Harry Pimble

My name’s Harry Pimble. I’m fifty three years old and I want to kill my wife. Only problem is I can’t do it myself. Not that I’m scared or anything like that, no sir -- nothing would give me more pleasure than looking in that scrounging witch’s eyes as I drive my thumbs into her throat. The problem is I’m just so damn unlucky I know I’d get caught for sure. I’d bury the body in some remote forest thinking it’s safe, only for it be discovered by a dog walker or something. I can see the report on the evening news. The forest all taped off with police standing guard while the guy gets interviewed.
 
‘I never walk my dog through those woods’ he’d say with a chuckle. ‘But today old Brandy here decides to chase a rabbit, and when I catch her she’s dug up all these remains.’
 
Old Brandy would become a national hero and I’d be sentenced to life without parole. Nah, I ain’t taking chances, which is what brings me to the offices of Jenson and Button contract killers. A guy at Hank’s bar recommended them to me. Said they’d whacked his boss and mother in law in a two for one special. He ain’t ever been happier. Yeah, I want some of that.
 
I pay the cab driver and step from the sticky downtown air into the office. I close the door and the orchestra of traffic fades into a dull hum. I stand under the ceiling fan letting it wash away the heat from my head. The office is open plan and kinda small. There are a few pot plants dotted here and there and three people sit in the waiting area. I nod to an old guy who looks dead and walk up to the reception counter.
 
‘Can I help ye?’ says a wrinkle faced woman with a Scottish accent. She’s wearing spectacles on a chain and looks like someone’s grandma.
 
‘Yes you can help me.’ I say slapping the counter. ‘My name’s Harry Pimble and I’d very much like to have my wife executed please.’
 
She smiles and tells me I’ve come to the right place. She shuffles over to a filing cabinet and pulls out a rainforest worth of forms which she slaps onto the counter.
 
‘You’ll have tae fill out these forms Mr Pimble’
 
‘Umm forms?’ I say taken by surprise. ‘In the movies they just give a photo and a bag of cash?’ She fakes a smile and tells me ‘were not in the movies.’
 
‘Och….we dinnae just kill people willy nilly Mr Pimble, there are codes of conduct, standards of practice to maintain, you ken?’
 
‘Uh huh.’ I have no idea what she means.
 
‘Go away, fill out these forms and we’ll take a looksee at your application then ok Mr Pimble?’
 
I nod and pick up the forms. As I trudge outside I feel depressed. I light a cigarette and wipe the sweat from around my glasses. The orchestra of engines and car horns gives me headache, so I hail a cab and head down to Hank’s bar for a well-earned drink. The driver makes small talk but I’m lost in my own thoughts.
 
I should have never got married, not after my first wife turned out to be a real nightmare " always complaining about money or moaning about me being a lousy father, which just ain’t true. It’s just another example of my bad luck that I end up with awful kids that lie and steal all the time. The day my divorce came through I packed up and headed for New York. I think lady luck felt kinda bad for giving me such a hard time of it because a week later I get a call from a lawyer who tells me I’ve inherited some cash from a wealthy relative who just died in a car crash. Obviously I don’t tell my ex-wife otherwise she’d be all over me playing the guilt trip. ‘The kids need this, the kids need that’. She thinks I’m an idiot. I see how much money the welfare pays out. Them kids want for nothing I guarantee it.
 
‘What about this weather we’ve been having?’ says the cab driver. I ignore him as my mind pulls me into the memory of how I met my second wife, talk about unlucky.
 
With my inheritance I’d taken a trip to Thailand. The promise of postcard beaches and exotic liaisons enticed me like a siren to a sailor. I arrive at my hotel in Phuket and the next day take a trip out to some temples in the mountains. Only when I get back there ain’t no hotel left.
 
‘There’s been a tsunami’ says a British Red Cross worker as she tends to some injured kids. As the sun sets people scurry like ants over mounds of smashed concrete and twisted steel. I watch them struggle to lift roof beams aside as they hunt for survivors. I was devastated. I mean, the only vacation I’d had in years was ruined, and to top it all off I’d lost my luggage and didn’t have no place to stay. Like I said, I’m just damn unlucky. Anyway I trudge around the place, hands in pockets kicking an empty can when this teenage boy with a dirty face and no shoes starts pulling at my shirt.
 
‘Mister, you need place to stay?
 
‘Yeah sure’ I tell him, relieved he’s not trying to sell me something.
 
He takes me on the back of a moped way up a bumpy track deep into the mountain jungles to his parent’s shack. They greet me like an old friend and sit me down on the floor. The mother feeds me curry and rice and the three of them stare at me with curiosity as I eat. The old man is skinny ribbed with a crumpled face and a wispy beard. He babbles something in Thai, and the kid translates in broken English.
 
‘Mister, you welcome for stay here’
 
‘That’s very kind of you’ I reply, although I really wasn’t happy about it. The four of us cramped into a tiny room that hums with mosquitoes.
 
‘Only one thousand baht a night’ says the kid as if he is doing me a favour. I almost spit a mouthful of curry out.
 
“One thousand!”
 
The parents babble and argue, waving their hands and talking over each other in continuous sentences without taking a breath. The kid moves and squats down beside me. He turns to his parents who are both wide eyed, ushering him to ask whatever he’s supposed to ask.
 
‘Mister, my parents say hmm, if you marry daughter you no pay to stay’.
 
‘Get married, no chance!’
 
I wasn’t gonna make that mistake again, especially to some swamp dwelling monster with bad teeth. I also told them I would only pay two hundred a night or they could take me immediately to the nearest hotel. The father babbled to the mother who got up and left.
 
‘She go get daughter.’ The kid said. ‘Her name Bussaba’.
 
I tell them not to bother, I didn’t want to go through any pretence of telling them she’s gorgeous when she clearly wouldn’t be. Then the mother comes back into the shack with the daughter following. I double take and cough as the oxygen seems to disappear from the room. Hours become minutes, minutes become seconds. She’s beautiful, a real oriental princes and no mistake. Early twenties with flowing black hair and skin like silk. I fell in love right there and after some skilled haggling on my behalf the father let me have Bussaba for only forty thousand baht.
 
That was five years ago and people tell me I’m lucky to have escaped the tsunami. I suppose that’s kinda true, but I sometimes wish that wave had picked me up and carried me the hell away from Bussaba and her family. I mean the woman is crazy, an absolute nut job who won’t give me no peace. Always wants money for her scrounging family. I tell her she should get another job if she needs more cash, instead of sponging off my inheritance. The final straw came when she asked me to pay for her family to come live with us, she starts waving Visa applications in my face, telling me her mother’s sick and needs proper medical care, like I need another drain on my finances.
 
The cab comes to a halt outside Hank’s Bar. I pay the guy and step outside avoiding the scrounging vets in dirty khakis that loiter like zombies.
 
‘Spare some change for a Vietnam vet?’ says a guy with one arm.
 
‘Not on your life’ I tell him as I march into the bar.
 
Hank’s bar is a dingy kind of place with low ceilings, peeling wallpaper and a permanently blocked toilet. Sure, it ain’t the Ritz, but the beers real cheap. Hank is a huge black ex-marine with a square head and wrists that are thicker than most guys’ ankles. I call him affirmative action man, not to his face mind you. He’s kinda moody, got a little post-traumatic stress I think. Word is Colour Sergeant Hank Roberts took out a whole platoon in Vietnam single handed and is still a little twitchy from the experience. I know this because Jimmy and Bobby M told me " said they heard it off a guy from Cleveland who served under Hank.
 
‘Killed most of em with just a knife’ Jimmy said making throat slitting gestures.
 
‘Got the medal of honour for it too’ Bobby added.
 
I order a beer from Hank who gives me his customary grunt before marching away down the bar. I take my drink to one of the dimly lit booths, open my briefcase and pull out the wad of paperwork. My stomach turns to butterflies just looking at it. I let out a sigh, pick up the first form and stare at it like a dumb kid looking at a math test.
 
‘Federation of professional contract killers form 2503/8777 " Application for the murder of a partner/spouse.
 
‘On average how many times a day do you fantasise about killing your partner/spouse?’ " ‘Hmm, about twenty four times and each time for an hour.’ I whisper allowing myself a smirk.
 
‘Please give details concerning your most frequent fantasy?’ "‘well, last week it was shark attack, yesterday I was favouring fire. I relax a little, letting a wave of hope wash through me, maybe I had been wrong to worry so much.’ This is actually kinda fun.
 
‘Please give details about the first time you thought about killing your partner/spouse? This must include date, location and photographic evidence to support your claim.’
 
It’s the thumping sound of my head hitting the table that makes me realise my head just hit the table. I repeat the motion, a few times, really thumping my head causing one of the vets to scream ‘incoming’ as he dives under a nearby table. I feel like a boxer who’s been teased by a greater opponent into thinking he’s got a chance and then from nowhere …BANG, Lights out. How the hell am I supposed to show photographic evidence? I mean what the hell do they want? " A photo of me standing behind my wife with a dated newspaper in one hand and a knife in the other. I mean come on! I slam my head again causing the form to slide off the table and flutter away towards the bar.
 
I move quickly to retrieve it but I’m too late. Hank has swooped from behind the bar, picked it up and is reading it. I try to grab it back out his hand, but he just raises it slightly out of my reach like an older boy teasing his kid brother with a ball.
 
‘Give it me Hank, I need it, I mean, it’s not mine. It’s umm, for a friend’.
 
For the first time I see the faintest trace of a smile crack on Hank’s face. He hands me back the form and I sit back down in the booth. Hank squeezes his legs under the table and sits opposite me.
 
‘So you got murder on your mind’ he says while stroking his moustache with thumb and forefinger.
 
‘Like I said Hank, it’s for a friend.’ I put the paperwork back into my briefcase. His face cracks into a smile and he laughs. I don’t know what I find most disturbing? "The fact that He knows about my plan, or he finds it funny. Hank looks over his shoulders then leans in close so were face to face like arm wrestlers.
 
‘I know a guy who fixes problems like yours’ He nods and gives me a slow wink to let me know that he’s cool.
 
‘Goes by the name of ‘the ghost’.’ Hank continues with an air of pride that suggests he’s talking about himself.
 
‘Are you the ghost Hank?’
 
He pauses for a moment and looks stunned. ‘You’re a real smart one huh?’ I don’t have the heart or courage to tell him he’s as see through as tracing paper.
 
‘Who’s the target?’ he asks.
 
‘My wife.’ I hear myself say.
 
‘How much Hank?’ Again, I don’t realise I am saying the words until I hear them. He leans in closer still so were almost touching noses. ‘Twenty thousand.’
 
‘Twenty thou…..the professional killers are charging half…….’
 
Hank shushes me with a finger to his mouth, and then taps his hand on the briefcase. ‘You really wanna fill out all these forms? He says. I ponder this for a moment. If I go with the contract killer it’s gonna be cheaper sure. But with Hank there’s no paperwork " none of those stupid unanswerable questions that make me so angry I wanna tear off my own arms. I feel the anger welling in me as I stare at the mound of paperwork. The decision pretty much makes itself.
 
‘Ok Hank, you’re hired. I say with no hesitation. Hank stands up and whips me a salute. ‘I accept this mission sir’ he says with staring eyes. He sits back down and rests his barrel arms behind his head. I ask Hank how he plans to kill Bussaba.
 
I’m a cludeo man’ he says. He sees from my face I have no idea what he means.
 
‘Cluedo, you know? Gun, knife, rope, lead pipe that kind of thing’ He gives a demonstration of each taking particular pleasure in the lead pipe as he cracks the skull of an imaginary foe. He says he can make it real quick or if I want he can make Bussaba suffer real badly.
 
‘Make it quick Hank’. I say. ‘I ain’t no psychopath.’
 
We spend the rest of the day planning the murder. Hank will kill Bussaba in the parking lot after her English class. He’ll also steal her purse so it looks like a random mugging gone wrong. Hank suggests I host a poker game at my place and invite a few of the vets who drink in the bar. This means I’ll have plenty of witnesses too not see me kill my wife. I worry that we are rushing and ask Hank if we need more time.
 
‘Just like Nicaragua.’ He growls ‘In and out, no fuss.’
 
I take this to mean we’re good and I don’t complain " the sooner the better in my book. We invite Bobby M and Jimmy to play poker who both oblige happily, what with the offer of free booze. The main reason I invite those guys is that none of em own a watch. I’ll pick them up at the bar then take em home making sure that all the clocks in my house are wound back half an hour which gives Hank plenty of time to do the deed and get over to my place at ‘seven thirty’ which will be witnessed by us all. When they leave I’ll wind the clocks back to the right time and hey presto " the perfect crime.
 
By the time I leave the bar it’s after midnight and I’m pretty hammered. I make a quick call to Bussaba telling her to make me some food. The air is still warm as I step outside. I stand for a while looking at the sequined night sky " letting a wave of happiness wash over me as I think about my impending freedom. I eventually stumble back to my car, climb inside and drive off.
 
I don’t know where she came from but I’m talking to a beautiful girl with long auburn hair. She has a set of keys and jangles them in front of my face. I try and reach out to her but my hands pass through her like a phantom.
 
‘You’ll be free soon Harry, and I’ll be waiting for you’ she says without moving her lips. She starts calling my name in a soft voice that’s precious like gold. She jangles her keys louder this time.
 
‘Pimble’ she whispers.
 
‘Pimble’ her voice becomes deeper.
 
‘PIMBLE!’ she shouts. I wake up.
 
‘Wake up Pimble’ says a fat man in a uniform who is poking me with a night stick. It takes me a few moments to work out that he’s a cop and I’m in a cell.
 
‘W, W, What did I do?’ I stammer, still confused by my surroundings.
 
‘You ran a red light.’
 
‘Well that ain’t so bad surely?’
 
‘Doing a hundred and twenty.’
 
‘Oh.’
 
The cop pulls me to my feet and helps me walk out to the desk sergeant who charges me with drink driving. I squint under the flickering strip lights of the precinct. I fill out the release forms, pay the fee to get my car released and am handed back my possessions. Bussaba is here and rushes across the crowded police station and hugs me tight.
 
‘Hawwy baby, I very worried. You are ok?’ she says while scanning my face and body for signs of damage.
 
“I’m fine, you bring cigarettes?”
 
She gives me one of her ‘I wish you wouldn’t, but I’m not going to argue in public’ stares. I return the stare holding my hand out until she pulls a pack of Peter Stuyvesant from her bag. When we get outside I shelter under an awning as Bussaba dashes through the rain to fetch the car. Right next to me is a young blonde chick wearing a red and white striped dress that hugs her curved figure. I pull out a smoke from the packet and then pat my pockets theatrically.
 
‘Damn it’ I feign. ‘You got a light please miss?’
 
She gives me a light without speaking. I wonder if she realises how damn cute her spectacles make her look. I picture her covering her mouth with her hand as she laughs at something funny I say.
 
‘I’ve just been visiting a client’ I tell her.
 
‘That’s nice’.
 
‘Yeah, I’m a lawyer, that guy I just seen, he says to me I’m the best defence lawyer he’s ever had….’
 
‘Is that your wife?’ she interrupts, pointing to the bottom of the steps where Bussaba is standing by the car waving with both hands like a crazy.
 
‘Hmmm, secretary’ I reply inwardly cursing Bussaba.
 
‘Your secretary drives a beaten up Dodge? Wow, I wish I could work for you.’ She flicks her cigarette into the rain and laughs as she saunters past me into the station. I finish my smoke and join Bussaba in the car who spends the whole journey home interrogating me.
 
‘Where you be Hawwy? I no sleep. I very worry about you.’
 
‘Yeah yeah’
 
‘Hawwy today we fill in form for make parents come and live in America?’’
 
‘Yeah yeah’
 
‘Hawwy I wish you get job, no good for you drinking all the time.’
 
‘Yeah yeah’ I light a cigarette. It takes just five seconds for her coughing to start.
 
‘Hawwy I wish you no smoke, bad for you bad for me.’
 
‘Yeah yeah.’
 
We arrive home. Bussaba makes me breakfast and then gives me a massage. She moans some more about Visa paperwork to fill in so I pretend to be asleep on the couch until she goes out to work. She has a job cleaning for some wealthy business man in the city and will be gone all day as she goes straight from work to her English class. I relax for most of the day " checking out vacation destinations. Jamaica looks really good. The happy vibes of the Caribbean are just what I’m gonna need after my ordeal with Bussaba. Before I leave I turn the clocks back a half hour. I meet the guys at the bar and we have a few beers then I drive us home. The guys tuck into the whiskey and I offer em all cigars that were a gift from Bussaba last Christmas. I lay out some cheese and crackers and Jimmy puts on a green poker visor and we play a few hands.
 
‘Just a warm up now guys’ I tell them. ‘After all Hank’s gonna be here at seven thirty, I say seven thirty.’  We play another hand. I have a full house of three kings and two jacks but can’t get excited by it. I can’t relax properly. I feel like I’m a school kid waiting for exam results. Through the haze of cigar smoke I watch the guys laugh and carry on. I want to feel that carefree. I check my watch, seven twenty seven pm. I pour the guys another drink and make them aware of the time.
 
‘Nearly seven thirty guys.’ I say pointing to the wall clock. Seven thirty comes and goes and I chain smoke my way to eight o clock. I pour myself a huge whiskey and down it like a Texas gunslinger. Where the hell is Hank? He’s supposed to be a here. My imagination starts running wild. I picture Hank in a cell confessing everything to a couple of hard a*s cops. I pour another whiskey and it goes down just as quick. ‘Take it easy Harry, save some for us’ the boys complain.
 
Another hour passes. I am frantic and unable to concentrate. I’m convinced Hank’s been caught and I contemplate packing suitcases and heading to Mexico. Eventually the doorbell rings and I stagger to it. I wrench open the door with the words ‘what are you playing at Hank’ cocked in my mouth. Only I don’t get chance to say them because Hank is not alone. He is standing next to Bussaba and their all laughter and smiles. Hank is grinning like a schoolboy who just saw his first pair of breasts and Bussaba is stroking Harry’s hand. The height difference makes em look strange like a parent and kid. They glide into the house and I manage to ask them what the hell is going on?
 
‘She knows everything Harry’ says Hank.
 
‘Yeah Hawwy, I know you want kill me, tut tut bad boy Hawwy.’ She’s drunk and cocky.
 
‘We’re in love Harry.’ Says Hank.
 
From behind me I hear sniggering of Jimmy and Bobby M who think my wife and Hank falling in love is hilarious. I try and take in what is happening and keep expecting a camera crew to burst through the door telling me I’ve been punked. How the hell can they be in love for Pete’s sake? I remind Hank that he is a hit-man and was getting paid by me to do a job. He tells me that he isn’t a hit-man and has never killed anyone in his life.
 
‘Never killed anyone? What about all those guys in Vietnam?’ I turn to Bobby M and Jimmy for support but they turn their backs on me like naughty kids.
 
‘That never happened Harry’ he says. ‘Those guys will do anything for booze money so I paid em to spread that rumour. I kinda liked people thinking I was a troubled war hero, I thought it was better than the truth.’
 
The truth apparently is that Hank came from a long line of marines and was disowned by his dad when he failed to get in to the corps because he was too fat. He became an army chef instead and the closest he came to killing anyone was when he gave his whole platoon in Vietnam salmonella due to some bad eggs. Not only that but he’s only been hired to kill someone twice including my hit on Bussaba. Turns out the first woman he was supposed to kill was a psychologist and while he’s trying to get up the courage to shoot her she’s got inside his head, asking him all sorts of questions about his childhood.
 
‘You kill her?’ I ask.
 
‘Negative sir’ he says.
 
‘She took me for a cup of coffee, and gave me some counseling. I guess I just ain’t cut out for murder.’ He says while staring deeply into my wife’s eyes.
 
‘But now I don’t need to lie about anything’ he says as he clutches my wife close in his thick arms. I feel sick, betrayed even. How could he do this to me? Tonight was supposed to be my night of celebration. Hank takes off his coat and I see the handle of his gun sticking out of his jeans. I take my chance and seize the gun.
 
Hank immediately jumps in front of Bussaba, shielding her from my aim.
 
‘You really wanna shoot us Harry? He asks.  Of course I do but I don’t wanna go to prison. So after thinking about it, I do the right thing.
 
‘I’ll give you each a grand if you wax them both.’ I say, tossing the gun to Bobby. ‘No problem boss’ he says. He stands and fires the gun hitting Hank clean in the chest. He crashes to the floor like a tranquilised grizzly. Bussaba screams, and backflips over to the cheese board. She picks up a knife and throws it at Bobby with the skill of a circus performer. The knife whistles through the air and impales him in the throat. I’m stunned. I had no idea my wife was some kind of ninja. Seeing his buddy fall to the floor Jimmy hurls a bottle of whiskey at Bussaba who ducks out of the way. She forward rolls onto the floor and springs up and flying kicks her attacker in the face. I shudder at the crunch of Jimmy’s neck cracking. He lands dead on top of Bobby and the pair lie tangled up they’re playing twister.
 
As Bussaba catches her breath I survey the situation. My wife knows that I planned to have her killed. My hit-man turns out to be a phoney who stole my wife and is now dead. My two good pals are dead and you know how hard it is to find good drinking buddies? This ain’t how I expected the night to go.
 
‘You need to clean this mess up, go and get……’ I don’t finish as Bussaba interrupts me.
 
‘Hawwy what would policeman say if find out you hire Hank for kill me?’ she says. I swallow hard and realise that my wife is blackmailing me.
 
‘Maybe they say Hawwy very bad man, must go prison for long time huh?’ What a b***h! After all I’ve done for her. So Bussaba and I spend the evening disposing of bodies and cleaning up the house. Good thing for us is that none of these guys have families that care for them. We drive them way out into the sticks and bury them all in a deep grave that Bussaba makes me dig. She’s turned into a real power trip, always bossing me around like I’m her slave or something.
 
A couple of days later Bussaba leaves to go and watch the movies. She hits me for some cash, I pull out a twenty but she gives me a stare that says ‘I want fifty.’
 
‘Good boy Hawwy’ she says slapping me on the cheek. I return to the table where all the paperwork for Bussaba’s family is waiting for me. I take a sip of iced water and let out a huge sigh, staring at the glass as I do so. Bussaba has stopped me drinking, smoking and eating bad food. She also got me a cleaning job at the same place she works. And she’s forced me to sign control of my inheritance over to her. Worst thing is there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it. She knows I tried to kill her and has made it clear that she will tell the cops about the whole situation. I tell her she is guilty of killing two guys, and she smiles like a child.
 
‘Self-defence Hawwy, two big men try kill me I do what I have to for survive.’
 
Yeah she’s got me good and proper but that ain’t what bothers me the most. Neither is it her malingering family is going to be living with us. What really kills me, what really hacks me off are the Visa applications that are stacked up on my coffee table like a sky-scraper. As I reach for another form I can’t help thinking if I’d filled out the contract killer’s paperwork then all this wouldn’t have happened. Bussaba would be dead and I’d be drinking cocktails on a warm beach surrounded by olive skinned goddesses. But who am I kidding huh? When you’re as unlucky as I am, bad things just happen to you. I guess if you’re born with bad luck you kinda never get rid of it no matter how hard you try.

Author's Note

Does the ending seem rushed?

Reviews

[Marie]

No; the ending's fine; the whole story is good.I don't normally read a story as long as this, but it caught my interest and held it all the way through.

[ian8777]

Thanks very much Marie.....

[Marie]

You're welcome.