Hell is Hard to Find

He hadn’t laid eyes on her in over a year. No one had, really. But that seems to be common considering the circumstances under which she had departed--gone without a trace and for no apparent reason. This tends to disturb the people closest to you, in this case a longtime lover, and can hardly be considered a welcome exit strategy.

She had returned in an impulsive fit of distress, addressing him with a barrage of emotions his socially inept brain could barely begin to digest. Again, not an ideal plan. But feats of idealism were lost on people like Katharine DeWitt. Compulsions were more her area of expertise. Compulsions and short, somewhat frequent tantrums which she reconciled in her head as being nothing more than doing whatever she had to in order to complete her definition of getting by. She saw herself as a survivor of harsh circumstances, though others believed her to be no more than a spoiled princess, tossing her silver spoon from a high chair forged from the broken spines of men too lovestruck to notice the disassembly of their souls.

Katharine, or Kathy D. as he had referred to her so affectionately in the past, had shown up at his door at a little past midnight, a time that used to mean so much to the both of them, but had since been reduced to little more than the hour between eleven and one. She rubbed her eyes, which were the color of money, then knocked in two sessions of threes--once when she first arrived, which seemed to elicit some rustling from inside the house, and then again about a minute after the rustling had stopped.

He was a bit disheveled when he finally answered the door, not expecting to be awoken at such an ungodly hour, let alone by such an ungodly person.

“Marty.” Her lips curled into a smile.

“Kathy D.? The hell are you doing here?”

“Just passing through. Thought it’d be nice to catch up.”

“It’s, like, one in the morning.”

“Not yet. Only midnight. You remember the kinda midnights we used to have, don’t cha?”

“All too well, Kathy D. But that still don’t explain why you’re standing on my doorstep after I ain’t heard from ya in so damn long.”

“I’ve had a rough time, Marty. Life’s kicked the shit out of me and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“This sounds like it’s gonna be a long story.”

“I’d rather tell it inside.”

“I’d rather you tell it tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow, silly. Now let me in.”

Martin Spacek could be most accurately described as ‘different’. He was a mildly attractive man who had his fair share of adventures with women, even fewer that he’d like to talk or even think about. That’s not to say he was altogether unhappy, however. Admittedly, his gut extended an extra inch or two than he’d like, his cholesterol level was a bit high, his facial hair grew too quickly and he was a little sensitive about his crooked nose and failing eyes. Marty wasn’t the richest man either, his net worth mostly centered around a few thousand dollars moldering away in a safety deposit box as well as a life insurance policy he had taken out on himself and made Kathy the beneficiary of, despite some initial balking at the idea. Nevertheless, Marty could never be called depressive or one to wallow in self-pity. His flaws were his own and he accepted them, but he was never quite able to get over them.

Despite all this, what truly made Marty stand out, and earn the right to be called ‘different’, was his unique sense of fashion. A man’s man through and through, Marty never put much stock into the latest trends that others seemed to fawn over so much. He didn’t care about getting the newest jeans when they suddenly went on sale, nor could he tell the difference between fall and spring styles. And why would he? In all honesty, he thought J. Crew was a rap artist.

Marty’s daily wear usually consisted of faded denim, from pants with holes in the knees to vests with holes everywhere else. Ordinarily, he would find some kind of t-shirt to throw on under the vest, typically one that used to be white, but had since adopted a sickly earwax color in response to years of living outside a drawer. He wore an old baseball cap that had darkened from gasoline and sweat stains, though how they got there no one could really comprehend, considering Marty’s reputation for being a quasi-hermit who was rarely seen leaving his house unless he was buying groceries or the occasional ounce of marijuana.

The cleanest thing about him were his shoes, which often appeared to be older than he was; brown boots that could often smell like they were caked in something, but hardly ever were. Marty seemed to take pride in his shoes, though he seldom seemed to take pride in anything else. All in all, he looked like hell more often than he didn’t, and while he could often be mistaken for someone living on the street, he did little more than scoff at the suggestion. Whenever anyone would mention something about his looks, he’d simply respond with a paraphrased recollection of Albert Einstein never worrying to comb his hair because he had ‘other, more important things to think about.’ Marty was no Einstein, however, and he knew it better than anyone.

Regardless of all these imperfections, and the fact that there were many more, Katharine had accepted him with few questions and even fewer complaints. He was far from her idea of a perfect man, but she had other things on her mind then squabbling over Marty’s weight, clothes or long scraggly hair. Their history was an intricate one: long nights staring at the ocean from the wobbly pier no one else in town was brave enough to conquer, listening to the crash of the waves as they made love on the beach and getting high on his couch while listening to old Matchbox Twenty records. Or was it Mumford and Sons? After all this time, neither one of them could really remember.

Kathy stepped in off the frayed door mat and walked past Marty’s threshold as if no heartbreak had ever existed between them. She took her normal seat on the couch in the living room and lifted her feet on the coffee table in the exact manner she always had, which did little except stir up a myriad of confused emotions for the poor owner of the house. He stared at her for a moment in bewilderment before finally stumbling over his first question.

“You want some coffee or...something?”

“That’s fine. I’m awake enough.”

Marty sighed. It was not as if he kept coffee brewing in the middle of the night, but her response wasn’t exactly what he anticipated.

“Water? Anything?”

“Sit down, Marty. It’ll be good for your knees.”

He complied with a groan, taking a seat in the old red recliner across from the couch. He had always loved that chair. It was his chair, and he felt a little resentful that he had to be made to feel so uneasy while sitting in it. He leered at her cautiously, watching as she started digging through her purse before taking out a pack of cigarettes.

“What is it you want, Kathy D.?”

“I have a problem.” She lit up a cigarette and took a drag. “I need your help.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough that I’m here on your doorstep in the middle of the night.”

“I can see. What exactly’s the matter?”

“It’s my boyfriend, George. He’s--”

“Whoa, whoa. Hold up. If you honestly came here to bitch to me about some boyfriend, you might as well get up and go right now.”

“Marty, please I--”

“It’d be the most dignified way of you getting out of here. Unless you’d prefer me picking you up and tossing you out in the street.”

“Calm down, I just--”

“You leave me out of nowhere after years of love and devotion. I thought we were committed to each other. I thought we were gonna get married. Then I wake up one morning and you’re just gone. No note, no warning, just--” Marty threw his hands up as he rose from the recliner. He had told himself if he ever saw her again he would spare his energy on scolding her. But now he had and it was almost as frustrating as her actual betrayal. How could he be mad at her for deceiving him when even he seemed so willing to deceive himself?

Kathy inhaled solemnly as she pointed her nose at the floor in shame. “You’re still mad at me. I get that. But you shouldn’t be.”

“Oh, really? I don’t have a right to be mad?”

“Not anymore. It’s been long enough. Sometimes people hurt you; you should’ve figured that out by now. You’re a grown man.”

“I shouldn’t have had to prepare myself for that. I loved you. I trusted you. And you just got up and left.”

“I didn’t just leave. If you would let me explain--”

“Fine. Go ahead.” He took his seat again and crossed his arms, constructing a shovel in his mind in preparation to weave through her bullshit.

“I met George about a week before I left you. He offered me protection, money, love, anything I wanted, everything I ever dreamed about and I just couldn’t say no.”

“You knew him for a week and you just up and leave your boyfriend of four years? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“Maybe not. But you should know he hit me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“Probably deserved it.”

Kathy’s face began to scrunch up and she shut her eyes as a tear trickled down her cheek.

“How would you know?” She asked aggressively. “How could you even imagine what it was like to feel his knuckles driving into your skin? The same fingers he’d used to touch me so gently balled up and smashing into my skull! How would you know about that? And what gives you the right to have an opinion on something you know nothing about?!”

The room was quiet. Marty had nothing to say. How was he supposed to respond to such a display of emotion, not to mention her wide range of them. He just sat there, quietly, fearful of saying the wrong thing, and unintentionally letting a sleeping lion out of its cage. After what felt like hours of listening to her sob into a tissue, he finally managed to squeak out a response.

“Are you hungry? You want any food?”

He always thought it was interesting how she ate like a bird. So subtle in her movements, yet so precise about when and how they should happen. That was not even the strangest part to him, however. What was even stranger was the fact that he remembered how to prepare a sandwich exactly the way she liked it.

Marty gave her some time to finish her food before ramming her with another aggravated query.

“You finally gonna tell me what you’re doing here, Kathy D.?”

“Mm. Yeah, hold on.” She swallowed one final bite. “My boyfriend, George...I need you to kill him for me.”

“What?” Marty’s eyebrows furrowed farther than they ever had before. “Because he hit you?”

“That...and the fact that he’s worth a hell of a lot of money to me if he goes away.”

“Goes away?”

“You know what I mean.”

“He’s losing his life, Kathy D., not going on vacation. Don’t look at me and say you want me to help him ‘go away’ just ‘cause it’s easier for you to swallow.”

“All I want to hear from you is that you’ll do it.” She took a breath and stared into his eyes. “Will you...do it?”

Marty let out a sigh that was heavy with reluctance. “Well, what do you expect me to say to something like that?”

“I expect you to say yes.”

“What do I get out of this?”

“Is the idea of helping me not enough for you?”

“Considering how you left me, I--”

“But I came back.”

“Yeah, with a murder proposition.”

“Oh, like you’ve never stuck a gun in someone’s face before.”

“Yeah, but I never pulled the fucking trigger. We’re talking murder one here.”

“Murder one.” Kathy scoffed. “You and your crime shows.”

“Yeah, me and my crime shows, which are probably the only things keeping the pair of us outta jail.”

“Just do it right and we’ll be fine. If those shows teach you anything, it’s how not to get caught.”

“Well, for starters, you’re not supposed to use your own gun, so already we’re--”

Kathy went to her purse and twisted the clasps open. After a moment of digging through its contents, she produced a nickel-plated Colt .45 and tossed it onto the coffee table. “Problem solved.”

Marty stared at the gun with shaking apprehension. Not only had she come prepared, but in one fell swoop she had made him an accomplice in whatever she had planned.

“Shit.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars if you help me out. What do you say?”

“What percentage is that compared to your end?”

“Is twenty grand not enough for you?”

“Not if you’re getting twenty mil.”

“Well, I’m not. Nowhere near that actually.”

“What are you clearing?”

“None of your business. Now, will you kill this prick or not?”

Marty exhaled subtly as he wiped his sweating forehead. Twenty grand. He never dreamed he would ever see that kind of money, especially all at once, not to mention how he would be earning it. The real question was not so much how he would feel after he had committed the act itself, not even how or if he would get away with it. What really held Marty’s tongue was the idea of trusting Kathy DeWitt again, especially considering the shady circumstances of her spontaneous resurgence into his life. But part of him still loved her, he realized, and if one could say anything about Marty Spacek, he helped out the ones he loved.

He checked the clock on the mantelpiece. It was almost two-thirty in the morning. When else would be a better time to collect on the semi-tangent idea of a large check from your spontaneous heartbreaker of an ex?

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

Kathy smiled, then gestured for Marty to take the gun off the table. He obliged, as if he had an almost eerie familiarity with the weapon already.

She had told him to wait on the second level of the parking garage at five o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. George was a creature of habit and usually left work at around that time every day. Marty was more than a little worried about going through with the job, not only because he was not quite as committed to the idea of killing this guy as he thought he would be by now, but also because the picture that Kathy had given him was slightly hazy. As long as all corporate douchebags don’t look alike, he told himself, everything should be fine.

Marty had to wait thirteen minutes before he heard another soul in the parking garage. Having parked himself in the nook between a tan Cadillac and a green Toyota, he peered out from the crevice to take a look at who was joining him on the floor.

Sure enough, it was a tall, rail-thin executive type. Black suit, red tie. He looked like he belonged somewhere in the West Wing, but sure enough he was crossing over to a crouched, sweating Marty, aimed towards an Escalade in a parking garage across the street from a Taco Bell. The Executive was about thirty feet away when Marty first squinted to get a better look. It was not his target. Marty bent back down and hid below the Toyota as he heard the Escalade doors creak open, its engine roar and the whole vehicle screech down the ramp towards the exit.

After a while, another man passed, but he had a beard, and this George guy was completely clean shaven. Marty let him go. There was another clack down the way, but Marty recognized the sound of heels and did not even bother to rise from his position.

By the time it was nearly six o’clock, Marty had begun to doubt himself. Had he already missed the guy? Had he got there too late? Had George come and gone without a sound? Just as Marty stood up to return to his car, he saw him turn the corner. Same hair, right clothes, clean shaven. Marty shot back down to a squat as he leaned in for a better look. ‘Holy shit’, he thought to himself. ‘That’s the guy’.

George was about ten yards across the lot when Marty started to approach him, the nickel-plated Colt knocking around in his waist and concealed by a worn leather jacket. George fumbled with his keys as he stepped up to his car, not realizing he was being followed until Marty’s reflection appeared in the driver side window. Marty ripped open his jacket and went for his gun, sending George into his car with a panic. As Marty leaned on the trigger, he prepared himself for the inevitable echo soon to reverberate through the parking garage. But it did not come.

Marty tried the trigger again. Nothing. Just a clink. A flurry of emotions and thoughts flooded his brain, followed by the sound of a gunshot. ‘Was that it?’, he thought. ‘Did it finally go off?’. Then he realized it was George’s own gun that had fired, having been produced from the glove compartment amidst the would-be hitman’s confusion.

Marty hit the ground faster than he had ever done anything in his life. George had got him in the chest, maybe a lung shot if he was lucky and Marty was not. The sound of a door slamming turned Marty’s attention from his wound to his assailant, who was no longer alone. Kathy was strutting towards him, her once rosy cheeks hidden behind a pair of bulky sunglasses.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” She asked as she caressed George’s arm. “And to think you were so antsy.”

“Did you decide between Bermuda or Vegas?” George returned his gun to his coat.

“Bermuda. I want to feel the sand between my toes. And you everywhere else.”

A stray cough from their victim returned him to their attention.

As he lay there, staring up at the failing lights blinking from the concrete ceiling above him, Marty recalled a proverb his father had muttered to him one day in his youth. When he was just eleven years old, Marty had been caught stealing a pack of gum from the local gas station, only three blocks from his home--a dilapidated trailer on the ‘bad side’ of town. After the discipline he had received from the belt, Marty’s father had told him to never to do a bad thing again. Hell is hard to find, he had said, except for those who go looking for it. And those who don’t go looking for it were sure not to find it.

‘I sure hope I don’t get what I’m looking for’, Marty mused to himself, his final thoughts as everything became black around him.

Kathy scoffed as she took one last look at Marty’s bloodied body, then walked away and rubbed her eyes, which were the color of money.