How gullible she’d been believing for one second that coming to the States would be a fresh, clean start. The past had an annoying way of staying anywhere but, and as she pulled leather gloves on her hands, she realized that the unsavory line of business she found herself in was nothing if not profitable. 

The problem with money was that it made for disloyal friends and very greedy enemies.

Hiring him had been a terrible mistake. She knew that now. Via loathed the cops but begrudgingly decided that the advantages of having one on the payroll could outweigh the potentially high price tag. And after he’d walked in on a fairly large deal that could have gone very wrong and expensively so, she had been left with little choice. Most cops turned their heads at the alcohol these days. Few cared about the drugs. But there was money in trafficking the large crates she had shipped to her little bar in Detroit. And it wasn’t the local fuzz who’d want to slap the cuffs on her. Quite a few international agencies would love to have her pretty head behind bars. Trading stolen art and jewelry left unclaimed after the war was a despicable crime. She slept well at night by reminding herself that since the original owners couldn’t have them, at least Via could ensure the Germans wouldn’t.

The chair was newly upholstered and soft. Expensive. She sat silently in the dark, annoyed knowing that every luxury in the cramped studio apartment just one block from government housing was purchased with the money she’d lined his pockets with. And all he had to do was shut his fucking mouth about it.

Silence was easy to buy, but terribly expensive to upkeep.

The shower went on for ages. It had been a perfect cover for when she entered the place unheard, but now as the steam from the closed bathroom door curled out in wispy clouds, she grew more and more agitated that he was making her wait. The Beretta Model 1934 grew heavier and heavier in her hands and the humidity made her curls wilt.

With a loud screech of old pipes, the water stopped. Via moved to her place just outside the bathroom door where she wouldn’t be seen when he exited.

***

The bitter taste of copper filled his mouth when he released his lower lip from the grasp of his teeth. A warm droplet oozed from his wound and down his chin, falling on the carpet in a small carmine puddle between his knees. He knelt, and prayed as he had never prayed before, to the cold black heart of the Italian-made service gun. In the time it took for a tear to travel down his cheek, thirty years flashed before his eyes.   

His voice strained to escape from his throat; a pathetic, raspy whisper. "My wife." A pause, then a jagged and punctuated intake of breath. It hurt to breathe, and each inhalation brought a badly broken rib dangerously close to puncturing the wall of his right lung. "I have kids." Heaving sobs overtook him, and Via listened, disgusted.

“Liar.” she whispered, pressing the gun to his temple. He shivered as the realization set in that he would die soon, naked, wet and kneeling in his rundown apartment. “Hazard of the job, John. Having a conscience. When you’re working both sides of the law and you turn your back on one, the other side tends to notice."

She checked her watch. Any minute now. She could feel the distant rumbling of metallic thunder as the train approached. “It’s a shame,” she continued. “I was growing rather fond of our relationship."

“You don’t understand. Please!” But his last words fell upon deaf ears; his voice barely audible even to himself.  Fear swallowed him and the smell of urine filled the room. 

He did not hear the shot. The train rumbled by outside, close enough to rattle the windows, blaring it’s horn as it charged through the downtown. 

Death came in a messy instant; splattering brain matter and memories on the crumbling eggshell walls.  His face (at least what was left of it) drooped with an odd juxtaposition of bored surprise, his eyes closed slightly and the muscles of his jaw relaxed. With his mouth sagging, his body slumped and fell to the floor with a thud. Blood poured forth from his gaping wound and advanced on the floor; a liquid army on a Berber battlefield unaware that the war was already lost. 

The train rumbled in the distance and like she, was just passing through. Via picked up an ejected shell casing from the floor, extinguished the light, and exited the front door to the residence of the unemployed and now deceased John Upton. 

Will parked the car in the alley, and looked at his watch.  Slowly, he got out of the car, closed the door silently, and looked toward the train tracks.  He peered up at the building then began the slow walk around the corner.  His hand stayed close to his holster, his eyes focused on his surroundings.  

He stopped for a moment outside the building, and took another thorough look around.  Nobody.  It was a dead black night.  The moon barely visible behind some clouds.  

As he heard the train approaching, he sped up his gait.  He quietly entered the building, made his way through the lobby and up the stairs.  He crept through the hallway and  stopped outside the door just as the approaching train reached full steam rumbling by.

Mine saw someone enter a door from his apartment he took out a phone and took a picture of the person.

He was suspicious as he did not see people around there a lot.

His presence startled her, but Via quickly composed herself as she shut the door behind her, turning the handle so as not to have a loud click announce her presence. Their eyes met in the dim light from a grimy end of the hall window. She gave a short, terse nod. The job was done. Tilting her head, she indicated it was time to leave. The train was on it's way out of the city, and they needed to follow suit.

They walked down the stairs in silence and reached the front door of the apartment building. Will held the door open and Via stepped out into an unusually warm night for February. "I thought you were staying in the car?" she said as she pulled at the fingers of the glove on her left hand.

He half-heartedly shrugged, and tried not to smile.  

"What can I say, I got a little worried."

He took one more look around as they walked swiftly toward the car.  The train was gone, and it was time for them to do the same.  He arrived at the car just ahead of Via, opened her door, and waited.

"That took a little longer than expected."

She caught the struggle to keep from smiling. Her lips pursed and she pulled the fingers of the glove off her right hand much more harshly than she had the left.

"You were checking up on me?!" The fact this didn't seem to discourage the smile. In a huff that was only slightly for show, she stepped into the car and tucked the gloves into her oversized clutch that housed the Beretta.

"He took an exceptionally long shower. I had to wait."

his smile had reached full bloom by the point when he closed her door.  He sat back in the driver's seat, closed his door, and turned on the car. Will peeked into the rearview and caught her glare. 

"I wasn't checking up on you.  I just worry about you."  

He put the car in drive, and they began their journey back to the other side of the city.

"Well, it looks like there weren't too many issues."