Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

He belted down the espresso, started on the cinnamon roll as he walked out the door. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. He finished the pastry, carefully licked his fingers clean. After everything that had happened, he still had the habits of a good Muslim at least. Christians looked askance at Muslims for licking their fingers after eating, considering it unhygienic and a mark of poor manners, but Muslims knew better. Food was a gift from Allah, and who knew which morsel contained the blessing of God?

He saw Harriet up ahead, pushing through the crowd, forcing people to make way for her enormous girth. She was a bully in a long fur coat; a blubbery matron in her sixties with bright orange hair and a staircase of chins jiggling with every step. She leaned over one of the fruit stands and picked up a peach, brought it to her nose for a quick appraisal, then tossed it back down and barreled on. The fruit vendor glared, but didn’t complain.

Rakkim followed her. Harriet was a creature of habit, making her regular rounds of the market, always among the first customers of the day, so she could select the best for her discriminating palate. Predictability was no danger to her. She needed to be available to potential clients, and besides, she was protected. Rakkim saw a man on the opposite side of the street eating from a bag of hot chestnuts as he kept pace with her, a stocky brute in a blue peacoat with the collar turned up, a watch cap pulled low. Home is the sailor…but he was no sailor. He didn’t have the saltwater squint. Another bodyguard was just a few steps behind Harriet, a tall fellow using a cane, but he was no cripple; the sole of his right shoe didn’t have the proper wear pattern for the dragging he was putting on, and he wasn’t rotating his hips enough. People thought all it took to play the part was a heavy walking stick, but a whole set of subtle markers had to be learned, and the man hadn’t put in the time.

Harriet checked out another vendor’s peaches. Picked one up, ran a thumb over the skin, sniffed. She nodded, then handed over a succession of peaches to the proprietor. After paying, she tucked the paper bag of fruit into a shopping bag, then crossed the street to the Muslim butchers’ stalls. Rakkim strolled after her. He saw one of her bodyguards shift position, the one in the peacoat sensing his interest. Good catch.

The butchers were in full tilt over the cutting tables, sharpening their knives as they bent forward, the sound like giant insects clicking their mandibles. Their white aprons blotchy with blood, the butchers muttered as they worked, endlessly repeating the name of God. It wasn’t strictly necessary; Muslim law only required that the name of God be pronounced at the time of slaughter, but the Black Robes had deemed the name of God could not be invoked too often, and the butchers were eager to comply. The Christian butchers were on the far side of the market, near the main garbage dump. The Christians sold meats slaughtered improperly, animals killed by stunning, and their stalls were next to the fishmongers that sold seafood devout Muslims wouldn’t touch: crabs, lobsters, oysters, mussels, and octopuses.

“Hello, Rakkim.” Harriet eyed the perfect T-bones as the butcher behind the counter waited patiently for her decision. She was a devout atheist, contemptuous of all believers, but she knew the best of everything was reserved for the faithful. She pointed at one large, well-formed cut of meat, then turned, gave Rakkim an awkward embrace, her fur coat warm and steamy in the damp. She smelled like $300-an-ounce French perfume. “You look like shit.”

Rakkim fingered the rich brown fur. “Muskrat?”

“Russian sable.” Harriet flicked his hand away, then checked to see that her strand of black pearls was still around her neck. She paid the butcher for the steak. A few moments later she and Rakkim were walking down the sidewalk while her two bodyguards kept their distance. “Are you finally ready to take me up on my offer?”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Don’t play hard to get.” Harriet’s bright orange curls were gray at the roots, her cheeks crusted with rouge, but her gray eyes were intense. “I’ve got a CEO for an oil-drilling firm who’s involved in a messy patent dispute with one of his competitors. Very messy. He’s got an armored limo and twenty-four-hour bodyguard protection, but he still pisses his pants every time he goes to mosque. A two-year personal security contract with him and you could buy a villa in Hawaii and stock it with dancing girls. Assuming he survives, of course. Just name your price.”

“I don’t have a price.” Rakkim reached into her shopping bag. He passed up the peaches, snagged an apricot instead. Bit. It was incredibly sweet, perfectly ripe. Her bodyguards were closer now, the one in the peacoat pretending to examine a rack of lamb.

Harriet gave a hand signal, and her bodyguards moved back. “So, why are you here?”

Rakkim took another bite. “I’ve got a little problem.”

“You want a little gun to take care of your little problem?” Harriet said, chins bouncing. “I don’t handle such things, of course, but I have sources.”

“Guns are overrated.” Rakkim finished the apricot, tossed the pit into the gutter, scattering the seagulls who picked at the trash. “I need your help finding an assassin.”

“That’s easy enough. I work both sides of the street, you know that.”

Rakkim stepped closer. “A Fedayeen assassin.”

Harriet cackled. It sounded like a crow being torn to pieces. Other early shoppers glanced over, then away. She kept walking, her fur coat swirling around her knees.

“There’s not many of them on the open market, I understand that,” said Rakkim.

“There’s none on the open market. Twenty years in the business, and I’ve never met a real one. Oh, there’s been plenty tried to pass themselves off as the real thing, but they all turn out to be fakes.” She patted his arm, suddenly squeezed him with her thick fingers. “The real ones don’t draw attention to themselves, do they?”

Rakkim didn’t respond.

“I’ve got plenty of ex-military in my little black book, plenty of ex-police too, and even a couple former presidential bodyguards, but Fedayeen…you’re hard to come by. Like I said, you could write your own ticket just based on that.” Harriet’s eyes narrowed. “You’re more than Fedayeen though. I know that much.”

“I was no assassin.”

“Whatever you are, you’re grade-A top quality, I saw that the first time I met you. Smart and quiet and you have that three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision without being obvious, and it all just clicks, doesn’t it?” Harriet licked her crenellated, orange-painted lips. “I took one look at you and thought, this one could dodge his way through a rainstorm and not get wet.”

“This assassin I’m looking for, he may not have offered his services after he left the Fedayeen. Even if you haven’t met him directly, I’m hoping you might have run into his work. Maybe you had a high-profile client, one very well covered who turned up dead one morning and your people never saw it coming. Sound familiar?”

Harriet stopped beside a fishmonger’s stall, peered at the rows of silvery salmon and red-speckled trout lined up for inspection.

“Harriet? Has that scenario with a high-profile client happened to you before?”

“Occasional lapses in security are part of the business. When it happens, I pay the failure penalty to the family or whoever and move on.”

“This wouldn’t be a lapse in security. No one would have made a mistake. The man I’m looking for has flair. Everything would be fine one minute…your people might have even been in voice contact with the client’s security when suddenly things would go silent. When reinforcements showed up, everyone would be dead. Security, the client, everyone. They might be interestingly dead, or maybe you still haven’t figured out how they got surprised. Do you remember anything like that? Or something like that happened to your competitors?”