This was Joe’s last job. With this last job done, he is ready to retire.

This job involved a crooked judge. This woman took bribes, and her judgment was always for sale. Joe shot her in the back of the head while she was applying lipstick using her car’s rearview mirror. She was on her way to sell her power to another buyer.

Joe never planned to be an assassin. He always wanted to be a teacher. He became involved in this profession while in college, and not by choice. Well, technically it was his choice, but the other choice was death.

***

In Joe’s second year at Texas Christian University, he killed a young couple. He did not mean to; he was just in a hurry. It was 1am on a Wednesday morning, and Joe was on his way home after a night out with friends. He took a shortcut through an industrial area. At night the place is deserted, and he can make good time. He wanted to get as much rest as possible before going to class at 10am. Being sleepy in an already boring English Composition class is bound to make him fall asleep, and he snores, so it won’t go unnoticed.

The young man and woman tried to cross the road when Joe ran them over. He was blinking tears from his eyes after a huge yawn, and he did not see them until they were right in front of his old pickup truck. He struck them both and dragged them under the truck for several seconds before he realized what happened and slammed on the brakes.

They were obviously dead, their bodies broken and folded in strange ways. Joe was beside himself, and he could not think what to do. All he could do was repeat ‘Oh my god! Oh my god!’ over and over while pacing up and down. He was vomiting beside his truck when the policemen showed up.

‘Hands where we can see them bud!’, one of the cops shone his flashlight on Joe, moved the beam to the puddle of vomit and finally illuminated the bodies under the truck. The second policeman approached the truck from the other side, ‘Two bodies, male and female by the looks of it. It’s our birds that took flight.’ Joe heard these words, but it made no sense to him.

Both cops walked up to Joe and looked him over, ‘You been drinking boy?’ Joe looked up at the cop addressing him, a tall and blocky man with cold eyes. ‘No’, he manages to say before retching air from an empty stomach. ‘What we gonna do with him?’, tall and blocky asks his partner, a shorter version of himself, equally blocky but with friendly eyes. ‘We’ll see Randy, for now call the meat wagon and tell them we have three bodies and require a cleanup crew.’ Short and friendly was the boss it seems. ‘Sure thing boss’, Randy turned away tapping at his phone.

Short and friendly squatted next to Joe. Joe was now on his knees, bent over his empty stomach, feeling wretched and confused by the conversation. ‘What’s your name son?’, the cop turned his flashlight off, and all Joe could see was his silhouette against the police cruiser’s lights. ‘Joe, my name is Joe’, he managed to say. ‘Ok Joe, I am Tom. We have ourselves a situation here. Those kids under your car are, or were, the son and daughter of Tony Bruno. Tony is a big mafia boss, probably the biggest. We don’t know for sure.’ Tom groaned as he stands, ‘Fucking knees!’, he mumbled to himself.

Tom poked Joe with the back of his flashlight, ‘We grabbed these two brats earlier today, and arranged for ransom. They somehow loosened their restraints and were on their way to freedom when you ran them over. Our payday is now gone, and you are now a killer.’ Tom pulled his service pistol from its holster, and pointed it at Joe’s face and smiles broadly, ‘Nothing personal son, just business’.

Before he could pull the trigger the top of his head exploded and splattered Randy in the back of his head and shoulders. Randy died surprised when a second bullet hit him in the throat as he turned and saw his headless partner. The bullet severed his spine and he fell like a marionette whose strings got cut. Joe’s stomach finally managed to produce something for him to vomit all over his own hands.

***

 The cop killer turned out to be an elderly man. A very fit and strong elderly man that stuffed Joe into the trunk of his car. Joe heard his muffled voice as the old man used his phone. When the trunk lid opened Joe expected to be shot. He was not, and instead the old man gestured to him to get out, ‘Join me up front young man. You have been invited to meet mister Bruno.’ He looked hard at Joe, ‘I advise you to not make mister Bruno wait. Let’s go, pronto!’

As they drove away Joe saw a large semi-truck pull up to the scene. ‘Cleanup crew’, the old man remarked, ‘I am Enzo, what do I call you?’. ‘Joe’, Joe croaked for the second time that evening. Enzo looked him over, ‘You been drinking?’. ‘No’, Joe managed. ‘Good, good!’, Enzo nodded to himself.

***

Tony Bruno is the big boss. His residence reflected that. They arrived at a gate with a man in a box that spoke to Enzo via a pole mounted intercom. Enzo donned a pair of sunglasses, and a spotlight shone from the other side of the gate blinding Joe. Enzo grinned, enjoying his discomfort. Whoever was behind the light must have been satisfied with what they saw because the gate swung open, and Enzo removed the sunglasses and drove through. They drove for several minutes up a cobblestoned driveway, surrounded by a manicured parklike setting. The house was magnificent. Enzo drove around the house and entered a subterranean parking area, then parked in the only open spot.

‘End of the road son. Sit tight, someone will come fetch us’, Enzo removed a pistol from his waist, another from his left ankle and a vicious looking knife from the right ankle. ‘Open the glovebox please’, he asked, and Joe obliged. Enzo placed his weapons in the glove box and explained, ‘No weapons allowed in the house for visitors.’ Two large men arrived and Joe and Enzo was escorted up the stairs to a lavishly decorated lounge where Tony waited.

Tony is of average height and with unremarkable features. In a crowd your eyes will pass right over him, never noticing him. It took decades for Tony to achieve this level of invisibility. When he stands in front of you and looks at you with his full attention only then will you notice that this is a serious man. There is a fire behind his eyes, barely contained, ready to leap out and incinerate you.

You killed my kids’, Tony said flatly, ‘but Enzo tells me you did not mean to.’ Tony leaned a little closer, ‘Well, did you?’. ‘No sir’, Joe exclaimed, ‘I never saw them until they ran in front of my truck’. Joe realized this may be his last conversation ever and he meant to participate.

’Enzo took the lives of the two cops that took my kids. They killed my children by taking them’, Tony leaned even closer and taps his index finger against Joe’s chest. ‘But you owe me! I can take you outside and run you over in one of my cars, but it’s not enough. You work for me, or you die right here and now.’ The two men that brought them to the room levels pistols at Joe’s head. Tony takes a step back, ‘What is your answer son?’. And this is how Joe became an employee of the Bruno family.

***

The Bruno family made use of Joe from day one. The first few tasks required Joe to transport heavy boxes from a warehouse to various locations in the city. The instructions were to be followed to the letter. Pickup at a specific time, deliver at another set time, and never look in the boxes. Joe did these tasks without question, even skipping class to deliver on time. Joe carried a burner phone, and Enzo always called with instructions. Joe knew something else would be required of him when one day Enzo showed up in person.

Enzo did not come inside, he gave his instructions at the door, ’Got something different for you today son. We’ll be away for a bit, so pack a bag with what you need for three days and meet me downstairs. I’m in a lime green Dodge Durango, you can’t miss it.’

***

The first time Joe saw someone beaten to death was on this trip to New Orleans. They drove to a house in Westbank where Joe and Enzo would reside for the duration of their stay. Enzo parked the Durango in the attached garage, next to a cargo van. When they entered the house through the kitchen, Joe saw two men and a woman in the empty living room, tied to chairs. They were naked and gagged.

’They stole from mister Bruno’, Enzo tells Joe, ‘We recovered mister Bruno’s product, but a message needs to be sent to any other would-be thieves. These three will serve as examples.’ The three captives’ eyes widen, and they struggle against their bounds. One of the men urinates onto the carpet. Joe can’t believe what he sees, the sight of their nakedness and the fear in their eyes freeze him in place. ‘Snap out of it son’, Enzo squeezes past him to the hallway, ‘you’ve seen worse. Get used to it and be happy you are not in the chair’.

There were four other men in the house, hard looking men with tattooed arms and hands. They did not speak and nodded acknowledgment to Enzo, and never looked at Joe. Enzo handed Joe a duffel bag, ‘set up this equipment son, we are going to make a home movie’. He hands Joe a plastic shopping bag, but it is empty. ‘What’s this for?’ Joe asks. ‘It’s for you to puke into son. Now set up the camera, I am hungry and want to get this done so we can go eat’. This causes more moans and straining by the bug-eyed captives, and the silent men grin at each other.

***

Joe recorded the events that played out over the next 40 minutes. He used the shopping bag twice.

One of the men stepped forward and swung a baseball bat at the woman’s left shin. It made a sickening sound, causing Joe’s first use of the shopping bag. Her leg broke, making a backwards bend just below the knee. Joe was surprised to see how fast the swelling set in. Another man stepped forward with a hammer. The captives had their legs tied to the chairs, and the hammer was used to smash the woman’s toes on her right foot, one by one. By now the two naked men were crying and moaning, fighting against their restraints, totally freaked out by the brutality demonstrated on the woman.

When it was all done Joe was weak and shaking, dehydrated and in shock. Shocked at what he witnessed, shocked at his inability to stop the torture and shocked that he is now an accomplice to a triple murder. The three victims’ faces were unharmed so they can be identified, but their bodies were a broken mess, like those kids he ran over.

The next few days Joe is on autopilot, going with Enzo to various meetings, being introduced to people whose names and faces he forgot immediately. On the way back to Fort Worth Joe resurfaced from his state of shocked disbelief mixed with self-loathing. Enzo noticed, ‘You will be fine kid. Seeing something like that for the first time is always the worst. You’ll learn to live with it and will eventually do worse yourself’. Joe did not respond. He would never be like those tattooed animals, he cannot and will not.

***

Enzo’s prediction turned out to be accurate. Joe dropped out of school, and fully participated in the Bruno family business. He started out making collections as a soldier, and later became a Caporegime, a captain of sorts. Enzo took him under his wing as an apprentice and turned Joe into a button man for the Bruno family.

Joe was good at killing. He took no joy from taking life and performed the task pragmatically. A good assassin is like a good painter, your level of success is directly proportional to your level of preparation. Squeezing a trigger is the final act, like rolling on paint. If you planned well, the getaway is as simple as removing painters’ tape when the job is done. Joe’s targets were bad men or women, and on occasion both. These people were always criminals themselves, or corrupt officials who stood in the way of the Bruno family. Joe suspects some were less bad than others, and some may even have been incorruptible, but he never questioned assignments.

***

Early on Joe realized there is no getting out of this business, and there certainly is no retirement plan for hired killers. You must make your own. Joe’s plan was simple, he meant to terminate his employment with the Bruno family, and that meant terminating most of the family.

Tony’s birthday was coming up, and it always involved a huge gathering of the Bruno family. Tony always invites the heads of the other prominent families in the state. Keep your enemies close and all that you know. The best time to be rid of his employer would be at this event. These different families are not friends, they are direct competitors with only tenuous agreements regarding territory and protocol. It is a venerable tinderbox that just needs one lit match and the whole thing will go up in flames.

***

On the day of the event, Joe visits the son of one of the invited bosses. He makes the man’s wife tie her husband to a chair using cable ties, then he ties the woman to another chair. When their two kids came home from school Joe did the same to them. He positioned a wireless camera and made sure he could view the whole family on his phone. He then placed a box under the man’s chair and left for the party.

***

At the party Joe sends a link to the video feed to boss Morelli. He watches Morelli’s expression change as he realizes what he is looking at. The box under his son’s chair displays a countdown, with only a few minutes remaining. Joe then sends a second text claiming this is Tony’s doing, in retaliation for the death of his kids a decade ago. The box was just a timer, not a bomb, but it had the desired effect. Morelli is a hothead, and his reaction is classic mafioso. He walks up to Tony who welcomes him with open arms, expecting an embrace, but instead gets a silver fork in his right eye, shoved so hard it enters his brain and kills him. Joe shoots Morelli in the temple, and this triggers pandemonium. Since Tony never allows his guests to enter his house with firearms, the various families tear into each other with fists and furniture. Only Tony’s men were armed, resulting in the death of most of the other families’ leaders. In the chaos Joe slips away.

Tony Bruno’s last birthday party started an all-out war. Years of envy and hate boil over, and the families first go after the Bruno family with fury and fire, then turn on each other. Weeks later the FBI swoops in and arrests the last remaining mafia bosses. Enzo dies in a firefight with the state police when he tries to flee to New Orleans.

***

Finally, Joe has his freedom.

Never underestimate the necessity of a good retirement plan for your employees. It might just save your company and many lives!