Page 66 of Assassin Anonymous

Because I’m not ready to find out that it could be true.

“How about this,” Booker says. “You said the guy who attacked you at Dymphna’s was Russian, right? Why not go ask the Russians?” He smirks. “I know someone, operates out of a club in Brighton Beach. I’m not gonna lie, they ain’t gonna roll out a carpet for us. And whatever goes down, I need you to let it play out. But I think the three of us show up looking mean, we can get away with asking a few questions.”

“I like everything except the ‘three of us’ part. This is my fight. I’m not putting either of you at risk for a slip.”

I toss a hundred on the table, and the two of them look at me like I just spit in their faces.

“The fuck is this?” Booker asks.

“Both of you should get out of town,” I tell them. “Take Astrid and the cat with you. This might get messy. We still don’t know if someone is coming after you. I’ll check into the drafts folder once I have a better handle on all this.”

“Get right off with that cowboy shit,” Valencia says. “If you’re in it, we’re in it.”

Booker reaches over and finishes my coffee. “Let’s go,” he says.

“I don’t feel good about this,” I tell them.

“Get used to it,” Valencia says. “Don’t make me quote the Big Book at you.”

“I just…”

Valencia rolls her eyes. “ ‘The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.’ ”

Booker nods toward her. “What she said. We ain’t related, but that don’t mean we’re not blood. Pale Horse or not, you’re not stopping us from following you. I’ll be perfectly honest, you don’t look that tough to me. You know who looks tough?”

“I swear to god, if you say you thought I would look like Jason Statham, I’m going to slap the shit out of you right here in Lulu’s.”

He puts his hands up.

Astrid appears at the table. I think she can tell from the looks on our faces that she’s not going to like what happens next. So when I take her outside and hand her the cat carrier and a few hundred bucks and tell her that the next thing I do I have to do alone and she should go back to the first hotel we stayed in, she sticks a finger in my face.

“You have completely inverted my life,” she says, “and you are still keeping shit from me. I am tired of it. Soon as you get back, we’re sorting out how to get the money you owe me, and then I’m gone.”

She stalks off, looking for a subway.

It’s for her own protection, I tell myself.

And I remind myself that letting people into my life has never gone well.

10

Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Jericho, New York

One Year Ago

Sara places the large green plastic bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, then slides onto the couch next to me, nestling into my side as I spread a pink fuzzy blanket over our legs. I reach for the bowl and balance it on my lap.

“Can’t believe you’ve never seen this,” I tell her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a little hurt trickling into her voice. “I know it’s a classic. Just never got around to it.”

“That’s not a criticism.”

She kisses the side of my neck, her lips warm on my skin. “I guess it’s only fair, considering all the baking shows I subject you to.”