A Guardian Angel by Phoenix Williams

With misty eyes, he wrote.
    “Addressing
the person or persons who discover this message. This paper shall
serve as the final will and testament of Andrew Walter Winter. I
leave behind the rights to my studio apartment and the contents of
the included locked briefcase to Mr. Homer Nour, my oldest friend.
Only he will know the combination. Think about the date we spoke
about ten years ago. This is not an admission of guilt or a
confession of any kind. Please respect my wishes.”
    He stopped,
thinking. He brought the notepad out into the hall of his apartment
building and knocked on the door of his neighbor across the hall. A
woman just a few years older than Andy himself opened the door. Her
boyfriend could be seen peering at the doorway from the couch in the
living room.
    “Hello,”
Andy greeted her. “My name is Andy, I live just across the hall
here.” He offered his hand.
    She shook it,
confused. “Oh, hi Andy. I'm Trish,” she introduced
herself. “How can I help you?”
    “Well, see,
I've just whipped myself up a pretty nice will and I need two
witnesses to sign it as I do,” Andy explained. He laid on the
charm now. “Might I ask you and your boyfriend to fill in the
role for me? It would be very much appreciated.”
    She looked at him
with hesitation. A look in her eye relayed that she thought he might
be yanking her chain, but his unwavering and positive demeanor proved
to remove it. “Are you serious?” she asked.
    “Dead
serious,” Andy replied.
    The woman looked
back inside at her partner who heard every word. He shrugged at her
look for support. She turned back to Andy. “Yeah, I guess so,”
she replied. “Are you okay?”
    “You could
say that,” Andy responded as he walked into Trish's apartment
and got the business done with.
    He returned to his
own apartment across the hall with the signed will. He attached it to
the briefcase which he stowed underneath his bed. He went to the sink
to wash his hands. As he dried them, he addressed the entire room,
empty though it seemed. “I'll do it,” he said aloud.
“Don't worry.”

    Max's grave was
cast over in the shadow of the storm clouds that had crept over
Rosehill. Andy placed his bouquet of twelve yellow tulips on the dirt
next to the eleven that had already withered like the skeleton they
were for.
    This time, he left
all twelve as he walked away from the grave for the last time.

    This was the first
time that Andy had ever seen the two very serious looking men in
suits who frisked him as he got out on the airstrip. Both of Mr.
Graves's bodyguards, the white man and the Hispanic, were bald. Andy
observed his own reflection in the white man's tanned scalp as his
ankles were searched for weapons. They found the three-eighty auto
that he kept holstered around his shoulder in no time at all.
    “I'm a
hitman, guys,” he explained when they confiscated it. “Duh,
I have a gun.”
    “Do you have
any others?” the Hispanic man asked.
    “Yes, a Smith
and Wesson six-nine-six in the back of my pants,” he answered,
“a Derringer in my left shoe, and a kris dagger strapped to my
genitals.”
    The white guard
began searching Andy's shoes when he pushed him over with his bare
foot. “Idiot,” Andy spat at him.
    A gun appeared in
the Hispanic man's hand, pointed at Andy's head. The white man had
drawn one too from where he lay on the ground when Leroy Graves
appeared on the ramp of the plane.
    “He's
kidding,” he told his men, gesturing at them to stow away their
firearms. “Come on, Mr. Winter. You've got a job to do.”
    The flight was
uncomfortable and awkward, silent in nature and malicious in feeling.
The only thing Andy said to his employer was his promise to kill
Haley Flynn. Mr. Graves said even less, only humming in response.
Once they had landed, he only needed to gesture at his guards before
they tossed Andy off of the plane.
    There was no taxi
waiting for him on the runway this time. Instead, he phoned Steven
who got lost on one