Page 15 of Assassin Anonymous

I toss a twenty on the table and I’m gone before Tom even turns around.

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Astrid is wearing a black turtleneck and blue jeans and a look of abject fury when she opens the hotel room door. She lets me inside and then shuts it behind her before laying into me.

“What is going on, Mark?” she asks. “You told me this wouldn’t blow back. And why do you have a cat?”

“My apartment got blown up,” I tell her, then kneel down to open the carrier. P. Kitty takes a tentative step out and surveys the room, as I’m doing the same. Last time I was here it was bedbugs and bloodstains, but they’ve classed it up since then. Now it’s all soft corners and mirrors. There’s even a complimentary bottle of lube on the nightstand.

It’s the first place Astrid ever fixed me up, and luckily when I called she got what I was going for, telling her to leave immediately and meet me here, and only get the room if they let her pay cash. I figured it was safer to get her out the door than to waste time trying to go back for her.

I had to drop another hundred on the way in, paying off a panhandler to distract the guy working the desk so I could sneak in with the carrier. Which the panhandler did with a little too much aplomb, screaming about the quality of the coffee in the lobby and knocking over a table, but it worked.

“Am I in danger?” Astrid asks.

I dig out of my pocket a can of cat food I picked up at a bodega and place it down on the floor next to the carrier. P. Kitty goes to it immediately, though I’m sure after this he’ll burrow under the bed until he gets acclimated to the new space.

“Yes,” I tell her.

“Well, thanks for that.”

She whisks into the bathroom and slams the door. I gently lower myself onto the bed and stare at myself in the mirror on the ceiling. The coffee only did so much. I’m a little high and very exhausted. Thinking makes the wound in my gut glow red.

I stick my hand in my pocket, feel the six-month chip.

I close my eyes, consider taking a nap, but there’s still too much to do. P. Kitty nestles up to my good side and I stroke his head.

“Thanks, buddy,” I tell him. “Glad someone here still likes me. Though I know that’s only because I feed you.”

He’s a little wall-eyed, so usually I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or something else, but I like to think it’s the former. He drops his head and purrs into my skin.

I click through my phone to the encrypted mail app and check the drafts folder. It’s how the group communicates; emails can’t be traced and read until they’re sent. Leave them in a drafts folder and the only people who can see them are people with the password to the account.

There’s a new draft from Kenji at the top:

Mark was attacked after group. Russian, tall, tattoo with five dots. If this sounds familiar let us know. Meetings postponed until further notice. Respond here to let us know you’re safe. K.

Underneath that:

Don’t know him. He better hope we don’t find him. B.

What are you going to do? Amend him to death? Will ask around on the QT. V.

We got your back. S.

I type out a quick response:

Thanks, fam. M.

Seeing their messages only makes me a little misty.

Astrid is out of the bathroom now—I didn’t even notice the door open—and sits on the edge of the bed. She says, “We need to talk about this.”

That gauzy feeling makes it difficult to multitask. “And I need to figure this out. Pet the bunny closest to the bench.”

“Isn’t it ‘kill the alligator closest to the boat’?”

“Productivity doesn’t have to include killing.”

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