(no subject)

Lying is easy. Just wrap it up in enough truth that no one ever knows. Especially not when they want to believe you. I'd learned to lie from Charlie. Charlie who had recruited me on a whim to see if I could kill. Charlie who had lied and said he was a Doctor but who made me change my own bandages because he was old fashioned and afraid of The AIDS he thought I might have because I didn't even try to hide how gay I was. Charlie who had called Frank's brother when he found out about us and he had paid to have me killed because he was jealous. Charlie had been a shit person but he had been decent at lying. I soaked that skill in like a sponge during the month I spent in his hotel bed recovering from my stab wound.

Nasir knew I lied when I called to reschedule our appointment. He had made a new gun for me and was delivering it for my job. I had lied about why I'd rescheduled but Nasir hadn't even cared. I had used the headache excuse which everyone except Frank always believed. I hadn't had a proper debilitating headache in months although I still got the mild version too often. But Frank could read it on my face when it was about to happen. He usually knew a fraction before I did and had the medication ready. The seizures thankfully had stopped two years ago, but I still took the medication because just one of those could still kill me. Truthfully I had only rescheduled because I was feeling sorry for myself and Joe had probably told Nasir something when he'd arranged the pick-up. If it were anyone but our weird fucked up family I'd have been offended for the sake of my reputation. But Nasir was one of ours.

I arrived at the Aquarium shortly after eleven on Saturday, three days after we'd been supposed to meet. It was crawling with children and their parents. The screaming alone threatened to trigger one of my headaches and I took a pill, just in case. It wouldn't stop it, but it would keep it from being as bad as it could be. Nasir had said he would meet me in the Jellyfish room at eleven. I wandered through the underwater-simulated pathways taking my time like a regular tourist, looking at the fish in the tanks like I had come to see them and not to pick up a murder weapon.

Nasir was sitting on a bench in the jellyfish room when I arrived. He was polite enough not to point out I was over half an hour late. He looked calm and as handsome and as terrifying as I remembered. Nasir had worked for Angelo Silva for seventeen years before Silva had given him the gun factory as a retirement present. After seventeen years killing people he deserved it. Before he'd worked for Silva, he'd been a child soldier in Sierra Leone. He was probably one of the best assassins out there, second only to Frank. I sat down on the bench close enough we could talk but not too close to him that we looked like we were here together. Keeping it subtle I took a few pictures of the jellyfish with my cellphone. Nasir nudged a worn blue backpack sitting at his feet across the space that separated us so it rested next to my running shoes. Being a child soldier had apparently given him an Infinite amount of patience. He put up with Miko and he seemed to be putting up with Me well enough.

"I put the payment for Boston in the bottom of the bag," Nasir said. His eyes tracked the jellyfish with interest. "Miko says hello. ...And Toby packed cookies for you."

Miko says Hello. I instinctively looked at my chest to see if there was a little red dot floating there... The last time that little shit had 'said hello' I had thought I was going to die. I thought Frank was going to die. He was worse about pointing guns at people than I was and considering I had accidentally shot Frank twice while learning to shoot, that was significant.

We'd given Miko the 'Friends and Family' discount to clean up the mess with his boyfriend Toby's psycho stalker. Toby had begged Miko not to do it for some reason I'll never understand, so Miko came to us. Toby was a civilian and he wasn't fucked up like the rest of us I guess. I'd have done the job for free except for Frank's "If we don't get paid for it, we're just murderers." speech. I'd then offered to do it for Fifty Bucks.

The guy stalking Toby was a typical old-money douchebag messing around on his pregnant wife with a guy and then threatening the guy when he didn't get what he wanted. He was exactly the type of guy I'd have blown for a sofa to crash on when I was younger and use the bruises he left for sympathy on the next asshole. I'd gotten a smack upside my head for my offer but we took the job because Miko owed me a Hit. I personally didn't see a difference if we were paid for it or not aside from the fact that I liked nice cars and getting a good haircut ever six weeks. I didn't care about the semantics between Murderer and Assassin and we'd adopted Miko as 'ours'. He'd helped us during Assassin war. Miko had saved Frank's life and Nasir had killed Simon which had solved almost all of our assassin problems. Not to be outdone I had killed Malcom, and Karl, Hans, Yuri and Sebastian. For the record.

"Toby baked me cookies? Shit. I would have done that job for the cookies alone!"
I gave Nasir a cheerful smile and pulled open the zip of the backpack and began to root around past the gun parts until I found the tupperware. It wasn't a lie either, I really would have. Toby was that good of a cook. I put a cookie into my mouth and watched the jellyfish swim. The cookies were chocolate chip and they were as delicious as I had expected them to be. I ate all of them, and then handed the tupperware back to Nasir who was looking at me like I was a maniac.

I thanked him sweetly for the gun after I licked the crumbs off my fingers. From what I had seen it was as beautiful as the others he had made for us. We didn't talk much, but exchanged a few bits of news. Bella had given birth to a boy and she was furious. She'd wanted a girl to dress in designer babyclothes. Miko had accidentally dropped someone into an industrial meat grinder instead of pushing them off a factory cat-walk. Typical updates for people in our industry who couldn't have telephone conversations since there were no fucking payphones anymore.

Half an hour after Nasir left, I picked up the bag, slung it over my back and made my way through the rest of the aquarium, taking photos of the more interesting ocean creatures along the way. I looked like a slightly cuter than average teenager with an interest in sealife taking pictures with my phone and no one looked at me twice unless they were checking out my butt. I caught at least two men and gave them smiles to acknowledge their good taste. But they weren't Frank so I didn't lure them into the bathroom for a quickie. The weight of the gun on my back was enough of a comfort I didn't need to find it somewhere else. At least that was the lie I was telling myself to get through the day.