The Hitman’s Handbook 
Jim Ruland

Jim Ruland has never been frightened by a clown.
©Copyright 2001
Jim Ruland

Watch your back, the Handbook states, the field of contract killing
is denigrated with treachery and deceit. Your vigilance must be
deathless, undying. Trust no one. Big Elbow Marconi could go along
with that, but unfortunately for him, the Handbook didn’t offer any
advice as to how to proceed when the used car salesman you’re
supposed to whack is waiting in the rental car parking lot at Sky
Harbor Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, stuffs you in the trunk of his
late-model Buick and drives you hundreds of miles into the wild so
he can march you up a steep mountain trail at gunpoint - which
was precisely Big Elbow’s predicament.
Big Elbow, seldom prone to fits of introspection, wondered how
the gunman, Larry Lots, a washed-up, ulcer-ridden skunk who had
been stealing from Miserelli for years, had managed to turn the
tables so quickly. Miserelli had opened the contract only yesterday,
yet someone had tipped Larry off, told him Big Elbow was coming.
He imagined his corpse left out in the open, vulnerable to the
cadaverous whims of the wild. He got to thinking about birds, big
black birds dropping ravenous out of the sky. So much for deathless
vigilance, so much for undying.
The two men made a lot of noise as they stumbled up the trail,
Ponderosa pines everywhere. Big Elbow was baffled by the scenery.
What was this place, this alpine hinterland north of Phoenix, south
of Vegas? Sometimes the shadows were so deep and cold, the air so
brisk and still, his body would grow numb, dark thoughts on the
wing. Then the trail would turn a corner in the trees, turning the
two men toward the bright sun hanging low in the sky, and the
desperation he felt would fall away like a tiny hat thrown off by a
strong wind.
The trail coiled around the lip of a scummy pond. The shallow
depression sat in a rocky clearing, fouling the thin air. On the other
side of the pond, the trees gave way to a dry meadow choked with
dry grass. No houses, no fences. Just rocky outcroppings of scrub. It
startled Big Elbow - a flat meadow so high in these desert
mountains. He stopped in his tracks where the sunlight streamed
through the trees. Larry, lost in his thoughts, nearly bumped into
him on the trail and freaked-out, resuming his spastic, two-handed
grip on the revolver.
“Miserelli sent you,” Larry blurted, “didn’t he?”
Big Elbow sighed. Here’s this greaseball, stealing brazenly from
his partner, but he’s got to drive halfway across a desert and climb a
mountain to hear what everyone from Chicago to San Jose has
known for years.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Big Elbow snorted, his
eyes fixed on the other side of the meadow. “What’s this all about
anyway?”
“Wilderness experience,” Larry sneered.
Big Elbow, born and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, couldn’t
give a shit about trees if he tried. The wilderness weirded him out,
made him nervous. Big Elbow squatted in the dirt. This was no
killer, he reminded himself, this was a car salesman, a thief. He was
beginning to feel the first touch of anger, the pointy finger of his
immoderate temper jabbing at his judgment when Larry surprised
him by pressing the cool barrel of the .38 up against the back of his
head.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
• • •
Larry “Lots” Lozinsky used his place of employment, a used car
lot in North Las Vegas, as a front for his clandestine role as the
middleman in a salvage swap scheme. The cars that funneled
through the lot were seldom in Larry’s care for more than a couple
hours. Most of the time they came off the carrier from Los Angeles
smelling of Pine-Sol and the odor became for Larry the scent of
death. It never failed to remind him how these vehicles were
obtained.
Larry’s end in the scheme was administrative. Safe. Bloodless.
Conscionable. He’d ghost the stolen vehicles with titles from
automobiles purchased at salvage yards and send them on their
way. Money changed hands, but Larry was no killer. Sure, he
skimmed an additional percentage before he shipped the money
back to Miserelli in Los Angeles, he would have been a fool not to,
but the real thieving was left to the predators who jacked the cars. 
Every once in a while, there would be an account of a particularly
messy boost on the evening news. These, for Larry, were the worst
of days. He’d crack open a bottle of Maalox and masochistically
subject himself to the L.A. broadcasts until he felt sufficiently sick at
heart.
Larry knew something was capital-W-wrong when he was
overtaken by a strange feeling at the end-of-quarter sales meeting at
the lot on Lake Mead Boulevard. The feeling was accompanied by
an uneasy urgency that Larry usually associated with bowel trouble,
and it left him shaky and cold, like an icy wave had passed over
him and stripped something away in the passing.
He made some phone calls from the Kentucky Fried Chicken joint
across the street. All his associates in the scheme were out or
unavailable: Joey, Swish, the two Tony’s. He couldn’t get a hold of
anyone. Even his ex-wives were out of reach. Larry wandered into
the street and was nearly clipped by a jarhead in a Suzuki Samurai.
He hated those cars.
In his office, Larry was running out of people to call when the
telephone rang. He snatched up the phone and was greeted by
Chester Megs, the North Town brother who performed most of his
repo work, calling from Los Angeles.
“You step in some shit I ought to know about?” he asked.
Larry’s mouth went dry. “You know something?”
“I’ve had a tail on me since Thursday.”
“Something’s wrong,” Larry said.
“No shit something’s wrong.”
“What are you doing in Los Angeles?” Larry asked.
“Working.”
“Who knew you were coming out?”
“Nobody-shit.”
“What? What is it?”
“Don’t go nowhere. I’ll call you back.”
The line went dead. Larry thrummed his fingers on the desk. He
already owed Chester big, not counting the time he’d asked him if
he could procure a woman - for one of the Tony’s of course, not
for him - and Chester had stared him down through the red nets in
his perpetually bloodshot eyes, saying: “I ain’t no pimp.” Okay, so
he wasn’t a pimp; he was an overdressed black man with a lot of
lady friends. No problem.
The phone rang. Chester again.
“I got the 4-1-1,” he said. “You in big trouble, man. Miserelli sent
somebody.”
“Sent somebody? What are you talking about?”
The rest came in quick bursts:
“Dude named Marconi. Red-eye. Sky Harbor. Tonight.”
Larry didn’t know what to say. 
“You got any muscle out here?” Chester asked.
“No. Just you.”
“That’s a big negative. You’re gonna have to handle this yourself.”
“I can’t.”
“Ain’t like you haven’t done this before.”
Larry blinked at the light, ran his fingers through his thinning hair.
“I need your help.”
“It’ll cost you.”
• • •
Larry got the Prelude - nice body, needed tires - and showed
early, around 5:40. Chester came out of the house wearing a tee
shirt and party hat and told him to sit tight, be right back. An hour
passed. Larry took a nap. At exactly 7:00 p.m. Chester rapped on
the driver’s side window, waved him out of the car. Chester stood a
bit unsteadily on the edge of the driveway, eyes ablaze, a shoebox
tucked under his arm.
“Not here,” he said.
At a shithole diner on Owens Avenue, Chester slid the shoebox
across the table and went to work on his Rueben, sauerkraut
dangling everywhere.
“What is it?” Larry asked.
“A howitzer. What you think?”
Larry lifted a corner of the shoebox, saw gunmetal and dropped
the lid.
“Jesus,” Larry whispered.
Chester noisily finished his sandwich. He wadded up his napkin
and suppressed a belch. He tried to remember his late father’s last
words. It seemed like those words would be useful right now, but
the memory escaped him.
“You can pick up the check and I’ll take you to the airport, or I’ll
pay and you can call a cab. Your choice.”
“That’s it?” Larry asked. “This is the extent of your help?”
“What you want, a handbook? You find your man and shoot him.
It ain’t complicated.”
“B-but...”
“But nothing. The guy’s name is Marconi. His flight information’s
in the box.”
“How will I know him?”
“You feel a chill,” Chester said, sucking at his teeth, “I suggest you
look up. You probably standing in his shadow.”
• • •
Big Elbow stared at the dark pool, keeping an eye on Larry’s 
reflection in the scummy water. A faint stirring in the pine needles
distracted him. Larry saw it, too. Larry turned and trained his gun on
something that scurried across the forest floor and disappeared.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Over there. A chipmunk,” Larry said.
“That wasn’t chipmunk,” Big Elbow argued, “it was a squirrel.
Chipmunks ain’t got tails like that.”
“Say it!” Larry screamed.
“Say what?”
“Say it was a chipmunk.”
“You can’t make me say tha-”
Larry fired. The bullet zinged between Big Elbow’s thighs and
nicked him in the balls. Big Elbow gasped and dropped to the
ground.
“Say it!” Larry screamed.
“Chipmunk! Chipmunk!” Big Elbow bellowed.
Larry looked down at him, pitiless and solemn.
“Jesus, Larry,” Big Elbow said, gritting his teeth. “A rat’s a rat.”
“Maybe so, but when I see chipmunks, I see chipmunks.”
Big Elbow rolled over on his back, clutching his crotch.
“Get up.” Larry waved the gun. “We still got a ways to go.”
“You shot me in the nuts, man. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not asking you again.”
“Fucking typical,” Big Elbow growled. “Every time you lose your
nerve, you came back twice as strong. Just like a car salesman.”
Larry was stunned, taken aback.
“You don’t know me...”
“Save it, thief.”
“Who are you to call me a thief? You’re a murderer! A fucking
assassin!”
“I don’t think so. An assassination changes the course of history.
When a little pimple like you gets popped, there’s no aftermath.
Nothing changes. No one cares.”
Larry’s eyes reddened like a reptile’s. Once again, he pointed the
weapon at Big Elbow’s head.
“How dare you!”
Larry’s voice fell away in a gust of wind. The gun wilted in his
hand like a flower too long out of water, his arms sagging at his
sides. Big Elbow saw the window of opportunity opening up before
him and wasted no time in taking advantage of it. He lunged,
knocking Larry to the trail. A shot sailed up into the air, puncturing
the piney canopy above. The second round plunged into Big
Elbow, spinning him, and he hit the trail hard. Big Elbow waited -
lips parted, his face pressed into the red dirt - for Larry to get up
and kick him in the ribs like an old tire. Close the deal. 
• • •
Larry lifted his head and looked down the short barrel of the gun.
Had he been knocked out? It was hard to say, difficult to know. The
hitman lay perfectly still. Larry started to feel that strange feeling
again, the uneasy emptiness that had rattled him the day before at
the sales meeting. The sun filtered through the trees, laying down
ladders of light, dappling the edges of the forest. The brilliance of
the light hurt his eyes, and the more he tried to shut it out the
worse he felt. What was that sickening smell? Pine-Sol?
Larry stood up and unsteadily approached the hitman. There was
a puddle of blood where the bullet came out, low under his
shoulder, but it never occurred to Larry that it wasn’t a fatal wound.
Larry woozily shot out his foot to kick the hitman, but Big Elbow
was ready for him, countering with a crippling kick to Larry’s knee.
Larry toppled to the earth. They struggled, but not for long. The
empty gun clattered uselessly across the rocks. Big Elbow grabbed a
fistful of Larry’s hair, tilted his head back, and delivered a right his
grandfather would have been proud of, shattering Larry’s nose. Big
Elbow dragged Larry over to the pond and straddled him. He got
both hands around his throat and squeezed. Larry’s head
disappeared in the scummy water. After a minute, maybe more, Big
Elbow pulled Larry’s gasping, sputtering head out of the muck.
“Talk,” he commanded.
“The money...”
“What money?” Big Elbow snarled, not entirely in control.
Larry spat brackish water. Big Elbow leaned closer, ear to mouth,
and listened to the salesman’s last pitch, his absolute final offer.
• • •
When Larry was finished, Big Elbow pressed the salesman’s head
even deeper into the pond and held him there. The vague outline
of the salesman’s features floated to the surface of the pond. Big
Elbow let the ghoul come out and made a game of chasing the
gleam in Larry’s eyes from one dark corner to the next until the
spark died and gave way to his own grim reflection in the surface
of the pond while the cheap souvenir of Larry’s last words ran wild
in his imagination.
• • •
I was right, Larry thought, I’m not like this man at all.
• • • 
Big Elbow took the corpse by the ankles and dragged it away
from the pond. Ripping the dead man’s shirt from his body, he felt
at peace with the world and his role in it. Perhaps the wilderness
had done him some good after all.
Mud seeped from Larry’s mouth. He tore the white shirt into
strips. He removed his suit and bandaged his armpit where the
bullet had grazed his arm and chest. There was nothing he could do
about his ballsack. Donning the dark suit again, Big Elbow
unsuccessfully tried to turn away the pain traveling up and down
his arm and busied himself with the task of hiding the body. He left
the brass casings where they lay. Thanks to Larry’s erratic gunplay,
the bullet-ridden pines pointed to mischievous teenagers, not
contract killing gone awry.
Big Elbow relieved Larry of his car keys and dragged him into the
forest. He stopped in the shadow of a fallen tree some distance
from the trail. The ground along the length of the enormous pine
was moist with decay. He propped the dead man up against the
rotted wood, leaving Larry with a nice view of the meadow. He
liked the wilderness so much? Well now he could look at it for as
long as he liked, the rest of eternity even.
Returning to the pond, Big Elbow made sure that Larry’s corpse
wasn’t visible from the trail. He picked up Larry’s gun and threw it
in the pond. He stirred the mud at the water’s edge until he couldn’t
see any blood on the surface anymore.
Tree limbs creaked like old rope under strain. The assembly to
murder began in the treetops with the spotting of the first crow. Big
Elbow wondered how long the black bird had been there, what it
had seen. Something about the silence of the animal, the stirring of
the trees, told him he was going to get away with it. He stayed with
Larry until he counted ten, fifteen, twenty crows overhead, shifting
their weight from foot to foot, calling out, as if to say: “Go on, we’ll
take over from here.”
He knew Miserelli would be pleased with his account of the
death of Larry Lots: how he looked him in the eyes and told him
who was doing this to him. He would choose his words very
carefully, shaking the details loose from his memory with care. He’d
tell him about the pinecones exploding underfoot when he stepped
on them, the strange red earth, the dark trees, the cold sun. He’d
finish with the crows descending on the corpse. He decided to
leave the part out where Larry got the drop on him. And if there
was any truth to Larry’s maniacal insistence that a small fortune lay
buried in a shallow grave on the other side of the meadow, he’d
keep that to himself as well.
• • • 
Back in L.A., after getting fresh dressings for his wounds, Big
Elbow gimped around town paying visits to various creditors,
people he knew would respond favorably to a show of good faith,
and Chester Megs followed his every move. Big Elbow had come
back from the wild with a lot more money than he’d left with,
which could only mean that Larry had tried to bribe his way out of
his situation with the money he had skimmed from the scheme,
money Chester had been trying to sniff out for years. The night
before Big Elbow was to meet with Miserelli, Chester followed the
hitman to an Italian restaurant in Hollywood. Judging by the way
the big fellow was throwing money around, it was clear to Chester
the hitman had no intention of sharing his discovery with Miserelli.
Chester watched Big Elbow put away plate after plate of lasagna,
sipping on overpriced Chianti. The hour grew late. The restaurant
emptied and Big Elbow got up and headed for the exit. The waiter
left the heel of the bottle on Chester’s table with the check. As
Chester filled his glass with the last of the wine, he remembered
what his father had told him on his deathbed so very long ago: Be
wary of a dying man’s last words, especially when those words are a
comfort to you. Chester stood, polished off the wine and followed
Big Elbow to the parking lot, chuckling to himself. Someone ought
to put that one in the Handbook.