Children of Paranoia Read Free Page B

was my best move. I had to take both of them out and I had to do it before one A.M. or else I risked them finding out about your guys’ jobs and getting all defensive. When I saw them go into the bar, I knew that my best chance was to hit them right when they came out. I figured they’d be buzzed and their reflexes would be numbed.”
    â€œThat’s how you were able to stab the first guy twice before even turning on the second?” Michael was good at what he did. I had to give him that.
    â€œYeah. That and the fact that the second guy half knew what was going on. An innocent would have run. Instead, this guy stands there frozen. He knows what’s happening but can’t remember how he’s supposed to respond. He’s got this dumb look on his face, like ‘Am I supposed to run? To fight? To take a shit?’ Pffft.” Michael made the sound of a deflating balloon. “Too late.”
    â€œAnd then what’d you do?” I asked Michael.
    â€œSlipped away into the cool Bronx night. That’s one scary borough, man. I’m telling you, I was the least dangerous looking guy on the street.”
    I began flipping further through the paper. “Jared’s is on page fourteen,” Michael said. I turned to the page. There, tucked onto the far right-hand side of the page, was a story about an affluent Westchester couple that left their car running in their garage and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He was a litigation partner at some big law firm in Manhattan. She had been an advertising executive who gave up her career to take care of the children. The strange part of the story was how both children were found sleeping on the porch in the morning, wrapped in blankets, safe from the fumes. Officials surmised that the parents put their children outside before taking their own lives. No one could fathom why such a seemingly happy couple would want to kill themselves.
    â€œYou’re a master, Jared. Truly brilliant work,” I said as I flipped further into the paper past the article about my friends.
    â€œYou’re not in there, Joe,” Michael said as he continued to watch me flip the pages. “Nothing about your mark at all.” Just another body, I thought. Not newsworthy. Just an average woman killed in an average way. Nothing to see here. “You sure you actually remembered to do your mark?” Michael asked.
    â€œYeah, I remembered. It was easy.”
    â€œYeah, but your kill was probably the most dangerous,” Jared said. “Everything was set up for yours. We were just supposed to create noise. You had to take her out, show them that there are consequences.” Jared continued driving down I-295, changing lanes and slipping through traffic. “Her husband had to learn a lesson. You don’t take out eight of our guys in one year without repercussions.”
    â€œI read the preliminaries,” I said to Jared. I stared out the window at the faces in the cars that we passed, scanning each one, trying to guess if they were one of us, one of them, or if they were just one of the lucky uninitiated masses. There was no way to tell. We passed a silver Volkswagen Jetta with a cute college-age girl behind the wheel and one of her friends in the passenger seat, passed a big black Escalade driven by a large man with a mustache and a tattoo on his left arm, passed a black couple driving a small red sports car, kept on moving forward, kept on passing people, all potential friends, all potential enemies. All I knew for sure was that I had one more professional killer who had plenty of reason to want me dead.
    â€œWhat’s next on your agenda?” Jared asked me.
    â€œI’ve got a lecture to do. You guys?”
    â€œA little rest and relaxation for me.” Michael smiled. I looked over at Jared, wondering where he was off to next.
    â€œI’ve got another job to do. It shouldn’t be tough. After that, maybe we should