A Guardian Angel (3 page)

Andy beamed in
response, then rushed over to help her light a couple of candles.

The small dish
ignited Andy's taste, a man not often for spinach. The woman's
company felt like a familiar presence. She smiled at him, her eyes
fertile with love and trust. She shared casual facts about her day
and romantic plans for the future. Plans that almost tore him up.
None of this came off as strange to Andy, though. It was common. He
knew this feeling.

Suddenly he
remembered the ring in his pocket. Tonight he planned to propose.

The night slipped
by them as quickly as the wine drained from the large bottle she had
brought out in a decorative ice bucket. He felt himself getting
drunk. Such a peculiar sensation, getting drunk within a dream. He
felt light as a feather. He didn't get his typical wave of nausea
that he had to bear once the alcohol decided to intoxicate him.

Proposing didn't
seem like such a great idea on such a great evening with such a great
buzz going on. It wouldn't seem as genuine. So at the end of the
night, thumbing the ring in his pocket, he said his goodbyes and
called a cab.

He stopped the
driver at the large park that they passed along their ride home. He
paid him and climbed out of the taxi. It might have been the wine,
but Andy didn't want to end the night in his apartment alone, so he
went for a stroll through the park. He made his way knowingly toward
a large pond that sat hidden in a cluster of trees within the park.
Kind of a walk to get to, but his favorite place to dream. He hadn't
sobered up so he walked along the edge of the water until all that
filled him was a desire to dip his toes into the cool pond. He
labored over his nice black cowboy boots, trying to coax them off of
his drunken feet in an aloud manner. He looked up at the sole street
lamp that sat at the edge of the pond bright faced as he struggled.
He managed to pull them and his socks off and sat on the edge of the
pond, breathing in the cool night air and staring into the infinite
blackness between the stars. Never had he felt so peaceful.

That's when the
bullet hit him, knocking him into the lake and back into
consciousness.

Dreams always came
that way to Andy. Cryptic and incomplete. Andy thought nothing more
of it. He had many dreams with similar themes and he paid none of
them much thought. They all ended the same way, and none of them were
more significant than another.

He tried his best
to not know what it meant.

Andy climbed out of
his bed and slipped into a casual attire. Instead of his customary
suit and classic style, he threw on some jeans, a peace-sign t-shirt
and a blue hoodie. Less than he'd need in wintertime Chicago, but he
wouldn't be out long. He grabbed his bag and slipped out of the door.

Here walked a man
enshrouded in strange, home brewed superstition. This man here, the
murderer wearing a peace-sign shirt. Andy, of course, realized the
irony of that being his favorite symbol, the only one he could wear
on a shirt if there be any symbol at all. Perhaps he wanted to avoid
all the brand-named merchandise that corporations just like the one
that employed him peddled out. He had no clue what company it he
worked for these last ten years, no tangible names by which he could
identify the faces that represented that company. But that wasn't
quite it. The most probable explanation of all is that there is a
balance to things and Andy felt very strongly about upsetting it. If
you paint it black, you need to paint some white. If you sing a
little high, you must sing a little low.

If you take a life,
you must help one to grow.

He walked with that
purpose in mind. Andy admitted it to himself without hesitation; he
wasn't driven by the generosity in his heart but by the guilt of his
crimes that pushed him on into the downtrodden neighborhood of
Chicago's local homeless population.

They were a
misshapen group. Skittish, they almost seemed, like a deer in a yard.
They peered over at the wealthier man who just joined them. At least
that's what the more alert of the crowd did. Others stared off into
space like mannequins, ignoring anything the outside world would try
to communicate to them. Drugged, Andy determined. Or perhaps they
were broken.

He made his way
through the sea of the impoverished until he came to a bearded black
man. He was about the same age as Andy but misfortune had aged him
faster than he should look. He looked up from the conversation he was
having with an old white man, who stopped talking and started reading
the papers that covered him like a blanket.

“Hello,”
the black man said with a genuine, human smile. His warmth came
across without effort.

“Homer, hi,”
Andy greeted.

His friend grinned,
exposing yellowing teeth. They must have received little maintenance
since he left last. “How are you?” he asked.

“I'm well,”
Andy started, drifting off. He stared up and down the road at all the
faces. He noticed himself coming off as distant, so he returned the
question. He dropped the bag from his shoulder on the street and sat
beside Homer.

They exchanged
surface pleasantries as Andy pulled out the bag with his leftovers in
it. “This is for you,” he said as he handed the food over
to his friend. Homer accepted, thanking him. Andy grabbed the envelop
he had stuffed in his bag and set it in his lap as Homer looked over
and smelled the steak sandwich and potatoes that Andy gave him. The
food steamed. Andy heated it up before leaving his apartment.

“Man, these
other people are going to start realizing why you visit so often and
then you'll never get any peace of mind when you come back,”
Homer joked. Andy cracked the slightest smile and laughed himself.

“I'd love to
help them all,” he started, looking at the lot of them. “It's
not right to pick favorites, but Homer, you are indeed mine.”

“Why's that?”
Homer asked.

Andy's eyes smiled
at Homer. “You helped me. For no other reason than you could,”
he explained.

The black man
nodded but the expression on his face was not convinced. “You
know I love the help, Andy,” he started. “I love getting
to see you and all, but maybe you should take a lesson from that and
don't pick favorites.”

It was something to
consider. Random generosity to help his fellow man just because he
could. However, Andy did not see the point in the philosophy. He felt
he could never make a dent if he spread all of his resources over the
random population. He would much rather support his friend than
people who never gave a damn about him. Then it came to Andy that
perhaps Homer didn't refer to food and money, but just basic human
compassion.

“You're an
endangered species, Homer.” Andy commented.

Homer brightened up
again after a brief pause of conversation when he asked, “So
where'd you go this time?”

“Russia,”
Andy replied, trying not to convey his dislike of the country through
his face. He failed according to the way Homer looked at him. He
looked down into his lap and thumbed through the money in the envelop
as they talked, double checking its quantity.

“What's wrong
with Russia?” the black man asked.

Andy handed the
envelope with the money in it to Homer, who tried his best to seem
like he did not want to accept it. He took the thing after a moment
of hesitation, at a loss for what to say. There was nothing left to
say soon as Andy stood up from the road, looking down at his kind
friend. “It was cold,” he answered.

Andy awoke a
handful of uneventful days later to find that the tulip had withered
and died overnight. With its death came the call from his employer,
and his next assignment.

-Chapter Three-

Lumnin

A small plane
waited for him on the runway, just as it had dropped him off. He said
his farewells to Homer, leaving just a sheet of mystery over the
whole occasion. Despite his friend's curiosity, he couldn't say where
he would be flown to next because he never knew himself until he was
seated across from the middle-aged man on the expensive jet. Like he
was now.

His employer had
started growing out a beard during Andy's holiday, which he played
with through most of their discussion. “Good to see you,”
he greeted the hitman.

“You as
well,” Andy replied, strained by the force of the take-off.

“We're flying
now to Lumnin, a city about three hours drive from New York City,”
the man told him with no dulling of the twinkle in his eye.

“Lumnin?”
Andy said the name of the city, let it try to get comfortable in his
mouth. “That would be my first assignment in the country since
--”

“Merely
coincidental,” his employer interrupted, leaving out none of
the significance. “Interest has found itself in America.”

“What is this
interest's name?”

The man smirked.
“Flynn,” he answered. “For reasons that don't
concern you, we'd like to offer a hundred-and-fifty percent your
normal salary to rid this burden from my mind.”

“First name?”

“Haley.”

“Why is she a
problem?” Andy asked. A valid question, but he saw his error as
soon as he made it. You never ask for a reason. Every other question
should float through his head, when, where, how, but never why.
“Forgive me.”

The man nodded once
in response.

“This one
requires a very tasteful touch, Winter, but I think that you're up
for it,” his boss started. “You're on American soil. A
lot is invested in this run, and your expertise is crucial. Any
mistakes, anything that could be traced back to us would be
cataclysmic.”

“There will
be no mistakes,” Andy said very straight faced. His skill for
murder was no joke for him. He had no pride for it.

The man smiled. “I
don't expect you to fail us. The key element to this whole thing is
that you ensure it looks like an accident. Any thorough
investigation, any suspicion that something might have been
orchestrated will be complete failure. Nothing can go wrong,”
he said. “You can't take an extra three seconds with this one.
Too much is at risk.”

Andy nodded. “I'll
do nothing less than extraordinary,” he promised.

“Because of
the delicateness and sheer difficulty of the task,” the man
started again, giving Andy some strange horrifying feeling, “you
won't be alone in Lumnin. You'll be staying and working with one of
our most talented data collectors. His name is Amidon.”

“A data
collector?” Andy asked.

“Please take
this as no offense,” the elder man replied. “As capable
as you are, Amidon is skilled at gathering information about a topic.
The most thorough of his kind available. The catch, however, is that
he is unaware of some crucial details.”

“What doesn't
he know?” Andy interrupted.

His boss let it
slide. “That Flynn is to die. He believes this to be an illegal
slander operation. We've informed him that you represent media that
we have hired to 'dig up dirt' on Flynn. He believes that you mean to
discredit her,” he explained.

“So I'm
supposed to be a reporter or something?” Andy asked for
clarification.

“A writer,
yes,” was the answer he received. “Anyway, it is also
very vital that Amidon not be aware to your true purpose. If he gets
nervous or scared, we may have to have another loose end cut. I'd
prefer not to have that happen.”

“How will he
be ignorant once I kill her?” Andy asked. “His job is to
study her. Won't he realize what's been happening when she turns up
dead?”

“No, he
won't,” the man replied. “That is how convincing this
accident must be. Even the man working as the informant for her
assassination must not know that she was killed. Only that she died.
Then we win some brownie points by releasing a statement saying that
we had discovered controversial information about the dead girl, but
out of respect, will not release it.”

Andy smiled only
because the skin of his face crawled in that direction. Truly
despicable. That's what he must become to do this. He believed he was
prepared.

“Salt in the
wounds, if I may say,” Andy commented.

“Pain,”
his employer explained, “is a reminder to intelligent beings to
know their place and a harbinger to those too dumb to obey.”

When Andy landed
this time, he didn't say anything to the cab driver before the taxi
lurched forward onto the streets of Lumnin, darkening as the sun had
begun setting. He couldn't discern where he was going and wouldn't be
able to recognize it even if he did. It was an unfamiliar city. Even
though it was labeled as a city, Andy could see it much more as a
college town. A large town. However, there was no campus as Andy
learned while they drove down the cobblestone street that served as
the city's main vein. Instead, it seemed that the city was built
around an ancient and now abandoned soda factory that rested on the
bank of a small river. Andy had no idea which river it was.