A dirty business

 The assassin lay quietly on the bed, his hands folded across his ribcage so that his fingertips just barely touched, and concentrated on his breathing.  It was slow and steady, each intake of breath measured in seconds and each exhale as gradual as the rising of the tide.  His muscles were relaxed and his mind was alert.  He paid attention to the hardness of the mattress he was lying on and the narrowness of the bed.  The air in the room was warm — it was in the low thirties outside and the air-conditioning in the building did not extend here — and there was a smell of cloves mixed with coffee.  There was a faint hum of white noise which was the sounds from the hotel bar adjacent to this room and which rose and faded irregularly.  There was also a sense of stillness and he appreciated knowing that in that peace he was a coiled spring, well-looked after and ready to unleash stored energy at a moment’s notice.

His phone beeped.  It was on the floor next to the bed.

He rose with the least movement he could achieve: he swung his legs around and off the side of the bed, lifting his chest and shoulders as he did so.  He reached down and picked the phone up, silencing it with a click of button and not needing to check the message: something banal from the bartender, some comment about the news or the weather, whose actual purpose was to let him know that Qasqar im-Mantis had gone to the toilet.

He left the room barefoot and walked unhurriedly along the beige-marbled corridor outside.  He allowed himself a half-smile; the marble was known as Mantis marble because the im-Mantis family still had a business importing it as cheaply as possible.  There were cracks in it already yet the building was barely a year and a half old.  At the end of the corridor was the outline of a door but no handle.  The assassin pressed on a part of the wall that looked no different to any other and waited until he heard a soft click and then pressed on another part.  The wall swung inwards silently and revealed a janitor’s closet and another door.

He left the secret door ajar and opened the janitor’s closet door into the public toilet.  This was also done in Mantis marble though the floor was polished concrete.  There were mirrors but they were over the sinks and Qasqar, a florid man who wasn’t yet thirty but looked to be forty-five or even fifty, was leaning against the wall and pissing into a pristine white urinal.  The smell of it rankled the assassin’s nostrils and the sight of the man — a clear roll of fat around his waist covered by expensive but poorly cleaned clothes, shabby unpolished shoes and sweat stains spreading out from his armpits and across his back — was offensive.  He was the son the so-called Prime Minister, a dictator in all but name, and dressed and acted like a near-homeless alcoholic.

“Qasqar,” said the assassin.  The handle on the door to enter the toilets rattled but the door had been automatically locked by the bartender at Qasqar’s request.  Someone banged on the door and yelled about hurrying up.

Qasqar’s head jerked up and then fell back, bumping gently on the wall.

“Not done,” he mumbled, struggling to produce coherent words.  A smell of alcohol briefly pushed the acrid notes of piss away and the assassin shook his head; the change in stench was not an improvement.

“You will be,” said the assassin.  He waited several seconds while Qasqar’s sluggish brain worked out that the words weren’t from outside.  Finally the man lifted his head and turned it.  Dull, bloodshot brown eyes squinted at the assassin, trying to focus.  When they finally managed it he half-moaned a question, “Who-ooo?”

The assassin reached down and pulled up his left trouser leg to get to a suede-leather sheath and removed a knife from it.  The fifteen centimetre blade was blackened and nearly invisible in the dim lighting of the toilets but Qasqar had no trouble guessing what it was.  He turned his whole body, now spraying the floor with his dark-yellow, stinking piss, and his sallow face managed to turn paler than it already was.

“You’re disgusting,” said the assassin.  He didn’t often offer personal commentary as his opinion wasn’t paid for, but im-Mantis had stepped over the line where he felt obliged to hold back.  He stepped forward, his body language switching from neutral to threatening in a single pace.

“Whaddya wan’?” Qasqar was so drunk even terror couldn’t sober him and unslur his words.  He tried to to back away but sat down heavily in the urinal he’d just been using.

“You,” said the assassin.  “You’re to deliver a message.”

“I’m rich!” Qasqar’s brain finally seemed to understand the situation.  “I can pay.  I can pay!”

“You mean your father will pay,” said the assassin.  “Or perhaps your mother.  Depending on who you tell first, yes?  I don’t care, and my clients don’t care.  You are, however, requested to give either of your parents this.”  He now slipped his free hand inside his shirt where, unusually, a pocket was sewn.  He extracted a white envelope that was as smooth as expensive paper could be.  He set it down on the counter where the sinks were.

“Give it to me,” said Qasqar.  He was starting to sober up, the assassin noticed, and his eyes were starting to shine and dart about.  “I’ll give it to both of them.”  He tried to stand up but his hands slipped on the porcelain of the urinal and he fell back again.

“In a moment,” said the assassin, taking another step closer, watching Qasqar carefully.  Even a drunk could lash out and get lucky.  “We need to know that the message will be taken seriously.”

“It will!”  Qasqar’s dread was now engraved on his face, deeply inscribed in his tired, alcohol-soaked skin.

“Indeed.”  The assassin looked to the left and Qasqar’s eyes followed instinctively so when the assassin’s hand leapt out like a salmon leaping upstream to seize Qasqar’s right hand im-Mantis didn’t even notice until the hand was pressed against the wall, stretched out by the length of his arm.

“No no no no no,” gabbled Qasqar, his eyes now locked onto the knife in the assassin’s hand.  “No, please no!”

The assassin pressed the point of the knife against the middle knuckle of Qasqar’s hand and pressed inwards until it popped.  A little jiggling and then the knife cut through the skin and tendons, severing the middle finger.  Qasqar’s scream echoed around the toilets and he struggled, trying to pull his hand free.  The assassin held it easily in place until the finger dropped to the floor, then let go.  As im-Mantis clutched his hand to his chest, blood staining his already filthy t-shirt, and moaned to himself the assassin picked the finger up and set it delicately on the envelope.

“Don’t forget to pass the message on,” he said.  “Or next time it’ll be something you value more.”

He walked back through the janitor’s closet and closed the secret door behind him.  Taking his phone out, he sent a message to the bartender, a random Instagram picture whose actual meaning was that the task had been achieved, and then went to find somewhere to wash his feet.  Dealing with the im-Mantis’s always seemed to be a dirty business.