INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS

by Jack Ketchum

  The action, from star toss to shooting Junior, had taken four seconds.

  Flex, for once, was speechless. He stood in the middle of the floor looking lost while I retrieved my tools from two of the dead men—the one who tried to use me and the one who tried to protect him. When I turned to Flex I’m sure my weariness showed on my face. He raised his palms in surrender.

  “I got no beef with you,” he said. “And I heard you don’t do this stuff unless you get paid or you protecting yourself.”

  “You heard right. For me killing is usually just business. And I don’t care about whoever you killed back in the day. But I know you killed a man a couple days ago when you could have just paid him off. And when you did that, you took away another woman’s brother. That’s enough.”

  I didn’t need to kill him. But he needed killing. I raised my pistol and shot him at the top of the bridge of his nose. Then I dropped the gun. I’d never use it again. Before he hit the ground my mind was already turned toward cleanup.

  “You need to get moving,” Jimmy said behind me.

  I smiled. “I can take care of my own messes.”

  “No, we owe you,” Jimmy said.

  “Yeah, we got this,” Smuggla said. “You go ahead.”

  On my way out the door I considered that I had judged Yemmi’s posse correctly. Jimmy was a real G, old school. Smuggla was too, but he was also a killer. One of us.

  Of course, I’m a bit more.

  I am a true assassin.

  THE ABSINTHE ASSASSIN

  BY JM REINBOLD

  Arnaud crept along in the darkness behind Rene. With only a bull’s-eye lantern to light their way, he found himself clutching at the bookseller’s coattails as Rene navigated the uneven limestone floor of a tunnel in the vast maze of passages and ossuaries beneath the streets of Paris. The maze held the bones of six million souls. The bones did not disturb him as much as the catacomb’s narrow passages and low ceilings. Arnaud feared he would panic if forced to crouch any lower. Again his head brushed the ceiling. Rene’s voice instructing him to drop to his knees added to his terror. Arnaud felt the bookseller’s coat pulled from his fingers. Alone in the pitch-black, he cried out. The light appeared in front of him.

  “Arnaud, you fool, where are you? Follow the light. Come through the hole.”

  The urge to bolt overwhelmed him. Arnaud dropped to his knees. Now he could see an opening, barely high and wide enough for a man to crawl through.

  “Hurry,” Rene hissed. “We’ll be late.”

  An easy feat for the bookseller, skinny as a worm. Not so for Arnaud with his broad shoulders and barrel chest. He poked his head through the hole, twisting and turning to free his shoulders, then his chest. Finally, heart pounding, he wrenched his hips free. Rene grasped Arnaud’s jacket as he staggered to his feet. At least, the chamber they had entered allowed him to stand up straight. The walls were no longer closing in on him; he stretched his arms into empty space. He could hear water dripping. There was a damp chill in the air that took only seconds to pass through the thin fabric of his trousers and sink into his bones. Arnaud wondered how far underground they had come.

  Rene moved as silently as a cat. In contrast, Arnaud’s footfalls crunched and cracked as they crossed the bone-covered floor. Something gripped his ankle. With a cry he lunged forward.

  “Something grabbed my leg!”

  Rene made a gathering sound in his throat and spat into the dark. “Your imagination, Arnaud. No one is here.”

  “I know what I felt.”

  “You felt nothing.”

  “Give me the light then. Let us look.”

  Rene did not give Arnaud the light. Instead he walked on.

  “The light.”

  Rene turned, his bony face made grotesque by the lantern. “You do not want to see.”

  Arnaud tensed, his muscles so knotted he feared cramp. “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying we are almost there. Shut up and follow me.”

  Lit with oil lamps and candles, the crypt they entered was filled with bones stacked floor to ceiling. Skulls, hundreds of them, stared from niches in the walls. It was here the bohemian writers gathered, those who had become outlaws, those whose daring, unconventional books—many said scandalous—would not be published by any house that catered to the bourgeoisie. Arnaud knew who they were. The eroticist, Anaïs Nin; the Dadas with their upside down, inside out gibberish that simultaneously titillated and outraged an audience; the beast Miller, his French so butchered it made one’s ears bleed; and the genius Didier who made slaves of his audience with his opium-like prose.

  Arnaud loitered at the edges of the cafés and hotels in Montmartre and Montparnasse where the outlaws lived and wrote. He was one of them. He knew this in his soul. Had Didier himself not confirmed it? Arnaud, stinking of fear, sweating, his hands shaking like an old grandmother, had approached Didier as he took his midday meal. Arnaud had shown him his book, handwritten, and begged him to read it. No one, he swore, could claim a greater devotion to Didier’s work. No author a greater inspiration to Arnaud than Didier himself. Didier, taken aback by Arnaud’s fervor, embarrassed perhaps by Arnaud’s adoration, had taken Arnaud’s manuscript, promised to read it. He invited Arnaud to sit at his table, fed him soup and bread, cheese and wine. A whole bottle of wine. Arnaud felt the eyes of the outlaws on him. He, Arnaud, in the place they all wished to be.

  It was rumored that Didier only wrote when he drank absinthe, that the green fairy was his muse. It was rumored that he would read tonight from his latest novel. Those invited had gathered in a circle around a makeshift dais. Some perched on portable camp chairs. Others sat on chunks of limestone, stretched out on picnic blankets, or leaned against the walls, living faces next to grinning skulls. Wine bottles passed from hand to hand. Arnaud scanned the audience—men, women, thirty, maybe forty of them. Young, reckless, fashionable, in their wide-legged pants and tight skirts. Intoxicated by the danger of secretly entering the under city. Arnaud had never understood that thrill. Where was Didier? Nauseous with anxiety, he could barely admit to himself the foolhardy thing he had done while caught up in the manic giddiness and bravado that had fueled his recent encounter with Didier. He had handed Didier his original manuscript, all of it. He had no copy. What had possessed him? He had convinced himself that Didier would read a few pages and, unable to contain his admiration, would summon him, shower him with praise, and offer him publication through the secret press that published his own words.

  Arnaud had waited. A day. Then three. A week. No summons came. No word, good or bad. His anxiety had turned to fear. Why had Didier not contacted him? Arnaud had intended to read tonight. He must retrieve his manuscript. What if Didier were not here? Arnaud had lurked about the café for days and Didier had not appeared. No one had seen him. Writing, they said. He will not appear again until he is done his work. Even though this bone gallery was chilly and damp, sweat poured from Arnaud. When a bottle came by he grabbed it and swallowed half before relinquishing it, only to be reprimanded by the worm, Rene. Arnaud muttered a slur and turned his back. The bookseller jammed a knee between his shoulder blades. Arnaud snarled and moved away. The first reader had taken the stage, but Arnaud had no interest. Sick with worry, he snagged a full bottle from a couple’s blanket as they listened intently to the reader and paid him no attention. Tearing the cork out with his teeth, he slid into a shadow behind the dais and nursed his prize.

  Arnaud awoke with a start to the commotion that ensued with the arrival of Didier. He’d drunk most of the bottle and dozed off. Still bleary-eyed, Arnaud crawled through the crowd, larger now than when he and Rene had arrived, positioning himself as close to the front of the stage as he could. Didier looked like a decrepit lion, his massive head surrounded by an unkempt mane of grizzled hair. His drink-coarsened skin, reddened by spider webs of broken veins. His heavy, once-muscular body hobbled by old injuries. He limped to the stage. Arnaud relaxed. He would listen, let himself fall under
Didier’s spell, but not so much that he would forget his manuscript. He would accompany Didier when he left and retrieve his book. Even if he received no praise, Arnaud would not care. All that meant was that Didier was jealous. That was how it worked. If these bastards thought you were a hack, they would praise you until you shat gold. But if they thought you were better, their silence was absolute. No matter. Arnaud hugged the bottle.

  Didier began to read. Arnaud closed his eyes, rested his head against the wall of bones. He let Didier’s voice wash over him. He sighed and stretched. Didier wrote about the experiences most ordinary and transformed them into occasions of profound human revelation in language that sang and howled, his voice both base and exalted. The man was a genius. But something about Didier’s reading made Arnaud uncomfortable, irritated his mind.

  “Lost, alone in the impenetrable dark, those scattered, long-dead remnants of humanity cried out to my living bones, begging for flesh, bargaining for life. Five-hundred years could not silence them; they hungered for permanence. Who were they to savor eternity? Six-million souls starving for sunlight, warmth, breath. I tread upon hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands. I felt the memories of their hands clutching at my legs. Only a fool believes the dead rest in peace.”

  Arnaud bolted up, striking his head. His words! Didier was reading Arnaud’s words! Fists at the ready, he stalked toward the dais. Then the little voice in his head, that had thus far been silent, whispered in his ear, told him to stay still, keep quiet. Remain hidden. Do not let Didier see you, know that you are here. Act, the voice whispered, as if you know nothing of what Didier has done. You are not in his clique. Not even supposed to be here. You can, the voice said, when the time is right, get your revenge and recover your manuscript. Arnaud slipped back into the shadows.

  When Didier finished reading, Arnaud was shaking. For a long time he could not move. Inside his head a hurricane of chaos howled. Even if his little voice had not held him back, he could not have assaulted Didier. His rage, it seemed, had paralyzed him. Blinded him. When he came to himself, Didier was gone. Only a few stragglers remained. Arnaud looked around in alarm. Rene, the bookseller, had gone, left him. Arnaud had been in the catacombs before, true, but never here where the bookseller had brought him. He had no idea how to find his way out. He followed the stragglers, but they stared at him over their shoulders, gave him queer looks. He ran after them, but still they managed to elude him. Arnaud felt a trickle of sweat slide down his back. In danger of his nerves betraying him, he charged toward a tunnel where he thought he heard an echo of laughter. A few steps in the dark stopped him. He hurried back into the chamber. As he reached for one of the candles that had been left burning, a gruff voice halted his hand.

  “You are lost, yes?”

  Arnaud spun around. A decrepit old man stood there, his clothing old fashioned and much patched, white hair unkempt beneath a peaked leather cap, his thin beard long and stained. He gave off an unpleasant odor. Where had he come from? Surely, he had not attended the reading.

  Arnaud eyed him suspiciously. “Who are you?”

  The old man looked around and shrugged. “It appears that I am your salvation.”

  His salvation, indeed! The old man had not led Arnaud back to the streets above, but instead, despite Arnaud’s protests, brought him to his encampment and deeper, or so it seemed, in the catacombs. It was there, huddled around a smoldering fire while the old man skinned and roasted rats, that Arnaud recounted the devastating events of the evening. He smacked a fist into the palm of his hand.

  “I will destroy the thief, Didier!”

  The old man leaned toward him, eager. “How will you do it?”

  “Didier is an absinthe drinker. He cannot resist. I will poison his absinthe.”

  The old man frowned. “What if this Didier will not see you? Why should he? He has stolen your work. He will not speak to you again. If you accuse him he will deny your accusation.”

  “I will not accuse him.”

  “Bah. He will never let you near him. He is an absinthe drinker you say?”

  Arnaud nodded.

  “Then you must entice him; persuade him with something he cannot refuse. You must bring to him an absinthe that is legend, an absinthe no one has tasted in two hundred years.”

  Arnaud scoffed. The old wretch was mad. “And where would I get such a thing?”

  “From me, you pompous fool.” The old man glared at Arnaud with such blistering fierceness that Arnaud pissed himself.

  “Who are you?” Arnaud whispered as he pushed himself away from the fire, distancing himself from the old man’s angry gaze.

  “Going somewhere?” the old man asked, mockery plain in his voice. “Unless I guide you, you will never find your way back to the streets.”

  Arnaud stayed still, wary. “What do I need with a fairytale when I can just as easily poison the cheap bottle he buys for himself?”

  “Because you fool, you can bargain for your manuscript. What poison were you going to use? Poudre de succession, I imagine. So easily detected, the arsenic. You would be captured and guillotined because you are not only a murderer, but a stupid murderer.”

  “Murderer.” Arnaud could hardly breathe.

  The old man’s laugh was nasty. “I know a woman. An alchemist she is. Some call her a witch. It is she who brings the Émèraude absinthe into being, and it is she who can make for you a poison untraceable.”

  Arnaud observed the smoke streaming horizontally across the small chamber. Fresh air entered the catacombs from somewhere above, filling the low-ceilinged room before the tunnels sucked it away, dragging the smoke from the fire with it. The old man had said only in chambers like this one could a fire be lit without consuming all the oxygen and suffocating the fool who lit it. Not much air down here, he cautioned. Go down into the lower passages and you’ll get light-headed, start hearing things, seeing things.

  Arnaud watched the smoke. What was the old man up to? Why should he care if Didier stole Arnaud’s manuscript? Why would he offer to help Arnaud exact his revenge?

  “Why would you help me?”

  “There is a book,” said the old man. “That rat-faced, bastard of a bookseller stole it. He keeps it locked up in a safe.”

  Arnaud sat up, eyes sharp. “I know this book,” he declared. “Rene showed it to me once when he was giddy from wine.”

  The old man’s eyes were bright, feral. “You live with him. You can get it.”

  The air around Arnaud suddenly felt much colder. He blew into his hands. “You don’t know what you ask.”

  The old man’s phlegmy laugh ended in a fit of coughing. Drops of mucus fell into the fire. The flames hissed.

  “I know exactly what I ask, mon ami.” He choked and spat out a blood-flecked gob.

  Arnaud could not help himself. His mouth twisted in disgust. It seemed to him now that the old man’s aroma had become even more malodorous, a stench that issued from his body and threatened to engulf Arnaud.

  “What?” In the face of the old man’s imminent decomposition, Arnaud had forgotten what they had been talking about.

  “The book, you ninny, the one your bookseller keeps locked in his safe. It is one of a kind. He steals books, that one. How do you think he came by all those rare editions he has hidden away in his shop? He steals them and he sells to the highest bidder.”

  Arnaud had not moved. The look in the old man’s eyes had paralyzed him.

  “I want it back. If you have to kill him to get it, that is no more than what he deserves.” Another glob of bloody phlegm hissed in the fire. “And, in return, I will get you the Émèraude absinthe and that tiny vial of death that will end this Didier.” He smiled, revealing a nearly toothless mouth. “Are we in agreement?”

  That night as they lay beside the fire, Arnaud heard sounds rising up from the deeper tunnels, shouting, and then a scream to freeze one’s blood. They sat up, waiting. But there was nothing else. A prostitute, no doubt, the old man said, with a diss
atisfied customer. Arnaud did not sleep. He lay awake, feeding the fire, listening to the old man snore like a broken bellows, wondering how he could sleep, worrying that the sound of his snores would attract whoever or whatever had caused the scream.

  Arnaud followed the old man deeper into the catacombs. These passages were higher and Arnaud did not feel the terror of walls closing in on him. Still, his nerves were raw. The old man, like Rene the bookseller, had only a bull’s-eye lantern and a map of the tunnels imprinted on his brain. If the old man were to abandon him, Arnaud could not find his way to the surface. He must be mad to follow this old derelict, but if he could give him the means to dispose of Didier and not be caught, then he must take the chance. Arnaud had heard of this Émèraude absinthe, but he had thought it a fairytale. The stories of its miraculous powers could not be true—to cure illness, defy old age, induce la petite mort, mesmerize with visons of ecstasy. The little voice in his head told him not to be too hasty in his judgment.

  The old man stopped at the entrance to another chamber. He turned to Arnaud, held a finger to his lips, and mimed for him to wait. Arnaud nodded. The old man shimmied through the opening and shortly Arnaud heard a distant muttering of voices. A sliver of fear slid down his spine. The old devil could be in there with anyone, plotting to take his life. Ridiculous, his little voice whispered, you have nothing. What would they do with you except eat you? Then, out of the shadows the old man appeared. So quick was he that Arnaud did not have time to be startled before a gnarled hand gripped his arm like a vise and dragged him inside.

  Dozens of candles lit the chamber. The sudden increase in light stung his eyes. Arnaud covered his face. Beeswax. He could smell it. And now he could see mounds of wax on the floor. Cascades of wax dripping from niches cut into the walls. He could not believe his eyes. The place was furnished! He almost laughed out loud. Only a few pieces, of course. But what pieces! Old, elegant wood elaborately carved. And tapestries! The colors of the silk thread glowed like jewels.