The Hit Man

La Betty’s intercom connection to the doorman rang as delicately as Tinkerbelle. Hearing it La Betty’s heart began to tap dance with anticipation. La Betty was delighted a delivery was earlier than expected. All aflutter she didn’t bother to instruct the doorman to tip the delivery guy fifty dollars and bring the packages to her door himself. She couldn’t imagine how this Iranian Kashkoli Gabbeh rug she expected would be packaged. In moments she would be unwrapping a purchase, always a splendid amusement. La Betty waited to see whether the silk bonsai acacia tree she ordered had also arrived.
When the door of La Betty’s condo was barely ajar her girlish openness turned into gray fear. A burly fellow had already gripped the door with one bulky forefinger. La Betty felt compelled to evaluate his flashy ring, the famous $8,000 Cartier 18k Gold Panther Band; then La Betty tugged sharply on the doorknob but couldn’t pull the door shut. The stolid intruder had virtually cemented himself to the foyer’s ebony wood floor. Strangely, the brute, who was not carrying any packages, did not try to enter. He was simply commanding La Betty’s attention. La Betty gave him the only attention she ever cared to offer. She evaluated the rest of the man’s style. La Betty first noticed the fellow’s Dolce & Gabbana black leather jacket. It was lambskin, supple with glints of blue light on the crests of folds. There were no scuffmarks on the rose gold studs and zipper.

The man, who was as stocky as a stump, looked too crude even to play rugby. Somewhat hunched and short of neck, he seemed most capable of unsportsmanlike violence. This aspect of his demeanor distracted La Betty from looking for the brand name of his pullover.

La Betty felt no impulse to speak. This boulder of manhood was so formidable that he was certainly insensitive to etiquette. La Betty feared even to say, “Good Afternoon” might enrage him.

“Look at the face,” the brute said gruffly. La Betty’s own facial expression became quizzical. La Betty looked.

The man’s skull was almost cubical. His complexion was very peculiar, as if he’d eaten far too many carrots. The orange skin had just a slight sheen, like butcher paper.

La Betty, appalled by the very idea of skin, never mind a command to gaze upon it, began to shiver. She concentrated instead on the peridot eyes, eyes that didn’t seem to see her. The proportion of iris to whites was abnormal. The irises were way too small. Something was amiss.

La Betty glanced surreptitiously at the top of the guy’s head. The hair was sparse and looked uncommonly dull. She looked closer where the sides met the top. The brute was wearing a synthetic hair toupee.

“In Russia,” said the bruiser, realizing La Betty was staring at the toupee, “In Russia we call it fish fur.”

Haltingly in a monotone the questionable bruiser almost seemed to be reading, “If you want you can bring donger upon yourself. You can prov yourself. You got somping to prov? Fight to the death for pride. Rage. That’s plenty enough.”

La Betty was still staring at the toupee. She was quite worried that this monster, in one final attempt to intimidate her, would yank the toupee off his head. There could be burned skin or freshly slashed skin or a failed skin graft. Or maybe there wouldn’t be any skin at all, just a hole full of blueberry Jell-O. Even if La Betty didn’t see skin, she would imagine the worse skin ever.

This was the most mesmerizing visitation La Betty had ever endured. Her rebuke was stark, “A diamond is forever.”

A tear shimmered in the fellow’s sad eye. This tear was his last ploy and La Betty was not sympathetic. Now she was confident. La Betty knew: this was another perverse interruption. This thug was a phony. This guy, if he was, technically speaking, a human guy, was either a very inexperienced actor or, most likely, an apparition.

And so La Betty turned the tables on him. She took a deep breath, looked down at her royal blue fingernails, and began naming movie stars whose role was as psychopath in famously successful movies,

Klaus Kinski, Al Pacino, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Hopper, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, Peter Lorre, Anthony Hopkins.

Already the phony hit man had turned his back. His head was bowed, toupee slipping forward. He was gliding away without moving his legs.