Thrillho

 

1.

 

A bullet screams through the night, one hundred and thirteen storeys above the bustling city streets, and buries itself in the skull of millionaire industrialist Baram Mallory.

 

Before the twin sprays of blood and brain had finished raining down on the opulent rooftop patio, Oscar nodded in satisfaction and pulled his eye away from the scope. Confirmation was always the easiest part of his job; there was very little ambivalence when it came to determining whether or not an appointment had been kept. The sight of the unmagnified world came rushing back, and he could once again appreciate (and perhaps take just a little bit of pride in) the difficulty of the shot.

 

Baram Mallory owned, or at least had so recently owned, the top twenty-odd storeys of Triumph, the tallest and, in Oscar's opinion, gaudiest monument to excess of the four skyscrapers that bracketed, what else, Mallory Plaza. Triumph, Victory, Excelsior and Conquest, each taller than the next, and each one clad in linear but still somehow swirling deco shells of gleaming metal and black marble.  Triumph was draped in so much chrome that it was reputed there were always two crews at any given moment polishing the facade, ground floor to penthouse, day and night, rain or shine.

 

Oscar could confirm this was a lie. It was actually four crews, one for each compass direction, and one of those teams was going to have a hell of a cleanup once Mallory's molls gathered their wits and reported the crime.

 

“Crime,” Oscar snorted, dragging the monstrous rifle back from the birdshit-smeared parapet of the Chalmers Building. “That's a laugh.”

 

More than a mile separated the south-facing rooftop patio of Triumph from the north-facing clocktower terrace of the Chalmers Building, as the crow flew. Taking into account the slight declination, and of course the arc the bullet would take as it soared up, drifted west, and descended, Oscar had calculated it as 2033 yards, give or take the variation in where Mallory would have been sitting at the time. By any measurements, that was a hell of a shot.

 

His shot, Oscar thought. That's what they're gonna call it, someday. Oscar's Shot.

 

He stomped that thought down, grinding it into the rocky soil of his mind. There were precious few things in this world that could make him smile, but he wasn't about to add murder to that list. This was just cold, hard math. Metal and numbers, nothing more.

 

He shifted around, putting his back to the low concrete wall, and laid the tank-killing rifle flat. More than five feet long from stock to mole-snout, it broke down into three pieces that still required a full-sized suitcase to conceal. The five-pointed suppressor at the mouth of the barrel  looked like a collection of stainless steel funnels, and he'd be damned if he could explain how they worked, but he wasn't going to argue the point. The shot had come off like a dream.

 

In the back of his mind, he wondered where they'd find the bullet. The original weapon's ammunition had been designed to pierce two-inch armor plating at a half mile; the one he'd fired tonight was longer, heavier, and made from some material denser than pure gold. One single skull wasn't going to slow it down appreciably. Still, there were no comparably sized buildings on the line that spanned from the Chalmers Building to Triumph, and on through to the ocean. Barring some sort of massive ricochet, it was probably lying at the bottom of the bay right now, maybe a mile out to sea, maybe more.

 

Pity, he mused. Could have made some money selling that. The Bullet That Killed The Modern Age. I could retire on that.

 

His hands moved swiftly and surely, breaking down the rifle into its various components and slipping them back into the velvet-lined pockets of his suitcase. Two indentations for the magnificently-threaded barrel, one for the stock, one for the mole-snout, one for the ammo case, and one for the scope.

 

Oscar paused, holding the scope by two fingers, the eyelens already snugged into its pocket. Later on, when he thought back to that moment (and he would think about it a great many times, possibly more than any other individual snapshot of his life), he would come up with many guesses and theories as to what had stayed his hand, what had caused him to indulge his curiosity. He would consider fate, destiny, judgement, karma, divine retribution, or maybe the intervening hands of some ghostly entity that he'd wronged during his time on the Earth.  That last one pulled up such a huge list of possibilities that he'd given up trying to figure it out. It had just happened, and that was all that could be said.

 

Still, it would have been nice to put the blame somewhere.

 

High above him, the brilliantly-lit northern clock face of the Chalmers Building clicked smoothly from 1:07am to 1:08am. Oscar pressed his shoulder against the parapet, shifted his legs beneath him, and lifted his head a few inches above the lip. He brought the scope to his eye, resting the bolt-lock on the concrete for stability, and easily located the roof of the erstwhile richest man in the world.

 

Drenched in his own blood and ichor, millionaire industrialist Baram Mallory stood at the edge of the penthouse patio, one foot on the wrought-iron railing, and pointed directly at his would-be killer. Directly at Oscar.

 

There was no mistaking the pose, or the angle. Oscar could make out nothing of the man's arm behind that accusing fist, and its single outstretched finger. If they'd set up a stringline between the buildings ahead of time, Baram's gesture could not have been more accurate.

 

As though he'd been waiting for Oscar, the grotesque, steaming mass of red and black split to reveal a row of perfectly white teeth. Teeth that, moments before, had been so much enamelled shrapnel, ejected from a skull that had been liquefied down to the shoulders. Oscar couldn't hear him, but even through the dripping sludge there was no mistaking the single word spoken by those infamous, perpetually-smiling lips. 

 

“You.”

 

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“Baram Mallory.”

 

Rupe Tiller nodded. His nose might be permanently blossomed, his cheeks shiny, his teeth stained scotch-yellow, but his eyes were hard and steady. That went a long way with Oscar. He'd had enough of the stony-faced  honchos with the firm handshakes and frightened eyes.

 

That still didn't make those two words any less insane, so Oscar tried again. “Baram. Mallory.”

 

Rupe nodded again, and to his credit he didn't smile. Clearly, there was an understanding regarding Oscar's disbelief. “You know, he's been on the books before, in a way. Technically, he ain't ever been OFF the books, know what I'm saying? Someone like that, there's always gonna be... friction.”

 

“But you're bringing it to me now. This isn't a new appointment, but...” Oscar chose his next words carefully. “... the situation's changed.”

 

Rupe agreed by tossing back his drink. The appointment had been offered and received, and now was the time for banter and barter.  Couldn't do that on an empty stomach. “Yep, this is a new one, in a way, and it ain't no fooling. Three em, in escrow. Naturally, given the... nature of the appointment, timeframe's a little special. Ten days after public acknowledgement, with notarized notice given two days prior regarding the exact time and date of the appointment.”

 

It was Oscar's turn to nod, slowly, contemplatively. That made sense. Some appointments were notoriously tricky, by virtue of the people involved. Someone gets their brains ventilated in a parking garage, a hundred men are going to try and claim credit, most of them just for the exposure. Someone's house disappears in an oil tank explosion, or their limousine ends up crimped by a cement truck, you're going to have a hard time proving it wasn't just an accident.

 

Funny as it might seem, the post-war crop of lawyers had been a Godsend to the executive hit man.

 

“Deadline?”

 

“Good Friday.”

 

Oscar moved his hand away from his own drink. He didn't care for scotch, certainly not when it was ice cold, but it was all part of doing business with Rupe these days. The old quartermaster didn't trust temperate folks, or anyone without a vice; considered them unclean, and clearly up to something worse. Oscar could drink it when required, but at the moment he needed to keep his hands clasped. Righty was trembling, and it just wouldn't do to have the ice in his tumbler rattling. “Good Friday.”

 

“Yup.”

 

“With two days prior notarization.”

 

“Yup.”

 

Numbers raced through Oscar's head. “So they think you can just punch a millionaire's meat ticket with nine days prep and a two day note.”

 

“Not they, and not me,” Rupe said, with something approaching emotion in his voice. “They must think SOMEONE can do it, for that price, but I think YOU can do it.”

 

The fee was also definitely starting to raise some alarm bells in Oscar's mind.  Three million bucks, in escrow. Rupe wouldn't be sitting here talking about this appointment at all if he weren't damn sure the cash was good, and this wasn't just a healthy amount used to garner some special attention. Hell, this wasn't even retirement money.

 

Someone out there in the big black world, either a person or a committee or a board of directors or some other bunch of red tab brass, wanted the most famous man in the world dead, and was willing to put up enough money to buy the Presidency to see it through.

 

Oscar shrugged, grabbed his scotch and tossed the amber-colored kerosene back in one motion. Much too quickly for any uncertainty in his gesture to be noticed. “Why not?” he said with forced grandness, sweeping his arms back to take in the whole of the dingy room. “Yeah, why the fuck not. Spring's been slow anyways, and I get dusty when I'm not busy.”

 

Rupe frowned, and for the first time looked fidgetty. “There's gonna be some competition,” he warned.

 

“Oh, of course.”

 

“Not the friendly kind.”

 

“Yeah, I get you. You know, Rupe, after you make the sale isn't the time to start trying to talk me out of it. You sound like a shitty door-to-door, trying to upsell an icebox to your old lady.”

 

“I ain't talking you out of it! My commission would let me retire, too,” Rupe laughed, too loudly. His eyes swerved around to his own drink, and seemed upset there was none left. “Just... want you to watch yourself. It's going to be a sloppy week. Not everyone's as careful as you.”

 

Oscar didn't miss the implication. An appointment like this, a fee like this? There might as well be a mob armed with carpetbags and picket signs following Mallory around for the next week, all of them trying to figure out the man's habits, his routines, his weaknesses, and plan out their hit. Mallory would have to be an idiot not to notice all the sudden scrutiny, and he'd have to have surrounded himself with idiot bodyguards, to boot.

 

It would be impossible, of course. Mallory would bunker down until the attention blew over. He'd leave the country. He'd change up his routines, at the very least. Be unpredictable. He'd have multiple homes in the city, probably more upstate. A man like that could afford to employ a virtual private army. Anyone looking twice was gonna find themselves dragged into a convenient alley and have every extremity that could conceivably be used to pull a trigger very deliberately removed. 

 

Oscar frowned, as he did when a pleasant thought wandered unexpectedly across his mind, and then smiled. Rupe flinched; he found Oscar's smiles distinctly unsettling. “So, should I-”

 

Oscar nodded. “Send the papers to my office.”

 

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