This is prompt #65 from 1000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More. The prompts are long enough to make flash fiction difficult, but I hope anyone who decides to have a go will put a link in my comments so I can see the result.

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His parents were always worried about how he'd fit in. He was much bigger than his classmates throughout school and he had failed three grades along the way, leaving him behind the intelligence level of most of his peers. It wasn't until he got a gig as a goon for a crime syndicate that he found his true calling. They were scared that he'd get arrested and that they'd have to bail him out, but he seemed to really enjoy his job and more than anything else, he loved being valued. What are some of his best skills as an extremely strong goon for a less than reputable employer?

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Depend on Me

"Sonny? Where you going?"

He should have been more careful, but it might not have helped. Mama could hear a cockroach three floors up. No way Sonny's three hundred pounds of muscle got out the door without her noticing.

"I got a job," he said.

"For Morris Whitaker?" she asked, although she had to know the answer.

"Who else?"

"Well, I hope it's nothing illegal. You know we don't have what it takes to bail you out."

"Yes, Mama." Sonny knew. He also knew that Mr. Whitaker would take care of him. Mr. Whitaker appreciated loyalty. Hadn't he trusted Sonny with an important job tonight? As important as they came, disposing of a troublemaker. Sonny had the note the boss had sent, right in his pocket.

Sonny wasted no time. He took the subway to Mikey's pool hall and marched directly to the back, and when he found the wrong guy there like he had been told, he picked the scumbag up and twisted his neck till it popped.

"Sonny!"

Mikey stood in the door, and his eyes were as wide as store windows.

"Sonny," he continued, "what are you doing?"

"What I'm supposed to," Sonny said. "Taking care of the boss's problems."

He showed Mikey the note.

"Sonny, you idiot! Whitaker don't write nothing like that on paper!"

"But...."

"But that guy was a Federal agent, going through our books! They are gonna land on us like... like a landslide, and it's all your fault! The boss is gonna kill you!"

Sonny worked through it all in his mind as the sound of sirens drew closer, and somehow he knew that Mikey's final conclusion was not a figure of speech.

Sorry for the interruption. My Internet was down.

Today’s prompt comes from 101 Prompts for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers. This is #47, at location 204 in the copy on my Kindle.

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A woman enters the bedchamber she shares with her husband, only to find the head of her lover pickled in a jar and staring at her from the mantle.

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The Errant Spouse

“Well done,” the Duke told the assassin as he set the object on the mantle. “Now, be at hand. I do not wish her to have to wonder for long as to her fate.”

Alexander bowed and stepped into the necessary, then contemplated the view down the hole. It was far wider than necessary, wide enough to be hazardous. They said that a previous Duke had dropped one newborn daughter after another into the moat far below before he finally fathered a son. The loo would make a perfect way to dispose of a body, particularly if it seemed the body contained a great deal of alcohol and lost its balance while discharging some of it. He peeked back into the Duke’s bedchamber and saw his master gazing at the jar on the mantel while sipping some of the duchy’s fragrant white wine. A second cup sat on the table beside the bottle. Perfect.

The assassin ducked back as the door to the hallway opened. He heard the swish of the Duchess’s silk skirts, and then… not a scream, exactly, not even a true squeal… he heard what he would always after describe as a squeak.

“Do you like my new ornament, my dear?” asked the Duke.

Another squeak.

“It does render one speechless, does it not?” he continued. “I was told, though, that you particularly appreciated…items of this appearance.”

Finally the Duchess found her voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I think you do, my dear,” her husband said, and knocked on the privy door. “Perhaps,” he said, turning back toward her, “you would care to explain it to Alexander.”

The assassin emerged behind the duke as his wife began to stammer something incoherent. She squeaked again as Alexander swung his truncheon against the top of her husband’s head. The Duke emitted a choking gurgle and a small amount of blood, then fell forward on his face.

“How do you think we are going to get away with that?” the Duchess hissed.

“Dump him down the jakes,” Alexander said. “It’ll look like he fell through while he was taking a whizz.”

Alexander sat the Duke up and emptied his glass down the front of the man’s coat, then hefted the body over his shoulder and stepped back into the garderobe.

“And whose head is this in the jar?”

Alexander dumped the Duke and turned back to the new widow.

“New guardsman that got over-insistent with my sister Rose a while back. Rose does not take anything from any man.”

He leaned down and kissed the Duchess on the lips.

“And neither do you, my love, not anymore. Now clean up that smear of blood while you give me time to get clear, and then scream like anything, all right?”

“All right.”

She kissed him again, reaching around him to squeeze his backside, and then found a cloth to wipe up the blood as he slipped out the secret passage.