Contracts
It wasn’t entirely a coincidence that Gerry and Anne each decided on the same day that the other had to be killed. The previous evening, the two of them had watched, in their usual stony silence, an American movie about a hit-man hired to dispatch an unwanted spouse. Gerry had already decided that, with his mounting debts, he could not afford a divorce, while for Anne anything less than her husband’s demise would be a reward for his long-standing meanness, infidelities and scorn for her efforts as a painter.
Nor was it pure chance that each of them fixed on the same date as an ideal one for the job to take place. Thursday 14th of May was the day before a silver wedding anniversary that neither of them could face. It was a day, too, when Anne knew that Gerry would be playing in a competition at the golf club, while he knew that she would be at home for her weekly Zoom meeting with her circle of women artists.
The two of them were pleasantly surprised, over the days following their decision, by the ease - and the reasonable price - with which it was possible to take out a contract on someone’s life. The American movie had been helpful in providing guidance on the kind of websites through which contact could be made with an experienced professional, the instructions he would need, the procedure for a deposit and a final payment, and so on.
When, just after 1.00pm on May 14th, Dino entered the Italian restaurant – not so far from Gerry and Anne’s home – he was surprised and delighted to see Benito seated at a table. For many years they had been friends and enforcers in a Mafia-style organisation in Campania. Forced to flee Italy after a bungled attempt to assassinate a local mayor, they had lived in London for three years, occasionally meeting for a meal. Both men were making a modest living as freelance hitmen.
After some hesitation, they decided to share a bottle of wine with their pasta. After all, they were professionals with work to do that afternoon. When the bottle arrived, Dino said that he needed a glass of wine before doing a job that he didn’t relish. He didn’t like killing women, he explained – not unless, like the several he had garrotted in the old days, they had betrayed the organisation he worked for.
Benito sympathised and explained that he, too, didn’t like the contract he was on. He didn’t mind shooting his client’s husband on the golf course, but had qualms – despite the extra money for doing so - about injuring the men with whom the target would be playing. (Anne had had the bright idea – borrowed from another movie - that, if all four men were shot, the police would assume it was the act of a madman.)
Benito and Dino commiserated with one another, and expressed nostalgia for the years in Campania when no such moral scruples interfered with their work. They decided to celebrate their comradeship by drinking some grappa.
At 4.00 pm, as Gerry walked up the gravel drive to the front door of his house, he was full of nervous anticipation at what he would find inside. When Anne, equally nervous, heard his footsteps, she assumed it was the police coming to inform her of a terrible accident on the golf course. As Gerry opened the door, Anne was standing in the hall. The two of them stared at one another. They stood in silence for several seconds – a silence broken only by the sound of two men in a nearby street, clearly drunk and loudly singing Torna a Surriento.