Page 11 of Assassin Anonymous

She steps aside, mouth hanging open. I move through the sparse, tastefully appointed living room and consider the couch, but it’s white leather. That could stain, so I head for the bathroom, which is a wreck—makeup scattered, used towels on the floor. I drop the mess of soiled rags into the claw-foot tub. “It’s been a while. What’s the going rate for a drop-in like this?”

Astrid is standing in the doorway, trying to regain her senses. “Six grand.”

“I’ll give you twelve,” I say, pulling my shirt over my head and finally getting a good look at the angry, black gash on my abdomen. It’s still weeping blood, but slower. Whether that means things are improving or I’m running low on gas, I’m not sure. The fact that I’m woozy isn’t a good sign. I lower myself into the tub.

Astrid is standing over me now, clutching her robe tighter. “It’s been more than a year since I saw you last. You can’t just roll up without calling.”

“I deleted your number.” Something that looks like disappointment flashes across her face, but maybe that’s me being hopeful. “I’m sorry. I truly am. But if I go to a hospital, I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison or get killed on the way there.”

She exhales deeply, then taps her phone and puts it to her ear.

“It’s me. I’m sorry, I just had a family emergency come up…No, it’ll be okay, but I have to cancel tonight…I’ll call you soon.”

She slaps the phone down on the sink and roots around underneath, hands me an orange pill bottle without looking at me. “Vicodin. It’s not going to help right now, but you’ll be thankful for it later.”

I dry-swallow two. She makes quick work of setting out a medical kit, placing a clean towel on the floor to kneel on, and then washing and drying her hands. As she’s pulling on a pair of blue latex gloves she asks, “How long was the blade?”

“Three, four inches,” I tell her.

She uses cotton pads to clean the wound, then spreads orange antibacterial solution around it. She follows that with a needle, dosing small pumps to the perimeter of the laceration.

“Lidocaine?” I ask.

She nods. “I need to know if something got nicked. The best I can do is put a finger inside the wound and feel around. It’s not foolproof and I could miss something.” She holds up the needle. “This isn’t going to help all that much.”

“Better than nothing. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you liable if I end up dead.”

She furrows her brow at me.

“And I’ll leave when you’re done, so if I do die, you don’t have to move a body. I remember the drill.”

She holds up her hand, fingers spread. “You ready?”

I open the bottle of Vicodin and swallow two more. It’s going to be a while before they soak in, so no, not really, but what choice do I have? She hands me a small towel.

“Bite down,” she says.

I do, and she doesn’t wait. She slides a finger inside, and my vision explodes into a star field.

There was this boxer who used to say pain is information. Your shoulder hurts, you protect it. Your ribs ache, you cover them up. Process it like that, and you can deal with just about anything.

This, though—this just hurts.

I fight the urge to lash out, to scream, and I focus on staying still as her finger probes inside me. It slips and slides and feels like she’s going to rip something out.

After a millennium of this, she withdraws her gore-covered finger and sniffs it. “Intestine seems intact. Doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of blood in the body cavity. Again, I can’t be completely sure. I’ll sew you up and then you have to go.”

“Sure, sure,” I say. I consider asking for a shot of something—she always has some nice whiskeys on her bar cart—but the alcohol on top of the Vicodin could make the bleeding worse. The lidocaine, at least, takes the edge off the needle and thread she snakes through the folds of my skin. Anyway, the pain centers in my brain are frayed and throwing sparks. At this point anything else just disappears into the din.

“Are you going to tell me?” she asks.

“Tell you what?” I ask, like I don’t know.

The needle seems to get stuck and she resets herself, pushing it carefully through my flesh. “I knew you were in the business of hurting people, but you never said why or how, no matter how many times I asked.”

“Safer that way.”

“Now I want to know. It’s the least you could do after barging in here unannounced.”

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