Angel Colón - No Happy Endings

We took the occasional cheating spouse job, two corporate jobs—Wall Street, of course—and a whole lot of nothing. This jackass about to arrive at the bar would be maybe the last step between us hanging up our gun belts or staying locked and loaded for the next call to come in.

We even took our show on the road for this one. Boston. A good town, if you can deal with the most obnoxious sports fans this side of Philadelphia. Or if you can get past the accent. Give me a good dose of Brooklyn or Staten Island twang any day over the dropped Rs and nasally whine.

This guy was in international finance. A real piece of work. Swiss, I think. At least he was in town on business from Switzerland. He had a long list of fetishes and sexual deviances, so the way to set him up was through his crotch, which led to Bricks and me working as a team for the first time. Usually when we got a client we would split it up. One person would help with the legwork and setting up the how and where of a hit, but we’d let one of us alone go do the job. We’d both come from a solo career and that’s where we felt comfortable. At least, I did. I think Bricks wanted to stay out of my line of fire, to be honest. I had a history of, shall we say, jobs that required cleanup. I’d been much better since she and I went into business together. Maybe the old gal was rubbing off on me.

So the setup was this: Bricks parks herself at this swanky Copley Square bar right next to the hotel where Mr. Swiss is staying. We got here a few days early and noticed he stops in almost every night for a few drinks before heading to bed, usually with the intent on finding a woman to bring upstairs with him. He was batting zero from what we’d witnessed. This was good for us. He’d be horny.

Look, I’ve grown to love Bricks like a sister, but Paula Brickey is not a traditional beauty. She’d tell you the same. But for this horny Swiss bastard, all we needed her to be was available.

At first she was definitely not excited about the plan, but she came around when we both realized it was our best bet to get him away from a crowd. She was sitting at the bar like a spider perched on the edge of a freshly made web. All we needed was for him to walk into it and get trapped. See, Mr. Swiss had a thing for dressing in women’s underpants—I’m telling you, the file on this guy read like soft core porn—so all Bricks has to do is flirt like hell with the guy, convince him she’ll come up to his room with him but only after he slips on a pair of her panties. She hands him a pair she’s already got stashed in her bag and when he goes to the john to change, I follow him in and…

One more job down and hopefully we’ve got a repeat client.

A waitress came by and asked me if I wanted another beer. I waved her off, showing her the two fingers of pale ale still in my bottle. She didn’t look pleased and who could blame her. Probably a college girl living off her tips, and slow drinkers are lousy tippers by nature.

The conversation level was giving me a headache, along with the shrill synthesizer noises on the latest one hit wonder from the 1980s. This was the kind of bar I’d normally never be caught dead in, but it was good enough to make someone dead in, I supposed.

Foursomes and sextets of twenty-something weeknight drinkers seemed to go out of their way to announce to the whole place what a great goddamn time they were having by laughing like they were drinking with George Carlin. A group of guys in the corner with matching Red Sox hats made it sound like there were in a contest with each other for who could laugh the loudest. If this Swiss guy didn’t show soon I was still gonna get my kill that night. If those overgrown fraternity assholes only knew.

I checked the door and checked Bricks. She gave me a subtle over-the-shoulder look and made her eyes go wide in frustration. If he didn’t show in the next ten minutes I’d call it and we could come back tomorrow night. Maybe he’d already found a willing slut to take back to his room so she could spank him and call him Shirley or whatever sick bastard shit he was into.

But another night meant another hotel for me and Bricks. The payday on this job was good, but not knowing when the next gig was coming made us both a little tightfisted when it came to the bank accounts.

I decided fuck it and downed the last swallow of my beer and looked around for the college girl to get me another. Mr. Swiss walked in the door. One of the frat boys told another whopper and the laughter nearly drowned out Rick Springfield’s lament for Jessie’s girl.

I wiped my palms on my pants when I realized they’d suddenly gone sweaty. Game on. I was ready for my part. Now it was Bricks’ turn to snag him in that web of hers.

A honey trap. That is the last con I ever imagined I’d play a part in. Those kind of gigs usually involve some slutty siren who drips sex appeal. About the only thing I ever drip is sweat from a hard aikido workout.

But I am a woman, and damnit, every woman can be sexy, right?

Right?

We’d see.

The Swiss answer to sexual deviancy stood near the door, scanning the room. I glanced at Cam to make sure he’d seen our mark, then turned away, managing to flip my hair in the process. I’d been letting it grow and now that my curls reached shoulder length, they actually did something when I flipped my hair.

Which was never.

At least I didn’t have to giggle at the same time, or croon the blonde mating call, “Oh my God, I’m sooooo drunk!”

The stool next to me was the only one along the entire bar that was still open, so it wasn’t like Swiss Boy Robinson had much of a choice. True to form, he appeared at my shoulder less than a minute later.

“Is someone sitting here?” he asked me. His accent was thick and haughty, though I’m sure he thought it was slick and hottie. I gave him a bored look over my shoulder, then hesitated just long enough to let a little interest seep into my expression. When I was pretty sure he’d noticed, I dropped the disinterested mask back into place.

“If he is, he’s invisible,” I said.

A touch of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Ah, a touch of New York, here in Boston. How cosmopolitan.” He sat down on the chair next to me and signaled the bartender.

I’d already decided that the hard ass, hard to get mistress was the card to play with this guy, but his comment gave me an excuse to continue the conversation while staying in character. Besides, I was a little curious how he’d pegged my accent. “How’d you know I was New York?”

“Your accent, of course.”

“I don’t have an accent.”

“But you do. And it is very definitely a New York accent.”

The bartender appeared in front of us, looking at him expectantly.

“I will have an old fashioned, bitte.”

The bartender scrunched his brow. “You want it bitter?”

“No, I’m sorry. Just a standard old fashioned. And please bring the lady another of whatever she is having.”

I held up my half-full glass of red wine. “Vino. House.”

The bartender nodded and was gone.

I gave our man a sardonic look. “You get on my accent, but at least I came in here speaking English, pal.”

“Is that what they speak here in Boston?” He shook his head. “Well, if it qualifies as English, it is only as a regional dialect.”

“You sure you’re not British? That sounds like something a Brit would say, all pissed off at what we Americans have done to his mother tongue.”

“And where do you suppose they stole most of that mother tongue? From Deutsch.”

“From the Dutch?”

He smiled indulgently, then leaned in towards me conspiratorially. “Let’s not pretend that you are a stupid woman, or that I would be interested in any such thing. I believe we will get along much better if we do so.”