The Humanist

by Kenneth James Allen

  “I’m not a killer, much less a cold-blooded killer,” I managed. “You want me to do away with husbands, wives...children. How could I possibly live with myself afterward?”

  Stone put his phone away (thank God, I couldn’t bear to look at that image any longer) and retrieved two glass vials of clear liquid. He handed them to Talon, like a nurse in an operating theatre.

  “This first one,” he said, holding it out to me, “is for them.” I looked at it. There was a piece of white tape on it with a hand-drawn image of a sad face, with X’s for eyes. “This contains a designer drug called Tilt10. Think hallucinogens laced with psychotics, a side of sedative, and a pinch of anesthetic. They’ll mostly be out of it. But don’t worry, they won’t feel a thing. And it won’t show on a tox screen.”

  I took it. I accepted responsibility.

  He held up the second one. “This one is for you.” It also had some white tape and a hand-drawn face, this time with straight lines for the mouth and eyes. “Something to take the edge off.”

  I took that one, too. An automatic reaction, like shaking a hand or punching somebody in the face.

  “If I were you,” Talon said. “I wouldn’t mix up the two.”

  I tried to picture myself undertaking the task, but just couldn’t. I figured something would work itself out if I could just get Olivia out of there.

  “Set someone up for murder? Really? Is this really a thing? I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do that.”

  “The first step is easy,” Talon said. “Find the right target.”

  Stone stepped forward. “And the second step is to kill everyone else around them.”

  It felt hot. Too hot. I sweated as they outlined how they saw it happening. I didn’t bother asking them why they hadn’t done it already since they already knew so much about it. What would be the point of asking that? They would just show me the picture of Olivia again. A spiral. A downward spiral. No progression.

  Talon clapped his hands. “All right then. Orders given. Transaction complete. I think we’re done here.” He smiled.

  I hated him so much. For everything. For making me do something I didn’t want to do. Are you going to do it? I don’t know.

  “Just one last thing,” I said. “If either of you two fuckers touches one hair on her head—”

  I didn’t finish the sentence. Just felt the heavy blow to the side of my head as I started to lay out my idle threat.

  My world was black before I hit the ground.

  Fucking Stone had done it again.

  Chapter 26

  Cloudy prisms of light. That’s what I saw when I woke up. Different colors, various shapes. Nothing was a complete picture. The warmth of natural light was hitting me right in the face. The early morning baptism.

  I tried to get a feel for my immediate surroundings. My head, which felt like it had been hit by a truck, was laying on a soft pillow. My body ached with every movement. My naked body. Jesus Christ! I was naked! What did Stone do? My ass! I put a hand down there, and everything seemed...normal. I guess there’s no other word for it. I felt broken, in every way. Mentally. Physically. In between a rock and hard place. No good decisions. But where could I go? Who could I talk to? Junior! Maybe I could tell him everything, and he’d protect me. Or he’d feed me to the wolves. Maybe in time, he’d think this was a great idea and get me to do it anyway. Maybe I should distance myself from Olivia, for her own good.

  Shit! Olivia. Where was she? What had they done? Every bad thought flittered across my consciousness at light speed. I threw an arm out and it landed on skin. Warm, bare skin. I turned. There she was. Facing me, her perfect face floated on a blonde sea, her eyes closed in peaceful REM. Tangled in the sheet, her toned bare leg on top. I brushed a hand over it. She murmured and pushed her head down on the pillow.

  I lifted the sheet to inspect her. No marks, no bruises. Very naked. I wasn’t sure if this was for her or my benefit, or for Stone’s, who no doubt undertook the task. I was sure Talon watched. He seemed like the type.

  I brushed her hair from her face and leaned in to kiss her. Then I stopped. I held a hand up to my mouth, blew out, then sniffed it. In a word: terrible. Just terrible. I was about to raise myself when I looked down at her.

  Her eyes were open, staring at me. “Were you checking your breath?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Were you about to get up and brush your teeth so you could kiss me guilt-free?”

  This girl was a goddamn mind reader. Well, given how things worked out for her, probably not.

  “Maybe,” I replied coyly. Smart, very smart. Dashing, even. The thing of secret agents and superheroes.

  “Come here then.” She grabbed me, pulling me toward her.

  We kissed, more than once. Which led to a morning exercise that allowed us to sweat away the previous night’s sins. As we entangled ourselves in the sheets, I let it slip. The ‘L’ word. I didn’t mean for it. She caught me in a moment of weakness. I inwardly cringed. I’ve never said the word. To anyone. But I mumbled it to her, between kisses and touching and biting and sucking and licking. But make no mistake, she heard it. Loud and clear. She stopped, held my face, looked me deep in the eyes. Connection. Depth. And she said it back to me. I couldn’t breathe. Lost in her. In that moment, nothing else mattered. And all I wanted to do was to spend the rest of my life with her. I knew we would spend the rest of our lives together. If I could just keep her safe, keep her away from Talon and Stone and The Devil. Keep her at arm’s lengths from everything. I would give myself to her.

  Two hours later, after a shower, some drugs, a change of clothes (Olivia magically found an overnight bag in my bedroom filled with her clothes), and more making out, we found ourselves in a café, waiting for our brunch order to arrive at the table.

  “So, you don’t remember anything about last night?” I queried.

  She picked up her latte, held it with both hands, and scrunched her face up as she tried to recall. Damn cute if you ask me.

  “Nothing more than I already told you. I was waiting for you at our table but started to feel woozy. You carried me out to a taxi, took me back to your place, helped me get upstairs. That’s kind of it.”

  I held my breath.

  “Did we...you know?”

  “Coitus?”

  “Geez,” I said, sipping my coffee. “You make it sound so seedy.”

  She stifled a laugh. “To be honest, I don’t remember.” She bit her lip. “I don’t think I would have been much use, anyhow. I was pretty out of it. Hit me out of nowhere, you know what I mean?”

  I rubbed the side of my head. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  I sighed. Inwardly felt relief.

  We looked at each other. Silence. Comfortable silence. The silence you picture existing fifty years into the future. The porch bench. Holding hands on a swing.

  “Oh!” she said out of nowhere, hitting the table with her hand.

  I jumped. “What?” Had she remembered something about the night before? I searched her face for a sign. Couldn’t read her. Maybe it hadn’t registered yet. The pain. The agony. The violation.

  “I almost forgot. My dad is having a birthday party this weekend. And, well, I know you haven’t been overly welcoming of meeting my parents, but I figured this would be a great opportunity. I mean, I may have mentioned you to them. Once or twice.”

  I felt like I was about to have a fucking heart attack. Meeting the parents. Is there anything more terrifying? Yes. Yes, there is. It’s Talon. It’s Stone. I had a task to accomplish, a blood-curdling demonic task, but a task nonetheless. I needed to focus, put my efforts into finding someone to set up. Not just anyone, but someone who was single. Someone with the most to gain and the least to lose.

  Olivia must have seen the look in my face because she said, “Is everything okay? Look, if it causes you that much pain, then you don’t have to come.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just...there’s a bit going on for me at th
e moment—some deadlines, some urgent tasks I just can’t get out of. I mean, I want to, I really do.”

  She reached for my hand. Her fingers, long, delicate, soft.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered.

  “It’s okay,” she said. Soothing. Caramel. “I understand.”

  Goddamn it. So damn understanding. So damn perfect. I loved her and hated her at the same time.

  I smiled just the same. “Look, I’ll see what I can do, okay? Who knows what’ll happen?”

  After breakfast and a long embrace, I made some excuses and saw Olivia into a taxi. I wanted to spend the day with her. I wanted to spend every day with her. Instead, I stood on the sidewalk watching the car drive off into the distance, a yellow box disappearing around the corner between a brick monolith and a Starbucks. Distractions. Mere interruptions. Things I didn’t need at that point. I had my hands plenty full without adding her breasts to the equation.

  First things first. Second things second. My task required some research. I needed a target, which meant I needed to trawl the net to locate seemingly disconnected information and join the dots. Someone relatively unknown, but due for a windfall. No, I wasn’t looking for a target. I was looking for someone to kill. Scratch that. I was looking for someone I could set up for murder.

  I sat down at my breakfast bar with my laptop, takeaway coffee in one hand, a stress ball the shape of a brain in the other. Bach was playing in the background. I once read Baroque music helps with concentration. Apparently, it evens out brainwaves or some shit. I like it because it made me sound pretentious.

  I started with movie stars. They seemed the most likely to get good news. Some B-grade star could get a rebirth, or some unknown could get a shot at a role next to a big star in an Oscar hopeful. It happens all the time. Just not right then. Nothing. Nada. A dry spell for tinsel town, or, at least, nothing that suited me. It was just the same Gibson’s and Kidman’s. I needed a Pauly Shore in a Spielberg life-changer.

  I exchanged my coffee for a beer. Then I played my Xbox 360 for an hour. I stood in the kitchen and stabbed a kitchen knife into a watermelon. I pictured human flesh, the initial resistance of the skin and the ease at which the blade would enter the fleshy interior. I finished two more beers as I stared out the window, the peeled label at my feet. Felt like five minutes, but the day was quickly ending.

  I questioned everything: what I had gotten myself into, what the end goal was. I even started to question my existence. Was heaven a thing? And if it was, would I get in? Probably not. Definitely not. After I did what Talon wanted me to do. How many Hail Mary’s are required for multiple homicides?

  Politics. That was my next step. It was constantly in a state of flux. In the blink of an eye, the good guys can become the bad guys and vice versa. There was a lot to look through, so many layers of government I could focus my attention on. And so, I dug in. News stories. Reports. Blogs. Journals. Social media. Leaked emails. Hacked accounts. I trawled through multiple sites simultaneously.

  Then I found something. Four things, actually. A blurred photo of a senator. A dinner reservation. A leaked brief from Congress. A hacked email. Each thing on its own was worthless, but together they were invaluable. I had found someone, a nobody in the bigger scheme of things, but someone destined to be somebody. A big somebody. A big White House somebody. Someone the masses didn’t know yet.

  I stared at the name, wanting it to change. Couldn’t believe who it was. I parked it and kept looking, ignoring the fact that, out of all the research I had done, I had found the answer. But I couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. Shouldn’t.

  Minutes turned into hours in the artificial light. I pushed myself away from the laptop and paced the room. I retraced my steps. What did Talon really want? What was he trying to do? What would he do to me if I couldn’t come through? I thought about running, about leaving town. Packing some bags, grabbing Olivia, and making a break for the border. Would Talon track us down? How much worse could things get? What about the police? And then I remembered how connected Talon was, how the top echelons of the force were at the network’s big launch. It seemed I wasn’t safe anywhere. With anyone. I didn’t know what to do. I was in limbo. Pain in either direction. No way out. I felt trapped. As if I had fallen down the rabbit hole with no escape. Either he would do it, or I would.

  I reached for my phone, then stopped. I picked it up, then put it down. I put on some Nirvana and drank another beer at the window. The city seemed so peaceful, so devoid of pain. I would bring hurt. To an entire family. A complete generation.

  I felt sick.

  Phone.

  Text.

  Your dad’s birthday. I’m in.

  I hated myself. My chest was tight. I fought hard to keep the tears in.

  A minute later, a reply.

  Awesome. I can’t for you to meet him.

  “Brilliant. But don’t tell him. I want it to be a surprise.”

  And oh, boy, was it going to be one hell of a surprise.

  I stared at my screen for a long time, until the image pixelated, and my eyes stung.

  And still I stared.

  Chapter 27

  I had three days. Three days of planning. Three days of waiting. Three days of agony. Three excruciatingly long days until I had to perform the task. And that’s how I saw it—a task. Something that had an empty checkbox next to it, waiting to be marked. It’s what I needed for my sanity.

  The weekend went by in a blur. It felt like I spent it at the window, watching the skyline come ablaze with night lights, which were then extinguished when the sun rose. Figments of people managed their way through the city. Matchbox cars navigated through the streets. Fuzzy. Insignificant. The world drowned.

  I had faint recollections of Olivia coming around. An out-of-body experience. We sat on the rug in front of the fake fireplace and drank a bottle of wine. She laughed at my jokes, yet she was so much funnier than I was. Her intellect truly amazed me; she was definitively smarter than I. We kissed. Made love...I think. Things were hazy. Out of body, like I said. It was a shame she would have to die.

  Monday seemed to arrive well before it should have. But I guess that was no different than any other Monday. Throughout the day, Tealson congratulated me or berated me, depending on the circumstance. I couldn’t differentiate because I wasn’t listening. I mean, I gave all the cues I was, but hell, he’s so caught up in himself he wouldn’t have even known.

  I was thinking about how I could do it, what the easiest way was. Using a gun went to the top of my list. But there were things like ballistics, bullet trajectories, penetrating points of entry, gunshot residue. I had seen plenty of crime shows and movies, so I knew my shit. Poison’s no good. There’s no emotion. I needed something up close and personal. The police needed to believe it. It had to be real.

  I ended up in a place I had spent more time in the past few months than I care to mention. Someone else was there, so I hung around shitty, cheap, second-hand stereos and TVs until they left. A man in a red cap walked out with a phone—a burner. He was probably a drug dealer, or wanted to be. Made me want to get a similar flip phone just in case. That’d save me finding a new payphone every time I wanted to find out where the next game was or needed to arrange a meet with Sonja. Which reminded me. I needed to see Sonja soon. Very soon.

  The door shut, and I heard a resounding, “Romeo!” coming from the counter.

  “My dearest Juliet,” I cried back. “And how is your security today, my love?”

  “As scarce as the pubes on my pussy, Romeo. Maybe you should come and count them.”

  I sauntered to the display cabinet where she was standing. That coy look on her face. Our old routine. We both wanted something, and we both knew the other person did as well. I leaned on the counter, my palms flat on the glass surface, my shoulders up near my ears. Adorable. That’s what I was going for.

  “My God, darling,” I said. “You look more incredible every time I see you.”

  “Oh, my Romeo
. You make me soaking wet with your words.”

  The thought turned my stomach.

  “What can I do for you? Another cash advance?”

  “No, no,” I said. “Not today. Today, I’m a buyer.”

  “I see,” she said, a hint of curiosity in her words. “And what is your area of attention today? Electronics? A new watch?”

  “Something a bit more salacious,” I replied.

  She raised an eyebrow. I pointed down. “One of those.”

  “One of those?” she repeated.

  We looked down together at the small switchblades neatly aligned within the glass cabinet. “What are you up to, then?” he enquired.

  “Best you don’t ask,” I said.

  “Are you looking for a little protection?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Or are you trying to look scary?”

  “Yeah,” I said after thinking about it. “That, too.”

  “Well, those things in there aren’t much use for more than carving pumpkins.” She leaned forward. “Now, if you’re looking for a little something, I might have what you’re after.”

  She bent down, disappearing from view. There were shuffling noises, scraping, perhaps a drawer being opened. She reappeared with a grin on her face. She placed a black velvet tray on the glass top and placed a hand on either side.

  On it was a knife, the blade the same length as the handle. The grip looked like it was ivory, with silver fittings. The blade was polished—it looked sharp and menacing.

  “Genuine Sicilian fighting knife. Four-and-a-half-inch single-edged blade. Rhino horn handle. Nickel frame. Once owned, and used, by the one and only Vito Rizzuto of Rizzuto crime family fame.”

  I didn’t know who that was. “Is that a fact?” I said, trying to sound intelligent. “I do like history.”

  “Would make a fantastic gift. You know, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

  “I guess. How’d you come by it.”

  “Best you not ask,” she retorted.

  Touché.