“My First Paid Assassination” from “Blue Star Adjustments”| Cigar Reviews by the Katman

Broke a molar eating chicken last night, Saturday the 10th. Dentist will remove it Monday. Need time to heal. In the meantime, I have to post something.
So, I took a chapter from my other blog: “Blue Star Adjustments – Stories of My Real Family: The Jewish Mafia.” All stories are based upon real family and real situations. Two of the 18 chapters are 100% true.

We all sat at the round table, like King Arthur. Uncle Sam and Uncle Victor seemed to be the moderators. Business was being discussed like any other company’s upper management would do….but this business concerned illegal things and life and death appointments.
I listened in the back of my head, but mostly I was daydreaming. And then I heard my name…

“Phillip? Are you with us?.’ said Uncle Sam. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”
“We are now going to discuss something very important to us and it concerns you.”
Men I did not recognize sat at the table as well. Six of them dressed in expensive suits.
“What is it that you need from me, Uncle?”
“We have a stone in our shoes. And we need to remove it. And we want your help in doing so.”
“OK,” I said.

“One of our lieutenants, Marcel, is stealing from us. He runs operations in San Diego and because he is 100 miles away, he thinks that we don’t know what’s going on. I’ve called him and so has Victor. We’ve given him an appropriate amount of time to see the error in his ways, but he thinks we are stupid old men. He gives us no respect. He was a good boy when he started but something happened. We don’t know what.

“So we have to act. We need him to take a vacation….a long one. We thought of sending him back to Cleveland but that might cause trouble with our friends there because we sent them someone that’s a pain in the ass and not a good earner. We don’t need that.”

Uncle Sam continued to explain everything about the problem without getting to the point. Finally, I asked him what they wanted me to do?
“You need to make him disappear.”
“How do I do that?”
“You go visit him. And you make him disappear?”
“So you want me to ….kill him? Oy.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that.”

“Listen Phillip. We are going to teach you a certain technique that will make you a dangerous man. We are going to allow you a week to learn it and then off you go.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I’m a hit man now? Fuck. I don’t think so.

I got bold…”What’s in it for me if I do this?” (I was cringing)
Uncle Sam told me that I would get $20,000.
“Holy shit! That’s a lot of dough. OK. I will do it. What is it I have to learn?”

* * *
I was in one of Uncle’s old factories around 7pm. A guy named Gene was with me. He was around 40 years old and really fit. He wore a T Shirt and his muscles bulged from underneath. His face was pock marked badly. I didn’t ask why.

Starting that night, Gene taught me some self defense techniques and some aggressive fighting techniques. I was a quick learner. But because of my skinny frame, variations had to be made so I could allow gravity to do most of the work…like judo.

On the fourth night, I saw a chair with a dummy in it. A department store dummy. I knew those things were hard and was hoping I wouldn’t have to practice punching it. No such luck.
Gene showed me a killing device. A garotte. I’d seen them in the movies, but that’s all.

So the night was spent showing me how to use it. It’s a lot trickier in real life than it looks on TV. Especially since adrenaline is involved. By 2am, I was an excellent amateur at killing someone with a garotte. In case you don’t know what that is, I shall explain. Basically, it’s a length of piano wire about 2 feet long with wood handles at each end. You come from behind someone and wrap it around their neck and squeeze hard. It chokes them to death.

* * *
Gene drove me down to San Diego. For two days, we watched Marcel and looked for patterns. The only discernible pattern was that he always spent a couple hours at a bar near his apartment. He then walked home, which was a few blocks away.
At the time, San Diego had these bizarre sodium street lights that looked pretty but didn’t give off much light on the street. This was good.

It was decided that I would stand behind a large hedge dividing two homes…about half way from his place to the bar and then attack him from behind.

Marcel wasn’t a big guy but he wasn’t a little guy either. Gene told me that if I remember everything he taught me, I’d do just fine.

Gene let me out of the car at 10pm by the hedge. He parked on the other side of the street. The hedge was in between two street lights so I was mostly in the dark. I stood a few feet back from the sidewalk and waited. Gene would signal me with a car honk. Hopefully, that would make Marcel look in the direction of Gene and then I would have the upper hand.

10:45pm. My muscles ached from standing for 45 minutes. I had to pee. As I turned away from the street so I could piss on the hedge, I heard the sound of someone walking. I turned around and looked.
It was Marcel.
He was hard to see in the dark but I could see his head bobbing up and down. I walked closer to the sidewalk. I waited for the honk.

And then Marcel walked past me. Where was the fucking honk?
Fumbling, I ran up behind him and wrapped the garotte around his neck and pulled with all of my might. He slid down the front of me. He couldn’t scream.

Gene hadn’t told me that the piano wire tears through skin. I could feel the wire against cartilage. Blood was spurting like a waterfall from his neck. Marcel’s legs were squirming and his arms kept trying to grab me but the shock of what happened made him a victim and nothing more.
Waiting for his legs to stop moving seemed to take forever and I worried that I would be seen.

Apparently, this method of execution took a few minutes. And then I heard a snap. The piano wire broke through his trachea and landed against his spine at neck level. Jesus! I was going to cut his head off! Oh my God.

Gene got out of the car and walked slowly to me. He laughed when he saw Marcel’s face. It was bloody and his eyes and tongue bulged out like a squeeze toy. He was dead and I was still strangling him.
Gene told me to stop. I let go of one of the wood handles and Marcel slumped.

I bent over and touched both of Marcel’s shoulders, breathing hard like a runner. I turned my head up to look at Gene and he was smiling.
Marcel was resting against my legs. His head almost decapitated.

“Can we go now, please?,” I said.
“Sure. But I gotta’ do one more thing. He pulled out a Walther .32, aimed it at my head and pulled the trigger. It jammed. I reacted instantly and grabbed Gene’s head and pulled. I pulled so hard that it knocked him out almost instantly.

What the fuck just happened?
Why did he want to kill me?
I ran to Gene’s car and got in. The engine was running, I slammed the door shut, and made the tires squeal as I left.
I got on to the freeway heading north. First to my place, to get my .44 magnum, and then to go see Uncle Sam.