Page 64 of Assassin Anonymous

As I’m dismounting the stool, she slips the bill in her pocket. “If you’re looking for him, be careful, okay?”

Can’t help but laugh at that. “Sure. I’ll do my best.”

Outside the bar the sun is dipping below the building tops and random flakes of snow are swirling through the yellow glow of the streetlights. Astrid is still giving me the silent treatment. I hitch up my collar and stick my hands in my pockets as we make our way toward the corner, passing stores and homes done up with twinkling colored lights.

“You gonna talk to me?” I ask.

“That was messed up, Mark. He was just a kid.”

“Kid needed to learn a lesson.”

“That didn’t teach him a thing. Clearly he needs some kind of help he’s not getting. He’s not in the game, Mark. And you could have killed him.”

Yeah. I could have.

And it would have felt good.

I put that thought out of my head as we turn the corner. The bartender was right. There are six two-story brick homes, all connected to each other. They look exactly the same. I’ve got a good eye for details and if I saw Stuart come out of one yesterday I wouldn’t remember which one it was today. Out of the six, there are only lights on in two of them, so I pick the closest one and knock on the door. The mailbox on the railing is overflowing. I pluck out an envelope.

Stuart Bates.

He’s a serial killer and his last name is Bates?

C’mon now.

“This is it,” I tell Astrid.

Part of me feels lucky to have found him on the first try, but the abundance of mail and the lights on inside make me wonder how long that luck is going to hold out. The block is mostly empty. No cameras in sight. I keep a cheap lockpick set in my wallet—it’s not going to get me through a secure door, but this isn’t that. It takes about ten seconds to pop the pins and the dead bolt isn’t engaged. I give one more look to make sure the street is clear, checking the windows across the street for any Rear Window types, then we slip inside.

“Jesus,” Astrid says. “That stench…”

As soon as it hits me, I know whatever we find isn’t going to be pleasant. The rot is so thick I can taste it at the back of my tongue: spoiled meat left in the sun. I’m used to the smell of fresh carnage—the way blood and viscera hang in the air, the way a body will shit itself moments after death—but I’m usually long gone before they ever get this far along.

There’s blood in the entryway. I bend down to get a closer look. It’s a thin film, dry and tacky. Been a day or two, at least. Maybe more. Right off the entryway is the living room, which is where I find Stuart, lying on his back, his head caved in.

Astrid puts her hand over her mouth and dashes outside.

The living room doesn’t have any real personality. Gray couch, big TV, a coffee table with some remotes on it. No art on the walls, no rug on the floor. No books. Stuart is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and fat cockroaches chew on the shattered remains of his head.

This is not a professional estimate, but I’d say a somewhat educated guess: his head looks like it was stomped on by a boot. There’s something about the uneven flatness of it that makes me think of a heel. Nestled in that mess is a hazy, milky eyeball gazing at the ceiling.

My stomach swirls with a mix of complicated emotions. The first thing that comes up is relief. Maybe the world is better off with him gone. But that makes me wonder if I’m really just imagining myself in his place.

After that, there’s sadness. He really was trying.

Finally, there’s a toxic mix of fear and confusion. How the hell did Stuart get involved in this? Why would someone come after him?

The why doesn’t really matter, I guess.

It’s more important that I get back and make sure Booker and Valencia are okay.

—

Lulu wordlessly fills our coffees, then goes back to the register. The man in the brown suit is sitting across the diner, like always, and there’s no one else here.

“Nice cat,” Booker says, nodding to the carrier on the table.

“He’s a fluffy boy,” Valencia says.

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