The Housewife Assassin's Handbook (2 page)

–A riding crop.

Ouch. Seems that the cowboy metaphor is becoming more appropriate by the moment.

Damn it! Acme had implied that Yuri was into bondage, not sadism. There had better be a bonus in this for me.

He runs the whip up my left leg until it catches on the thin silky thread that is my G-string. With one quick twitch of his wrist, it snaps right off.

Damn it, that hurt!

Very slowly he slaps precise little welts onto my belly as he works the whip over to my other thigh, but pauses when it reaches what is left of the G-string, so that I might agonize over the pain yet to come. My wince brings a sick smile to his face. Now I’m feeling a bit queasy, even if he isn’t.

Stall! Say anything… Do anything…

“What, you want the dessert before the main course?’ I taunt him. “Naughty boy!”

This only provokes him into slapping me all the harder. What is left of the G-string shreds into thin air. With a guffaw, he takes its little lace patch and holds it up like a trophy before flinging it across the room. It lands near the door with a skip.

Suddenly I notice that his eyes are crossing. He sits down on the bed. Falls down, really–

–Onto me. All 174 pounds of him.

And I don’t think he’s breathing. So, the combination of Rohypnol and Viagra was a toxic trail mix after all.

More like fatal. Still, a hit is a hit is a hit.

I jerk at the trick cuffs, but they won’t open. With Yuri on top of me, I’m angled all wrong to break their hold. With my chest, I shove him as hard as I can, but for some strange reason, he’s not budging. Then I realize why.

The only thing left standing is his erection, and it has him staked between my legs.

Great. Just great.

As I struggle under his limp-but-where-it-counts-most carcass, I hear muffled noises from the other side of the door. It sounds like a skirmish.

The two faint thumps I hear next tell me that something is terribly wrong.

Someone is trying to break down the door. It gives way, and I see Ugly the Skinhead standing there. As he whips out a 9mm, I realize that the thumps were Yuri’s posse being taken out.

And now it’s our turn.

Even from the doorway, Ugly’s aim is dead on. As the bullet enters the back of Yuri’s skull, the Russian jerks forward, and we butt heads. As much as that hurts, it has also saves my life: as my head snaps back, the bullet that just left his frontal lobe whizzes by mine by mere millimeters. Still, that doesn’t stop a geyser of Yuri’s blood and gray matter from spurting onto my face. I freeze in horror.

“Fuckin’ Commie. And fuckin’ Commie-fucker.”

Between my temporary paralysis and my Yuri-spattered countenance, Ugly assumes that I’m dead, too, and turns to leave–

But pauses at the sight of my G-string.

He lumbers over to where it’s fallen and squats down to pick it up. After sniffing it, he stuffs it into his pocket. Obviously he feels that is a fitting trophy for his kill. Or, in his mind, two kills.

He stalks out, slamming the door behind him.

Silence.

Shit, I have to get out of here. Now.

But that’s almost impossible to do, what with Yuri still on top of me.

Granted, the Marmont is used to strange noises from behind its many closed doors. Still, it’s been a while since a dead body was found in one of its suites, let alone three. Of course, I imagine the worst:

That someone heard something, or maybe even saw Ugly the Skinhead leaving Yuri’s bungalow, and has called the hotel’s staff, which will soon come to investigate;

That, after tapping on the door and getting no response, they will burst in, see Yuri’s dead bodyguards, and find Yuri on top of me, then call the police;

That, to my children’s horror, I get arrested for prostitution;

That, to Acme’s dismay, I will be called as a witness at Yuri’s murder trial, which will force them to contract with another assassin to finish the job Ugly started on me.

Worse yet, I imagine my son Jeff’s face when he realizes that he’ll miss his chance to pitch in today’s county title game, which moves his baseball team, the Hilldale Wildcats, one step closer to being the major league state champs–

And that once again it’s my fault.

It’s that last vision that does the trick for me.

It has been documented that mothers involuntarily demonstrate incredible feats of strength when their children’s safety is threatened. I am living proof that this phenomenon also occurs when their kids’ championship games are at stake. Defying Yuri’s gravitational pull, I heave myself to a forty-five degree angle, which finally gives me the leverage I need in order to jerk my wrists free from the cuffs. With my hands now free, I can shove Yuri to one side.

At least, what is left of him.

I stumble to the bathroom. Leaving on my gloves, I shove my face under the faucet and wash Yuri’s brains and skull off my face and out of my hair, before staggering back out into the bedroom, where I retrieve my handcuffs and my dagger from under the mattress. Then I jump back into my hooker attire, which I had dropped onto the plush chair by the bed. As planned, I leave from the terrace door, grabbing Yuri’s cuppa joe with me as I go.

In my now ruined spiked heels, I totter up Monteel, the road that meanders high above the hotel, sprinkling what’s left in Yuri’s coffee onto a thirsty bougainvillea and burying the cup deep inside a garbage can of a neighbor who has left it curbside for pickup. Besides the fact that a mommy mobile like my Toyota Highlander Hybrid minivan would surely stand out in that sea of Jags, Rolls, and Lamborghinis in the Marmont’s lot, in my line of work I can’t allow the Marmont’s valet the opportunity to ID me.

Just my luck: my van is sporting a ticket that is not even ten minutes old. I do that math: that means that the job took a half hour longer than I anticipated. Aw, hell, I’m going to be late picking up the boys for the ball game. The Highlander would have to be the only car on the road (a fantasy in midday, mid-week Los Angeles), run every traffic light, and break every speed record known to man in order for me to get the boys to the game in time.

I do have another option: call my carpool partner, Penelope Bing, and ask her to cover for me…

Hell no. That would hurt even more than Yuri’s whip.

She’s bailed me out twice in less than a month: the time I was late getting back after taking out some hothead set on assassinating the Pope while he was here in LA; and then there was that hit I had in Seattle, when I’d booked United on the return flight. (On that one, I should have known better and flown Southwest.)

If I have to hear Penelope’s smug barbs again, I’ll cry. “Really, Donna, what is it this time? Another tennis lesson? My God, you’d think, after all that time on the court, you’d finally find your backhand. Maybe you’re taking lessons from the wrong pro. It’s Fernando, right?”

The implication being that I’m lying. Again.

And for the wrong reason: that reason perhaps being that I’m two-timing my husband, Carl, with the local country club’s tennis pro. Fernando, with his bulging biceps and swarthy grin, leaves many of the club’s female members panting, both on the court and in the bedroom.

Considering the number of times I’ve disappeared in the middle of the day, the assumption has merit to Penelope and her gossip-mongering clique. As if I would! As if I even could be unfaithful to Carl…

To hell with her.

I hit the road, tossing on a sweatshirt as I drive. At the longest turn-light on Sunset–the one at Beverly–I wrangle on my jeans under Mary’s miniskirt before yanking it off. The trucker to my left hoots his horn loudly to show his sincere appreciation.

Miracle of miracles, I pull up only four minutes late! Relief floods Jeff’s face. The Terrible Two–his buddies Morton Smith and Cheever Bing, Penelope’s little angel–have been giving him a rough time. My tardiness is infamous. But now it’s my turn to be smug.

Mary is standing there with them. Usually you would not catch her anywhere near her little brother and his friends, but Morton’s older brother, Trevor, is also hitching a ride to the game, and he’s a hottie, what with all that blond curly hair and those soulful eyes. To keep them peeled on her, Mary tosses her long flowing mane whenever he glances in her direction. Watching her, my heart leaps into my throat. At twelve, she’s already a first-class flirt.

Just like her mother.

The kids clamor into the back of the van, and we’re off. Mary, who, on any given day would have taken the passenger seat up front, chooses the two-seat row in the middle instead, with Trevor.

I maneuver around a Porsche going too slow for my taste, and in the process get honked by a bus. The driver is miffed because we’ve killed any chance he has of making the light.

“Cool driving, Mrs. Stone.” Trevor’s approval wins me a temporary reprieve. Then he smiles shyly at Mary. “So, you and your dad will be at the Parent-Student dance this Friday, right?”

This eighth grade rite of passage is one of the highlights of the school year. Two years from now, it will be my turn to go with Jeff. Although it’s Mary’s turn, without Carl there to take her, she will miss out.

Jeff and Mary’s father is never there for them, no matter what the occasion.

This is why she retorts, “No way! I wouldn’t be caught dead there. It’s for dorks.”

Certainly not for a girl who hasn’t seen her father in years.

But Trevor doesn’t know this. Seeing his crestfallen face, Mary falls silent. She is angry with herself.

No really, she is mad at Carl.

I run the last light between the baseball field and us. Yes! Yes! We’re only nine minutes late!

I’ve won Jeff’s approval. I know this because he stops to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. “So Mom, you brought my athletic cup, like I asked, right?”

“What? But I … don’t remember!” I rummage through the athletic bag that was packed this morning: uniform, hat, glove, cleats—

But no athletic cup.

“I called and asked you to get it from my underwear drawer, like, four times!”

The caller ID on my cell confirms this.

Aw, heck.

League rules: No one plays without a cup. Not even if you’re the team’s star pitcher. Because of me, Jeff will be benched for this very important game, which could bring the Wildcats even closer to the Orange County Major League division title.

And there is no way I can make it to the house and back in time. We both know that.

Cheever pumps his fist in the air. He is the team’s back-up pitcher.

A tear rolls down Jeff’s cheek as he staggers to the back of the van.

“Jeff, I’m so sorry,” I say. But I know he can’t stand to hear my lame excuse.

Why should he? He’s heard them all before.

“Hey, Mom, what’s my denim skirt doing back here?” Mary holds it up to me, accusingly, before shrieking “Ewwwyuck!”

I glance over and notice that it is sprayed with some sort of white goo. One of the larger chunks is covered in hair follicles.

Yuri’s.

But that doesn’t seem to bother the Terrible Two. Otherwise they wouldn’t be mimicking Mary’s high-pitched squeal as they toss her skirt back and forth like a hot potato.

Once again, I’m back in the doghouse with my kids.

At least, until I outrun a Ferrari or something. 

Chapter 2

Spring Cleaning

The key to spring cleaning is to be ruthless! Throw out anything and everything you never use. (Or that may be incriminating. Burn, if necessary, but remember—if using gasoline, those fires should be contained in a non-flammable container.) Most certainly, though, you should make a place in your cozy home for items that have sentimental value. Handy tip: create an “altar” that provides the appropriate showcase! Perhaps a curio cabinet…

It is naptime here at the Stone household. While Trisha snores softly in her bed, the cherry pie in the oven releases its sweet, heady fragrance throughout the house. The only sound that can be heard is the mute ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer.

Well, that, and my muffled sobs. Yep, it’s the perfect time for my own private pity party.

I’m crying because I miss my husband, Carl.

He is absent from my life, not (as my neighbors will tell you) because he’s the ultimate workaholic. And not (as my children think) because he left me for another woman.

The truth of the matter is that Carl is dead.

As part of my mourning process, I take the antique heart-shaped locket I inherited from my mother from its resting place in our living room curio cabinet, and open it to stare at the only picture that still exists of Carl. 

In it, he is smiling slyly, like a bad little boy with a secret. I now know what it was. You see, Carl was a CIA operative. I found that out five years ago, on the evening he was murdered. 

Worse yet, it was the very night Trisha, our youngest daughter, was born.

Not that I’ll ever divulge that to Jeff, Mary, or Trisha. In part, because I can’t accept that truth myself. 

It’s why I work as a paid killer. My freelance assignments for Acme are how I avenge his death. Each hit takes me closer to the bastards who took him away from us.