Winter is coming. The nights are getting colder and longer while the daylight becomes more precious with each passing week. The trees have now toned the colors of earth, rich gold to dark browns. A jacket is now a must, even during the afternoons, with what little warmth the sun now provides.

A new jacket wouldn't hurt either. Maybe one of those fancy skiing jackets?

"Mocha Hot Chocolate!" a woman's voice calls out in the store. It is not very busy but the few people talking and soft music are rather distracting.

You blink a few times as the words sink in. You make eye contact with her brown eyes give the blonde lady a grateful smile as she gestures to your warm drink. You happily walk up to the drink and immediately grab a paper sleeve for the drink. You touch the side for a few moments before grabbing a second sleeve. The thing is super hot.

You take a seat at the small booth facing the window. The outside world has become quieter and the street lights are all on. The few people outside are either hustling to get somewhere warm or nicely bundled up.

You take a careful sip of the drink and wince at the feeling of your tongue scalding. The taste is a cross between sugar, chocolate, and pain. Not too bad.

Pulling out your phone, you start to browse your emails and then transitioned to jacket shopping. There was a nice Oakley jacket that caught your eye. $450. A debatable price point.

The nice mocha chocolate drink has cooled enough. A great blend of sweet, chocolate, and an underlying tone of mocha. You are definitely coming back to this place in the future.

You glance up as a loud rumbling engine cuts through the store's sound. A Junker by the sounds of it and sure enough a beat-up truck passes by. You check the time and frown. Another 45 minutes until your night job starts.

Cleaning and maintenance suck.

You turn your attention back to your phone and update yourself on the happenings on social news, pictures of kitties, and various bites of information about life and people.

Then the phone's second alarm goes off. You tsk at the intrusion and let out a grunt as you realize that your 45 minutes was breaking an hour and five. The perils of pictures and Wikipedia. You perform a stretch and power off your phone and sling the shoulder bag over your head.

You finish the drink and drop the last of your coins into the tip jar as you leave. The lady gives out thanks and you give a hearty wave back as you walk outside.

The air is crisp and you can see faint puffs of white with each breath. You snuggle into your turtle neck sweater and simple jacket as you pull on your thin gloves.

The investment for a new jacket doesn't seem so bad anymore. $450? Bah, if it kept you warm then it was a steal of a deal! A new set of gloves wouldn't hurt either.

You immediately turn right and begin to walk down the street. You straighten your toque around your ears as you try to snuggle into your jacket. The thin thing was barely adequate now. Definitely time for a new coat.

You keep a steady pace. You are not in any particular rush and you sometimes stop to peer into the windows of the local shops. Nothing very interesting tonight.

The walk takes you down a street and a half before you prepare to cross left at a nice intersection. You stop and stare at the street across, the sun is falling quickly and it looks cloudy. Maybe some snow later tonight?

The walk signal goes on and you cross, passing a generic Honda civic as you hustle across. The hot chocolate is settling nicely into your tummy now. Life is good.

The street is practically dead aside from the one car that was driving away from you.

You walk barely a building down before you take another left and into an alley. It isn't well lit and you are alright with that. You hang a little deeper into the alley and just wait. A minute, maybe three.

Nothing.

You keep walking deeper down the alleyway. Google maps do wonders for planning.

A street later you arrived at your destination and worksite for the night. A rather rundown apartment building. Fixer-upper would have been a compliment to this thing. Condemned would not have been out of the question either.

You walk down the side to the main entrance and you look up as you hear laughter. A child, roughly ten. The heavy footfall of another person is there as well. A lady with heels.

The two show up in a few seconds. A girl in pink with pigtails and a woman with a single bag of groceries.

You hustle up and hold open the door for them. They both smile at you and hurry in as well.

The mother is shuffling around the grocery bag as she looks for her keys. You smile and bounce into action, grabbing the keys from your jacket pocket and slid in the bike-lock-look-a-like key tool. A turn and a buzz is your reward.

The woman thanks you as she holds open the door for you and her child to go through.

You in turn walk up to the elevators and press the up button. A set of doors to your left opens immediately and you hop in and once again hold it open. You even stick out your arm to trip the sensor to keep it open.

"Thanks!" the kid says with a smile, showing a missing front tooth on her left. Cute.

"Floor?"

"Eight," The woman says with a small grunt as she readjusts her purse and groceries.

You press the eight key followed by the fifteen.

The rest of the ride is silent before it slows to a stop and dings. You smile as they get off and wait again as the elevator reaches the second last floor.

With a light ding, you get off the elevator and onto a cold and somber floor. No decor, no sounds, and bland lighting. It was rather depressing.

You immediately walk to the end of the floor and open the door into the stairwell. From there you walk down a single floor and enter the 14th-floor hallway.

You stroll down two thirds before you find your door. You can hear the sounds of the television.

1404.

You take a deep breath before letting it go slowly to calm your nerves.

Using the keys again you slowly but gently open the bolt and unlock the knob. Truly, Uncle could get anything. Keys to a random apartment? No problem.

With tense muscles, you press to open the door.

You wait a few moments as you glance side to side. No one has come out and no one has made a peep.

You open the door further and walk into the apartment before closing the door with the same slow tense action. You leave it unlocked just in case.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

If your information was correct, and it usually is, then the owner of 1404 is unconscious on the couch by now.

The place is poorly lit but it smells and looks dirty. Trash is piled up in the half-lit kitchen and there seems to be dirt all over the doormat that crosses into the carpet. You can hear deep snoring now that you are inside.

Feeling bold, you take slow, measured steps. Keep your footfalls light to minimize sound. You walk past the kitchen area and see a bedroom on your left. The TV and snores are coming from the right. There on the ratty-looking couch was a rough-looking man with a heavy gut. He was passed right out with a few bottles of beer on the table in front.

You don't know his name. It is unnecessary. All you need to know is that your client wants him dead in a very specific fashion. This death would grant his client full custody of three children and a better life away from him.

It was time to get to work.

You remove your shoulder bag and place it in the T intersection between the bedroom, living room, and kitchen/front door area. Then off comes the jacket and gloves by the front door, hanging them on the nicely placed, but dented coat rack.

You return to the bag and reach in and pull out a surgical mask. This place is freaking filthy and who knows what kind of airborne plague you have already contracted just by being here. You tie on the mask and adjust it a little to make sure it's both comfortable and secure.

Then you pull out some great vinyl gloves. They are designed to reach halfway up your arms and you slip them on. They breathe after the wrist, allowing ventilation but are a little tight. Full protection was worth the cost of a little discomfort.

You then check out the living room's windows as you peek around the corner and you are happy to see that they are closed. This will make things easier as you go back to the bag.

Reaching into the bag you pull out a small set of tools. A large zip locking bag for safety. A nice pet bottle of grain alcohol. Grain distilled alcohol with a fantastic ABV value of 95%.

Go time.

You grab a small, stringed cork and unscrew the cap before corking the newly opened bottle. With silent steps, you walk up to the sleeping man. He is sleeping on his back, his big gut moving with each breath. His head is on top of the armrest as he lays sprawled across the rest of his couch. Perfect.

This is the iffiest part of the job. With as much gentleness as you can muster you take the mouth of the bottle and run the mouth of the bottle inside the mouth of the slob. You spin it for a few moments, letting the man's saliva run freely down his two chins. You collect that drool with the small-cap.

You do this for almost a minute before taking away the bottle and pulling at the string to uncork the bottle and set it on the table. Step 1, finished.

Going back to the tools you grab a small bottle of clear fluid. Unscrewing the cap reveals an eyedropper. Grabbing some fluid you begin the tedious task of dripping it into the slobs fat mouth. A few drops at a time and making sure that you never miss it. A slow and annoying task.

It is a unique Doxylamine solution. A powerful anticholinergic agent that will make them both sedated and pain-free. This would keep the asshole knocked out for a while.

Twenty-five drops since he is fat and you don't want the man to wake up. Step 2, done.

Now the waiting game.

You have roughly twenty minutes to show time and you spend it by locking down the front door before browsing the man's apartment. All of the blinds were down and thus you make your away around the place and you make note of the time with the clock on the living room's wall.

He has no pictures of his family, only of rock concerts and bands. The entire apartment is filthy and the less said about the bathroom the better. The kitchen, overflowing with garbage and old dishes, was a shrine of cleanliness.

The bedroom was a moderate mess. A pathway of clothes led to the closet, bed, and drawers.

Checking the clock again, you note it's been twenty minutes.

Going up to the man you tap his cheek while calling him insults. He doesn't even twitch after a minute of this.

Good.

You stand there for a few moments. You stare at him. He looks rather peaceful. A man with few worries.

Yet here you are, about to take everything away from him.

Riches, fame, family.

Life.

Everything will be stripped away by your hands.

You sigh. It doesn't always sadden you as your marks are against people who are definitely not saints. Still. It's sometimes heavy, that knowledge of what your cleaning job is.

You go back to your bag and pull out the rest of your tools. Hand sanitizer. Two big, plastic shopping bags. A large, and clear zip-lock bag with an odd device inside it.

It is what you call a gentle toxifier. A contraption that allows you to poison people without making any big marks. No needles, no risk, just a lot of disgust.

You move the overweight man so that he is now laying on his tummy. You move his head so that he won't stress his neck and begin to pull down his pants.

Dear. Gawd.

It's a forest!

Holding back a gag as you maneuver him so that is he is, slightly, ass up. Quickly, you turn around and grab the bottle of grain alcohol and take out your toxifier. The toxifier is more or less part tampon and part iv drip. You soak the tampon, which is connected to a small tube, in the alcohol before you slowly insert it into the man's rectum.

It is slow going but the dampness makes it simple enough.

From there you grab the other end, a small tube to a bottle cap, that you screw onto the grain alcohol. You set the bottle up on the couch and tilt it downwards between the two big cushions and you can now let gravity do the work for you. Step 3, complete.

This part usually takes a few hours as the liquid does its job.

Now to wash your hands in the.... fuck.

You spend the next while going through the man's stuff.

With more time you are far more gentle and thorough, placing things back the way you found them.

All in all, not a bad haul.

From his wallet, you take just two hundred from the five hundred you found. It pays to be thrifty as missing money was a big indication of foul play. Missing thirds though? Not an issue.

The big bonus came from the closet.

Buried under a mound of dirty clothes was a collection of metal lunch boxes. Each one held a big set of cold hard cash.

You spend almost an hour sorting through the cash. Ten grand in a bundle, at least 7 bundles in each lunch box plus a loose assortment of cash. Nice.

Five full boxes and one just half full. How the hell was this ass making so much cash?

You figure that they would never look that deep and decide on two of the fullest boxes from the six available. Looting we go!

Replacing the clothes as you found them, you place the lunch boxes into the shopping bag and then into your shoulder bag. It might be a tight fit but it will be worth it. You also make a mental note to go through that extra trouble to clean all the paper money. It will be worth the trouble.

Checking the clock you realize that it's been just over two and a half hours. Time to finish up.

You quickly double-check the place to make sure everything looks 'normal' before you feel satisfied to finish up the final step.

You check up on the fatass and you can hear any snores. It is a miracle he didn't vomit during this procedure. Not that you would have cleaned it up, it would have just been extra unpleasant.

His breathing has stopped and a proper check for a pulse comes out negative.

The bottle is almost empty so you pinch the tube and then lower the bottle. This allows the last bits of alcohol flow in reverse before unscrewing it. You get your zip lock and carefully extract the other half of the toxifier and stuff it into the bag. You ignore the new colors smearing the insides.

A nice fire would destroy this evidence nicely.

You put the pants back on. The body is cold and clammy. You are so glad you use these gloves. A bit pricy but worth every penny.

Once his pants are back on, you roll him over again. You reposition him roughly how you found him before.

The small-cap of drool is used to recoat the mouthpiece of the bottle. Then you use his grubby hands to smear up the body of the bottle. Finally, you dump the last of the grain alcohol all over the cap and onto his crotch area. Any spills from the toxifier are now cleaned up and the cap should practically spit free.

Then you place it on the edge of the table, letting it look like he had drunk it by mistake while tossing the cap over the couch. Seems like what a slob would do.

You then, easily, find a half-full bottle of beer and douse his gaping mouth. This should cover up any evidence of drugs. You simply drop it on his belly and let it bounce to wherever. It lands between him and the couch, the beer spilling the rest of its content into the ratty fabric. Step 4, check.

Your work here is done.

Grabbing one side of your vinyl gloves, you pull it half off before doing the same with the other half. Then remove your hand you use your, now free, hand to yank off the vinyl gloves.

Your fingers are prunes and your sweater's cuffs are wet but it doesn't really matter.

You stuff the gloves into the zip lock and then seal it. The hand sanitizer is used liberally in small doses to prevent dripping. You even clean the bottle.

Retracing your steps you grab your bags, stow away the rest of the tools you had.

The last check over. Seems good.

You put on your jacket and gloves. Shoulder bag and loot, secured.

Finally, you tug on your toque and roll it out into a generic ski mask. You roll it over your mask and tuck it into your moist turtle neck. Time to go.

You gently open and close the door. It's late out now. Almost two hours past midnight.

You lock the door behind you and enter the stairwell as quietly as you can. It could be a month or more before he fatass is discovered. You feel sorry for the poor saps who will walk into this.

From there you make your way up a floor and re-enter the fifteenth floor.

A quick entry into the elevator where you tuck the mask back into a toque and then tuck the wet surgical mask over the turtleneck but beneath the jacket. You feel swampy and a hot shower is the first thing on the agenda when you get home.

You walk out the front door and into the crisp night air.

It is snowing.

The little white flakes are rather soothing as you turn left and begin to walk. A rather cold wind blows past you as you enter the dark alley.

You are definitely buying that new set of ski jackets and gloves.