News & Features » June 2014 » “When You Need to Outsource Revenge” by Mickey J. Corrigan

“When You Need to Outsource Revenge” by Mickey J. Corrigan

Mondays Are Murder features brand-new noir fiction modeled after our award-winning Noir Series. Each story is an original one, and each takes place in a distinct location. Our web model for the series has one more restraint: a 750-word limit. Sound like murder? It is. But so are Mondays.

This week, Mickey J. Corrigan will bring us into the life of one skilled Palm Beach hitwoman. Next week, Marie Sabatino’s visit to the Lower East Side brings about some dark consequences.

When You Need to Outsource Revenge
by Mickey J. Corrigan
West Palm Beach, Florida

“I don’t care what it costs, I want that man dead.”

Mrs. Boscoe’s perfectly sculpted face pinkened. Her soft voice rose in pitch. I could tell she meant what she’d said. I’d been in the game long enough to be able to separate the Chicken Littles from the cash cows. Killing scumbag husbands was a dirty business, but a lucrative one. I had blood and grime beneath my unpolished nails. Still, being a hit woman paid the bills.

Turning aside for a moment to face the slim laptop on my desk, I tapped on the keyboard and pulled up the standard private investigations release contract. After sending it to print, I told my new client, “I’ll need you to sign this before you pay the retainer fee.” I kept my voice even, steady. To help the client remain calm. This was make it/break it time. The printer whirred.

I slid the form across my clean glass desk. Mrs. Boscoe skimmed the legalese. Her tastefully bleached hair formed a solid yellow curtain that hid her fine-boned model’s face. Her manicure was French, her breasts perky saline. The tight taupe skirt a recent Dior, the perfume old-time Chanel. Of course, the shoes were Jimmy Choo, the bag Hermès. I was used to her type: rich bitches from the spoiled island of Palm Beach. Still, I was on her side. One hundred percent.

My newest client handed me the signed contract and a deposit of five thousand dollars. Her salon-tanned hand shook as she counted out the Benjamins. “What happens next?”

“Now you go home and slip into something more comfortable,” I advised. “Your job for the next month is to have as much sex with your husband as you can stand. Lounge around in your teddies. Mix him his favorite cocktails. Make him his favorite meals. Do whatever he asks, and do it with a smile. Try to get away on vacation. See if you can convince him to fly to Bora Bora with you. Or Paris. Buy new lingerie. Get a bikini wax, a Botox treatment.” She winced. “This is the last ditch stage. Sometimes it actually works.”

One time it worked. But I don’t tell my clients the odds. It’s too discouraging.

“Whatever happens, be sure to call your friends and tell them how wonderful everything is,” I continued. “Tell everyone you’ve fallen back in love. Kiss him on the lips when you’re out in public. Hold his hand in restaurants. Throw yourself at him in front of the staff. Make sure everyone thinks you two are back on track.”

She nodded before asking the same question they all ask. “What about that bitch he’s sleeping with?”

They always want to know what they should do about the other woman. I tell them all the same thing, but really, it’s useless. They can’t forget about her. If they could, they wouldn’t be here on the mainland, sitting in my minimalist office in down and dirty West Palm, slut sister city to married-up Palm Beach. If these women could just ignore their rich husbands’ dalliances, they wouldn’t be paying me the big bucks. And I wouldn’t be exterminating their cheating spouses.

“Forget about her,” I told Mrs. Boscoe. “You need to focus your energy on your husband. And if he goes for it, if everything works out, I’ll be happy for you. So happy I’ll refund your money.”

Like I said, that’s only happened once. One time in the seven years I’ve been open for business. Nine months after I refunded that particular retainer fee, the client returned. Now she’s the owner of a multimillion–dollar real estate company and her husband’s six feet under. Where he belongs.

I accompanied Mrs. Boscoe to my office door. She walked with the smooth grace of a ballroom dancer. I would kill for legs like hers. Soon enough, that would be exactly what I would do.

*

Thirty-seven days later, Mr. Boscoe was reported missing. His eighty-foot yacht had sunk off the coast of Bimini. A young woman—not his wife—had been with him at the time. In glittery bistros and gluttonous mansions, Palm Beach tittered over the scandal. Here in West Palm, we snickered over our cardboard cups of take-out coffee.

West Palm is the place for Palm Beach wives to outsource revenge. Because I back all my clients. One hundred percent.

***

MICKEY J. CORRIGAN lives and works and gets into trouble in South Florida, where the men run guns and the women run after them. “When You Need to Outsource Revenge” is from the novel in progress about a hit agency serving women with undesirable husbands. Mickey writes pulpy fiction and publishes with presses with dirty names like Breathless and Bottom Drawer. You get the drift. Visit at www.mickeyjcorrigan.com. But not when you’re at work.

***

Would you like to submit a story to the Mondays Are Murder series? Here are the guidelines:

—Your story should be set in a distinct location of any neighborhood in any city, anywhere in the world, but it should be a story that could only be set in the neighborhood you chose.
—Include the neighborhood, city, state, and country next to your byline.
—Your story should be Noir. What is Noir? We’ll know it when we see it.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.

Posted: Jun 2, 2014

Category: Original Fiction, Mondays Are Murder | Tags: fiction, Florida, Mickey J. Corrigan, Mondays Are Murder, Noir Series, short story, West Palm Beach, When You Need to Outsource Revenge