This idea has been rattling around in my head for going on two decades now. I sat down this afternoon, after a long day of duty on the ship yesterday and watched the movie "Stand Up Guys" with Al Pacino and Christopher Walken. Both of their performances and the subject matter of the movie made me want to write this idea down. I can't for the life of me tell you where the question came from, "What do they do with the dead in Venice?" I remember it was in a book I was reading on writing. If I recall correctly it was a joke, but it brought this whole idea into fruition in a matter of moments.

     That's the great thing about writing, the ideas for a whole novel, hell a whole series of novels can burst from one seemingly innocent line. It has some ideas pulled from Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", so you can say it's a bit of a dark comedy. I've always wondered about the lives of hitmen. Not the killing or anything mind you, but the other stuff, the day-to-day stuff. What do they think about, what do they dream about? You know?

     So, step in, take a gander, do some waiting with Hank and Benjamin. Look at their lives, perhaps a bit wasted and a bit regretted and see what you pull from them. Cheers!

     This was to be Silk Hank's last job. Hank Strauss was called Silk for his fluid ability to maneuver behind his victim, slip a garrote around their neck and choke the every living shit out of them. Until they were dead. When the deed was done, not a droplet of blood, a whisper of incrimination nor a side-long glance would fall upon the ever vigilant form of Silk Hank. For him it was a matter of pride, a calling card, a hallmark, if you will, that spoke to his dedication and fastidious nature. Folk in the business new that if you wanted something done quick, clean and right, you called Silk Hank; end of story.

     He'd become so popular among the circles he ran in, that this, last of last jobs, would be his one hundredth assassination. These jobs, of course, pay well and Silk Hank was not hurting for money. After the second year of his venture into the career field, he had made enough to step away from any other type of work. It gave him the ability to choose what he wanted to do, to go where he wanted to go and live the life that he dreamed. That is, save for one thing. His skills had become so highly prized and sought after, that despite his best wishes and intentions, Silk Hank was never able to venture outside of the States and visit other places.

     On the coffee table of his apartment he had stacks of National Geographic, Traveler and Wanderlust magazines. On the wall opposite his couch, Silk Hank had cut pictures of the places that he most longed to visit and glued them to the plaster. It was a gentle reminder of his goals and as his long-departed father had once told him, "Son, a man has got to have goals in life, or he'll end up as nothing." Every night, when Hank returned home, he was pour himself a glass of his favorite scotch whiskey, sit down on the couch, lean back against the ancient, rotting back brace, and stare at all the places he longed to visit.

     Hank never had company over. In fact if you were to ask him to make a list of his closest friends, he would take an awful long time to sit and ponder your request, but in the end would only write one name down: Sylvie. Every morning at seven a.m. sharp, Hank would walk through the front door of Sam's 15th Street Diner, and sit in the booth at the end; Sylvie's booth. Every day he ordered the same thing: the Breakfast Sampler, but instead of buttermilk pancakes he preferred sourdough toast with orange marmalade and a cup of black coffee. Another thing his father taught him, "Son, a man has to have a routine in life. A path to follow that won't steer him wrong." That was exactly what Hank had.

     Every day, Hank sat at the same booth and Sylvie would take his order, even though it never changed. It was one of the things that she liked about the man. "Mr. Strauss, you're one of those men that when they've made up their minds about something, they stick with it until they're dead. Kinda grows on a girl." She'd said that to him on the second month of his daily pilgrimage to Sam's and it had melted his heart. From that moment on, Sylvie ranked number one on Hank's priorities. Okay, number two, his work always came first.

     Despite his vast affection for the struggling young waitress, who always had a smile  for him, and time to sit and chat, he had never invited her out, on a date or even to his apartment. Although he had never had children, a marriage or a girlfriend for that matter, Hank would many times stop himself from asking anything further of Sylvie than a refill on coffee or an extra packet of orange marmalade, because he was old enough to be her father. Many other men his age would not see such a thing as an obstacle, but to Hank it just did seem to be a hurdle the could get over. He was, after all, a stand up guy, and as his father had always told him, "Son, you want to be stand up when you grow up, right? Then you've got to walk the line."

     It was easier now that she had taken a leave of absence from Sam's. While the crotchety old cook would be hard pressed to fill her shoes, he knew that an opportunity to study abroad during her last year of college was one that she shouldn't have to turn down. Neither had Hank. Between he and Sam, they'd worked out a slippery deal that ensured that money from Hank would be funneled through the diner and into Sylvie's account to ensure that while in Italy, she wanted for nothing. Hank looked at it as a means of living vicariously through her. Her last day at the diner had been a tearful one and filled with promises from the spunky young woman that she would send post cards and all manner of keepsakes to her favorite customer.

     That had been three months ago. In that time Hank had received twelve post cards, three of them from a couple spur-of-the-moment trips to Venice, the one place in the world that Hank had always dreamed of visiting. If you were to take a count of the locales on his wall, you would find that Venice was featured over fifty times. A clear sign that Hank longed to go there. From their talks over Sam's world-famous coffee, Sylvie had known this and with her most recent post card had come a small, brown-paper wrapped package. Inside was a miniaturized St. Mark's Clock-tower from the Piazza San Marco in Venice, as a key-chain. It immediately went on Hank's key-ring.

     With his keepsake key-chain, three post cards featuring the Rialto Bridge, the Doge's Palace and the Grand Canal at night, Silk Hank had everything he needed to keep him company on his one hundredth and final job: Mario Pizzo. He had been contacted by the Boss', Caligula's, men and given what Hank admitted to himself that morning, was probably the strangest contract of his career. He was took take the Boss' nephew, Bennie "Happy" Malone, to an apartment on the Lower East Side, and there they were to await further instructions on eliminating their target. Someone would deliver the how and when's to them. Their only order was to sit tight and be patient.

     Silk Hank knew exactly what it meant. When old dogs like him got to the end of their leashes and could no longer learn new tricks, it was customary to have them put down. Because Hank had been in the business longer than anyone, had worked contracts for so many people, he was now consider more of a liability than an asset. Hank knew that he could walk into the local District Attorney's office any day of the week and lay out everything he knew for them like a sumptuous buffet, and they would swallow it down whole. Of course, that wasn't something a stand up guy would do, and if anything Hank was a stand up guy. 

     Today, however, as he glanced over at the muscled form of Happy Malone, the Boss' nephew-in-law, he knew that being a stand up guy wasn't going to get him past what was coming. The only thing left to do was to draw out the moments as long as he could, savor them and when the job needed finishing, to finish it. Like any stand up guy would. Silk Hank turned away from the push-up punching kid, who seemed just a little too full of himself and stared out the window. His hand absentmindedly fingering the key ring in his pocket as he thought of Sylvie and Venice.