Page 3 of Assassin Anonymous

The knife is the only thing keeping me alive, like a finger in a dam.

Footsteps behind me. The Russian reappears in my field of vision and gives a sheepish little wave, waggling his fingers at me. Then he reaches down and grasps the knife, pulling hard, yanking it out of me. That one overloads my system to the point I can’t see straight.

“See you soon,” he says.

I press my hand to my gut.

Hot blood gushes between my fingers.

This wasn’t what I expected from the day.

2

Mathilda: Is life always this hard, or is it just when you’re a kid?

Léon: Always like this.

—The Professional

West Village, Manhattan

Earlier That Day

The timer goes off, the blare of it snapping me out of the trance induced by the rhythmic tapping of the jump rope. I stoop to pick up my phone from the surface of the roof and shove it into the pocket of my hoodie, gaze out over the rooftops of the West Village, and breathe in the brittle air.

It’s a beautiful day.

Down the stairs and back in my apartment, I hang the jump rope from its hook next to the door. P. Kitty waddles over to his food dish in the kitchen and yowls, demanding tribute. I pull out a can of chopped chicken hearts and liver and dump it into his dish, give him a little scratch on the top of his big dumb orange head as he shoves his face into the bowl.

Part of me wants to stay home and watch movies and take a night off from processing deep emotions, but Kenji will be waiting for me at Lulu’s and I don’t want to stand him up. That’s enough to get me in gear. The temperature is somewhere in the twenties, but ten minutes of jumping rope is still enough for a sweat, so I hop in the shower, rinse, and get dressed. Then I make sure P. Kitty’s water is filled. He ate half his food and retired to the couch, transformed into a shapeless ball of orange fur.

“No parties while I’m out,” I tell him.

He doesn’t stir.

I grab the trash and head for the door, then realize I forgot my notebook. It’s on top of my tattered, beaten copy of the Big Book—the textbook for Alcoholics Anonymous—which is in its spot of reverence, next to the paper crane Kenji gave me in Prague all those years ago. I tuck the notebook into the pocket of my jacket and feel a bit safer.

The window is open a crack—the apartment holds heat like a pizza oven—but it looks too narrow for P. Kitty to wriggle through, and I’d rather not come home to a sauna, so I leave it.

I walk down a floor and knock on the door of the apartment directly below me. There’s a shuffling sound from the other side, and the door cracks open, an eye peering out at chest level. It widens with recognition and Ms. Nguyen opens the door. She’s wearing a heavy bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, her gray hair pushed flat against her scalp by a red headband.

“Trash service,” I tell her.

Her face breaks into a smile as she holds up a small white plastic bag tied neatly at the top. “You’re so sweet.”

“Call it even for feeding my cat while I’m away. But you have to cool it on the treats. He’s getting chubby.”

“He’s not chubby, he’s big-boned,” she says. “And if he’s looking for food, it means he’s hungry. You don’t feed him enough.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Do you need me to watch him over Christmas? Are you going anywhere?”

“I’ll be the same place I am every year. Upstairs, drinking whiskey, watching It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“No family, no girlfriend?” she asks. “Or boyfriend?”

I shrug. “I don’t do Christmas. I didn’t get the BMX bike I asked for when I was a kid. It went downhill from there.”

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