A Guardian Angel (2 page)

Andy stopped his
commenting to stare out the window. He sipped from his drink.

After a moment of
silence, his employer asked him, “Eighteen seconds?”

“Yes sir.”

The man chuckled.
“That must be a record for your worst,” he commented.
Andy agreed.

Andy finished his
second drink and stopped the stewardess from refilling it again. “I
do not want to be sent here again,” he said once he was rid of
his glass.

“St.
Petersburg?”

“Russia.”

“Your need in
this part of the world is gone,” his employer stated. “Should
it resume again, I can assure you, I will not call.”

“Thank you.”

Again, he stared
out of the window in silence, rubbing the cut next to his left eye
where he had hit the urinal.

“Are you
getting that looked at in Chicago?” his boss asked. He had
watched him.

“Treated?”
Andy asked, then scoffed.

His employer
continued to watch him as he resumed his gaze out of the porthole.

“We'll need
you again,” he said to Andy. “Very soon.”

“How soon?”

“Two weeks.
At the latest.”

Andy looked back
over from the window. “So you already have the next one picked
out?” He buzzed for the stewardess. “I didn't realize my
work was so popular. It should get its own department like
marketing.”

His employer
laughed.

“I've often
wondered who's work is seedier; yours or mine,” he replied.

The stewardess
appeared. “Yes, sir?” she asked Andy.

“Another
bourbon, please?”

He stepped off the
jet to find the customary arrangement: a taxi with his luggage
waiting for him on the runway. The driver had instructions to take
him anywhere he needed to go with a blank check waiting for him.
Wow,
Andy thought,
I know the man runs a corporation, but he'll
run
out of money one day.
Andy smirked.
Hopefully on me,
he
concluded.

Andy owned a studio
apartment in the south side of Chicago, a small thing that had four
walls and kept him off the streets. He hated the streets. It reminded
him of why he could do what he did, year after year. Before he
allowed the taxi to take him there, he ordered the driver to drop him
off and wait at Rosehill Cemetery.

With the end of
every mission, he came here. He had purchased a large bouquet of
flowers from a florist just a block away. Twelve yellow tulips. He
had brought them to a slab of stone off in the eastern corner of the
graveyard for the last ten years. The tombstone that he visited had
carved into it falling tulips, just like the ones he brought. It was
one of those bulky gravestones, unlike the thin readings and carved
statues the rest of the cemetery was filled with.

A couple of women
walked by on the path behind him, sobbing. No doubt they came from a
recent funeral. He felt sorry for them. Coping with recent death is a
much harder and delicate skill than the type of mourning he did here,
at this particular grave. The corpse in it had last been seen ten
years ago.
Almost exactly,
Andy noted. Watching a fresh body
be buried is so much different. So very unnerving. The body without
the soul, how strange it looked. Yet it seemed so bizarre not to see
them sit up and say something to you. That must be what the
Shivolinrids felt about now.

No,
Andy
thought,
it was too soon for a funeral.
However, they no doubt
knew by now that their fellow brother, son, maybe even father was
gone. And they had no idea who to blame.

He turned back to
the grave. Maxwell Shepard. An old friend. A childhood friend. A dead
friend.

This is
important,
he told himself.
This is necessary in order to keep
doing what I do. Without Max, there would be
no me.
Although his memory stung his eyes to think about, it gave him fuel.
Kept him going.

A memory came to
Andy as he studied the etching in the stone once again. A scene from
his childhood. Something that always came to mind when he thought of
his departed friend Max. In the memory, the sun hung high in the
tight blue covering above. The rocky outcroppings along the
wilderness sharp and bold against the monotone sky. The two boys
struggled to climb over the very last ledge before stepping out onto
a clearing. They peered down in exhaustion at the height they had
just ascended. They were thirteen.

“We're above
so much,” Andy said. He gazed out over his quiet neighborhood.
The sun started the tinge to a darker orange as it made contact with
the opposite horizon.

Max started walking
to the trees before Andy felt he had caught his breath. The rough
earthen floor gave way to a much softer, vibrant grass. Trees of
diverse heights towered from exposed roots. The two boys felt a rush
of wonder wash over them as if they had discovered rain for the first
time. Max slipped his red and purple backpack off of his shoulders.
He dropped it to the ground with the white stitching of a peace
symbol facing out to the sun. He always carried that backpack, even
on walks to the corner store. Max took off his shoes and stretched
his toes. The sensation of the grass in between his toes overjoyed
Max. Andy recalled the familiar sight from a thousand memories. Max
never wore shoes on grass. He wore them as seldom as possible.
Perhaps, something about the gesture symbolized freedom. Other times,
Andy believed that Max only wanted to stand out in a sea of
shoe-wearing squares.

Andy hung back
while his friend ventured deeper into the woods. Max turned with a
puzzled demeanor. “What's the matter, guy?” Max asked.

“Max, our
parents are going to be really mad,” Andy replied.

Max waved. “They're
not gonna know where we were,” he said.

“How do you
know?”

“'Cause we're
smart,” Max said. He pointed to his head. “Being calm
makes you smarter.”

“Yeah,”
Andy replied, peering back behind him as if expecting his mother to
catch him.

Max could still
sense the uneasiness in his companion. “Don't you wanna check
it out?” he asked. He stopped walking and faced the timid boy.

“Aren't you
afraid?” Andy asked. His eyes darted across the hillside, back
to the trees. He worried that Max would make fun of him, or at the
very least make it embarrassing for him. The only emotion Max showed
though was confusion.

“Of what?”
Max asked. He looked about. “Your mom will just think you're at
my house.”

Andy's eyes dropped
to the pebbles at his feet. He kicked at them. “It's not that.
Aren't you afraid of the woods? Or getting lost, or something?”

Max nodded. “Yeah,”
he said. “Isn't that the fun part?” He turned back around
and walked in between the first clump of tree trunks. Andy wanted him
to wait for him, wanted him to soothe him some and tell him there was
nothing to be afraid of. Instead he walked on, and because of that,
Andy followed.

When they had
picked their way in a single direction through the thick of the
forest for almost a mile, they came out into a clearing. The treeline
ended just before the foot of a small, steep hill. No trees grew from
its slope as it jutted up toward the heavens like a rocky beacon. The
soft sloshing of water drifted through the trees as the children
squeezed past them. A deep and luscious pond swirled at the heart of
the clearing. A thin stream ran to the opposite side of the water
from a source high behind the hill. While foaming bubbles churned in
the young current, the light blues mixed with the darker ones. Wind
played like dancing hummingbirds through the leaves of the trees. The
rustle was low, the trickle was high.

The children
beamed. Their faces pointed outward as they tried to absorb the
scene. “This is really beautiful, isn't it, guy?” Max
said.

“It is,”
Andy replied.

“Are you
still scared?”

“I don't
know.”

“Kinda?”
Max asked.

“Yeah.
Kinda.”

The memory faded
there.

He dipped down low
into a bow before resting the tulips where the stone met the grass.
He stayed down there for a moment, almost wishing he could sink down
into the ground and be reunited with the most important person in his
life. This didn't last long before he snapped back up and looked at
the grave. It looked nice now with the yellow tulips detracting from
the overabundance of gray. It looked like something Max could sigh
to, a final sigh before he was truly at peace.

Max may be at
peace,
Andy thought,
but I am not.
For that, he took one
of the tulips for himself.

Softly did his feet
tread as he walked away from the sight, the tulip held in between his
loose fingertips. The cab driver waited for him and for that Andy
handed him a crisp new fifty-dollar bill when he climbed in the back.
He directed the taxi home, a good hour away. He wrote the check for
fifty dollars over the fare and took himself and his luggage up to
his apartment.

Andy's apartment
sported style, sacrificing space for class at the same price of both.
A spacious loft above a boutique on the corner of the block, it had
already been furnished before he ever set eyes on the brass door
handles. The entire interior seared whiteness, as if to point out
every speck of grime or layer of dust that accumulated in his
frequent absences. A decorative waterfall trickled from its spot in
the hallway wall. It made him anxious, but he cared too little to
remove it. The lamps were very decorative; the tall metal ones bended
in strange angles so they seemed more unique. The shorter ones were
made of stained glass. The type of stuff that ruins your day when it
breaks.

Andy threw the
tulip into a vase on his nightstand and rested his luggage at the
foot of his bed. From it he retrieved his deep purple bathrobe and
slipped out of his clothes. He had received a large gash along his
upper left arm that he didn't notice until now as it screamed pain at
him when he deftly tossed his shirt off.
Not too deep,
Andy
observed.
No stitches.

Water rolled off of
him as if it preferred not to be on him for too long. However, it
still soothed as he showered. He needed to wash off every bit of St.
Petersburg that made the trip with him. How he loathed that city. And
how he just wanted to weep. No one would be able to hear him. He
might as well have just done it and gotten over with it, but he felt
unable to cry. His eyes felt dried and his heart just felt cold. Try
though he might, he couldn't shed a tear. He was a killer. Not a
philosopher.

He clicked on the
television before seeing the news channel and turning it off again.
Escape was impossible within reality. His fingers danced over his
collection of movies until he found a favorable Mel Brooks film, to
which he fell asleep in the late morning.

Andy was dreaming.
He felt that fact nagging at him in the back of his head, but he
dismissed it and continued his walk down the dark, snowy streets. The
night sent pleasant shudders down his spine, warm but hollow, like a
crystalline dream scape. He needed the burgundy suit he wore so well,
but it didn't warm him up too much either so there was little
sacrifice in looking this good. He carried with him a box of
chocolates, the really good kind that you can't even find in a
department store.

His feet led the
way, taking him someplace that he remembered, yet he couldn't
imagine.
Where ever it is,
he thought,
I hope it has much
less snow.
He didn't want to ruin his jet black cowboy boots.

A door. That's
where he finally arrived, cleared his throat, and then knocked. A
beautiful woman threw open the door, dressed even more extravagantly
than Andy himself.

“Andy!”
she cried before embracing him.

“Hi,”
he said. “I got these for you.” He indicated the
chocolates.

She beamed at him.
“For me?” she asked.

“For us,”
he answered before allowing himself into the house.

She helped him peel
off his jacket before taking the chocolates and kissing him. She
disappeared into another room. He followed her in and leaned against
the doorway as she pulled out a large tray of some sort of odd
pastry. “Spanakopita!” she announced. “I felt Greek
tonight.”