SUNDAY
When his phone rang at one in the morning, Vin groaned. Nothing good happened at this time of night. He resisted the urge just to let it ring.
“Hello?”
“I have a problem,” his boss said. A long sigh. “And I need you to clean it up.”
“What is it?” He was already stepping into his pants, reaching for his gun.
“It is not my fault.” The man was really too old to whine, but he was whining now.
“What’s not your fault?” Since no one could see him, Vin rolled his eyes.
“She is always after me. Always. And whatever I give her, it is never enough. Tonight we had a fight. She kept saying she wanted to go back to where she was before. That she was tired of living a secret life.”
The boss’s girlfriend. A blonde, but not really. Big breasts that the boss had bought and paid for even before she left Scott Quinn to become his full-time girlfriend. Pretty, but not stupid. Or not stupid enough. She had snagged herself a rich businessman, but not one who could afford to flaunt his riches in a way that would attract the tax man. But she was the kind of poor and pretty girl that dreamed of being photographed, of being gossiped about, of her own reality show. The kind of attention that someone living on the wrong side of the law most certainly didn’t want.
His boss had more money than he knew what to do with. From the outside, his home looked modest. Inside, it was filled with expensive rugs, antiques, artwork, and furniture. The girl had designer clothes on her skinny back, expensive rings on her fingers, diamonds around her neck and in her ears. Occasionally she even demanded that Vin be her driver, like he was a chauffeur. And then she filled his ears with nothing but complaints.
She hadn’t been happy with any of it, not even the loads of cash his boss dropped on meals and trips to exotic places.
She wanted a nicer house. A much nicer house. Say an Arts and Crafts style, something in the three-million-dollar range. Or one of those electric roadsters. A Tesla, was that what they called it? George Clooney had one. She didn’t seem to be able to get it through the thick skull underneath all that dyed hair that cash transactions over $10,000 had to be reported to the IRS. That George Clooney made his money legally and everyone expected him to flash it around. So of course he had an Italian villa.
His boss had managed to buy her a boat. An actual yacht. Found a private buyer who was willing to accept cash and look the other way. But she still wasn’t happy.
The girl wasn’t that old, but she must have figured out that her sell-by date was fast approaching. And that maybe she didn’t want to spend what was left with a man who was at least twice her age.
“She saw what was coming and she actually jumped out of the car,” his boss continued. “But she didn’t get far in those stupid heels of hers. I always told her those things would kill her.” A laugh like a seal’s bark. “It seems I was correct. Now I need you to make her go away. I took her purse, took the rings from her fingers, took anything that might identify her.”
That wasn’t enough, which he was sure his boss knew as well as he did. She still had a face. She still had teeth. She still had fingerprints.
He was going to have to change all that. And fast. And then dump the body someplace where, with luck, it might not be found, at least not for a long while.
These things should be done with finesse. Planning. If you wanted to kill someone, you thought about it beforehand. You did not get into an argument with a piece of fluff. And when she made you angry and ran from you, you did not impulsively shoot her down and then call someone else to clean it up.
Seven months ago his boss had been so hot for this girl, with her blond hair and her snub nose like a child’s. Her arms and legs, perfectly shaped and flawless as a doll’s. Now he had broken her.
“I wish you had let me handle this from the beginning,” he said. His boss liked to keep those soft hands of his clean. He was tired of his boss making messes and expecting someone else to pick up after him.
There was a long silence from the other end of the phone. Long enough that Vin had time to regret what he had just said.