Venom Beneath the Skin

Special Agent Romilia Chacon drives her old Taurus out of the neighborhood of canals of Venice, California, and toward the freeway. Venice Boulevard has little traffic just past midnight. It's a straight shot of green lights all the way to the 405. She does not speed. There is no need for that. I can see her easily, even without the streetlights, from the roof of this old apartment building. The Steiner Nighthunters with their twelve by fifty-six range can peer into near total darkness. The binoculars, manufactured by a private company for the U.S. Army and used by the high military command in the Iraq war, and bought at Internet prices (eight hundred forty dollars, a steal), make Romilia's face large and sharp. She does not cry. This does not surprise me; she's not in love. She has a lover. The man who lives on the banks of these canals, in one of the smaller homes but one that he can barely afford. Special Agent Samuel "Chip" Pierce. Living off a Fed's salary, bringing in a little extra income due to his wounds, Chip can manage the payments, along with the help of an inheritance; and he means to enjoy it. The loss of body parts has that effect on some men: Either you drink yourself away or you slam down the pain pills or the heroin or all three; or maybe you get existential, you decide hey, they took my leg, my eye, they took a chunk of my hand, fuck it; I'm living. I'm going to live, and if I can, I'll live in one of the nicer areas in Los Angeles. Sure, it's not the real Venice, no gondolas plying the waterways; it's just L.A. with canals running by the houses, but it's expensive and that's what Chip wanted and I can't disagree. I understand Pierce's perspective. I know how much it costs to ease pain. But I have become an existentialist, too; I've learned that pain means life and that death is the absence of pain and sometimes I'm not sure which one to choose so I've chosen this. I lean against the concrete banister of the roof, adjust the Nighthunters so as to look up the street, through the space between two jacaranda trees and into the window of the small canal home. Chip Pierce places a drink on a glass table. Now he looks out the window, no doubt at the road that Romilia Chacon has just taken home. I can't adjust the binoculars anymore, can't see the look that may be regret pass over Chip Pierce's face. But the stance is there, a cock of the head downward, a decision not to drink from the glass for that moment. A pause. Who is more solid: Chip Pierce, or me? Or Romilia Chacon? She's done well for herself here in Los Angeles these past years. No doubt she is the most solid of all, even with that knife-scar over the left side of her neck, even with that sister long in the grave. I know her, I've had to get to know her. But she's not my target. Nor is Chip Pierce. Though later, police and witnesses will be hard put to believe that. I'm painting a picture that they won't forget. I watch, carefully, as Chip cracks ice for another drink. My ice, the tray I made for him. He sits in a large chair and drinks scotch, then starts to shake his head. Another sip, as if to toss off the sudden whirl. He stands to walk it off, means to set the scotch on the table but doesn't quite place it correctly; the glass tumbler totters on the table's lip. It falls, but does not break. And poor, half-drugged Chip is on his way to sleep. I leave the roof and make my way across Venice Boulevard. After popping the lock on the front door and entering the six-digit code that will disarm his alarm system, I will find Special Agent Pierce on his back, just below the window, the empty tumbler next to his head. Get to work. Wrap Pierce's limp fingers around objects. Open drawers and leave the objects behind. Prick and shoot. Pierce has only a slipper on his right foot. This makes it easy. Now, wait for his body to go through the motions, the rush. The firVillatoro, Marcos McPeek is the author of 'Venom Beneath the Skin ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780440242222 and ISBN 0440242223.