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Mimic found a small square of garden tucked inside the parking lot of a tiny modern Quaker chapel. He seated himself on the wooden bench at its edge. The tall hedgerow around its perimeter effectively silenced the traffic passing by on the freeway, but he didn’t experience the inner calm the surroundings were meant to solicit. He took out his handkerchief and dabbed the corners of his mouth.
Beth Jordan would be dead soon. Wherever she went, he would find and kill her. She was likely to be in police custody now. They might even offer her protection until she’d safely left the state. It didn’t matter. Only limited time separated her from dispatch at his hands, and he had others to attend to in the meantime. What really vexed him, however, was how she’d disrupted his rigid system.
As a SEAL, he’d had seventeen confirmed kills as a sniper prior to the Israeli army withdrawal from Beirut in ‘83 and twelve as an officer for SAD. He’d always killed under the auspices of someone else. It was how he removed himself.
When he’d become unaffiliated, he’d been able to continue by adopting the homicidal regimens of established criminals. Every contract had a local precedent. They set the bar. He’d researched the Beachfront Butcher’s methods before orchestrating his meeting with Beth Jordan, but circumstances had forced him to step outside the killer’s identity.
He’d dropped the ball at the Oyster Shack and had underestimated Beth Jordan in the hotel. His neck was bruising from where she’d struck him with the tank lid. It was another sign that age was catching up to him.
His cell rang and he knew who it would be. He looked at the screen to confirm it was his employer and let it go to his answering service.
He used to analyse the rationale of the people he worked for, took an active interest in the identities, political or otherwise, that dictated his workload. That was when he’d seen the process of extinguishing human lives as something symbolic.
The reality, however, was that they’d become less and less significant to him. Not only those of his targets, but those of his employers. As the years had passed, they’d come and gone, and the faces in his portfolio had become just a continuous procession of features attached to the same clichéd machinations.
The designs he’d understood implicitly before, he took less and less interest in. It had become work and nothing more. Mimic had thought only of the real estate it could accrue for him. He’d recognised this was the case with any occupation. Blue collar to exec, the repetition of doing the thing you were good at eroded the spirit, so that eventually the reward was all you thought of. It was how good people ended up fucking over their friends.
At least he’d never fucked anybody over. He knew it would be only that which would make him lose sleep now. His had been a solitary and easy freelance existence, because he’d developed a rarely found talent. He wasn’t a sociopath but, using his background, he’d been able to adopt their traits. As he’d always done, Mimic used the homicidal ambition of others to entirely excuse himself from considering the implications of killing.
People had to find a reason for continuing, though. Something that raised them from their bed every morning and made them clamber up the hill again. And when he was far from the trappings his job had earned him, he wasn’t afraid to admit it was the actual moment of taking life.
It wasn’t a sexual thing. He didn’t even get the adrenaline spike that he used to. It was a kind of peace. Not a feeling of power, but a period of internal silence. Right or wrong, his was an action that couldn’t be undone. It was pure truth. Whatever his kill meant for the people connected to the individual, his existence alone had created it.
A lanky forty-something woman in jade sweats and a headband interrupted Mimic’s timeout. She was being pulled up the steps and through the open gate by her teacup Chihuahua and seemed surprised to discover his presence. Perhaps this was her special morning place. He smirked reassuringly at her as she allowed the animal to nose at the flower border between the chapel wall and the lawn. She grinned nervously, and it didn’t look like she was going to stay long.
Having been spotted by the O’Doole household, he’d decided to use the time he had to dump the Corolla and pick up a different ride. They might have taken note of the plates, and he wasn’t sure if they’d returned home during his detour. His vehicles changed constantly throughout the year, depending on his itinerary. He opened his iPhone and did a quick search for the nearest rent-a-car. He’d choose another pedestrian model, something that would meld with the run-of-the-mill traffic. Mimic squinted at the small screen and wished he had his iPad with him.
The lanky woman stood patiently and examined the middle distance while her dog defecated over the border flowers.
His finger paused on the screen as he awaited the outcome of the episode. The woman appeared as if she was frozen in her own time zone while an event that was clearly nothing to do with her came to its trembling finale. Would she?
Whether it was because of his presence or that she was a conscientious dog owner, the woman produced a small green plastic bag from the pocket of her sweats and pulled it over her hand. She looked in any direction other than down at her feet while she scooped it up and quickly pulled the bag back over her knuckles so the animal’s hot package was trapped inside.
“Come on, Anthony,” she said to the creature, and pulled him back towards the gate they’d entered by, his little legs scampering to keep up with her long strides.
What a fucking strange name to give a dog. He was about to return to his iPhone screen when he watched the woman knot and dump the little package. Not only that, but she dropped it in front of the trashcan by the gate. It came to rest against the base of it.
“Excuse me, Miss?”
She ignored him.
Mimic was already on his feet. “You dropped something.”
She started to descend as he crossed the lawn.
“Miss!”
The volume in his voice made her halt.
As he caught up with them, she looked back at him, a mask of lethargy on her face. The teacup Chihuahua regarded Mimic with its head cocked to one side.
“You dropped this. Mh?” He picked the bag up in his hand and weighed its warm contents.
The woman turned her back on him and walked down the steps.
Mimic still had his SIG Sauer P226 in the holster. He put his fingertips on the clip. Having failed in his attempts with Beth Jordan, he could certainly do with the low-key harmony he should have experienced at the Oyster Shack or the Francisquito.
Instead, he satisfied himself with exerting some self-control. It would be so easy for him to drill the back of her head and push the bag of shit inside the hole he made. Maybe leave the dog witness tied to the hedge. It was his last tour of duty, but not pulling the trigger, even though the rich homicide tapestry of LA would effortlessly absorb her death, meant he was respecting the system and was firmly back on track. And that was where he was most comfortable.
He watched the woman drag the dog down the street.
