Surface Contact

She was hiding in the closet when I clumped into her bedroom, making no effort to keep quiet. Why should I? She knew I was there; she'd intuited who'd hired me, and why. She did a masterful job of holding her breath, not a whimper escaping her lips. She'd even thought to leave the closet door slightly ajar, and the bedroom window half-open. An amateur might have fallen for it.

But I was a pro, and I had done my homework. I knew with her arthritic knee she'd never have managed to get out the window, onto the roof, and safely down to the lawn. She had to be in the bedroom. Rather than toss the place, I simply did what I do: Placed a hand on the wall and let it speak to me. It helped that what I was looking for had happened only seconds ago. The intensity of her terror certainly helped also, because the image I received was surprisingly clear. She'd raced in quickly as she could, thrown her weight into getting the window raised, and then ducked into the closet.

I opened my eyes and looked right at the closet. She could probably see me through the wooden slats. It was too much like a Hollywood film, and that irritated me.

"Come on out, Ms. Renses," I said in a conversational tone of voice. No need for theatrics, after all: We were both adults who understood what kind of world we lived in. "Don't make this into a horror movie. Just come out."

A moment later, she did. She looked at me as levelly as I looked at her. I raised the gun; she didn't flinch. I had a flicker of admiration for her fortitude. Then I put her down.

***

This gift of mine is invaluable to someone in my profession. It sometimes clues me in on what someone knows and isn't telling me; what conversations they've had recently, and with whom; it gives me insights into hundreds of odd quirks and habits that I might use against my prey or, if need be, my employers.

Walls can speak to someone like me; even better are door knobs, window clasps, deadbolts, anything metal. It's true that what the walls talk about can be juicy. It can also be traumatizing, or uplifting, or frightening. Even more intense are the sights and insights and other bits and pieces I pick up from furniture, clothing, knick-knacks, and other inanimate objects. Sherlock Holmes could deduce who you were, what you did, and what you had for breakfast by glancing at your shoes. Let a tchotchke fall into my hands, and I'll tell you who you're fucking, who you want to be fucking, and who you're fucking over. I'll smile at the pride you take in your daughter's prize-winning thesis; I'll get a lump in my throat holding your son's wrestling trophy. Don't think that just because I kill people for a living I don't feel anything. In truth, I feel far too much.

That, more than anything, made my relationship with Andy difficult. Any relationship is problematic, but try sharing the aura of someone's psychic burdens and excitements, all the tangled feelings and unresolved anger he carries around. Try folding his tank top and getting a stabbing feeling of sick jealousy because he was wearing that same shirt at the gym when he got a hard-on over some red-haired number with sculpted biceps and chest. Try putting that shirt aside so that you won't find out -- just in case -- that he got a blowjob from the red-haired number in the sauna. Not that Andy would have. But if he did? I don't want to know about it.

***

The day after I offed the Renses woman, I sat in my apartment facing my worst fears: Stacks of Andy's clothes. Everything from his side of the closet, and everything from his dresser drawers. More potent: All of his metal belongings: His Swiss Army knife; his ring; his necklace, a thin silver chain that his brothers tried to get from me after he died, the greedy vultures, but a cold glare from this killer put those bitches in their place.

I got home about 4:30 in the morning after the Renses job. I had taken all my usual precautions, and that included keeping my eyes open around the neighborhood as I parked my car three blocks away and walked. I saw a couple of cars that didn't belong. They might well have been visitors, but in my line of work you don't leave anything to chance. Once I reached my front door, I spent a good long minute on the porch. The concrete steps were full of the sunshine of fifty or sixty summers, with kids and popsicles and dogs and cats -- repeated experiences that clung like sedimentary layers, creating an overwhelming surface level impression I could feel even through my shoes.

Deeper than that? More specific, harder to pin down? Well, there was something... A stranger's feet climbing up, hours before. The wooden decking had nothing of value to add; organic substances don't hold well to events. But when I placed my hand on the front door, and then fingered the metal of the knocker, I got a very clear flash: A young man, mid-twenties. Serious minded. It took another couple of minutes to parse and develop the image... kind of like waiting for your eyes to adjust to starlight. But an image did form, finally -- some kid just out of grad school, working for Greenpeace. He'd come to sell me on a membership, and found nobody home. Good for him: He could have had an easier job, and one that paid more. But he was a true believer, and he did his job out of passion.

I only wish I could say the same thing. But think about the career options for someone like me. Waiter? Are you kidding? Lawyer? Please. One second holding any court room bible and I'd know just who did what to whom with which instrument, and what room they did it in. Police detective? No way. If I am going to see that much gore and terror, it'll be my own handiwork and not some strung-out killer of the week.

Simply put, I can't ply a trade in a common environment. I'm not a team player, but aside from that, objects that pass through a lot of hands on a daily basis build up so much experience they're overwhelming. Even a fork or a knife; it's no big deal, you'd think, using a restaurant's flatware, because all anyone does with a fork is stuff his face. But each person is a different color, a different smell, a different set of secrets and vices and plans, and it all rubs off on the objects they touch, and on the environment around them.

Relationships are all about trust, but they are also about secrets and omissions. For most people, that's automatically part of the deal, and if they worry over anything it's accomplishing a deeper connection and a more comprehensive understanding of their significant others. But I had to work to keep things with my husband at a superficial level, and even then I knew all too often about deeper stuff that no one should have to share. Out of fairness to him, I never made my insights part of our conversation, even when we argued. Out of respect, I never probed deeply and consciously, and tried to let the flashes that leaked from him roll off my back. (He hated my recipe for broccoli spinach pie, but he put on a brave face. I tried not to be disappointed.)

But now here I was, about to do something I had scrupulously avoided in my six years with Andy. I was about to hold his jewelry in my hands, pull his shirt on over my head, wear his boxer shorts, and drape his belt around my neck. I was going to imbibe in the psychic residue of him that shrouded everything he'd wrapped his hands around in his everyday life, like a widower inhaling the scent of a dead spouse off a sweater.

Andy didn't have my gift, but he wasn't stupid. We lived together for so long that he must have pieced together that fact that not only was I one strange guy, but my career wasn't exactly on the up and up. I kept waiting for him to get scared and bolt, or at least express his moral qualms. But the only thing he ever said was that he missed me those late nights when an assignment from the corporation or a freelance job kept me away, especially the ones that required a week or two of tracking and observation before I could bag the target.

I had told him -- exactly once -- that my job involved sensitive information and I would not be able to share any details about it with him, and he accepted this. It never came up afterwards. Andy trusted me; I asked him once whether we worried about me seeing other guys when I was out of town, and he smiled. "You don't worry about that when I'm here by myself," he said, even though I did kind of worry about it. Truth be told, I wouldn't have cared -- or rather, I wouldn't have wanted to deny him some fun on a lonely night. I just didn't want to know about it, because if I did, then, being who I am, I'd have had to kill the guy.

Yes, I'm a killer. We've established that. I'd never have harmed Andy in any way, ever, but Andy was someone special.

I once held a gold cross on a chain that belonged to a priest everybody thought the world of. The old fucker had a stash of kiddie porn in the rectory attic nobody ever found or, if they did, they got rid of it quietly. He was quite the pill-popper, too, but let me tell you something: That practically made him the saint everyone thought he actually was. In comparison to everyone else, I mean. Den mothers? Want me to tell you about the skank who used to whore herself out online when she wasn't organizing her son's Cub Scout troop activities? Upstanding citizens? Want me to list all the devoted husbands and fathers who have raped their own children, the sick fucks, or beaten their wives, or who just fucking hate their families and long for nothing so much as to stuff them in a Volvo and roll them into the lake?

People are downright awful, and the worst is just how savage and mean they are in their everyday lives. The things they do to sabotage each other, the nasty hateful sentiments they harbor, the sheer spite in their hearts... How does civilization hold together, when people hate each other so deeply, so blackly? I can't point fingers, and I know it, but believe me: I am not the worst guy on the block. I'm quiet and respectful, and because I've lived here for nine years everyone thinks well of me, though nobody really knows me. Andy, he was different. Everyone loved Andy. I mean, they even knew his name; he used to chat with people he'd meet on the street, and they all responded, like I did, to the light and kindness that shone from his heart.

Andy was human, of course, and he had his moments. I'd pick up on them when helping out with the dishes (even though I wore heavy duty rubber gloves) or picked up his toothbrush from the kitchen table and put it back in the glass by the bathroom sink. His sister drove him craziest, but he'd sometimes nurse a festering rage at his boss, or someone who slighted him at the supermarket, or some anti-gay politician he'd never even met. Inevitably, there were times he'd be angry at me, and that hurt. All the other stuff was unpleasant, like nails on a chalkboard, but his anger at me actually, physically hurt. But he never held on to that anger for long, and I never picked up on him scheming or deceiving me (if, that is, you don't count the plans he laid in secret excitement for my forty-eighth birthday).

Which is why I can't bring myself to believe that he might have ratted me out to the Feds. But the corporation has a plant in a local FBI office who seems to think somebody fed one of their agents some info about me, or at least about my activities. The source hasn't got names or details, and it kind of sounds to me like all this is, is someone speculating that one or two "accidental" deaths or robbery-related killings might be part of some larger pattern.

"You're sure everything is cool at home?" my handler from the corporation asked the other day. "No domestic troubles? Nothing that could lead a significant other to start talking to someone?"

Andy died four months ago, for Christ's sake, and I wanted to tell the handler that, but you don't disclose details like that to professional contacts. So all I said was, "No, no way, nothing like that. Nothing at all."

"Probably just some hotshot kid with a brain wave," my handler muttered, and sent me on my way, with a dossier on the Renses woman - fifty-four, never married, about to turn whistle-blower. I wondered whether the assignment had a double meaning: This is what happens to those we know, suspect, or even imagine are about to rat us out.

All of which makes me nervous twice over. These motherfuckers are jumpy and prone to extremes. The dossier's paper held no insights for me about my handler's own plans or feelings, nor did the paper clip that held the sheaf together. But that didn't mean someone higher up -- someone who didn't handle paperwork - might not be questioning whether I was a liability.

***

One by one, I tried on Andy's shirts. They spoke to me with the barest ghost of his presence. I rolled his socks onto my bare feet. I slipped his boxers and his pair of sexy red briefs over my balls and cock, and felt the unmistakable charge of his sexual electricity --�subtly, because clothing, like wood and paper, doesn't impress well. But Andy had worn these clothes all the time, and some part of him did stick. I put my head on his pillow and clutched, then wore, his Stanford class ring, which brought me a much stronger impression of my husband than his cotton bonds and synthetics. And speaking of rings, I even fished out his cock ring, which he seldom used, shucked off all the other garments, and lay naked on his side of the bed, trying to work the thing on. But I got so hard I couldn't manage it. So I jerked off, spitting into my hand and pumping my cockhead with desperate haste; it didn't take long for me to send six big, hot spurts across my belly and into my chest hair.

Andy, I wanted to bellow, Andy! Because I could almost feel him there with me, surrounded by his things, his cock ring still clutched in my free hand. I could almost feel the energy of him, smell him physically and mentally. Andy! Holy Jesus Christ!

This is how I can do what I do, how I can kill without remorse: The dead are never really dead to me. Their minds and characters, their affects and personalities, sometimes even their thoughts, are impressed in all the things that were theirs by virtue of those belongings having picked up so much of who they were. Of course, it's different when it's your own husband: When the lingering sense of him only underscores his physical absence. With that thought for the first time, I felt a pang of remorse for how I had robbed the families and friends of my victims. But I am not made of metal; like anything organic, like any human flesh, I pick up emotion and experience only poorly, and shake it loose easily. My long-held mindset wasn't about to be re-set into any other shape, not this quickly.

After I came, I lay there, the jizz liquefying and running sloppily down my flank, and sobbed for a good quarter hour: Just your friendly local contract killer having himself a good cry for his dead husband.

On top of the grief made sharp all over again by feeding myself this much Andy, I felt like a rat and a scoundrel. He had never said a thing to anybody. And other than one or two jerk-off sessions during flirtatious online chats -- something he did out of curiosity one weekend while I was away on an extended assignment, and something he himself had told me about -- he'd never done anything with any other man the whole time we'd been together. Once again, I was the spy, the one stealing around in black slippers, the one up to no good... the one who was never going to live up to the man who loved him.

I hated having to question Andy and look into his life with these suspicions, especially now that his life was over. That was one way in which I never wanted my work to intrude on my marriage. It felt like I was tarnishing him. It felt like a job that had already robbed me of too much time with him while he was alive was robbing me all over again, this time of the trust and integrity he had always just assumed about me.

This is the world we live in. It's no excuse, and it doesn't make anything better, but like I said before: In my line of work, you don't take any chances.