I knock on the door of the Summer suite on the sixteenth floor, directly above my room. The uniform I’ve borrowed fits reasonably well. I've tucked my gun, which I've equipped with its silencer, inside the waistband at the back of my pants, covering it with the bottom of my jacket. I’m carrying the tray that the waiter dropped in my room. I hope Jackson isn’t genuinely hungry, because I wasn’t able to salvage much of the Caesar salad that fell on my floor and it looks awful.
“Who is it?” asks a frustrated voice from inside the room.
“Room service,” I reply.
There’s a brief pause.
“I didn’t order anything, and I don't want to be disturbed.”
Luckily, I’ve prepared for this reaction.
“Ah, dammit! Listen, I’m sorry for the mix-up, sir,” I say. “The thing is, I need you to sign to say that you refused the delivery before I can return it.”
More silence… I continue with my sales pitch.
“I’m really sorry to bother you with this, sir. It’s just if I don’t have the correct paperwork, I’m going to get in a lot of trouble. Can you please just quickly sign this, and I’ll be out of your way.”
I hear movement from inside the room. Bingo! I balance the tray on my left hand and reach behind me, wrapping my right hand around my gun. I hear the bolt unfasten and a second later the handle turns.
My plan is simple: drop the tray as soon as the door opens so the noise masks any sound from my gun as I shoot him between the eyes. Then I’ll drag his body into the room and shut the door behind me. I’ll search everywhere for any paperwork that relates to the plot of land he’s supposed to sell to Pellaggio. Once I’ve found it, I’ll clean the entire scene of any trace I’ve been there before leaving.
The door opens, but it’s not Ted Jackson standing in front of me. It’s a tall, gorgeous, blonde woman in tight clothes, holding a gun in a very steady hand and aiming it right between my eyes.
Well… shit!
We stand frozen, staring at each other with poker faces. Each second that passes by feels like an hour, and the silence is deafening. My mind starts racing, purposefully, rushing to find a solution that doesn’t involve me getting shot.
There aren’t many, I'll be honest…
But the way I figure it is, if she wanted me dead, I probably would be by now. Therefore, it’s probably best for me to let it play out for the time being, until I can get in a better position to do something constructive.
“Hi,” she says, pleasantly. Her accent’s hard to pinpoint. It sounds like a blend of different European countries, with a hint of American.
“Hey,” I reply.
“Room service? That’s original.”
“Well, you know the old saying: if it ain’t broke…’”
“Send a fixer?”
“Something like that,” I say with a shrug.
It actually looks like she’s going to smile, just for a brief moment, but she doesn’t. Her face betrays exactly zero emotion. She’s good. And I might’ve been wrong about the whole smiling thing, to be honest. I wasn’t really paying much attention to anything besides the end of the gun that’s pointing at my face.
“Do come in,” she says.
I step inside the suite. It really is huge. I turn in a slow circle, absorbing every detail as quickly as I can — the layout of the room, where the doors and the furniture are… putting it into perspective after seeing it from the floor through a small camera. I glance over at Jackson, who is still sitting at his desk but turned around to see what’s happening. His face shows more disinterest than concern — clearly a levelheaded guy who’s no stranger to dangerous situations. Interesting…
I turn back around to face the woman, who still hasn’t moved the gun even a millimeter. She’s dressed as she was when I first saw her this morning. Her dyed blonde hair is slightly curly at the end, resting on her shoulders. She has dark green eyes, which would be very pretty if not for the fact there was no emotion in them whatsoever.
She’s really starting to concern me, simply for the fact she seems so at ease with pointing a gun at me. Most people, even seasoned veterans at such things like me, feel an element of pressure when holding a gun on someone. And don’t let anyone tell you different. Also, don’t believe what you see on TV. If you have a gun on someone, your whole body’s tense. You have to try and stay calm, as the slightest wrong movement could accidentally kill someone. You also have to consider every eventuality around you, such as the person you’re pointing your gun at making a move on you. If they do, you have to make sure you keep possession of, and control over, your gun to avoid it going off in any struggle that might unfold. Finally, you have to prepare yourself for pulling the trigger and being so close to the body that you see the effects. You only learn to deal with these things, and be more calm and natural when faced with them, after many years of experience. At the moment, this mystery woman is showing she’s no stranger to any of it.
She takes a step toward me and leans in close, her face inches from mine. Her lips form a menacing, almost flirtatious, smile as she reaches behind me and removes my gun from the waistband of my pants.
“You won’t be needing this,” she says, seductively. She throws it on the floor without a second thought.
“I want that back, it’s very special to me,” I say, quite seriously.
She raises her eyebrow, but says nothing.
“I’m gonna put my tray down now, okay?” I continue. “Just letting you know so you don’t shoot me or anything.”
“Go for it,” she says with a shrug, full of confidence.
I’m holding the tray in both hands. To most people, it’s just a tray. But to me… it’s actually just a tray as well, really. But, years of experience have taught me how to see an opportunity for violence in everything. I’ll think of something.
I kneel slowly to place it on the floor, keeping eye contact with her the whole time. The second I look down at the tray, I fling it like a Frisbee into her legs, hitting her just below her knees. It catches her off-guard and I use the moment of distraction to lunge forward, stepping in close to her and grabbing her right arm by the wrist. I turn into her so my back is against her chest and, keeping her gun arm under control with my right arm and my upper body, I jab her twice with my left elbow — once in the stomach and again in her face. She falls backward against the door, stunned but not out of it. She drops her gun, which I very quickly bend down to retrieve.
Don’t get me wrong — despite what I do for a living, I won’t normally tolerate any violence toward women. But in this particular situation, she was pointing a gun at me, so as far as I’m concerned, the bitch had it coming.
As I take aim at the woman, I see out of the corner of my eye Ted Jackson’s cool, calm demeanor suddenly leave the premises. I quickly glance round at him as the color quickly drains from his face, leaving the quivering wreck of a man I’ve been paid to kill. Papers scatter everywhere as he scrambles out of his chair and makes a run for one of the other rooms.
“Teddy, be cool,” I say, before shooting him in the foot with his bodyguard’s gun. He stumbles and falls, landing awkwardly. Blood starts dripping all over the expensive carpet. He’s screaming, which is understandable, if not a little annoying. I walk over and kick him in the side of the head.
Now he’s not screaming.
I looked back over at the front door and the woman’s slowly getting to her feet, shaking her head to clear the cobwebs. I aim the gun at her again.
“Don’t do it, darlin’—I’m better than you are.”
She looks like she wants to protest, but I can see her assessing the situation and realizing that right now, she has no move. She drops back down to one knee and puts her hand to her head where I hit her.