Split

edit in progress

         He smelled the burned gunpowder before he realized he was staring into the abyss of a metal chamber about .22 inches in diameter, which was shortly before he realized he was looking into the barrel of a gun.  There was a slide then a soft click, signifying that a bullet was ready to make his nihilist life even less than what he had believed it to be.  If he could have overridden his acute and paralyzing awareness of the fine line between believing in nothing and being nothing, he might have laughed at the irony.  As it was, he managed a sardonic smirk before the bullet tore out the back of his head in splinters of bone enmeshed in chunks of flesh. 

         Second shot to the heart.  Very professional.  The woman wiped her gun clean and left the penthouse, closed and locked the door.  Silence returned to the apartment.  John slid out from the space behind the hidden panel and examined the corpse, cringing inwardly and bracing himself for the scene.  Exit wounds were always so messy.  He took stock of the room.  The woman had taken nothing, which meant she was a hired hand.  She had access to a copy of a key to his penthouse.  Considering the level of security in the building, not to mention on this floor, this had to have been planned over some time. 
         Biting the skin on his thumb, he crouched on the floor near the open panel.  What was he missing?  He swiveled his head from side to side, inching away from the spreading pool of blood.  The woman had locked the door.  Why would she take the trouble of locking the door behind her?  To buy time in getting away?  No.  if she had been surveilling the place enough to have gotten a hold of the master key, she would know that no one ever visited this place.  There was a delivery boy for the groceries who would not be difficult to avoid and a private mail drop once a week.  Making it look like suicide?  Again, no.  Among other things, she had shot him between the eyes.  Improbable, if not impossible, in a suicide scenario. She had also confirmed his death with a second shot to the heart.  The only reason for locking the door would be to make sure the death would not be discovered until much later. The question was why?
         The sound of a key turning the lock on the front door interrupted his thoughts.  John bolted back behind the panel and closed it behind him a split moment before the door to the room opened.  A crew clad casually in all black commenced the speediest and most effective clean up of a crime scene he had ever seen.  What were they using to get the blood stains out like that? It would not pass a luminol test, John knew, but no one would have reason to check for blood after this lot is done.  For the love of... they brought a new mattress? At the end of less than twenty minutes, they took their bags and left, his remnants in one of them.  Again locking the door behind them. 
         John stepped out from his panel once more, almost glad for the unannounced maid service.  So the assassin has her own clean-up crew. That could only mean one thing. John grabbed his jacket from the panel and headed for the hidden corridor to his private elevator.  Some important heads were about to roll.

        Kate paced the room like a caged tiger as the phone rang on over the intercom unanswered. 
        "Miss Barrett..." her assistant prompted over the intercom.
        "Yes," Kate responded.
        "There is no answer on the other line."
        Of course there was no answer. Kate closed her eyes, containing the flood of despair welling behind them. She strained to keep her voice steady as she spoke her next words.
        "Keep trying," Kate instructed. An imperceptible pause.  "...and prepare to call the League to session. "
        "Yes, Miss Barrett." Her assistant went offline with a soft click.
        They were currently missing a high profile agent with high risk abilities, and there were indicators of the disappearance not having been voluntary... or reversible.
Where the hell are you?  Kate berated the smirking face in her mind's eye. "Someone is trying to kill me," it said.
        Kate spun, gun cocked and ready in her hands. She stared hard at the man who stood before her.
        "Oh, come on, you're not even aiming," said the idiotic smirk with the idiotic lilt in his idiotically charming voice. His ruddy face was red from the cold beneath the ski cap he was wearing, and the camel colored leather motorcycle jacket was wet from the snow. He looked like hell, but his dark blue eyes were alive.
        She kept the gun up. "Not at your head, no," she said. John seemed nonchalant, but she noticed a slight quickening of his steps as he approached Kate's desk. He hit the line for the front desk.
        "I'm here."
        "Oh, thank God," gushed the relieved assistant. "We were so worried about you!"
        Kate rolled her eyes. "That will be all," she sniped, closing the connection.
        "Now that was a proper welcome." How could he be so maddeningly calm about this? Kate raged to herself, but even as she glared, she felt her heart rate slowly lower to a normal rate.
        "You were dead for over a minute," she said without emotion.
        "Not really. I was very, very close, but obviously..." John trailed off and shrugged. 
             
John shuffled his feet, trying to keep warm.  Why did these lights always take so damn long to turn green, anyway? He buried his head in the stiff mock collar of his leather jacket and the icy brass snap on one end of the collar grazed his dry, scaly cheek as if to mock him. Finally. The crowd surged across the avenue in a huddled, miserable mass across the avenue. Only two more blocks until the safehouse, he thought. Two more blocks of this Siberian cold, two more blocks until a pint of warming ale at a fireside table in a plush chair. Two more blocks until a smoke. He was nearly at a run when he reached the pub and had almost stepped on exactly one kid and two dogs.
The pub in a previous life had been a small chapel. The building had been foreclosed during the great depression. The building probably would have been torn down but for a man who, despite his less than religious views, bought the building to save a rare work of architecture. He had the chapel converted into a private gentleman's club, the kind without naked girls. The cocktails, brews, wines and cigars were all of a certain quality and provided to the patrons at a reasonable price. The wooden furniture pieces were made of good mahogany and the sitting chairs were plush and tastefully upholstered in chocolate colored leather. No cigarettes were allowed inside the building. Violators were banished. More prohibited than cigarettes, however, were men. The only women allowed in the establishment were the modelesque beauties behind the bar and the vault of cigars.
John knocked on the brass knocker.  There was a sliding of wood and the eyes of the lion head knocker glowed briefly before the head of the peering gatekeeper blocked it from view.  John could almost taste the warmth.
"Business?" the voice inquired in a smooth tenor.
"Protection."
"Don't need any more tonight."
Damn. Well, it was worth a try to get in cheap. He didn't have anything to sell or barter inside. That only left...
"Information."
"What have you?"
"Someone is letting go of their gold for cheap."
"How cheap?"
"$20 below market price."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?"
"Who?"
"We can talk about it over a brew."
A pause.
"When have I ever given bad information, Hock? Huh? Let me in, man. It's fucking cold out here."
The lion head's eyes glowed again briefly before the wooden panel slid closed and the sound of the iron bars retracting resonated through the thick wooden gate. John was inside before the gate drew back twelve inches.
"Jesus Christ, man. It's freezing out there."
Hock only looked at him wearily, returning behind the bar. John followed and sat in front of the taps.
"Cary. Before the silent auction at Mizuya."
Hock did not look up, but started pouring a pint of the good guinness.
"I knew that."
"Then why'd you let me in?"
"Because I want to know why."
John moved to take the frosty mug. Hock looked up, keeping the mug behind the bar, just inches out of John's reach.
"He needs liquid assets."
"What for?"
"To buy something." His voice was coming out in a plea for the elixir in the bartender's grizzly hand.
"He's looking to buy something big. He has been liquidating a hefty chunk of his assets these past few months."
Hock set down a coaster in front of John and set the guinness more gingerly than John thought his bear claws should have been able.

      He smelled the gunpowder residue before he realized he was staring into the abyss of a metal chamber about .22 inches in diameter, which was shortly before he realized he was looking into the barrel of a gun.  There was a slide then a soft click, signifying that a bullet was ready to make his nihilist life even less than what he had believed it to be.  If he could have overridden his acute and paralyzing awareness of the fine line between believing in nothing and being nothing, he might have laughed at the irony.  As it was, he managed a sardonic smirk before the bullet tore out the back of his head in splinters of bone enmeshed in chunks of flesh. 

        Second shot to the heart.  Very professional.  The woman wiped her gun clean and left the penthouse, closing and locking the door behind her.  Silence returned to the apartment.  John slid out from the space behind the hidden panel and examined the corpse, cringing inwardly and bracing himself for the scene.  Exit wounds were always so messy.  He took stock of the room.  The woman had taken nothing, which meant she was a hired hand.  She had access to a copy of a key to his penthouse.  Considering the level of security in the building, not to mention on his floor, this had to have been planned over some time. 
        Biting the skin on his thumb, he crouched on the floor near the open panel.  What was he missing?  He swiveled his head from side to side, inching away from the spreading pool of blood.  The woman had locked the door.  Why would she take the trouble of locking the door behind her?  To buy time in getting away?  No.  if she had been surveilling the place enough to have gotten a hold of the master key, she would know that no one ever visited this place.  There was a delivery boy for the groceries who would not be difficult to avoid and a private mail drop once a week.  Making it look like suicide?  Again, no.  Among other things, she had shot him between the eyes.  Improbable, if not impossible, in a suicide scenario. She had also confirmed his death with a second shot to the heart.  The only reason for locking the door would be to make sure the death would not be discovered until much later. The question was why?
        The sound of a key turning the lock on the front door interrupted his thoughts.  John bolted back behind the panel and closed it behind him a split moment before the door to the room opened.  A crew clad casually in all black commenced the speediest and most effective clean up of a crime scene he had ever seen.  What were they using to get the blood stains out like that? It would not pass a luminol test, John knew, but no one would have reason to check for blood after this lot is done.  For the love of... how did they bring up a new mattress? At the end of less than twenty minutes, they took their bags and left, his remnants in one of them.  They, too, locked the door behind them. 
        John stepped out from his panel once more, almost glad for the unannounced maid service.  So the assassin has her own clean-up crew. That could only mean one thing. John grabbed his jacket from the panel and headed for the hidden corridor to his private elevator.  Some important heads were about to roll.

        Kate paced the room like a caged tiger as the phone rang on over the intercom unanswered. 
        "Miss Barrett..." her assistant prompted over the intercom.
        "Yes," Kate responded.
        "There is no answer on the other line."
        Of course there was no answer. Kate closed her eyes, containing the flood of despair welling behind them. She strained to keep her voice steady as she spoke her next words.
        "Keep trying," Kate instructed. An imperceptible pause.  "...and prepare to call the League to session."
        "Yes, Miss Barrett." Her assistant went offline with a soft click.
        They were currently missing a high profile agent with high risk abilities, and there were indicators of the disappearance not having been voluntary, or reversible. Then again, that was not why it hurt.
Where the hell are you?  Kate berated the smirking face in her mind's eye. "Someone is trying to kill me," it replied.
        Kate spun, gun cocked and ready in her hands. She glared hard at the man who stood before her.
        "Oh, come on, you're not even aiming," said the idiotic smirk with the idiotic lilt in his idiotically charming voice. His ruddy face was red from the cold beneath the ski cap, and the camel colored leather motorcycle jacket was wet from the snow. He looked like hell, but his smoky blue eyes were alive.
        She kept the gun up. "Not at your head, no," she said. John seemed nonchalant, but she noticed a slight quickening of his steps as he approached Kate's desk. He hit the line for the front desk.
        "I'm here."
        "Oh, thank God," gushed the relieved assistant. "We were so worried about you!"
        Kate rolled her eyes. "That will be all," she sniped before closing the connection.
        "Now that was a proper welcome." How could he be so maddeningly calm about this? Kate raged to herself, but even as she glared, she felt her heart rate slowing to a normal rate.
        "You were dead for over ten minutes," she said flatly. Do not shake, she commanded her voice.
        "Not really. I was very, very close, but obviously..." John trailed off and shrugged. 
“Close enough that our vitals monitor fails to pick it up is usually dead enough.” Kate turned on her heels and glided to her mahogany desk. After she settled into her seat, she turned a steely gaze on John. “What happened?”
John nodded to one of the chairs in front of Kate. “May I?”
Kate gestured with her slender arm that he may. John sat down and took off his ski cap, running his fingers through the matted blonde hair and tussling it back to somewhere near presentable.
“

“She had a key,” he said.

             
John shuffled his feet, trying to keep warm.  Why did these lights always take so damn long to turn green, anyway? He buried his head in the stiff mock collar of his leather jacket and the icy brass snap on one end of the collar grazed his dry, scaly cheek as if to mock him. Finally. The crowd surged across the avenue in a huddled, miserable mass across the avenue. Only two more blocks until the safehouse, he thought. Two more blocks of this Siberian cold, two more blocks until a pint of warming ale at a fireside table in a plush chair. Two more blocks until a smoke. He was nearly at a run when he reached the pub and had almost stepped on exactly one kid and two dogs.
The pub in a previous life had been a small chapel. The building had been foreclosed during the great depression. The building probably would have been torn down but for a man who, despite his less than religious views, bought the building to save a rare work of architecture. He had the chapel converted into a private gentleman's club, the kind without naked girls. The cocktails, brews, wines and cigars were all of a certain quality and provided to the patrons at a reasonable price. The wooden furniture pieces were made of good mahogany and the sitting chairs were plush and tastefully upholstered in chocolate colored leather. No cigarettes were allowed inside the building. Violators were banished. More prohibited than cigarettes, however, were men. The only women allowed in the establishment were the modelesque beauties behind the bar and the vault of cigars.
John knocked on the brass knocker.  There was a sliding of wood and the eyes of the lion head knocker glowed briefly before the head of the peering gatekeeper blocked it from view.  John could almost taste the warmth.
"Business?" the voice inquired in a smooth tenor.
"Protection."
"Don't need any more tonight."
Damn. Well, it was worth a try to get in cheap. He didn't have anything to sell or barter inside. That only left...
"Information."
"What have you?"
"Someone is letting go of their gold for cheap."
"How cheap?"
"$20 below market price."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?"
"Who?"
"We can talk about it over a brew."
A pause.
"When have I ever given bad information, Hock? Huh? Let me in, man. It's fucking cold out here."
The lion head's eyes glowed again briefly before the wooden panel slid closed and the sound of the iron bars retracting resonated through the thick wooden gate. John was inside before the gate drew back twelve inches.
"Jesus Christ, man. It's freezing out there."
Hock only looked at him wearily, returning behind the bar. John followed and sat in front of the taps.
"Cary. Before the silent auction at Mizuya."
Hock did not look up, but started pouring a pint of the good guinness.
"I knew that."
"Then why'd you let me in?"
"Because I want to know why."
John moved to take the frosty mug. Hock looked up, keeping the mug behind the bar, just inches out of John's reach.
"He needs liquid assets."
"What for?"
"To buy something." His voice was coming out in a plea for the elixir in the bartender's grizzly hand.
"He's looking to buy something big. He has been liquidating a hefty chunk of his assets these past few months."
Hock set down a coaster in front of John and set the guinness more gingerly than John thought his bear claws should have been able.