Blood on your hands

I am the least likely person to end up in a dark alley. For any reason. I am a prudish rule follower. I avoid conflict at all costs. I live well within my means. I am annoyingly responsible. I work hard, I’m never sick and I don’t take mental health days or in any way inconvenience my colleagues or employer. I pay my bills on time. I pay my taxes before the April deadline. I don’t gamble. I don’t cheat anyone. I go out of my way to not make others uncomfortable. In my mind, none of these are the characteristics of someone likely to have her face planted in a brick wall, held in place by an odiferous man with too much hair and a well-inked muscled arm while a dapper little man in a pin striped, three-piece suit and a black fedora tilted over his right eye prepared to relieve me of my wedding finger.

No, clearly, not my fault.

Responsibility lay wholly and completely with Jake, my fiancé. My former fiancé. Who apparently did not purchase the beautiful marquise diamond ring resting on an exquisite white gold band that looked like vines. No, apparently, he “lifted” it from a little shop in the diamond district that happens to include with every ring a tiny locator chip. Unbeknownst to Jake.

Jake, whose blood and quite possibly some fragments of his brain are presently splattered across my face and the wall my body is being ground into by the suit’s Muscle.

“Sir, please, you must believe me, I had no idea what Jake had done. I would never knowingly steal from anyone. Please just take the ring.”

“My dear, I am an old-fashioned man. As such, I am a believer in an “eye for an eye.” On the other hand, my mother, God rest her soul, taught me to treasure women. However, you cannot in all honesty tell me you believed that,” he toed Jake’s lifeless body with a well-shod foot, “was in a position to purchase such a precious stone as the one presently gracing your lovely hand.”

He had a point. More than one, actually. I met Jake online a year ago. He shared an apartment with three other people. We rarely went out to eat and when we did, we split the bill. Mostly, he came to my place, I cooked and afterwards we watched Netflix then went to bed. We were comfortable together. And he made me laugh all the time. He was a professional comedian and I thought he was brilliant.

But he did count pennies.

When he gave me the ring, I thought he had been saving which would explain his intense frugality.

But I am of the school, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

“Thing is, sir. I had the ring appraised. It’s glass.” Suit paused in his finger removal preparations.

“I don’t sell glass. Good try.”

“No, really. I can prove it. I had intended to talk to Jake about it tonight. I didn’t need anything this grand. Jeez, I would have been happy with a wedding band and him. But he wanted to ‘do it right,’ as he said. Anyway, today I went to have it appraised. I’ve never owned anything so pricey, so I wanted to make sure it was covered appropriately in my insurance policy. It’s glass. The jeweler’s document of authenticity, or lack thereof as it were, is in the inside pocket of my bag.”

Suit paused again. “Where’s your bag?”

“Digging into my stomach thanks to,” I eyed Muscle.

Muscle loosened his hold enough for Suit to take the bag from my shoulder. Within moments he held the, hopefully, finger-saving document in his hand.

“This is not good.”

Muscle’s hold on me loosened a bit more.

“The marquise stones are from your cousin’s mine, are they not, Theo?”

“There must be a mistake, Mr. Leviathan.”

“Hmmm, I trusted you, Theo.”

“I’m sure there’s a simple expla…,” before he could finish his sentence, Muscle’s blood and brains mixed in with Jake’s.

“I do apologize for the trying evening you’ve been put through, Miss…?”

“Doe. Jane Doe.”

“Funny. Here, take my handkerchief. You don’t want to walk the streets with blood on your hands.”

With that, he walked to his waiting limo and left me alone with two dead bodies and a handkerchief.

And all ten fingers intact.