Arturo
January 26, 2009
Arthuro was remembering what his superiors had told him about the boy—that he was perhaps the most dangerous member of the underground order than any member there was. But the man somehow felt uncertain of the idea especially as he looked at him from a distance and saw that, for fact, he was simply a boy. Not even old enough to drive his own car.
Faust (that was his name), is not even fifteen, yet the government had accused, well, supposedly proven with many a legal document and on many a murderous occasion to be a super villain in his own right in the illegal world.
He was said to be the head of the Saroza Syndicate, dealing with drugs, guns and stolen cars…all of those stuff the Americans bullsh*tted about. But under Arthuro’s surveillance he seemed your typical teenager coping with the ordinary stresses as an everyday student.
The older one had followed him some days and found that he possessed an otherwise normal life. He studied in one of the local universities, had friends, enjoyed mall-outs and weekend trips with them. Though the boy had an uncanny knack for dancing and reading books. And he had this scholastic record which proved he was a young version of Einstein. He likewise lived in seclusion, with only a butler, a maid and a couple of stern-looking guardians, sheltered in a lone mansion in the richest district of the city.
His family was loaded. The parents died in a car crash when he was five and he was left with their entire wealth equivalent to the wealth of four generations before them. There was no other heir after all. He had no other relatives to speak of and he was the only child as far as everyone knew. And get this: no one knows what ‘investments’ the family had made in previous years. No one knew where the money goes to, or how it rolls back in. But in the high class society, everybody undeniably agrees to the point—and his bank statements tell it to be true—that every year, the boy gets all the more rich than he already was.
Compare that with my paycheck, the man mused.
Things never seem to add up for one, and it was somehow a cause for suspicion. How the ends never met the means. How things had really worked for the boy the past years after his parents departed. It was mystery.
Faust was a genius, it was no secret, and he could do great things in the future if he worked at it (not that he needed to though). But how would you explain the accounts? The expanding wealth? All of this quiet power the boy possessed? His lifestyle that was anonymous and silent which no one could penetrate, not even his friends.
And now the government wants him dead; for the reason he was…being named…dangerous.
Arthuro still didn’t get it. Still didn’t get it…
~*~
The man stared at the boy from a distance as he walked out the University gates and unto the suddenly-bustling sidewalk.
“Ei Fau! Wait up!!”
One of his classmates hurries to his side and throws an arm over his shoulders, then beginning to chat noisily about something, sends the blond boy flushing red, smiling awry, perhaps with what the other had said.
Arthuro shifted from where he was settled on the hood of his car. He took out something from inside one of his coat pockets, looked hard at it.
It was a card, a playing card which belonged to a deck of other playing cards obviously, the three of hearts, crumpled and stained with blood. They had found it clasped in the hand of a late government agent whose body had been recovered near the river a week ago.
He had been the agent sent to investigate Faust before the man, and, like what Arthuro was doing here now, he was also ordered the assassination of the boy.
The man looked up again.
…assassinate the boy…
He watched as Faust bid three other friends goodbye.
By this time, a black Porsche and another vehicle, a Benz, was rolling up the curve in front. Three men stepped out of the vehicles—two were Faust’s guardians, Arthuro knew their faces—the other, whom was smartly-dressed, the agent assumed to be a lawyer, or an overseer of some kind.
You can never put it past brats like Faust not to have one. With his state of affairs, he might as well be able to hire a dozen others. Anyway, the supposed ‘lawyer’ was carrying some documents and had offered them to the boy. Faust took a quick look, scanning the contents, seemingly aware of what he was doing…
Arthuro scratched his head with the same hand which held the three of hearts. He still couldn’t believe he would be, some hours from now, killing this boy. It seemed illogical.
What’s the point? Why order the demise when there seems nothing irregular about him at all? Well, there was, but it wasn’t enough of a cause. Just because he was rich, and that no one had a clue as to where he gets the money, where his parents got them and where their parents got them? It made no sense.
And what was so dangerous? They never really proved him to be what they say, especially to the man. Look at him! He was just a boy. How could he be a syndicate head?
“This is bullsh*t…” Arthuro mumbled under his breath, cursing the federal state for being so damned hypothetical.
There was no reason…no reason…then he noticed the card again. He was there when they found it in the crime scene. It was still a mystery to the bureau why the other was holding it, tightly, in his hand as if there was a tale there they couldn’t figure. And also, who had been responsible for the murder. He was one of the best agents, seconded by Arthuro…
The man grimaced. What was the symbolism behind? It couldn’t have been there by any mistake. But the question is, how come?
“Can we talk about it over coffee?” strangely, the man sort of heard the words and he looked up from where he was wondering about the card in time to see the crowd with Faust disappearing into the vehicles.
The agent casually stepped into his own car to follow them; inside however, he was still restless about the task before him.
“Ah d*mn,” Arthuro just grunted a frustration. “I’ll figure this out after I’m through with it.”
It was more a note to himself as he slipped in the key to the ignition, his firearm suddenly feeling heavy underneath his coat. Never mind. He still had a job to do. Sure enough he would be doing it…
~*~
He’d knocked out the guards. Lucky the maid was off duty and the butler was out on his usual errand in the night; he need not worry about dealing with them too. The guards had been a pain…Faust was alone and he could do one swift work and just disappear like he was trained to do. Simple as that, he was likewise planning to make it appear suicidal. So there’d be no pointing fingers.
Arthuro took a walk down the hall of the vast mansion towards the room he knew to be Faust’s favorite corner by this time. In stealth, he made his way through what appeared an endless high tunnel, the ceiling was domed. Although he need not have for upon the carpeted floor, no sound emanated, not even a creek. The house was old, somewhat French palatial, but it seemed awfully well-maintained. And what expensive carpeting. The fibers felt soft even with the shoes on…
They sure don’t turn on the lights; from his previous assessment, the agent thought the place was a little too dark a little too quiet and all too vast for a fourteen-year-old.
He, like anyone who would think to dare, could simply slip in and not be noticed. There were no guards at the huge brass gates, no guards on the grounds, and the two men supposed to be assigned to Faust only seemed to chaperone him outside the mansion. They worked more like chauffeurs during class days, although they did give him a hard time just a while ago. To think however the boy could afford more of a security what with all the cash he had. Arthuro just shook a head. Another thing that made no sense…
He was now turning the corner towards the library. The room was at the farthest end of the hall.
Arthuro could see a peek of light through a door left ajar. Faust would be there by this time; it was always the ritual. He did his studies there. A glance to the left of him revealed heavy drapes of some sort, felt velvet through gloved hands; he touched it and guessed they covered the series of tall glass windows apparent outside even from the highway in the distance. It was a moonless night outside.
Another stop to cast a brief glance the other side of him, to what appeared to be a covered portrait of the Saroza family—Faust’s parents—whose size took up three-fourths of the wall. The only portion of the portrait visible was its half, of what had been the elegant Madame Saroza no doubt, carrying a baby in her arms. That, too, the man guessed would be the young infant Faust. But enough of that.
One final check of himself to see if he was up to the work assigned to him, and when at last he was certain of continuing, he pushed that door when he reached it. It opened soundlessly, and the government agent stepped into what would be the biggest personal library in the city if later his mind could process it. He was now preoccupied with what he was about to do.
Faust turned simply when he felt he was no longer alone.
“Who are you?” he asked rather plainly, without effort or emotion.
The light was making him look abnormally angelic. Arthuro could notice the boy’s blue eyes—they were actually lighter in a shade. They were pure. He was beautiful like some painting, like his mother was in the portrait outside though the man scarce could see the face of the woman in the semi-dark, who gave birth to this underground fiend the government now wanted dead.
“I’m here to kill you.”
The man took out the ready gun. A silencer was in place…
“One question…” the boy unexpectedly stood from the huge Victorian he was seated upon.
He appeared no longer a mere boy but an oddly mature personality. He talked surely and not like some teen merely. Arthuro’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“…before you kill me,” continued the boy.
“What?”
Arthuro could feel that Faust was not at all afraid. It seemed like he’s been in a situation like this before. He slipped his hand; his long-sleeved arm appeared the only part of him to move as he drew out of his pocket a deck of playing cards. The man noticed it to be similar to the one he had with him. The three of hearts. His finger felt closely on the gun’s trigger but didn’t pull. A chill ran up his spine.
“What is that?” he demanded.
“Were you the one who took a card out of this deck last time mister?” asked Faust with the voice of an innocent child. “You see, this was my mother’s favorite deck. I noticed a card was missing…”
The man felt the chill again; he still ignored it however, refusing to flinch. Why was he inquiring about a stupid card when he was supposed to be worried about his life?
“If you have it, can I have it back now?” Faust still seemed oblivious to the gun pointed at him, to Arthuro in fact, and what could happen.
Strangely, Arthuro took out the missing card with his other free hand, but not without the slightest caution. His eyes never left the boy. The gun never left the spot where it was pointed either: at the boy’s head.
Faust, on the other, was a frozen statue, cold, almost apathetic.
There goes that chill again. The man showed him the card, face forward.
“You mean this one?”
The boy didn’t seem happy as he noticed the stain…
Briefly, there was silence. The gun was fired and a life ended that night. But it wasn’t Faust’s. It was Arthuro’s.
The man fell in a heap to the floor as the twins stepped in, followed by the guards who each had a headache going on. Salem looked at Quintin, and they both looked at Faust. Three faces of the same person. Blond, blue-eyed…the Saroza’s had a reunion tonight. Arthuro didn’t know that sadly until it was too late…
Salem held a gun in his hand and was looking blankly at the gun the man had held up a while ago, now somewhere on the floor. Quin moved to pick up the bloodied card. It was once again stained with a new shade of red—another agent.
“Mother wouldn’t be happy about this,” he said, handing the card to Faust.
Faust frowned, “And you think she’d be happy when she finds out you once again put me in danger? Not only that, you killed another one…”
He gestured at the body.
Salem chuckled like a demon, “They deserve it. Sniffing up to everyone’s business. ‘Our’ business…”
He grinned like a maniac, eyes flashing with the same glint of evil. He was scariest of the three. He actually enjoyed all this gore which was no wonder he was the Syndicate’s head killer while Quintin called all the administrative shots. Faust chose to stay away from it though, tired.
He sighed and sat, actually, just leaned back on the tabletop this time and not the chair. He didn’t feel up to seeing the two and the scene as their psycho twin ordered the men to dispose of the body.
“We should be avoiding this.”
“What’s there to avoid?” Quin merely shrugged as he took the dead agent’s gun in his hand and examined it. “This life chose us.”
Faust sighed again, this time, in an exhaustion of their existence. All this wealth was superficial. It was why their parents were dead, why his brothers stayed anonymous and he, the ONLY child known to the world, ended up a decoy for government b*stards and their cronies like this guy he was now seeing being removed from the floor by the family henchmen. Imagine how many attempts there had been! This wasn’t the first or second either…there had been others…
It was tiring. So d*mned tiring…
“Whatever Quin.”
He pushed past Salem , the guards and everyone else—alive or dead—at the door. To the darkness of the corridor he went to get some peace. He wasn’t up at sleeping tonight, not with his brothers about.
“Don’t be such a shrub young one—” Salem started but was cut off by the older Quin, his hand on his shoulder.
“Enough Salem. Just deal with the body. We still have some early business with the Japanese tomorrow.”
“Ah, right, right…” Salem just rolled his eyes.
Quin looked at Faust who had gone statue again, looking up at the semi-covered portrait of their family. He held the playing card up and took one long look at it, paying no attention to Quin who’d joined his side and Salem who’d hummed past with two men and a dead body in tow.
A rustle of velvet echoed ever so slightly, reverberating small in the vast hall. The siblings had pulled off the covering sheet. And they stood there for some time, staring at the portrait everyone dared to penetrate their lives failed to see entirely—their mother with Faust in her arms…and the father with the other two…