. Blood and hair and flesh flew and splattered everywhere. Breathing heavy from my exertions and covered in sweat and gore, I got off Tommy. I was still holding the pistol. Despite being splattered with hair and blood the gun was in good shape for all the abuse I gave it. I stepped back. Tommy was slouched deeper into the leather club chair, his right arm still under his back and his left hand hung limply over the armrest. His face and head was an unrecognizable misshapen mass of bleeding meat. Yet he still breathed. He was taking gurgling, sputtering breaths. In one he expelled part of a shattered tooth. He was alive and alive meant he was still dangerous.

Gripping the blood-slick pistol in my fist, I fired shots into his chest, stomach and the mess that was once his head. His body shuddered and jumped with each impact. I then took the gun and put the barrel into a bleeding gaping hole I guessed was his mouth and blew out what was left of his brains onto the leather chair. Pumped with adrenaline, I grabbed Tommy’s corpse by the shoulder and bodily flung him out of the chair. His limp form landed face down with a wet, meaty thud. Clasped in his right hand was his other .45, fully loaded and the safety was off.

I grabbed the other pistol and went to the basement. I stripped out of my blood-soaked clothes and took them and my shoes to a special furnace, Tommy and Greg built to make people disappear permanently and tossed them into the fire. Back upstairs I selected some Vivaldi to play on the stereo. I showered in the guest bathroom at the back of the house and dressed in a long sleeve shirt, jeans and old sneakers.

Down in the kitchen I had just stretched a rubber glove on my right hand and checked that Tommy’s second .45 was loaded and ready to go, when headlights came up the driveway. Greg, and his sniveling little manservant Bruce had returned.

Bruce entered through the door first, holding a large box in his arms as he stepped into the foyer. Greg followed closing the door on the cool night behind him just as I walked out of the kitchen. Greg was smiling, as was I. He was about to say something when there was a shadow of change to his expression. I knew he smelled the acrid bite of cordite and coppery blood in the air. Still smiling he began to react, but he was too late.

They taught me well. I already had my gun leveled at him, when he reached for the gun inside his jacket and started to duck and move at the same time. I knew these learned moves and easily tracked him. My first shot hit Greg high in the middle of his chest, the second a few inches to the right that stopped him cold. He impacted the marble floor like a sack of wet dirt and lay still.

Greg’s pistol had skittered across the marble floor and came to a stop at Bruce’s feet. Bruce stood there still holding the box, a look of utter shock on his face as he stared down at the still form of his recently deceased boss. His mouth hung open; Bruce turned his stare in my direction.

Seeing me with the gun he snapped into action dropping the box and running for the great room; where Tommy’s mangled remains lay. I put three quick rounds squarely through his back in a tight pattern. His momentum took him flipping over the back of one of the leather sofas and crashing into a glass coffee table. I walked up and looked down at Bruce’s bloody and crumpled form as he breathed his last. I put a bullet through Bruce’s upturned face then walked back to Greg and put a round in his head – to be sure. They taught me well on how to kill.

Up to now, Tommy trusted me implicitly. He pretty much gave me the keys to the castle. I now knew that it didn’t matter to Tommy. He could let me in on everything – all of his secrets because he knew he was going to kill me and replace me eventually.

In Tommy’s room, I emptied the safe of all his cash and documentation into a duffel bag. I had taken Greg’s keys and opened his “playroom” in the basement to retrieve some accelerant and detonators. I generously poured granulated solid rocket fuel on and around the dead bodies and set a timed incendiary thermite detonator on each pile. I’ve seen what granulated rocket fuel can do. It burns so hot it can burn concrete and melt steel. I set another bag in the security monitoring and recording closet with a thermite timer and another two bags right up against the oil tank in the basement with a thermite detonator. I put the duffel with the money by the front door. Once again I stripped and burned the clothes, shoes and rubber gloves and took another shower.

I dressed in all new clothes and shoes. I went into the basement and set the timer on the oil tank for 6 minutes. I then went up to the second floor and set the security closet timer to 5 minutes and then went into the great room and foyer and set the timers on each of the bodies to four and a half minutes – starting with Tommy, then Bruce and finally Greg.

Grabbing the duffel bag I opened the front door holding a bandanna and walked out of the house wiping the door handle down when I closed the door. I went to Tommy’s Porsche, got in, threw the heavy duffel bag on the floor beside me, started the car and drove out the gate for the last time. They taught me well on hiding incriminating evidence.

_________________________________________

The resulting fire was so hot and spread so fast that by the time several fire departments arrived on the scene the mansion was a raging inferno. By the morning all that remained was a smoldering pile of charred wood and white ash in the deep basement. No bodies were found. There were a few bone fragments, but they were so badly burned no DNA could be harvested from them. No surveillance of any kind survived. There was no evidence of anything other than it was known the fire was set deliberately.

No one ever heard of Tommy Malpisi or Greg Nance again. Some believed they died in the fire, but there was no evidence of it. After finding Tommy’s Porsche at the airport, some thought Tommy and Greg killed their assistants Bruce, Al, and Steve – as they too disappeared without a trace – and set the fire themselves. The thinking being they wanted a clean break and a new start.

That idea was further confirmed when it was found millions of dollars had been transferred to unidentified foreign accounts. It was enough for Tommy and Greg to change their identities, move to another country, and begin new lives. They had many enemies and this made the most sense.

No, no one ever heard of Steve, Al or Bruce again. In addition, both Steve’s and Al’s families also disappeared, but oddly, Bruce’s did not.