Sister's Revenge: Action Adventure Assassin Pulp Thriller Book #1 (Michelle Angelique Avenging Angel Assassin) (11 page)

“M
OVING ON STUDIOS
! This is Shelly. How may I direct your call?”

“Hi, Shelly, this is Michelle Angelique. May I speak to Keisha?”

“Oh, hi, Michelle. I’ll put you right through.”

The line clicked and then: “Hello, this is Keisha.”

“Yo, Keisha, this is Michelle. What’s up, girl?”

“Same ol’, same ol’. Nothing but work. What’s up with you?”

“Something came up and I’m going to the East Coast for a few days. Do you have anything for me to check out while I’m there? Travel and expenses as far as New York, on me.”

“Damn, you’re something else, you know that? Do you have some kind of work radar shit going on? How’d you know I needed some stuff from Manhattan?”

“I just hoped you might so I could make the trip pay a little extra, is all.”

“Well, I’m glad you asked. We got a hookup working on a pilot for a new cop show that has a bunch of scenes in Manhattan and across the river to Elizabeth in Jersey. This’ll put me ahead of schedule for a change. I’ll send you all the details.”

“Thanks,” Michelle said. “I’ll get back to you with the report in a little over a week. Is that okay with you?”

“That’d be real good. The writers can drop in the details when you deliver the reports. The files are on the way to you now. When can you get started?”

“I can leave as early as this evening and start on the project by tomorrow afternoon.”

* * *

H
er movie production assignment took her to the heart of Manhattan. Perfect.

A short twenty-four hours after talking to Keisha, Michelle sat quietly, checking her email at the Starbucks on the New York University campus. A satisfied smile played on her lips.

Dressed in jeans and a dark purple NYU sweatshirt, Michelle looked like any other student there, and with her short hair and no jewelry or flashy nails, she skillfully hid in plain sight.

Normally, when she was working, she needed to go unnoticed. But not today. Today, she needed a witness who’d remember her, and people with regular schedules, like employees, made the best witnesses.

She chose the tall, all-too thin, geeky Black busboy cleaning up the dining area—no one talked to him; in fact, no one even saw him—and when he’d come close enough, hands full of collected dirty cups and plates, Michelle accidentally knocked over her coffee, creating a minor crisis.

“Oh shit! Damn, damn, damn.” Michelle jumped up and away from the spilled coffee dripping off the side of the table. “Damn, I spilled coffee on my computer. Damn, damn, damn.”

“Uh-oh!” The busboy dumped aside the dirty dishes and grabbed up her computer. After a few minutes of sopping up spilled coffee, Michelle thanked him.

“I don’t know what I would have done without your help. Thank you very, very much.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t that much. I’m glad I was here at the right time.”

“I might have lost my whole computer and that would have been a total disaster. You saved me,” she gushed.

“I’m very happy I could help,” he said, warming up to the conversation.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Eban.”

“Well, Eban, I have to run. Again, thank you for saving me. Next time I’m here, I’ll make sure I have time to visit; I want to know what you do other than clean up spilled coffee. Is this your normal shift?”

Eban beamed. Obviously, he didn’t get much attention, and certainly not from pretty women. She’d made an impression. Good!

In addition to making herself memorable, Michelle had learned his work schedule. Before leaving New York, she’d be back and next time she’d buy him something to eat and a cup of coffee, which would permanently cement another brick in her alibi.

She’d done dual jobs, but this time one of those jobs served a double purpose.

Her clandestine assignment had brought her to New York and it needed to appear like a political assassination, which required her to be invisible.

The second job with the studio, however, felt better. But for reasons having nothing to do with the studio, Michelle needed to be seen and remembered in New York. She’d already created a paper trail by flying, booking the hotel, and doing research in her own name, which would help with her third mission: a personal project back home scheduled for later this week. That presence alone would provide all of the alibi she needed.

* * *

M
ichelle spent a productive morning doing research for Keisha, which had been a good way to pass the time. The target she needed to find wouldn’t have been out much before noon, so now she had a different type of job to do.

“Yo! Yeah, you,” Michelle called over to the overtly gay and slightly scruffy White male prostitute who pushed off the pole he’d been leaning on and walked over.

“Say, homegirl, I don’t think I have what you’re looking for,” he said. “I don’t sell drugs and I don’t do girls. That is, unless you’re looking for a hookup for your man. I can help you with that.”

He had a Midwestern accent with a general artsy-fartsy attitude. He’d probably come to New York to make it as an actor and probably still thought he might make it big in acting, though it looked like he made most of his money as a lower-end male prostitute. He was the second guy she’d approached. The first had been a far-too suspicious native New Yorker; if the police ever questioned him, he’d remember her. This guy was much better; he fit her needs perfectly.

“It’s not anything like that,” she told him. “It’s also nothing illegal and not dangerous. I need someone to act a small part. My friends and I are playing a prank on a co-worker who’s getting married. I’ll need you to rent a room—that’s it, just rent a room, with cash. It’d be easier if I did it, but it has to be a man. Plus—and don’t take this the wrong way—being gay is perfect and it can’t be anyone from work. The whole thing will take less than an hour. I’ll pay you a hundred bucks, with another fifty for taxi fare to get back here.”

“That’s all I have to do?”

“Yes, and you’ll need to wear these.” She held up a pink Ralph Lauren knit polo shirt and a charcoal gray sport jacket. Both items looked close to the right size and still had the new tags on them.

“Do I get to keep the clothes?”

“Of course. Consider them fringe benefits.”

“Okay, sure, I’ll do your little job. When and where?”

“Now. Put these on first, then hail us a taxi.”

A short ride later, Michelle waited a few paces up the block from the front of the hotel, which she’d checked out earlier. It was old but well-maintained, and like the male prostitute, it fit her needs perfectly. When it was new, the building had been a luxury hotel with large rooms, built back when windows opened for fresh air. The rooms had been updated with fresh paint, new carpet, and modern hotel furniture, though the bathrooms still sported the old-fashioned white floor tiles with a light blue line of tiles that trimmed the shower enclosure.

For her purposes, the windows could still be opened, and that’s what mattered.

When her guy exited through the lobby door, Michelle started to slowly walk away. About a half-block farther down, he caught up with her and, after confirming he’d rented a room on an upper floor with a street view, she paid him the hundred plus the fifty for the taxi. He exchanged the hotel receipt and keycard for the bag with his old clothes. She continued walking down the street. He ducked into a subway entrance.

Good. Now she had a base of operations and had established the bogus shadow assassin from Europe. She was certain the clerk would remember the gay man in the pink shirt and gray blazer. It was essential the police knew this, and possibly assume they were looking for an associate. To make an impression, she’d had him do several strange things as a part of his “acting role”—he paid cash for a week and left instructions not to be bothered by housekeeping; nobody paid cash, and nobody refused housekeeping for a whole week.

Next, Michelle needed to set up the room with lunch scraps. Better if it all belonged to someone already in the police system. Someone with a record.

That was easy. Take a pleasant stroll through the park at lunchtime, note who looked the type to have a long record, and then wait for them to finish eating. Most likely it’d be a guy. The women, even the druggies and the bangers, tended to clean up their trash. It was a safe bet the right kind of jerk would oblige her by leaving his trash behind.

She spotted a couple of possible candidates dressed in banger-style clothes, with quack tats mixed with some pro, if not quality, ink. The first guy threw his trash in a can close by. Michelle blamed his mother for training him well as a kid. The second one, however, didn’t. Always, an inconsiderate jerk was around to make her task easy.

Michelle sat down on the bench where the man had been a few seconds before and picked up the chicken scraps and a box covered with greasy fingerprints. Three steps away sat a trash can.

Some men are such assholes.

Then she chuckled. That asswipe had left his trash for someone else to clean up, and from the looks of him, it was a pretty sure bet his fingerprints were in the criminal justice system. The police would soon bust down his door for a murder he hadn’t even been aware of; the guy would probably be at work when she did the hit. A severe payback for littering, maybe, but all signs pointed toward him being a habitual jerk anyway. In the end, it wouldn’t matter if he was a saint. She needed the distraction for the police—she just liked that an asshat would get a little of what he had coming.

Eventually, the police would recognize the trash as an obvious plant, so even if he didn’t have a good alibi, he’d get off sooner or later. He looked like the kind who’d steal a car or slap his wife around, not an international assassin sporting an expensive French sniper rifle. At most, he might be considered an accomplice. Point was, she had to make the police spend time running around in circles. In time, they’d conclude it’d been a European professional who’d done the deed.

Other than the planted trash, the room would be clean—no other prints or DNA. The cops would find the expensive French-made FR F2 silenced sniper rifle and NATO ammunition, along with the German binoculars not normally imported to the States. Two French cigarettes placed behind the bedside stand would clinch the sniper’s European identity.

Setting up an identity wasn’t the norm. Most times, the employer wanted everything and everyone to disappear, but occasionally, the message in the aftermath was as much a part of the operation as the actual hit.

The short, aluminum step stool had come from a local department store, and staged correctly, it would indicate a man over six feet tall had stood on it to make the shot. Michelle, of course, would actually stand on the much taller table to give her the right angle.

Ever-mindful of forensics and cameras, Michelle was careful at all levels—she only came in through the service stairwell leading from the roof where there were no cameras; gloves kept prints off of everything brought into the room, even the ammo. A scarf worn under her hoodie hid the close-weave hair net, and she never removed any clothing inside the room.

No, the room would not be clean—it would tell the story Michelle wanted it to tell.

* * *

A
ll set and nothing to do but wait. That was always the hardest part. Michelle never understood how anyone could be a couch potato; she strongly preferred action to waiting. At this point in the assignment she had a lot of nervous energy. Over time she’d learned that, while through discipline and meditation she could get to a zero-calm state, starting with exhaustion from strong physical action helped immensely.

If there was time, for many reasons, sex was the best exercise. The first time she had sex prior to an assassination, she’d worried that she’d lost her humanity and become a complete monster. Later she realized it was the opposite. Now, the upcoming, fully planned assassination impacted her deeply, and she accepted using sex simply for the calming effect it had on her nerves.

Fortunately, she was in New York and had the perfect answer to her needs.

“Gillie’s Italian Deli, Pepi speaking. What can I get you today?”

“Is Marro there?”

“Yeah, you wanna talk to him?”

“No, I called because I thought my grandma would be there.”