Defective - A Psychopath's Tale

Chapter 6

Emergency services responded quicker than I'd expected. I'd traveled over ten kilometers and was almost to the paved secondary road when I saw flashing lights coming at me and heard the siren. Like a good law abiding citizen of the American Guild of States I pulled onto the shoulder and stopped until the emergency vehicle passed me.

The sheriff's deputy passed by me at a high rate of speed. He must have had the Mopar Pursuit Special floored. I supposed the local law didn't have many murders... assassinations in their county. I'd provided a little excitement in their otherwise drab and dreary lives. I doubted they'd thank me.

Once on the paved secondary road I had to pull over again as two more sheriff's cars passed me; then again for three more and finally a fourth time, four state police vehicles went by, the last was a Crime Investigation Division van. They weren't holding anything back. This seemed a bit much for a dead whore to me; even if she belonged to a high end sex service company. Nothing in her file that mentioned belonging to any sex service company. She was an independent. Killed by The Arrow; maybe this wasn't a bit much.

Mister Tullis' son always fucked independents. Primarily because his old man didn't want him using a service to find prostitutes. He didn't want the paper trail; especially if one needed to have her clock punched. Independents didn't keep records, sex service companies had to.

The mark was fine, but not that fine. The view of her ass crossed my mind again, then that feeling came over me, the one that said I'd missed something. The job was perfect, I hadn't fucked up at all.

I took the car to a fuel station not far from the airport and topped it off. I also ran the car through the carwash and checked it over for anything that might leave a trail. Satisfied all was good, I drove back to the parking lot I'd requisitioned the car from. The spot next to my truck was still open. Perfect. I pulled in and checked the camera then went about the routine of putting my gear in the truck and returning the parking sticker to the car it came from.

Once clear of the airport I ran my own truck through a different carwash after topping its tank of alcohol off. Just like the car, I vacuumed out the inside good. Then I took it back to its resting place, covered it and made my way back to the airport.

This time I took an even more evasive route home.

That nagging feeling in the back of my brain followed me. Security at every airport was normal. I checked the news feeds at every airport, all the reports were... normal. No one was talking about 'The Arrow' and no one was asking about me. The job had gone perfect and everything was... normal. Then why did this nagging persist? There was no reason and I had no answer.

The only rational explanation was that 1) I hated rush jobs, 2) I didn't like punching a girl's clock, and 3) I fulfilled the objective when the mark was with her friend, another girl, and I'd traumatized her for life. She'd never be able to get the image of her friend hanging from the wall out of her memories.

Five years ago, this never would've bothered me. Five years ago I hadn't met Sheila. Five years ago I was a different boy. Five years ago I'd have already sent the boss the video of the hit. I still hadn't done that. At my next stop I went into the bathroom and clipped some stills from the video and put them in the cloud then messaged the boss. It wasn't two minutes later he responded. He wanted the video, not 'no damn stills'. What could I do? He was the boss. I'd hoped the stills would have satisfied his hunger.

The boss was nothing like his father, my first boss. He'd 'retired' about fifteen years ago. The boss was allowed to retire and live out his days as he saw fit. Mister Tullis Sr. retired at 72 and turned the family business over to his son. My boss's father wouldn't have sent a problem solver to handle a problem like this hooker; he'd have handled it personally and made the girl suffer for what she'd done with his own hands. The current mister Tullis had never so much as seen a hit live, let alone dealt with a problem himself. He'd probably shit himself.