Lee Williams, Harassment Agent - Episode 5
by Lee Williams
(This story is a complete work of fiction.)
Life is short. Make the most out of it.
See me, I don't feel like I'm doing that. I often think about what options I had. I could have played classical guitar in New York. I could have joined Doctors Without Borders. I could have tried going to college. Hell, I could have played shortstop for the Mets. I could have tried a thousand things, yet here I am, a depressed criminal. And lying in a crack den, with the sun shining just barely through the window, I wonder how I got here.
The answer, I guess, is I fell in love with The Fast Life.
Could you blame me? Never a dull moment with me, I guess.
At least, that's how I felt before I was shot at leaving my motel. I walked outside and started walking down the street, when I saw a black Nissan in the parking lot turn on and start trailing behind me. I walked faster and it sped up. I walked even faster and it sped up even more. As it came alongside me, the window opened, and I heard the sound of Stormy Weather by Etta James out the window.
Then I saw metal, and heard a shot go off, barely missing me. I dove behind a car, curled myself up behind the engine block as I saw bullets whizz right through both doors of the car. Movies never focus on this detail, but car doors are not bulletproof. The only part of the car that will stop bullets, or most bullets anyway, is the engine block.
I closed my eyes. I'm somewhere else. I'm in Puerto Rico. I'm in Canada. I'm getting drinks with JB. I'm literally anywhere but getting shot at in Jacksonville.
Eventually I heard wheels spinning as whoever that was pulled off. After a few minutes, I cautiously got up. But I heard sirens coming and ran into the bushes. I may have been the victim, but I can't stick around anyway.
Pierre told me where he was, but I had no real way to get there, so I called a cab to the address he sent me. When I got there, it was an abandoned house that made the den I was staying in look like the White House. Although, I mean... with the current climate of U.S. politics...
Bump keys are keys specifically designed for lockpicking. You insert them into the lock, and then lightly bump it with a hammer. This makes the pins jump, and after enough bumping, they all jump into the right position to open the door. With a full set of bump keys, it's estimated that you can open nearly 90% of all cylinder locks.
And the locks on an abandoned house are certainly nothing special. I opened the door, and was hit with a smell that was a mix of beer, cigarettes, chili, dust, asbestos, and piss.
"Pierre!" I shouted. I was met with silence. "Are you in here?"
Nothing. I walked through the whole house. Eventually I made it to the kitchen, where I saw a note.
His Signal is now deleted.
I sat down on the couch and turned the TV on.
I guess the power still works here.
"Pavel Durov, creator of Telegram, was arrested in France today, on charges of-"
Change channels.
"The Fentanyl epidemic in the United States continues to escalate, with the death toll in the thousands. Narcan, a drug-"
I turned the thing off and sat. I was overcome by a deep burning anger, a resentment I've never felt before for my situation, an anger directed at everything and everyone that got me here. Ray. Valentina. Pierre. I was so angry that I couldn't even think straight. What do I even do now? I'm in Jacksonville, Florida, running from an organized crime group I gave my life to, poured my soul into, made my entire being, all to be terminated in my very early 20s. My back hurts. My head hurts. My stomach was turning. And now, my last companion aside from JB has gone to California to chase some girl, and I'm just sitting here with absolutely no idea what to do next. What do I even do?
I turned the TV back on.
"Two arrested for going on a shooting rampage in Jacksonville spanning four days, resulting in three deaths. One suspect committed suicide, while the other was taken into custody without incident. 19-year-old Isaiah Briggs, when questioned by police, said he did it because he didn't like Mondays."
Huh. Now that is one hell of a coincidence.
I decided it was imperative to disappear. And the first step in disappearing is, and always will be, physically. So I booked a Greyhound to Miami to gather my thoughts and make a plan. The only problem was this burning desire to get back at Ray and Valentina and all of them. But getting revenge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. Maybe that's why I made it my trade, to avoid my own desires to get back at the ones who wronged me. Because when I'm doing it for someone else, it's nothing personal.
Really, it isn't.
I bought the ticket with something called a "bank drop" which is basically a bank account fraudulently set up under someone else's name. It cost me 180 dollars on Tor. I had a matching driver's license. And whoever this is, I also had his SSN. Which is basically everything I need.
Nice to meet you. I'm Anthony Magello.
I called a cab to the bus stop, waited for the bus, and got on, leaving Jacksonville in the dust.
Miami, Florida
"Hennessy," I said shyly. "And a Modelo."
The bartender, without saying anything, poured a very conservative shot of Hennessy and gave me a Modelo, one of the small cans.
"27 dollars," he said.
I paid and angrily sipped my drink. Then, I heard a very confident, booming voice say, "What do you do for work?"
I looked to my left and saw a couple, in their 30s, sitting at the bar. The man was tan, and had a floral shirt on. The woman was short and fair skinned, and had glasses.
"Tech sales," I said. "How about you?"
"Well," he said. "I was the manager of a bank in Arizona, but we got robbed, or not really robbed but stolen from, and I was assaulted in the process. So I sued the bank, won, and I used the money to invest in the stock market."
"Huh," I said. "What do you mean not really robbed?"
"The guy was defrauding us. He had used various tricks to create a fake business account with our bank."
"And he assaulted you?"
"I was trying to distract him," he said. "While the police were coming. And he threw a stack of papers in my face. They never found him. He's presumed dead."
"Jesus," I said. "How much did you get?"
"500k. Then I turned it into a million. Now I count a million every time I blink."
"Every time you blink!?"
"Well," he said. "Not that much. But a lot."
The woman interjected. "You don't work in tech sales."
I was caught off guard by this. Did she know me? Was she with HHH? How did she know I was lying? Is she the cops? The possibilities ran through my mind so fast I forgot to speak.
"Hah!" she said. "I guessed right! Look at your face."
F*ck.
"What's your guys' name?" I asked them.
"I'm Khir,' said the man. "And this is Amber. How about you?"
"Anthony."
"So what do you really do, Anthony?"
I thought about it. I thought about this whole rotten adventure, I thought about this entire journey, how terrible it was, how I wished I was dead, how I wished I was caught, how I wished a million things other than this, and said a Hail Mary. I looked at them. They had this look in their eyes, both of them. You know how the eyes are the window to the soul, well, they had this look that wasn't quite right. And I decided, f*ck it.
I sighed, and said, "I was involved in an organized crime syndicate and now they are trying to kill me. And now I'm running from them."
"We'll kill them," said the woman.
I looked at her in shock.
"I'm joking!" she said. "Your f*cking face."
I laughed nervously and took a sip from my beer.
"Unless..." she said.
"No," I said. "I'm alright, I think."
"Here," Khir said. "We know a beach bar nearby. And Amber's friend is coming, and I think she'd like you. And you seem f*cking lonely. Why don't you come with us, huh?"
I paused. It could be a setup. It could be a trap. It could be a million things. But at this point what did it matter.
"Why not?" I said.
"Awesome," Khir said, with a smile.
"Hey man," I said. "You know you have a good radio voice right?"
"What do you mean," he asked.
"Like, deep. And booming."
Soundtrack