Scars (Edited)

Fatal Mistake

   A day and a half has passed since Victor first locked his wife downstairs along with her beloved bastard.  Victor had always known he’d had a mistake in choosing Stephany to be his next wife, she had always had too much spirit to listen to his reasoning and, now, he was planning a way to fix his fatal mistake.  The child had started crying a few minutes ago which means soon both mother and babe would be out like a light and he would leave to talk to an old friend.  Victor slunk out of the front door shortly after and found himself driving his old beat up Chevy towards the north side of town; the better side of town.  Richmond and Victor have been best friends since they were in diapers, because of this, Victor has let Richie in on everything and anything.

   Victor pulls up to the two-story gray house Richie had bought with the money his parents left him in their will and gets out of the rusty Chevy with a soft ‘ummf”.  A few years back, when he had bought the truck, Victor hadn’t stopped to think about how old age would affect his ability to climb in and out of the old clunker or how it would look when he’d pull up to a work function with his wife and baby with him.  You see, Victor and Richie both work at Mobile Mart, a car dealership on Walnut and East Bennet, and an old truck stuck out like a sore thumb against a parking lot of flashy Corvette Stingrays and sleek Ford Mustangs.  This is why Victor was careful not to bruise Stephany anywhere visible.  Her arms are an exception though and Victor was sure to always keep her in something with long sleeves.  There is no point in repeating past mistakes now is there?

   Knocking on the door, Victor is greeted immediately by the bachelor, Richie.  Inside, the house is that of a control freak, everything is in its proper place with labels and tags marking them as what they are.  Victor snorts, he’s always thought that Richie needed to let the reins go and live a little but he also knew just how hard that could be, after all, didn’t he loosen the reins for Taylor?  Or how about Hannah?  And maybe Brittney?  Hadn’t it only led to the same problem he has now, a disobedient wife?  Stephany is now a problem and she has got to go.  And the baby?  Well, the baby is able to be removed from the equation just as easily as his mother.

   “Did you get what I asked you for?” Victor asks Richie first thing, his beady eyes scanning the area around the house briefly before the door is closed and locked behind him.  Richie, a neat man with carefully clipped salt and pepper hair and brown eyes that are almost wistful, nods and leads Victor into the study just off to the right of the entry hall.  Once the door is closed and the blinds drawn, Richie walks around a large roll away desk and to a picture hanging on the wall.
“Hold this.” He tells Victor having removed the painting to reveal a safe he’d had built into the wall years ago to hold the items Victor would have him get a hold of.  The password entered, the iron door is pulled open and Richie pulls out a hand gun.  Once he has it in his hand, Victor tests the weight out and checks the clip; fully loaded.  “The serial number has been filed down and I’ve got gloves in the drawer for you to wear when you use it.  Found her on the market for twenty dollars figure she’s been used for this before.”

   Richie has never spoken much (which is very surprising as he sells cars for a living) so Victor accepted the little bit of information he is given and smiles slightly.  “Does it work, though?”  To get a weapon, a gun for that matter, for twenty bucks either something is wrong with it or someone really wanted to get rid of it in a hurry.

   “You can try it out, there’s a target around back.” Richie replies and Victor thinks of something he’d thought of several times since his first marriage; Richmond is a liability.  Turning the gun on his best friend, Victor pulls the trigger without hesitating.  With an audible click, the gun goes off and Richmond is no more.

   “Yep” Victor tells himself feeling extremely proud of himself “it works.”  Grabbing the gloves Richie had mentioned moments before, Victor leaves, wiping his finger prints off of the door knob, the only thing in the house he’d touched, as he goes.