Copyright © 2008 Reem Al-Omari. All rights reserved.

John was reading the newspaper and waiting at a subway station, when he saw a woman walk past. She was grasping a cell phone to her ear.

"But you promised, Glen!" she said and plopped down on one of the waiting benches. "I told you I can't do this anymore. I told you, it's over. I want out, Glen."

She fumbled in her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes.

John studied the woman’s fiery red hair all the way down to her black pumps. Her shoes had caught his attention first with their loud clomping sound echoing through the subway. She wore a gray skirt suit, and her legs were an attractive milky white. John wondered why women never wore stockings anymore. The woman's bare legs were nice, but John kept imagining how much more attractive they would be sheathed in black stockings. 

"Yes, I can!" she said defiantly as she looked in her purse for a way to light the cigarette she held in her fingers. "I am gonna find new work, and I'm done with this shit, Glen. Your men watching me, following me everywhere! You got no right to keep me chained up. You don't love me. I'm a toy to you, and you end up tossing me aside like some dirty piece of garbage. I swear, Glen. You or your men come near me, and I swear I'm making the call that will be the end of you." John heard tears in her voice.

John turned and looked at the sign behind him on the graffiti-laden cement wall of the subway. It was a no- smoking sign, but he folded up his newspaper, tucked it under his arm and walked toward the woman with fiery red hair.

She was off the phone, and still fumbling in her purse with the unlit cigarette between her fingers.

John held a lighter toward her. She looked up and smiled.

"Thank you," she said over the dancing flame. "I'm Julie."

"John," he said and sat down next to her.

Julie sighed and smoothed her hair. "Don't you just love taking the train?"

John gave a slight smile and shrugged.

"When I was a little girl, I used to love riding the train with my father," began Julie. Just then a security guard came to the bench.

"Ma'am, there's no smoking on the premises," said a bulky woman with dark hair and skin.

Julie snuffed the cigarette and threw it at the railroad tracks.

"Thank you for your cooperation, ma'am," said the security guard and walked away.

"The train used to be so much fun when I rode it with my father," Julie continued with her free hands resting in her lap. "I used to sit in his lap and sleep away the whole trip. It's a shame that we grow up."

She looked at John and smiled. He watched her closely and listened.

"Our parents never prepare us for the real world. My father used to tell me that I was the most beautiful girl on earth, and that all the boys would want to marry me. He told me that I wouldn't know who to pick to marry, and that I'd break a lot of hearts."

She chuckled and shook her head, and John kept watching her. She had freckles on her young face and a button nose. John thought she looked awfully young for her voice. She looked like a teenager wearing her mother’s clothes. Her skirt was well above the knee, but it was still too big for the skinny girl with bright red lipstick sitting next to him.

"Boy, would he be in for a surprise," she continued. "The train sure is running late today," Julie said looking at her watch.

"If you have time," John said. "I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee."

"I have a job interview. I was gonna get there early, because I just couldn't stand being home anymore, you know what I mean?"

John gave another slight smile and waited for her answer.

"Yeah, what the heck? That'd be nice," she said and stood up. "Another thing my father told me was to never trust strangers. Do you think that's good advice, John?"

"Maybe," he replied and buttoned up his black tailored suit jacket. His gigantic build dwarfed her petite frame.

John lead Julie out to a back alley lined with dumpsters and puddles once they were out on the street. He told her he knew of a great café just beyond the alley. The narrowness of the alley made John and Julie walk in a single file, with Julie leading the way after John gestured like a gentleman for her to go first.

John put on a pair of Italian black leather gloves and reached into his breast pocket, keeping his eyes on the back of Julie’s fiery red head. He took out a gun and cocked it. A muffled sound told of one bullet making its way from the barrel into the target.

Looking down at Julie's body sprawled on the ground with her hair looking like flames licking her head; John took out a cell phone and made a call.

"Boss. She was still on the phone with you when she got to the station. She's taken care of."