Mr Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  “No, that’s from earlier. Can I talk to you?”

  Vassily said, “Not here.” He led me back into the casino and up to the bar. “I’m glad you come, actually. Saves me trouble of calling you.”

  “Oh?”

  “You first. You made drive. Wait. You want something?”

  “Sure, how about a…”

  Vassily was already waving at the bartender, who was already pouring two cognacs. Russians.

  Vassily said, “Talk.”

  “Right. Has anyone talked to you about a hit on a Colin Reznick?”

  Vassily’s face was blank. “Who is Colin Reznick?”

  Me, you psycho. “A friend of mine. He’s into me for ten large, and he’s getting skittish. I think he might be into someone else for more, but I can’t be sure. If he was, I thought that someone might be less patient than I am.”

  “Ten large?”

  “Gambling.” Sometimes it worried me how easily I lie.

  Vassily nodded. “I never heard this name before now. If someone wants him dead, they don’t talk to me.”

  “What about the… uh…” I pointed to my head and made a swishing motion.

  “The towelheads? No way little fish gets on their bad side.”

  I shrugged. “Being thorough.”

  “There’s more to being thorough than just me and Abduls.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “New players in town. Maybe old players who are good at hiding. Hitters out there that don’t belong to either.”

  There are those that would think freelance assassins would lead to another form of organized crime, but that’s for the people who had never traced the tentacles of the octopus back to the central mass like I had.

  “Who, then?”

  Vassily shrugged. “No one you have to worry about. Ten large isn’t too much to lose.”

  “You’re sure? Nothing on Reznick?”

  Vassily gestured at me with a tumbler that looked like a thimble in his flipper. “Don’t get so attached, Nicky. Eventually these fuckers make you do something bad, and you do it. Minute you pussy out is minute you lose power. You have to take things one step further than anyone thought you could.”

  “Thanks, coach.”

  “Poor Nicky. It’s funny, though, that you come to me asking about this Reznor.” I didn’t bother to correct him. Best he forget that name, and soon.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “A hit come to me just this afternoon. I was going to call you tomorrow to track this person, but here you are.”

  He’d never called me about something like this. It might have been bad timing, or Vassily might have started to trust me. Either way, bad news.

  “Just tracking?”

  “You don’t pull any triggers. Not yet, anyway.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Some model. Mina Duplessis.”

  I’d never been strangled by cognac, but that mouthful tried its damnedest with hands made out of battery acid.

  “You know this person?”

  “No, no. Sorry. Wrong pipe.”

  Vassily watched me. I couldn’t tell if he bought my bullshit. “Okay. You track this person, you find her, you call me, I send someone.”

  Fuck that. “Who hired us?”

  “Never seen him before. Little blond guy, mustache, skinny as a fucking rail. He smelled Fed to me.”

  “Fed? You’re sure this isn’t a setup?”

  “Open your shirt, Nicky.”

  I laughed.

  He said: “Not joking.” He loomed over me like an angry eclipse.

  “It’s cool,” I said. It hadn’t worked on the Candidate, and it didn’t work on Vassily. Very carefully, I opened my shirt and held up the back.

  Vassily grinned. “I was mostly joking. Still, can never be too careful.”

  The true irony is that I was a Fed, sort of. I was technically in the employ of six different alphabet agencies, and the minute Vassily found out about one was the minute he made good on his unspoken threats.

  “Right. I’ll track her down and call you.”

  Vassily was already ignoring me. His cognac was much more interesting. “Good.”

  I walked from the casino out into the evening. I didn’t start to run until I was out of sight.

  -SIX-

  Finding people is pathetically easy. Mina might as well have been Lojacked. First, I checked to see if she was listed. She wasn’t, of course. Then, the magical tool of a magical age: Google. I set my laptop up in a coffee shop and got to work. I wasn’t looking for her address, because that wouldn’t be on there, but I knew what would be.

  Her agency. Mina was a working model. She needed to be hired for bookings. I found her listing, along with her vitals and some glamour shots. I avoided going through those in too much detail. After being kicked in the face by someone, objectifying them becomes that much more difficult. There was also the fact that I was in a coffee shop, and there was a table of two mothers and three kids behind me that would probably not react well to a weird guy perusing cheesecake.

  Agent first. Tried to hire her for an emergency booking, got told she was busy, found out where. It was past dark, and the bruise on my jawline was really coming in nicely. Getting into a fancy affair with something like that would be difficult at best, so I had to do something I really hated doing.

  Put on makeup.

  Even if it’s not noticeable to anyone else, you know when you’re wearing makeup. I don’t know how women do it. It drives me insane. I feel like I’m melting.

  I had to shave first, which was an adventure. I went home. Pressing the shaver to my jaw provoked the first curse of the evening. I fixed my hair and changed into something a bit nicer. I hoped the event wasn’t black tie. I tried a suit that said “Hollywood player”: dark colors and lots of them. That usually worked in a pinch. Chances were I’d be overdressed or underdressed, but not by much.

  What to tell her? She thought I was an agent of the Anas. There was no guarantee she wouldn’t freak the hell out as soon as she saw me. I had to explain that there was a hit on her, and if the Russian mob knew about it, the Assassins did, too. Explaining exactly how I knew this without getting another kick to the face would be a challenge.

  I straightened my tie and tried to think of an end to the evening that didn’t involve me missing teeth. I said goodbye to them just in case. We’d had a good run.

  Yes, I was planning to warn her. I couldn’t just let her die. I’d met her, after all. She had a name, a face, and a size seven foot. Maybe more importantly, the hit on Mina meant that both of the people who went to that locker were marked. It possibly meant a common enemy. Find the Fed that tried to have Mina killed, maybe find the empty-eyed man that tried to air out my brain. Could be the Masons wanted her dead to provoke V.E.N.U.S., could be V.E.N.U.S. wanted a martyr, could be the Anas wanted to drop a rising star, could be the Feds… oh, who the fuck knew what the Feds ever wanted.

  I fed the axolotls and told them daddy would be home later.

  The party was in Beverly Hills, of course. Might as well go as Jonah Bailey, since that was the name she knew. I wasn’t attached to a job, but I could easily fake one. Speak in generalities and look predatory and I’d fit right in.

  The party was a release for Sultry, some new plus-sized label that Mina was supposed to be the face for. It looked like some kind of ’50s revival. There had been some shots on Mina’s site. She looked great. Not that I’d looked.

  I rolled up good and late. It was a private home, an estate really, complete with valets. I don’t like valets. They have entirely too much power for how much they get paid. “Keep it close, please.”

  The guy looked at the McDonald’s boxes, but he didn’t say anything. I made a mental note to give him a couple extra bucks for that.

  There was a man at the door checking invitations. Go for broke. I waited until there was another party about ten seconds behind me, then I walked up to the doorman, looking
not at him, but through the door.

  “Excuse me, is Reed here yet?”

  “Reed?”

  “Sue’s husband. Oh, right, there he is. Reed!”

  He got out a “sir!” before he was knee-deep in the people behind me.

  I headed inside. The foyer was huge, complete with one of those carpeted staircases that was perfect for making an entrance. I wouldn’t call the people there beautiful exactly. A few, certainly; any gathering like that one brings out the trophy wives. But the graybeards on whose arms they draped brought the average appearance from a solid B+ to a gentleman’s C.

  I didn’t belong. The concealer on my jaw stank. I tried to calm down. Search the crowd. How many players? I spotted a V.E.N.U.S. enforcer skulking around the stairs almost immediately. Bald, skinny, bearded, unmistakable. He didn’t see me. I had to find Mina, and if I had the score, she was the guest of honor.

  I walked through the double doors straight ahead under the twin staircases. The owners of the house probably called the place a living room, but it was more like a ballroom. It had been cleared out in the center, with antique chairs and settees facing inward: here would be the big reveal. I scanned the crowd. No Mina.

  It hit me in the chest like a Nolan Ryan fastball. I ducked back behind the door. He didn’t see me. Did he?

  Stan fucking Brizendine was in the ballroom chatting, a smile plastered all over that cop face. There was a part of my mind that flashed on an absurd thought: he might not try to kill me in such a public place. Right. Because Dealey Plaza was so intimate.

  Past Stan, drapes were hung around the far side of the room, forming a natural entryway. This would be where Mina would come from. A few guests gave me funny looks. I tried to avoid touching the makeup on my jaw. What I really wanted to do was let loose a stream of expletives that would have made Carlin blush, but there was work to be done.

  Not technically work. I mean, I wasn’t getting paid for this. The opposite, actually.

  I backed off and looked through the door from a distance. I pinpointed Stan’s location and waited. He was laughing and drinking and chatting with the graybeard set. Probably selling them on that burger chain he owned. I think they had about three restaurants. I hated to admit it, but they did this great burger with feta cheese. I wondered if Stan was Greek.

  I had to get my head into the game. So Stan was here. So he was, in all probability, trying to have me killed. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t cross a room.

  Turns out I didn’t have to.

  I found them outside. Smokers. In California, no one smokes inside. Those that do get the kinds of looks that one would usually reserve for someone who brought a duck into your living room and began vigorously sodomizing it. Smokers, like duck-sodomites, did their dirty little business outside. A side effect of this was a growing camaraderie between smokers. They all had it bad, and so they understood one another.

  My mark was youngish, and he immediately smiled shyly at me. I said, “Hey, can I bum a smoke?”

  He handed me one. “So, it’s crazy in…”

  But I was already back inside, the cigarette in my hand. A glance told me that Stan was where I left him. Now to get lost. I went right, into a sitting room, then through several doors. Through each, fewer and fewer guests. I was looking for the point where everyone would be in a crisp white shirt and a black bowtie.

  One more door, and there it was. A staging area stuffed with silver chafing dishes and bored-looking staff. I showed off the cigarette in my hand, like I wasn’t sure exactly what it was for.

  “Excuse me?” to the caterer.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I was looking for somewhere I could…” I finished the situation by waving my vice at him.

  “Yes, sir, the front is…”

  “I was asked to move. I think there’s a couple people with, you know, allergies.”

  “Oh.” He pointed at a door behind him. “Through that door, make a right and go straight. That leads to the garden in back.”

  “Thanks a million.”

  Through the door was a hallway. I made a left and started opening doors. Had to be around here somewhere. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  Jackpot.

  Mina was leaning over, checking her makeup in a mirror surrounded by light bulbs in a room bolstered with racks of clothes that flattered the hourglass. She was wearing one of those dresses that made her look like she should be on a picnic in the ’50s where everything is bright shiny colors and she keeps accidentally showing too much cleavage. I wanted to paint her on the nose of a B-52.

  I shut the door.

  She turned around.

  “Hi,” I said. Seemed neutral enough.

  She looked terrified. “You… you’re back.”

  “I don’t want to alarm you or anything, but I have some bad news. Maybe you should sit down.”

  She was staring. I realized what she was up to. “Don’t worry, I’m unarmed.”

  Which turned out to be the exact wrong thing to say. Mina might’ve been shorter than I was, but she was a formidable woman, and all twelve stone of her was coming right at me with death—or at least castration—in her eyes.

  “No, wait!”

  Her fist was cocked, but it didn’t fall. I understood how she felt. She thought I was working for the Anas—which, in fairness, I was—and she thought I was here to finish the job she’d thought I was going to do outside of V.E.N.U.S. HQ. I sympathized. I really did.

  “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  She had a couple options, and she landed on sarcasm. “You’re not, are you? Well, that’s just great. I love trusting double agents.”

  Double agent. That was kind of cute. “I don’t really care if you have trouble trusting me. The fact is, there’s a hit out on you that the Russian mob would just love to collect.”

  “The Russian mob? What do they want from me?”

  “I don’t know. Date any hockey players?”

  She didn’t have a response to that.

  I went on ahead. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, if the Kosher Nostra knows you’re hit-listed, so does everyone else. You’re not safe here.”

  “And I’m safe, what, in your sex dungeon?”

  “Sex dungeon? What the fuck are you… look, Mina, I didn’t get to finish my story this afternoon before you beat me up. What I was going to tell you was that right after I planted that envelope, I got attacked. It was definitely a professional hit, and not the normal kind. What this means is that both people who went to that locker have hits out on them.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I just thought that once I found out that you were targeted, I should take a little time out and warn you. Consider yourself warned.” I turned around, thought better of it. “Oh yeah. The guy I’m pretty sure set me up is here tonight.”

  I put my hand on the knob, then paused. I wanted to give her some time to rethink the past five minutes and maybe say something. Anything. I was about to give up and turn the knob, when:

  “Show me.”

  I stopped.

  She said, “Show me who set you up.”

  I turned back around. Her posture said I was still a little dangerous, but I had piqued her interest enough so that she wasn’t going to cold-cock me on principle. That would have to do. “Okay, come here.”

  I picked some scissors up off the table, and she flinched, but I ignored it. There was a doorway that led back into the ballroom. I opened it, finding a narrow hallway formed by those drapes that looked expensive from far away but cheap as hell up close. I cut a small hole in the curtain with the scissors and peeked through. Then I motioned to her to take the eyehole.

  “Gray hair, mustache. Looks like a cop.”

  “I see him. Who is he?”

  “Stan Brizendine. 31st Degree Mason. Runs the temple here in LA.”

  “Why did he want you to plant the envelope?”

  “Good question.”

  She turned ba
ck to me. A small spot of light from the ballroom hit her right cheek. “You’re a Mason?”

  “Little bit.”

  “So you don’t work for the Anas?”

  “Never said that.”

  I took the eyehole back and nearly pissed myself at what I saw. The crowd had parted, trying not to look too closely, which was the effect he created wherever he went. He marched at the head of a bevy of bottle-redheads, looking neither left nor right, but instead up, because that was the only way for him to look. He was dressed in his specially tailored black velvet, accented by shocking silver jewelry. He was a little under three feet tall, and other than the shaved head and the black goatee, could be mistaken for an ugly child. He looked like mini-Ming. He was Paul Tallutto, the High Priest of the First Reformed Church of the Antichrist.

  I turned back to Mina, whisper-yelling, “You want to tell me what the fucking Satanists are doing here?”

  “What Satanists?” She seemed so innocent.

  I motioned her to the eyehole.

  “Who am I looking… oh. The midget?”

  “Primordial dwarf, actually. You’ve never seen him before?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t move from the eyehole. “He’s so tiny!”

  “Mina, we have to go. We’ve got two major players here tonight. I know Paul’s got a thing for redheads, but maybe that’s a coincidence, and besides, that’s mostly because of the legends.”

  “About witches?”

  “About how Satan supposedly has a thing for red hair and green eyes.”

  “I have blue eyes,” she said.

  “Mazel tov. We have to go.”

  “I can’t. This is the biggest contract of my career. V.E.N.U.S. finally got me my big shot. I’m the face of Sultry!”

  “No argument there. You just have to make a decision. Do you want to be famous and dead, or unknown and alive?”

  I expected her to have to think about it. After all, she was in LA. But she didn’t. “Let’s go.”

  “We just make a left turn and go straight and we’re out the back. Do you want to get a jacket or something? I mean, it’s summer, I know, but it’s night and…”