One potato. Two potato.
These Potatoes?
— Floor
Taking a day off for a trip to Chicago was fun, but I was excited to get back to work. The next mark needed to get got in the worst way.
His name was Christopher Luntley. He was a lawyer who left his wife for his stripper side piece, then he left her for somebody else he knocked up. He was going to tell girl number three to get an abortion until she said it was a boy, as if gender makes a life matter.
How could I possibly know this, you ask? He talked about it online. All of it.
He bragged!!!
My God, the things people admit on social media.
I enjoy my work, but some jobs are better than others, and I expected this one to be one of the best, because this scumbag needed to get got.
His house was on a quiet street by that little park in Lansing. Winterhoofer? Whatever. Easy access, easy peasy. And I expected to have plenty of time. He posted on Instagram about going to a Cubs game.
I had to search his place from top to bottom. I finally found his Bitcoin seed words stamped into a metal plate that was stuck to the inside of the fucking fuse box door. Stuck how? Goddamn rare Earth magnets. Crazy strong. Asshole. I wasn't even looking for his words in the fuse box. Bro had some automated smart lights that kept turning on as I went from room to room. I got sick of it, so I cut the power, and... "Oh, shit! Hello seed words!"
I would have turned the power back on, but something felt weird.
It was late in the evening. The sun was finally setting and the house was getting dark. Everything was quiet, but I heard a creak, like a footstep on a hardwood floor. I tried to convince myself it was just the house settling, but then, I heard a door open. And it wasn't the front door.
Was the mark home early?
I wasn't worried.
I'd been in some sticky situations before.
The first thing I did when entering any house was find another way out, and find a place to hide, just in case.
The back door was blocked by a pile of heavy boxes. The garage was down the hall, in the same direction as the sounds I'd heard, so that wasn't an option either. The bedroom closet was the only hiding spot that made sense.
So that's where I went.
As I quietly closed the door, I heard someone flicking a light switch, probably wondering why it didn't work.
Then I heard the front door open, followed by the sound of footsteps. A man said, "Hello? Is somebody there?"
There was a gunshot and a scream, followed by another gunshot. Then, after a brief moment of nothing, I heard the man say, "Oh God," before what sounded like a very large sack of potatoes flopped to the ground.
A voice from the darkness, which sounded darker than the darkness itself, said, "Aaaight, Hose. C'mon out. I ain' playin' hide an' seek."
It was Boogie, from Foke's crew. How did he know I was here? Did he just kill the mark? Did he follow me to the mark's house? And how the fuck did I not notice?
I slowly crept out of the closet, trying to figure out where he was, hoping to make a dash for the front door.
"It's da Boogie man, Hose. I'm not gon' hurt you girl, but I ain' goin' huntin' either. Yo' comin' to me."
I took a peek out the bedroom door to see if it was safe to make a run for it. If I could get down the hall, the front door wasn't far, but there was no way to reach it without going through the living room. I saw a huge shadow move at the end of the hall. It had to be Boogie, which meant he either got lucky, or he was the one who blocked the back door.
There was no way for me to get out without facing him first, and it sure seemed like he knew it.
I caught a glimpse of him, standing in the living room, with his feet on each side of the mark, who was very dead. Bloodily, gruesomely, dead. As I took another peek out the bedroom door to figure out what my next move was, or if I even had a next move, something even larger than Boogie moved in the darkness behind him.
I don't remember seeing it, though I'm sure I did, but I'll never forget the sound.
It was a thwack, which is to say, a crack, but through something no longer solid. Something wet? And then, there was the sound of a massive sack of potatoes crashing to the floor.
Boogie was down.
And in the darkness where Boogie had stood just moments before, instead, stood the shadow of an even larger man.
It was Nono.
Nono said, "GO."