The right hand pushed the object deep into a crystal bowl, rubbing it out.
The left hand held a cell phone. His dry, bass voice spoke rapidly, "We had a party late last night. Eight girls stayed, but the other two left early."
There is a pause on the other line, while the scarred right hand rises to the lips.
"A shame….. Check up on them around 9 o’ clock tonight, once they’re finished with their dance lessons."
"Thanks. Goodbye."
The cell phone is clicked off, and Mikhail goes on smoking the cigarette. He is already on his twentieth of the day. He leans back into the plush, burgundy sofa, enjoying the scent of fresh upholstery mixed with cigarettes.
Mikhail possesses a bony, even skeletal face with high, protruding cheekbones. He is 5’9", 175 pounds, thirty-two years old, with a close-cropped haircut. A dark leather jacket covers his powerful, well-built frame.
What immediately strikes one are the eyes. A deep, rich hazelnut color, they are eternally filled with internal ruminations, oblivious to the surrounding world.
Normally, they are vacant.
Mikhail decides to take a nap. Several hours later, he wakes up. He exits his hotel room, takes the elevator to the ground floor, and steps outside.
Across the street, he sees a woman with a green mohawk and no bra smoking a cigarette. Standing next to her is a fat, laughing, Gothic woman with three rings in each nostril, like a wild pig. The monstrosity has long hair with alternating streaks of red and white. Her bloated arm holds a leash connected to a dog.
Suddenly, the two start groping and kissing each other.
‘San Francisco is a fucking hell-hole’ Mikhail thinks, ‘I can’t wait to leave.’
But not yet.
Mikhail walks along the street, avoiding crazy freaks at every turn. He sees an 80 year old woman with tattoos on her breasts, a man whose lips are invisible, being completely covered by copper rings, and many others.
He enters a restaurant, one of the few in the entire city that offers clean food. He is acquainted with the owner, a Georgian immigrant who was classmates with his father at Moscow State University. He takes a seat in the corner, his usual. The waitress, a moderately attractive Chinese woman with purple lipstick, greets him cheerily, knowing him.
"What will you have?"
"EXCUSSSSEEEE ME!!!"
A woman surveys the scene. Her expression is deeply angry, bordering on hysteria.
She is 5’ 1", 400 pounds, has dyed red hair, a red scarf, red shoes, red pants, red cheeks, a red suit, and yellow teeth stained with marijuana. Although she doesn’t know it, she is a distant descendant of Attila the Hun. The only thing she has inherited from her illustrious progenitor is an insatiable appetite and a sense of entitlement. Her ogrish, round teeth are dripping with troll saliva. Placing a body part next to her mouth might result in its loss.
A sticker of "No War For Oil" hangs on her forehead, a symbolic tattoo of stupidity that would be more accurate if "Brains" replaced the last three words.
The Hun’s puffed red cheeks are the same that huff, puff, and sing along to Areetha Franklin’s "RESPECT" and "I Will Survive", the national anthems of fat, ugly, rejected swamp monsters everywhere.
"What seems to be the problem madam?" inquires Mikhail with an ingratiating smile.
"That IZ MYYYYY SEEET!!!" exclaims the red sack of elephant turds.
"Wait a second…. That’s not the case…" interjects the Chinese waitress.
The reddish offspring of baboons and Rosie O’Donnell’s waste is about to explode.
"…Forgive me. I will find another seat." Mikhail calmly responds.
Red Hun is taken aback, expecting more resistance. Frankly, she is disappointed. She wanted to argue and bitch. She is angrier than ever that her fun was not to be.
As Mikhail moves to his new seat, the waitress gives him a knowing glance.
The Hun’s food will contain spit, urine, and a mild dose of poison.
After the meal, Mikhail walks outside, luxuriously stretching his body as he realizes the night has begun. It is presently 6 o’clock.
He goes back to the hotel. Once there, he turns on his laptop and begins to write a program. His coworkers and employers express surprise and even disdain at this, but Mikhail doesn’t care.
He loves the intrinsic challenge, the ingenuity, and pushing one’s brain to the limits. It keeps him alert and calculating, a necessity for his job. At times, he has even considered quitting his profession and becoming a programmer.
Around 8: 30 pm, Mikhail leaves to pick up the two girls.
He drives slowly and carefully, paying special attention to drug fiends that might jump under the wheels of his Mercedes Benz. A street away from the building, he parks his car. The door and then his body slowly creep out from the large frame of the vehicle. He proceeds cautiously.
Before him is a giant warehouse, covered with lousy, crude graffiti expressing sexual lusts and desires. The night gives it a particularly lurid quality, prompting Mikhail to think that perhaps a band of madmen had escaped the psychiatric ward and created it. Mists swirl about him. The sound of a police vehicle can be heard in the distance. The ground is ugly and cracked.
He approaches the entrance to the building. Before him stands a 6’4" 260 pound punk with a goatee, long chains hanging out of sagging pants, and a simple wife beater tank top in the cold night.
"Whada yo’ wont motha fucka??" he inquires the Russian, stepping towards him. His sneer and cocky grin belie the intimidation he is certain Mikhail is experiencing.
Mikhail’s eyes flash, resuscitated from their normally somnolent musings. He pulls out a custom-made Browning, extends it forward, and blows the punk’s head off as the latter’s eyes dilate and move in opposite directions.
The body crashes to the ground and blood erupts like a fountain from his forehead. A lifeless, gaping mouth, left slightly ajar, retains the same "Oh shit, my mom caught me masturbating" expression it did when he first saw the gun. A pool of blood is now forming below the head, where the bullet existed.
Mikhail sidesteps the remains, and enters the warehouse. He has used a silencer, so he is confident the shot was not heard. He noiselessly advances up the stairs, a panther in the night.
Every step, Mikhail is happy to notice that all limbs are functioning properly, possessing a welcome absence of bullets. On the second floor, he hears voices behind a door.
He knocks.
Then, like an acrobat, he leaps to the side and takes several steps up the stairs.
Mikhail struggles to impose calmness over his body.
The door is thrown open in an arrogant, insolent manner. A young Mexican face peeks out.
The lips are quivering with laughter from a joke he has just heard. The face is comfortable and confident in life.
Mikhail blasts it off with his gun. As the blood gushes out of a hole that was once the left cheek, the ghost of a smile remains on the lips.
"Motherfucking bullshit!!!" Mikhail hears inside. He hears a safety trigger turned off. Mikhail now takes several more steps up the stairs. The stairs zigzag, so near the top he is well shielded by railings and the start of a new set of stairs. He suddenly sees half his target’s face, enraged. It is ascertaining where Mikhail is.
Mikhail shoots. He hears a roar of pain.
Still, the head disappears. He is not mortally wounded. The bullet has grazed the side of his face and hit the ear.
Cursing in Russian, Mikhail advances up the stairs, guarding himself behind the railings. He hears gunfire and flashes close to where he is, but sees only an arm in the opened apartment door. It’s a risky way to hit the target.
Mikhail takes several shots at the protruding limb, and is finally rewarded by an agonized scream of "FUCK!!!".
Suddenly, he hears running. The target is attempting to escape.
His body slowly oozes down the steps, wary at every moment despite the fleeing patter of feet.
The crash of a door is heard at the other end of the building. Mikhail quickens his pace. He reaches the level of the door. The image of a disheveled, dirty room replete with lighters and drug paraphernalia flashes before him.
He then continues down the steps. Rather than entering unknown territory, the contract killer exists back outside, where the target presently is.
Mikhail once again finds himself in the angry night. The same brisk winds. The same cracked ground. The same police sirens. Nothing has changed.
His eyes alternate between the two directions, his body closely huddled against the filthy, graffiti wall. If the target exited through the back of his flat, he must be on the other side of the building.
Footsteps are faintly heard. They seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
Mikhail slowly slides over to the adjacent wall. The running continues. He moves forward. He sees the suspect. A hundred yards away.
The running continues. Mikhail draws out another gun, this one for long-range. He aims. The figure in the distance isn’t slowing down.
A shot is heard. The running continues for a few more steps, but slower. Then, it stops. Mikhail rushes back to his car. A lookout was supposed to make sure it didn’t get stolen. His heart racing, he sees his jet black Mercedes.
He gets in, and drives to where the target stopped. As he nears, the body doesn’t move. A huge gash is in the back of the figure, with the jacket and shirt torn through and pieces of intestine hanging out. Mikhail rolls down the windshield. Just to be sure, he shoots the head a few times.
After he’s done, about half the skull is left. An irregular, chaotic, line runs from the top of the forehead to the bottom of the neck. The line is covered with blood and brains. Everything behind it is gone.
Satisfied, Mikhail revs up the engine and leaves the crime scene. He enters a more prosperous neighborhood. The Benz stops in a huge underground garage.
Getting out, Mikhail notes the zone number he is on. Reaching C-145, he finds the desired vehicle; an inconspicuous, brash, glistening black Ford truck.
The mission is over with.
He can finally leave. Mikhail allows himself to relieve some of the monumental tension he was under for the past hour.
He gets in, starts the engine, and starts driving. The sensation of safety floods into him like a thousand dams. The relief feels similar to the satisfaction after sex, only a thousand times more complete.
Another successful mission.
