I was packing a bag in a room that no longer felt like mine, trying to drown out the muffled sounds coming from behind the bedroom door down the hall. She had walked past me earlier, naked and shameless, and spat out a command like I was a dog. “Just get out. Wait downstairs.
I’ll be along soon enough. ”
The man she’d brought into our bed, into our home, into the life I’d built for our children, didn’t even bother to cover himself. He just smirked at me from the doorway, a silent challenge I couldn’t accept. If I charged him, he’d beat me into the ground, and if I called the cops, she’d have me arrested.
There was no winning that fight. There was no winning any fight. She had already made that clear. “If you want a divorce, I’ll take everything you have and everything you will ever have,” she’d said the week before, her voice dripping with fake sweetness.
“You’ll lose the kids. The courts always give custody to the mother. I’ll get the house, alimony, child support. Just go along with it.
I’m doing it, and there is nothing you can do about it. ”
I used to think my life was hell. I was wrong. I was just sitting in hell’s waiting room.
The real hell came when I tried to take a shortcut out. She’d been a “cheating woman” almost from day one, I think. She kept me well-loved and happy long enough to push out two kids, then the love turned into a one-way street. She went out at night, came home later, then at dawn, then not at all.
She left a pot of stew in the fridge to feed me and the kids for the week while she did God knows what. I started cooking real meals just so my children could eat something decent. When I tried to talk about it, she shut me down. “I’m entitled to a little fun.
You’re away all day. You don’t know what it’s like. I have nothing to apologize for. ”
As the love faded, the spending got out of control.
She bled me dry, and I took it, because I was terrified of losing my kids. My lawyer confirmed my fears. It was a no-fault state. Even with evidence of her adultery, she would get custody, and I would pay her to raise them.
She was toxic. She treated the kids no better than she treated me. I couldn’t let her poison those gentle souls. I couldn’t let her ruin them forever.
So I called a friend. I’ll call him Jack. He’d been married to a horrible woman, and then one day she just up and left. A year later, he had an uncontested divorce.
If anyone could help me, he could. We met for a beer in a quiet bar. Jack leaned in close and told me a story that turned my blood to ice. “What I tell you stays between us.
You never tell a living soul. Do you understand me? ”
I nodded. “I understand.
”
“My wife didn’t just disappear. I made her disappear. ”
I stared at him. He wasn’t joking.
He told me about a man you meet once, face to face. Nothing is written down, but once the deal is made, it’s final. You place an ad in the personal section of the LA Times: “Sad man seeking relief from grief. ” Then you wait.
A man finds you. He asks if you’re seeking relief. You say yes. You take a walk, and you strike a contract.
The first target, your problem, will be taken care of, and it will look like an accident. “How do I pay? ” I asked. “That part’s easy,” Jack said with a smirk.
“A little money and your soul. ”
“You’re telling me I’m making a deal with the devil? ”
“He’s not the devil, but he might as well be. ”
He explained the rest.
You buy a marked antique, a painting, a boat. You pay way too much. It’s how you pay the down payment. Then, about a year later, they come back for the second half of your debt.
They give you another job, a new target, and *you* are the one who pulls the trigger. You earn your wife’s disappearance by being their murderer later. “The only reason you get your wife taken care of is because someone else before you agreed to do the same,” Jack said. I felt my stomach twist.
This wasn’t a one-time thing. This was forever. The only way out of my nightmare was to embrace something even darker. “Do you want to know who told me how to find you?
” I asked the man who finally approached me in the park weeks later. He gave a small smirk. “No. We have a pretty good idea.
It doesn’t matter either way. ”
I hesitated. “Is he in trouble? ”
His expression darkened.
“Word of mouth is how we operate. But if the wrong word reaches the wrong person, that creates a problem. And when we have a problem, we clean it up fast. ”
I had no doubt he meant it.
I learned my part. In about a month, an antique tea table would come up for auction. It was a worthless reproduction, but I had to fall in love with it. I had to win the bidding war and pay $220,000.
That would be my down payment. I’d get further instructions in a PO Box in about a year. “Can I at least be sure the second target deserves it? ” I asked.
“We don’t take contracts for convenience, profit, or petty revenge,” he said. “Our founders believed in making the world a better place. But make no mistake, you won’t have a choice once you say yes. This is your last chance to walk away.
Say no, and you’ll never hear from us again. Say yes, and you will see it through. ”
I thought of my wife, of the stranger in my bed, of my kids crying on the phone. “It’s my ex-wife,” I said.
“She’s truly evil. God only knows what she’s doing to my kids. ”
“Yes, we know. We do our homework.
”
I agreed. I was in. The auction was still two weeks away when my son called me, crying. “Mommy has a strange man in her bedroom and we’re scared.
He’s mean. He told Cindy he can’t wait for her to grow up. What does he mean, Daddy? ”
I was livid.
I told them to lock their door and called my brother to go over there. The cheating woman told him to bug off. My brother and sister tried again, but she threatened to call the cops. She was entrenching herself.
I couldn’t prove anything, and I was deemed the dangerous one. A man under that kind of pressure makes bad decisions. God help me, I bought the table. From that moment on, my fate was sealed.
Six weeks later, I got a knock on my front door. Two uniformed cops were standing there. “Can you account for your activities for the past six hours? ”
“I was at work until almost six, then went to the food store, and I’ve been sitting here since.
Why? ”
They told me someone had broken into my ex-wife’s house. She was dead. I sat down on the couch, staring at nothing.
Then I broke down and cried. They weren’t tears of joy. I didn’t laugh or celebrate. She was evil, but I felt a weight on my shoulders I had never felt before in my life.
“What about my kids? Are they all right? ”
“Yes, sir. They were upstairs doing homework.
Your brother and sister are with them now. ”
As soon as I knew my children were safe, I drove like a maniac to my brother’s house. The protection order she’d gotten against me was ignored. My kids were shaken but they were okay.
In some ways, it was the worst and the best night of my life. We went to a lawyer, filed papers, and Child Services interviewed my kids. The judge lifted the protection order. I had my kids back.
I cleaned up the house, tore up the carpets, painted the walls, and did everything I could to make it different from the house where their mother was killed. I got them therapy. My brother and sister wanted me to go too, and I did for a time, but I could never tell the therapist what was really bothering me. What was bothering me was the calendar.
Week by week, month by month, I knew what was coming. I went to my PO Box week after week. The box was empty. I started telling myself they’d forgotten me.
But I knew better. About a year after my wife’s death, there was a large manila envelope in the box, no return address. I took it to my car, opened it, and read my assignment. He beat his first wife.
He had a fondness for children. His second wife had two, a boy and a girl. His routine, his habits, his routes to and from work, his girlfriend’s name and workplace. They gave me a month to get it done.
They even gave me suggestions on how to eliminate a man. I studied it. I planned. I tried to run him down one night coming out of a bar, but I swerved at the last moment.
I thought about buying a gun, but I couldn’t do it. I lay awake at night looking for a solution that didn’t exist. I just didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t eliminate a man I didn’t know.
With that revelation, my fate was sealed. I made an appointment to see a lawyer and wrote out a will. In the event of my death, my children would go to my brother and his wife. They are good people.
They will raise them right. About two months later, I read in the paper that a man had been found in an alley, beaten, robbed, and killed. It was brutal. I recognized the name, and I knew what was coming.
I worried about my kids and put double locks on the windows and doors. I knew I couldn’t hide for long, so I did the only thing I could do for them. I figured I couldn’t stop them, but I could control where it happened. So I started eating lunch alone in the park, waiting for the end.
It was a Tuesday. About a month after that guy got killed in the alley, I walked up to my friend as he ate his lunch alone in the park. I sat down beside him on the bench. “I heard your wife died.
”
He didn’t look at me. “Yeah. ”
“Good. The kids are better off.
”
His gaze stayed fixed on the ground. “Yeah. ”
Frustration bubbled up inside me. “Damn it, I told you.
I told you the contract was binding. This wasn’t supposed to happen this way. ”
He finally spoke, his voice hollow. “I know.
I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t. ”
He turned for a moment and looked at me. He had tears in his eyes. He seemed to be looking at the missing finger on my left hand.
The price I had paid when I had hesitated. It had been the encouragement I needed back then. He looked away, studying the autumn leaves for a moment. “It’s okay.
I know the price I have to pay. I’m at peace with it. At least my kids are safe and happy. I didn’t get you into any trouble, did I?
”
“Not really,” I said. I put my hand on his shoulder for an instant, and I felt my soul burn to ash. I knew my eternal fate was sealed.
I put the barrel of the gun behind his left ear, and with one hard, cold tap, all that he knew was gone.
