© Douglas M. MacIlroy
He always took a photo at the end of each job as a keepsake. He’d taken out Frankie “the Weasel” Puleo, who WITSEC squirreled away out here renting cheap kayaks.
It was just a job. Last month, it was a Federal Judge. Next time, it might be a State Senator or a rival drug dealer. No matter as long as he got paid.
Ed wasn’t a great photographer, but he enjoyed it. He just had enough time to make his flight. Helen said the kids were having choir practice at St. Andrews and he didn’t want to miss it.
I wrote this for the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 99.
I couldn’t figure out what the object in the foreground was (some kind of torch or lantern?), so I focused on the structure, the truck, and the kayaks in back. The rest sort of evolved from there.
Oh, WITSEC is the Witness Security Program, otherwise known as the Federal Witness Protection Program, operated by the US Marshall’s service.
To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
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That must be a weird life, being a hit man who pretends to have a normal square lifestyle. Everybody leads at least a bit of a double life but that’s really pushing it.
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I think this has been done about a billion times before, Larry. In the 2010 film “Red” starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, and Morgan Freeman, actor Karl Urban plays a CIA assassin who otherwise is married and has small children, living a perfectly suburban lifestyle.
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Yes it gets lots of mileage in storytelling but it’s still quite a major eyebrow.raiser
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Good story! The “object” in the photo is a disc golf basket.
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Thanks, Teresa. I thought I’d seen something like it before, but nothing came to mind.
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Oh, that’s a good and chilling one! I enjoyed your interpretation of the photo prompt.
http://susan-a-eamestravelfictionandphotos.blogspot.ie/2018/04/spirit-spinner-100-word-story.html
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Thanks, Susan. I’m sure it wasn’t the first idea to came to everyone else’s mind. 😉
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There’s kayaks? Oh. Yeah, now I see them.
I’m waiting for a sequel in which someone finds the pictures.
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I thought about hinting at something like that, but decided against it. Besides, to a casual observer, the photos does mean anything. Only if someone connected them to crime scenes would it become a problem.
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The pictures were taken before rather than after? Ah! I see.
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Pretend the photo at the top of the page was taken after the murder and outside of the structure in which the body is lying. All you see is a scene of some objects with no hint that anyone is dead. Only Ed knows what it means.
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Golf courses are a great places for meets and deals. I am not sure but may be disc golf courses are too. Liked the way you linked this with Witness Protection Program.
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Made sense. We actually had a mobster from Boston hiding in Idaho as a rancher, but WITSEC wasn’t involved.
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Dear James,
I don’t think WITSEC is doing a lot of good in this situation. 😉
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Maybe there’s a mole inside WITSEC. See the 1996 film “Eraser,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan, and Vanessa Williams.
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I guess assassins have normal lives to – I wonder if they have families. It’s an intriguing thought. Well done for creating a truly creepy character James – the idea of taking photos after a hit is truly abhorrent, in a sort of good way
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Thanks, Lynn. He doesn’t take photos of the bodies, just something indicative of the general scene around the hit. Only he knows what they really mean.
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Sounds dark James
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I don’t see how it could be otherwise, Lynn.
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Makes a lovely photo album…
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You think:? 😀
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Cold, cold man. Gives me the creeps.
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It’s called “compartmentalization.”
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I like that you didn’t know what it was nor researched it 😉
This was a good take on the prompt… be home in time for choir practice after work is done! 😉
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Actually, I did a Google image search, but all the algorithm saw was grass. I figured for a hundred words, that was good enough. 😉
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It was more than good enough! Quite imaginative, too 🙂
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An avocation! Great read.
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Thanks.
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I’m doing Eternal Truths this week. What Ed doesn’t realize is that “what goes around comes around.” Someone will someday decide he knows too much.
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Maybe. I read something a blogger wrote yesterday about a documentary of a mafia hitman. He was in prison, so I guess eventually consequences catch up with you, but then again, how would we ever know if they didn’t?
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You’re right; we wouldn’t ever. There probably are a lot of murders and crimes that go unsolved. However, I’ve observed that there’s a certain “eye for an eye” justice being dispensed in this old world. It’s fair and often more impressive than jail time, coming as it does with the needling reminders of conscience. Your character would pay a painful price if his family discovered his hobby.
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In the 2010 film “Red” starring Bruce Willis and Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban plays CIA assassin William Cooper, who has been assigned to “take out” Willis’s character Frank Moses. Moses is a retired Black Ops agent, and because of his job, he never attached or invested in a family.
Cooper, on the other hand, is married and has several young children. Parker plays Sarah Ross, someone Moses has allowed himself to be attracted to, and because of this, Cooper has her kidnapped and held so Moses will turn himself in.
Instead, Moses finds Cooper’s family, and while the Mom is playing outside with the children, Moses calls Cooper from Cooper’s house phone and not so vaguely threatens to kill his family unless he releases Sarah.
It’s a bluff and by the time Cooper gets home along with a whole bunch of cops, he discovers his family is fine and Moses is long gone. It teaches Cooper that he’ll always be vulnerable as long as someone can reach out to his wife and children.
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A hitman with a hobby. And a family. Great cover!
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Probably not as far fetched as we might believe.
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Now that’s what I call an air of detachment.
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I think to be successful in that game, it would be necessary.
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Great title, James. I would never have guessed it wasnt about a regular person. It’s fascinating that he has a family too. I can’t imagine their heart ache if they are in the dark about his profession.
Really liked your story, especially since I hardly ever read crime stories. Gave me a glimpse of a person juggling between two entirely different worlds.
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I suspect that’s what has to happen in real life. Sociopaths can be very hard to read. Thanks, Moon.
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I wonder how he finds them.
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He’s an assassin for hire, so he doesn’t have to find anyone. His employers locate the victims and then pay Ed to dispose of them discretely.
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Oh, what an oddly balanced, or unbalanced life he leads.
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One might say it has to be perfectly balanced for both sides to co-exist.
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Those photographs would definitely be a risk if he ever became a suspect for even one of his hits. Well told, James!
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Thanks, Penny. At one point, I was going to use the photos to give him away, but 100 words only goes so far.
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what a double life he leads.
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It would be tough to be a hitman and not lead a double life. Thanks.
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I think a lot of people compartmentalize their lives. It’s probably mandatory if you’re a hit man. Intriguing aspect, having him take those photographs and you add a touch of the ordinary there by saying he isn’t very good at it.
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Actually, I thought the photo said that itself, so I just put it in, Jilly. Thanks.
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Really intriguing. The difference between the two parts of his life is startling.
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That’s the point of the story. Thanks.
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I guess he sees it as a job just like any other. You have to make time for the kids … and the wife too.
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Good story James. The idea someone can live a normal life while carrying out such a job will always be fascinating to those of us who can’t ever envisage killing someone without it playing heavily on our minds
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Certainly it’s a career only for a few, Michael.
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I think if he could follow his true passion, it would be photography. Just that the contract-killings make him money and maybe time flexibility.
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Yes, he makes more money as a hit man than he ever would as a photographer. Still, he gets to combine both.
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Just a job for some… you have to feed your family after all.
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A job that could land him on death row in some states if he’s caught.
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A sombre story, and so believable. I have read press accounts of how murderers maintain double lives, so that when caught by the police, their families say ‘we had no idea, he was a good father….’ guess I believe the families.
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It’s quite possible that a professional hitman (or hitwoman) could also be a good spouse and parent if their lives are so completely compartmentalized. It must be tremendously confusing for their families when they are caught and their double-life is revealed.
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