It Cannot Get Any Worse

Darrin was not happy. Everything about this job made him uncomfortable. First and foremost it was a residential job in the suburbs. Darrin felt much more comfortable doing jobs in the city, he knew what to expect and where to go if there was any trouble. To make matters worse, this job was on an island, an island for Christsake. Darrin did not even know people actually lived on islands here. He was assured it would not be a problem. The island was a quiet place and no one would be around. There were two bridges to get on or off the island so they would not likely get stuck. Darrin was not comforted by any of this

The Client was a huge chemical company with some sort of special connection to the Family. Darrin had done work for them before. Somehow, virtually overnight, the Client had arranged a special presentation for public safety officers in a nearby town. Darrin was assured the police and fire crews would be down to a bare bones crew of one each “This will be the easiest job ever” they told him “Pop across a bridge, do the job, pop back, go have a beer. We shouldn't even have to pay you for this one.” It would take less than an hour.

Generally it did not bother Darrin much to kill someone, it was just the job. Usually the bastard had done something to deserve it – took money, hurt someone, snitched, whatever. However this job was different, this was just a guy who knew what should not be known. Darrin did not know what the guy knew, but he knew it was a silence job because he was told to leave no witnesses. Most jobs, they wanted witnesses. They were making an example of someone. Not silence jobs. Silence jobs, they wanted as little notice as possible. Make it look like an accident if you can. However this time there was no time to plan an accident. For whatever reason, this was urgent. It had to be today. These jobs always made Darrin uncomfortable. What if the guy has kids at home, or a dog? Well that is what the rest of the crew is for. Darrin was the thinker. He was careful, thought everything through, never made mistakes and usually kept his hands clean. That is why Darrin was the crew leader. However sometimes being a thinker came with a price. Sometimes Darrin was uncomfortable with the job. This was one of those times.

Darrin was also not happy with the crew. The more experienced and talented guys were tied up on another project that actually sounded like fun. They were breaking into offices and destroying computers. That was more fun than killing some guy to keep him quiet. Everyone wanted to smash computers, so all the better guys were not available.

Darrin's crew for this job was two guys. A small crew for an easy job.

Ely was the team second. Ely was competent, calm and smart. What bothered Darrin about Ely was that he liked to hurt people and seemed to love killing. He was methodical, but he always wanted to talk to the guy first. He really got off on watching someone die. That kind of person came with too many risks, plus he was just kind of evil seeming. Working with Ely made Darrin feel dirty. Today, Ely was edgy and in a terrible mood. He had been to the island before for a party. He wandered into the woods with a girl he met and discovered he is severely allergic to poison ivy. All the way here, Ely was chattering about poison ivy and how he ended up in the hospital for a week.

Still, Ely was better than their back up- Crazy Bobby. Bobby was, . . . well, . . . crazy. He just did not care about anything. Bobby was wild, sloppy, noisy. However nothing stopped Bobby, nothing got in his way. You cut Bobby loose when you wanted a mess. Otherwise you needed to keep him caged. Bobby had killed more people than anyone on any crew Darrin had worked with – because when Bobby cut loose, Bobby killed everyone and destroyed everything. Bobby might be useful on a “no witnesses” job, but not on a “keep it quiet” job, Darrin intended to keep Crazy Bobby well caged.

This was Darrin's eighth hit, He hoped it would be the last. Darrin had been an enforcer for the Family for fifteen years. It wasn't all killing, sometimes they just broke things, and sometimes they just talked to people. It wasn't a bad job. It paid extremely well. Darrin had a significant nest egg tucked away in a safety deposit box. Enough to lie low for the rest of his life if he was very frugal.

Darrin's strategic thinking and planning had gotten attention, the right attention. Darrin was sure to move up to management in the Family soon. He would be glad to put the likes of Crazy Bobby and Ely behind him.
 
Darrin had worked with Crazy Bobby three times before. Two ended up being very messy and Darrin had to leave the country for a while the second time. The third time, Darrin made Bobby stay in the car unless he was needed, and Darrin made sure Bobby was not needed. Crazy Bobby would not be needed here either, he was just along for the ride. Darrin had already told him he was not getting out of the car.

Darrin worked with Ely several times. Sometimes working with Ely was better At least Ely was safe, he was not going to do anything stupid, still, Ely had something wrong with him. He was unstable and made Darrin feel like he needed a shower. But how do you clean the inside? Darrin had hoped to never work with Ely again. At least this would hopefully be the last time

Darrin was also unhappy about the car. The gray Cadillac ATS belonged to the client. Normally the crew stole a car that Darrin identified. He was always watching for cars that sat for long periods of time. He had a ready list. Steal a car, grab plates from another car and then switch them with a third car. People never notice if their plate number was different, only if it is gone. Switch plates and you are good for weeks before anyone notices and reports it. Eventually the guy with the plates from the stolen car gets picked up, then that guy's plates go into the system, sooner or later that guy gets picked up and your stolen plates end up in the system. Still, you get at least several days with apparently valid plates.

This job however came up late on Friday night. It had to be done Saturday. There was much at stake. Darrin was told: “This may be the most important job you have had.” The Client said they were not worried about the car being traced, they had that covered. The Client was connected. They owned a handful of policemen and politicians. The Family was also connected and had its own politicians and policemen.

The short notice left Darrin no time for reconnaissance. Google Maps satellite view allowed Darrin to learn the house was on the waterfront, and completely surrounded by woods The Client had considerable personal information on the target which was confirmed by a little facebook hacking. The target's children were apparently grown and either away at college or out living on their own. The wife was a librarian and usually worked on weekends. The target complained about a problem with his knee. In one post he said he could barely walk. Not much chance he would run or put up any kind of fight. This really could be the easiest job ever. Still Darrin felt uncomfortable. There was too much reliance on other people. They were not even using a Darrin plan.

The plan they were given was simple cross one bridge, drive a few miles along a pleasant waterfront, pull into the driveway and ask directions, take out the target and any witnesses, continue their drive for another mile, and then leave by way of the other bridge. What could go wrong?

They were supposed to drop the car at Noah’s house. The people there would get rid of it. Noah was the other crew leader for the Family. Noah was having a party after his job smashing computers and he lived in Wyandotte, just across the water from the island. Since he lived so close, why didn’t they give this whole job to Noah then? Why did Noah get the fun job – smashing computers? Darrin was good at smashing computers, he had smashed several of his own at home – the damn things were so frustrating. Smashing computers was way more fun than silencing some guy with a family. “What if he has a dog?” Darrin thought for the tenth time. “I am not shooting a dog.”

Darrin did not much like Noah. As much as Darrin was into planning and carefully thinking things through, Noah was a fly by the seat of your pants kind of guy. Noah’s sloppiness had landed him in prison twice. Once he did three years. The second time he was suddenly released from a fifteen year sentence for seemingly no reason. The Family was connected indeed.

To Darrin, a hit was a big deal. You had to be careful, plan, think, study, research, reconnoiter, plan some more, even practice if you could. Darrin often felt bad after a hit. It took a while to get over it. Noah did not seem to care. He once asked Darrin “What is the big deal? Leave the party, steal a car find a guy, bust a cap in his head, ditch the car, and go back to the party. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” Noah was always saying stupid stuff like that. Who the hell still says “Bust a cap”? Noah was always at, or having a party. That bothered Darrin. Darrin liked to stay sober. There was a time and a place to drink and forget, but you did not mix that with business. Also Noah had a coke habit. Darrin was convinced the coke would wind up causing Noah to lead a team into capture or death. Noah also liked shooting dogs. Noah's favorite past time was Coyote hunting. Darrin did not understand that, how can you unwind from the job of killing, by doing more killing. And - dogs, or at least sort of dogs, What kind of monster kills dogs? One time Noah had filled Crazy Bobby's apartment up with dead Coyotes. Noah loved to poke fun at Bobby's fear of dogs, all the guys did.
Being a team chief himself, Darrin never had to work with Noah directly. Noah and Bobby made a good pair. They could call themselves the sloppy tornado of death. Both of them would like that name.

At least Darrin had control even if they did not have a Darrin plan. Darrin was driving. He would do all the talking. Ely would handle the hit and Crazy Bobby would sit quietly in the back seat. Darrin had walked through the plan with the crew a dozen times. He had threatened Bobby if he tried to do anything other than sit in the back seat of the car. Crazy Bobby was a disaster waiting to happen. Darrin did not want a mess, just a clean hit and a long shower afterwards. Then a bag of cash, maybe new tile for his bathroom, and hopefully an invitation to the Family home. He really wanted to move up and out of the field as he called it. Sometimes Darrin liked to think of himself as a secret agent. James Bond and Jason Borne combined. Usually he played the song “Secret Agent Man” all day before a hit or other field operation.

At present, Darrin was frustrated. Crazy Bobby insisted they stop so he could use the toilet and get some Ho Hos. Bobby always ate Ho Hos. The gas station was on a corner a few feet from the bridge that led to the island. The gas station had cameras and an annoyingly bright flashing advertising sign. Darrin had to stop Bobby from shooting that damn sign. This time, Bobby wasn't so crazy, everyone who saw that fucking sign undoubtedly wanted to shoot it. When he pulled up tot he gas station, Darrin though a cop was pulling them over, the damn thing was flashing blue and white light so bright it perfectly mimicked a police cruisers lights.

Darrin parked in a shadowy area at the side of the building, told Bobby to keep his hood up to hide his face from the cameras, and sat nervously staring at the bridge. Darrin did not like bridges at all. He really did not like them to be the only way to get away from a job.

The bridge was open. Open meant it was closed to traffic. Closed meant it was open. Darrin thought it was interesting that open meant closed and vice versa. Maybe there was some hidden meaning about life there. Darrin was always looking for hidden clues to the meaning of life.

The center of the bridge had pivoted and swung perpendicular to the rest of the bridge in order to allow a big ship to squeeze through. It was neat, but it really bothered Darrin. What if the bridge they were supposed to leave on opened like that after the hit? How long would they have to sit waiting for it to close and re-open to traffic? What other way could they get off the island? Swim? Maybe a boat. Darrin had no idea how to operate a boat, but he made a mental note to keep an eye out for a boat they might steal – just in case.

Bobby opened the door and got back into the back seat. He was giggling for some reason. The idiot had removed his hood. He offered Darrin a Ho Ho from a huge cardboard carton. Bobby smirked and said, they just got a delivery and had not put them out yet, “The old ones looked kind of gross and smelled disgusting, but these were still in the shipping carton. Brand new. I took the a whole box” Bobby giggled again. “Well let’s go kill someone boss.” Darrin was mad, why say stuff like that? You never know when someone might overhear. Worse yet, what is the point of stealing an unpacked carton of Ho Hos? If the old ones were bad or “disgusting” as Bobby put it, just tell the clerk. Stealing things (other than a car) is just asking for trouble you don't need. “Disgusting,” - that gave Darrin pause for a moment. Those Ho Hos must have been pretty awful for Crazy Bobby to find them disgusting. Everything about Crazy Bobby was disgusting, he even smelled bad – coffee, cigarettes and body odor. Darrin did not even want to know how Bobby knew the Ho Hos wrapped in sealed plastic smelled bad. Darrin wished he had left Crazy Bobby at home. They did not need him and he was nothing but trouble.

Darrin put the car in gear and got into the line of people waiting for the bridge. “This day cannot get much worse,” he thought.