Blackbird

You can call me Ed.

I am a professional killer. I want to tell you a story. Have another drink.

Don't worry. You have nothing to worry about. You'd never be able to identify me. It's dark in here and you're half drunk. Plus, I've been blessed with the worlds most nondescript face – my most important professional asset. I look like everybody and nobody. I look like the regional manager for a plumbing fixture distributor. I look like fourteen guys you went to high school with. I look like the third guy on the couch in a lite beer commercial. Medium height, medium weight, medium brown hair, medium long. Not old, not young. I walk to the can and you'll have forgotten my face by the time I'm unzipped.

So I'm not worried about telling you my story. You couldn't do anything about it. Plus you already think I'm full of shit and I haven't even started yet.

Anyway, I'm a contract killer. At last count I had successfully executed 61 such contracts – heh,executed. A minimum of $100,000 per job, plus expenses. I have never been arrested. My fingerprints aren't on file anywhere. I've never been as much as suspected. I do things right. I fuck up once and I'm dead – literally. So I don't fuck up. Ever.

So my last job. You don't need to know where it was. Not here. Let's say ... Cincinnati. It wasn't there either, but let's say Cincinnati. The job was to kill a guy named Leonard. I don't know why. I don't know who for. Not my job. My job is how.

What? Oh. I have a guy who deals with the customers. Call him an agent. Whatever. That's not important.

Yeah. So anyway. I do my research and I find out this Leonard guy has a mistress he visits once every week. Could be Tuesday, could be Wednesday, could be Thursday. But at least once a week, he goes to his girlfriend's apartment, spends a few hours leaves and walks down the street to his car. So I do a little checking and I can get an office almost directly across the street from his girlfriend's building. Third floor. So I rent it for six months and I get another office three floors up on the other side of the building.

First and last months up front in cash. Expenses. What? Yeah, they'll pay what I tell 'em. I have credibility.

So the plan is I wait in the first office till I see the guy go in, then set up for the shot. When he comes back, I take the shot, walk out of the first office, go upstairs to the second office and lay low until everything quiets down. Maybe a day. It works. Nobody expects you to stay put.

Ends up I'm there for four days before Leonard shows up. I'm doing it right, coming and going, nothing I'm doing stands out. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I'm sitting in front of that window looking at the street watching for Leonard. Eight, nine hours at time, I sit there waiting for him. No big deal – patience is part of the job.

So finally, about eleven on Thursday night, Leonard shows up. I get everything set up, and right on schedule two hours later, Leonard comes out. It's lined up clean and I take the shot. Another job done.

I drop everything, make one last scan to make sure nothing identifiable is left. Nothing there, so I walk out, lock up and walk up the fire stairs to my other office. I've got some groceries, an air mattress and such up there so I'm looking forward to getting up there and relaxing. I get there, nobody sees me (not that it would matter much if they did...) get in and get settled. I've got a little LED light to read with, and I'm easing back onto my air mattress when I get this weird feeling that somebody else is in the room.

The LED doesn't give me much light, but it's enough. I swing it around the room and sure enough, there it is. Sitting on the built-in bookshelves is this big-ass black bird. It was bigger than a crow and solid solid black. It looked at me and I looked at it. I could hear sirens coming. The bird cocked its head and held my eye with his. We stood there like that for a long time. The sirens got here. Nothing moved.

Then all of sudden the bird lets out a noise like nothing I ever heard out of any living creature. First of all, it was LOUD. I know it seemed louder because of the situation and because it was so quiet otherwise, but I swear it made my ears hurt. And it sounded like something from a science fiction movie – there was reverb and weird effects. It was like an alien spaceship. That noise should not have come out of a bird.

It was not a good thing. My plan depended on quiet and here's this space-bird calling for ET. I took a swipe at it, but just side-steps and swoops just out my reach, then settles back down on its shelf. It lets out another weird croak and give me the eye. I know better, I really do know better, but I could swear the bird is giving me the hairy eyeball. The look it gives me can only be described as reproachful. I'm just frozen at this point.

Another two minutes go by and he lets out another squawk. I'm seriously considering whether it would be worse to let him go on making noise or risk taking a shot at him. I decide against it – my backup gun is clean and a shot would be a lot more suspicious than a bird squawking, no matter how weird the damn squawk is. So I take another swing at him, and he dodges it like nothing. I feel like throwing something, but I don't need to be crashing around.

So I have a problem.

I pull my chair over in front of the bird and sit down. It squawks again and I look it in the eye. I don't think it ever took its eye off me. So I glare back at him. He stays quiet so long as our eyes are locked. I glance away, even a little, and he lets out his freaky noise.

So I did what I had to, I spent the rest of the night staring into this freaky bird's eyes. Only four more screeches over the next six hours.

But there was something about that freaky bird. Spending six straight hours playing staredown with a space bird is not a normal activity, I guess. I'm used to sitting still for long periods of time – part of the job. My mind raced and wandered and went places I didn't want to let it go. I don't remember all of it, but I know I was thinking the whole time, you know. It was a trip.

Outside the sun was rising and it sounded like the cops were wrapping it up and heading out. I decided to risk a look out the window. He squawked as soon as I turned away, but I had to look. It was the other side of the building, so I couldn't see much, but at least there weren't cops swarming everywhere.

When I turned around, the bird was gone.

I stayed in the office until early that afternoon. I fell asleep for a little while and paced the rest of the time. Then, about 2:30, I straightened myself up, took a deep breath and walked out the door. Nobody in the hallway, nobody in the lobby. Nobody noticed me leaving the building. Ten minutes later I was miles away, not a thing left in the offices that could possibly be traced to me. Number 61 complete, nothing left to do but collect the check.

That was, well, let's say that was three months ago. Longer than I usually go between jobs. Every time I go to call my agent, I just find a reason not to. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it has something to do with the bird or what. I will say that's the weirdest thing that ever happened to me on a job. I don't have to work. I've made plenty of money and when I'm not working I'm fooling with my investments. I do like the challenge and the adrenalin. But I've been thinking about finding some other source of excitement these past few weeks.

So what do you think? You think that bird did something to me or what?