Student Publishing Program ::

Armando Rodriguez

The Hunter

The year was 2009. It was a late Tuesday night when a black 2011 Rolls Royce pulled into the alley behind the warehouse on the corner of South Street and Saint Rose Street. Standing outside of a white Chrysler 300 was a thin, short man in a white t-shirt with a blue suit jacket and matching blue pants, with a man standing behind him. A heavyset man wearing a black suit opened the back door of the Rolls and stepped out with a large briefcase. By the way the man was walking it was clear that the briefcase was heavy.

“So do you have it?” asked the man in the black suit.

The other man smirked. “That all depends on you.”

The man from the Rolls placed the suitcase on the hood of the Chrysler and opened it, unveiling $200,000. The other man laughed and reached into the bottom of the suitcase and felt around. He pulled out a wad of cash wrapped with a strip of paper that read ‘$5000’.

“So are there 30 of these, or do I have to count them?” asked the man in blue.

“No, no need. There are 30 of ‘em.”

“Good, good, very good. Now for my half of the deal.”

He pulled a large gym bag out of his trunk and opened it on his hood, revealing 150 pounds of marijuana.

He said, laughing to himself. “This is some high class shit right here. That is why you have to pay me an extra fifty thousand bucks for transporting and getting it to you.”

The man in the black suit said, with a serious look on his face, “An extra fifty? I came here expecting two hundred pounds and you give me one hundred and fifty? Do you not understand that I have customers?”

He pulled out a small pistol and aimed it at the man in blue. “I want what I paid for and I want it now.”

The man in blue busted out in an uncontrollable laugh and said “you just made a huge mistake!”

BANG! The man in blue fell to the concrete, unconscious. The man from the Rolls then shot the tall man standing in front of the Chrysler in the neck. He walked to the tall man, pointed his gun at his chest but suddenly felt something from behind slide across his throat. He gulped.

“That was my employer you just shot in the face and he still owed me my pay for killing you,” said the mysterious man. “So I guess, technically, since this is his money and I still haven’t gotten paid,” he said with a slight Puerto Rican accent as he snatched the briefcase from the man in black’s hand, “I’ll take this off your hands.” He then slashed the man’s throat.

Antonio Venator was a Puerto Rican man with a slight accent. He was handsome, had short hair and a tattoo along his forearm of a torn Puerto Rican flag. He lived in an apartment on Washington Street in the south end of Boston. At night he would often dream about how peaceful Boston was back in 2000, before Boston became a drug “hotspot” as people would say. Antonio was a professional assassin. He got paid to kill. He was willing to kill anyone, except innocent women and children. He was usually hired by rich people to kill other rich people. Every once and a while he did get little side jobs, like being a bodyguard for a low-life son of a gang leader.

It’s a warm December night when he gets a call from his employer, Derrick Hunter. Derrick is the man whom people go to when they need a hit. Derrick then calls Antonio to give him all of the information. This particular hit is interesting. “Gambit is the ex-owner of a casino that went under years ago, due to lack of business. He created a gang known as The Aces. A couple weeks ago, Gambit got caught up in a drive-by shooting down in Jamaica Plain. Everyone in his car pulled out automatic weapons and fired back. Our check is coming from a man who said his daughter was shot by one of The Aces and now he wants Gambit dead. Also, he wants this picture of his daughter,” Derrick says as he pulls out the picture from the folder, “to be the last thing he sees.”

“Is that all?” Antonio asks.

“Wait, Gambit is going to have a one-on-one meeting with the leader of some New York gang. That’s when you’re going to make your move.”

* * * * *

Two men were standing out side of a door like a couple bouncers at a club while Antonio casually waited across the street. Antonio was watching them from behind a newspaper when one of them said something to the other and then walked away. Antonio slowly walked across the street.

“Do you know where Mike’s Café is?” he asked.

“Sorry, I’m from New York.” said the man to the left.

“Oh, okay. Thanks anyway,” said Antonio as he pulled out a knife and quietly slit the man’s throat. He quickly dragged the body in the alley and stripped his clothes off. He put the clothes on and walked back to the door.

“That had to have been the longest piss ever taken!” said the other bouncer when Antonio returned.

The bouncer suddenly realized that this man was not his partner and started to go for his revolver. Antonio swiftly grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it before pulling out a silenced pistol and shooting him in the face.

Antonio then dragged the bouncer to the same place as the first bouncer. Antonio slipped into a back window and looked over a large wooden crate only to find Gambit sitting at a table by himself. Antonio crept up to him with a fiber wire tightly in his grasp. He whipped it around Gambit’s neck when he is close enough and said, “My client wants this to be the last thing you see.” He pulled out the picture and placed it in Gambit’s hand. Gambit looked at the picture and did not understand but Antonio killed him before any questions could be asked.

Antonio stood up and turned around to leave when he saw a tall man with a wound on his neck standing in his way.

“A few months back, there was a drug deal going down behind the warehouse on Saint Rose Street. My brother paid you to protect him and to get rid of that fat slob who was buying the weed. He shot my brother in the face, so now it’s your turn.”

He pointed a silenced pistol at Antonio’s head and Antonio fell unconscious.

[TABLE OF CONTENTS, LHS CLASS OF 2009 EDITION]