The Dagger and the Cords

***Author's note:** This is a combination of my stories “The Geisha” and “Broken Contract” (now-deleted since this story makes them superfluous). I really shouldn’t have broken them into separate stories to begin with since “The Geisha” is really an introduction to “Broken Contract” more than a stand-alone story (They both come from one of my comics).*
Small-time hood Randall Carver relaxed in a hot tub at an underworld spa. He had just recently arrived in town, but things were going swimmingly so far. He smiled and thought, “This is the good life. I made off with that haul no problem! They’ll never get me!”

“Hello,” called a soft voice behind him. He turned to see a woman with a tray containing a small teapot and teacup. Though she was Caucasian, she seemed to be playing the role of a geisha – the Japanese term for a young woman whose role was to provide entertainment and company (and occasionally other things) for businessmen. She was dressed in a light blue kimono with green, leafy designs and light blue slippers. Her hair was long and golden. She coyly covered her face with a paper fan, but Carver guessed from her form that she was beautiful.

“Hello there!” replied Carver as she approached. “Are you here to take care of me?”

“Mm-hm.” She brought the tea tray to the other side of the hot tub. “I’ll set this down here.”

Carver blissfully closed his eyes. “Stick around. I’d like some company.” Continuing to enjoy the hot tub and bask in his success, he thought, “I wonder what she’s doing later. I know I’m free. I might hang around here for a while. It’s not like I -”

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden pain in his chest. He cried out and then began panting. Looking down at his chest, he became chalk white and began sweating. A dagger with an emerald green handle was sticking out of his chest, and blood flowed freely from the wound.

As Carver continued to pant in pain and fear, the geisha calmly left the room. Stepping into the hallway, she let the door close after her and thought, “Well, that’s done.” She lowered the fan from her face, closed it, and took out a bouquet of flowers. The bouquet consisted of hawthorn and lily of the valley sprigs bound with a green ribbon with an emerald – the trademark of the sleepy-eyed terrorist and serial murderess named Mayella Muimdac. Mayella smiled as she smelled the bouquet, thought, “Now I’m free for the rest of the night,” and departed.

. . .

Racketeer Rodney McCrae was working late in his office. He was examining a paper when suddenly he heard someone open and then slam his door. He looked up to see Mayella Muimdac. The unhinged, sleepy-eyed killer held her trademark bouquet in one hand, and she had changed into her customary green dress.

Mayella smiled and reported, “Carver’s dead. I’m here to collect.”

“Excellent!” replied McCrae. He set the paper on his desk and added, “I knew you’d have no problem with this job. Your record is excellent.”

“Well, you know,” Mayella replied simply as she approached the desk.

McCrae opened his desk drawer. “Now that Carver’s out of the way-” He was interrupted by a soft yet definite click. He looked up to find Mayella pointing a green gun at him. His eyes widened, he turned pale, and he began sweating, “What-What are you doing!?”

Still smiling, Mayella told him, “You know that I have a high price on my head. You could collect a lot of money while saving yourself five thousand dollars, hmm?”

“Y-You’re wrong! I wasn’t-”

“I have my own plans.”

“No, Mayella!”

Mayella fired the gun, but instead of a bullet, it fired a small dart. McCrae cried out as the dart dug into his left arm near the shoulder. His mind filled with confusion and alarm, and then a realization hit him. He had instinctively started to hold his arms out when he saw Mayella point the gun at him, partly as a pleading gesture and partly to brace himself. When he was shot, his reaction was to close his eyes. Now his body was frozen in that position. He couldn’t move a muscle, even to open his eyes.

As McCrae continued to sweat in fear, Mayella drank in the scent of her bouquet. She then walked over until she was directly behind McCrae’s chair.

“Let me tell you how it’s going to go down,” she whispered. “I’m going to take you on a trip.” She leaned in until her mouth was inches away from the terrified man’s left ear. “Like I said, I have plans.”

Thirty-five minutes later, Tabitha and Dirk continued their search for Mayella. Having climbed to the top of a building to get a good vantage point, they walked to the edge, looked down, and gaped at what they saw. McCrae, now wearing a gag and handcuffs, was dangling from a fifteenth story window, held in place by only three green cords. He had been positioned in such a way that he could see the street below. One of the cords suddenly snapped, giving McCrae less support and causing him to emit a muffled cry of terror.

Tabitha and Dirk leapt into action. Swinging across to the building, the vigilantes entered the room through the open window. The green cords were attached to a support pillar. A mechanical device was slowly sawing through the cords. Having completely severed one, it was working on a second. Tabitha and Dirk got a tight grip on the remaining two cords, severed then from the pole, and pulled McCrae to safety.

Once freed from his bonds, the trembling, sweating McCrae whispered, “Mayella…”

He looked at Dirk, who was in front of him, and continued, “I… had her… kill Carver. She-She did this… to me…” The shaken criminal turned even paler and started to lean back. “She mentioned… Northeast Plaza…”

Tabitha, who was behind McCrae, eased him to the ground and noted, “He’s fainted. Nearly falling fifteen stories can do that.”

“Mm-hm,” agreed Dirk. “It’s too bad you can’t complain to the Better Business Bureau about hired killers.”

*Written by Raidra

Content is available under CC BY-SA*