It Cannot Get Any Worse

Chapter One

AnEasy Job

Darrin was not happy. Everything about this job made him uncomfortable. First and foremost it was a residential job in the suburbs. Darrin felt much more comfortable doing jobs in the city, he knew what to expect and where to go if there was any trouble. To make matters worse, this job was on an island, an island for Christ sake. Darrin did not even know people actually lived on islands here. He was assured it would not be a problem. The island was a quiet place and no one would be around.There were two bridges to get on or off the island so they would not likely get stuck. Darrin was not comforted by any of this

The Client was a huge chemical company with some sort of special connection to the Family. Darrin had done work for them before. Somehow, virtually overnight, the Client had arranged a special presentation for public safety officers in a nearby town. Darrin was assured the police and fire crews would be down to a bare bones crew of one each "This will be the easiest job ever" they told him "Pop across a bridge, do the job, pop back,go have a beer. We shouldn't even have to pay you for this one." It would take less than an hour.

Generally it did not bother Darrin much to kill someone, it was just the job. Usually the bastard had done something to deserve it – took money, hurt someone, snitched, whatever. However this job was different, this was just a guy who knew what should not be known. Darrin did not know what the guy knew,but he knew it was a silence job because he was told to leave no witnesses. Most jobs, they wanted witnesses. They were making an example of someone. Not silence jobs. Silence jobs, they wanted as little notice as possible. Make it look like an accident if you can.However this time there was no time to plan an accident. For whatever reason, this was urgent. It had to be today. These jobs always bothered Darrin. What if the guy has kids at home, or a dog?Well that is what the rest of the crew is for. Darrin was the thinker. He was careful, thought everything through, never made mistakes and usually kept his hands clean. That is why Darrin was the crew leader. However sometimes being a thinker came with a price.Sometimes Darrin was uncomfortable with the job. This was one of those times.

Darrin was also not happy with the crew. The more experienced and talented guys were tied up on another project that actually sounded like fun. They were breaking into offices and destroying computers. That was more fun than killing some

guy to keep him quiet. Everyone wanted to smash computers, so all the better guys were not available.

Darrin's crew for this job was two guys. A small crew for an easy job.

Ely was the team second. Ely was competent, calm and smart. What bothered Darrin about Ely was that he liked to hurt people and seemed to love killing. He was methodical,but he always wanted to talk to the guy first. He really got off on watching someone die. That kind of person came with too many risks,plus he was just kind of evil seeming. Working with Ely made Darrin feel dirty. Today, Ely was edgy and in a terrible mood. He had been to the island before for a party. He wandered into the woods with a girl he met and discovered he is severely allergic to poison ivy. All the way here, Ely was chattering about poison ivy and how he ended up in the hospital for a week.

Still, Ely was better than their backup- Crazy Bobby. Bobby was, . . . well, . . . crazy. He just did notcare about anything. Bobby was wild, sloppy, noisy. However nothingstopped Bobby, nothing got in his way. You cut Bobby loose when youwanted a mess. Otherwise you needed to keep him caged. Bobby hadkilled more people than anyone on any crew Darrin had worked with –because when Bobby cut loose, Bobby killed everyone and destroyedeverything. Bobby might be useful on a "no witnesses" job, butnot on a "keep it quiet" job, Darrin intended to keep Crazy Bobbywell caged.

This was Darrin's eighth hit, He hopedit would be the last. Darrin had been an enforcer for the Family forfifteen years. It wasn't all killing, sometimes they just brokethings, and sometimes they just talked to people. It wasn't a badjob. It paid extremely well. Darrin had a significant nest egg tuckedaway in a safety deposit box. Enough to lie low for the rest of hislife if he was very frugal.