Kill Malmon
By Bryan VanMeter
Someone is paying me a lot of money to kill Dan Malmon, enough that I’m not even asking why. By all accounts, he’s just an average guy who’s never wronged another person. Two simple truths keep me on my game. One, things are rarely what they seem. Serial killers are often described as “that nice boy next door”. Drug fronts look like neighborhood electronic shops. Second, I was being paid and as the old line says, money talks.
I decided that a simple staged suicide would do the trick. It’s an old routine that works well enough for me. Bust into the house, pull my gun on him, hand him a revolver, and tell him that if he didn’t empty his brains all over the couch I’d do unspeakable things to his wife. The common rape/torture scenarios work well enough to encourage the target to do as commanded. I had no taste for rape or torture, but the threat is effective enough.
When the clock on my dash hits 8 PM, I start to move. I slip into the woods that border his back lot keeping my car parked in front of his house to make a quick getaway after I’m done.
Suddenly I’m jerked into the air, hearing a cow bell echo through the silent woods. An alarm. Gotta move fast. I grab my knife from my belt and begin to cut myself down. The revolver slips from my jacket pocket and falls to the ground, but instead of a thud, rings with the clang of metal on metal. I process this for only a second before the jaws of a bear trap snap shut.
I stop moving. I stop breathing and try to process all this. One, no one is coming. The bell is a trick to give the victim a sense of urgency. Two, this trap has been sprung, but it’s probably not the only one Malmon set. Three, this guy is obviously not just a banker. Four, HOLY SHIT I ALMOST JUST GOT MY SKULL CRUSHED BY A BEAR TRAP!
I cut myself down and land as close to the sprung trap as I can. I retrieve the revolver, instantly knowing that the suicide scenario isn’t going to work. I am going to have to simply murder this motherfucker.
I cross the rest of the woods without incident. I know this house like my own, but after the bear/snare trap, I’m looking with different eyes. Best option is entering through the second floor, clearing my way down, and killing Malmon the instant I lay eyes on him.
There is a sturdy lattice on the side of the house covered in roses that is the perfect ladder to the second floor. As seen on TV I think to myself grinning a bit as I move to the roses. As I reach for the lattice, I see a glint of metal in the weak moonlight.
Moving the flowers aside, I see razor wire embedded between the vines of the plant. I whisper an angry curse and kick the nearest stone. To my surprise it tips over with a hollow plastic sound, exposing a car battery. A cursory glance tells me that it’s hooked up to the razor wire.
Fuck it. I’ve had enough, I think. I stride back to my car, grab a black case out of my trunk, and slide into the driver seat. I can see Malmon reading in the living room as I assemble the rifle. Hope it’s good motherfucker. It’s the last thing you’ll read.
My burner phone begins to ring from the center console. I pray they’re not calling off the hit. One too many close calls has made me really want to kill this asshole.
“Yeah?” I say into the phone.
“Is this the man trying to kill me?” the phone responds. “Never mind, of course it’s you.”
Looking up, I can see Malmon staring right at me with a phone to his ear. “How the fuck did you get this number?”
“When I was going through your car. You were in a snare at the time.”
“You know I’m going to blow your head off in thirty seconds, right?”
He laughs. “I doubt it. I’m going to cut to the chase. You’re sitting on two pounds of C4 right now. Hang up, get out, do anything I don’t like, you explode. Got it?”
He doesn’t wait for a response. “Who the fuck sent you to my home?”
I debate my options for a moment and realize I have none. He may be lying about the bomb, but there was only one way to find out and it was kind of a pass/fail system.
“Dan O’Shea,” I say
“Who gave the order to Dan? I know you tracked it back. You seem the smart type.”
“Jon Jordan sent the order. O’Shea put me on it. That’s all I know. Now just let me go and I’ll be a ghost.”
“Poor choice of words,” Malmon says and the line goes dead.
***
Malmon smiles as he turns away from the inferno that used to be a car. Something about killing your potential killer makes you feel so alive. Tomorrow he’d have to disassemble the traps and catch up on the work that he’d put hold, but for the moment all was right with the world.
He makes a mental list of the traps to deal with, when his mind sticks on one, the trip wire in the garage. Kate would be home any minute. If she pulled in, two claymore mines would shred her and half the garage.
He sprints for the garage grabbing a pair of scissors along the way. Suddenly, he realizes that he disabled the door so that couldn’t happen. Relief floods his body and weakens his knees. Before he knows it, Malmon is rushing toward the floor. Kate always told me never to run with scissors, he thought, before they punctured his heart.
