Geist reeled. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to beg. Make deals.
“I see you haven’t figured it out yet,” said Bradley, smiling gently. “I ordered the contract.

“The whole thing is sort of a sick joke – you see, I don’t have long to live.”
“I’m sorry,” said Geist, failing to appreciate the irony.
“Why two assassins, you may ask? Oh, maybe an old man just wants to feel wanted one last time,” he chuckled. “No. The reason for this twisted game of cat and cat is simple. I have made arrangements with certain elements in the companies of several business rivals. Two assassins, two companies, two CEOs whose stock – literal and metaphorical – is going to drop sharply. With any luck, there might even be arrests. Wouldn’t that be something?” He inhaled. There was a hit of a ragged edge to it. “My company is going to take them both over. Then they’ll see.”
“You watch too many movies,” said Geist. “This plan is deranged.” He started to laugh. “I kind of love it.”
“You do?” said Bradley, beaming and chuckling along with him until a coughing fit interrupted him. “I got the idea from a movie. Can’t remember the title. It had a bald man in it I think.”
“Willis?”
“Maybe him,” said Bradley. “Doesn’t really matter. Will you still help me?”
“Do I still get paid?” Geist said. Bradley laughed.
“You will. You will. As long as you make sure the other fellow gets caught.”
“Already taken care of,” said Geist with a smug smile. “Dropped him into your eager audience.” Bradley laughed again.
“That’ll put some wind up ’em,” he said. “Right. I’m ready. How do you want to do it?”
“Hm?” Geist was nonplussed.
“Kill me, idiot boy. Only make it a quick one. Don’t bleed me out. Some assassins, you know, they’re in it for the thrills. I tried to make sure I got real professionals-”
A bullet whipped past Geist’s arm and hit Bradley in the stomach. “Jesus Christ!” the man yelled. Geist spun on his heel to see Ellie behind him, the rifle held with deceptive lightness in her arms.
“That was the guy we’re killing, right?” she said.
“Wow. Wow. Uh, yeah.”
“Oh, good.”
Bradley slumped out of his chair, trying to drag himself towards the door. From his mouth spilled an ever-extending litany of curses at Geist and the girl, growing steadily more incoherent as more and more blood and viscera spilled crimson out of the fist-sized and widening hole in his abdomen, soaking into the carpet like a hideous snail. The image was so absurd that Geist had to laugh.
“Jesus, dude,” said Ellie.
“Alright, alright.” Geist walked out in front of Bradley and sighted down his pistol’s irons. “Ready?” he asked the man.
“Just do it!” Bradley spat, blood spraying Geist’s shoes from his mouth. The pistol expelled its door-slam report and Bradley’s head fell forward, his limbs twitching as the last short-circuits of what had been his mind wore themselves out.
“That was pretty dark,” said Ellie. “I didn’t like that at all.”
“Yeah, well, I said you should’ve let me handle it,” Geist retorted coldly. “This is the hard part; getting out again. Drop the rifle.”
“Drop it? It’s evidence!”
“Leading where? They’ll trace the ballistics to a gun like this anyway. We’re just saving them the effort. No way you get that thing out in secret after all that’s gone down.”
“You get to keep your gun,” Ellie said petulantly.

“The most important thing about fleeing the country,” Geist said, when they had finished moving his stuff to the smaller hotel room he had rented at the start of all this as a bolt-hole, “is not to do it right away. The airports are going to be swarming for a few days at least, especially the closest one. I usually hang around at least until my pay notice comes in for the job. That can be as much as seven business days.”
“I never thought the life of a professional assassin would be so-”
“Precise?”
“Boring. Are you just going to sit in the dark in here until the heat dies down?”
“No,” said Geist defensively. “I usually haunt the record stores, look out for interesting new releases.”
“You’re going music shopping?”
“Not shopping. Just looking. I don’t trust airport baggage handlers.”
Ellie hopped lightly onto the bed and reclined, draping her arm over her forehead like a model in an old magazine ad for perfume. “I can think of more interesting ways to spend my time,” she said.
“Mm,” Geist replied. He opened his laptop and checked his messages. Still no confirmation from Bradley’s people. He fired off an email.
<GEIST
<MAX BRADLEY FINISHED. CONFIRM?
A few seconds later, a reply from the client account:
<CLIENT
<HARDIN CONFIRMED ACTIVE. PAYMENT RENDERED ON CAPTURE OF ASSASSIN.
Geist hissed a curse. “A decoy! He let us do the dirty work!”
“What’s that?” Ellie said.
“Hardin’s alive,” said Geist. “And probably one step ahead of us again. Dammit. He really is the best.”
“The best? I thought you were the best?” said Ellie.
Geist half-turned, the light from the lamp glinting in his eyes. “Are you making fun of me?” he asked, not threateningly. In that moment, though, he looked like the devil.
“Making fun? Me?” said Ellie with mock innocence. She rolled over playfully and winked at him. “So are you going to go check out the record stores today? Or tomorrow?”
“No record stores. We’ve got to move.”
“Again?” said Ellie.
“Hardin let us do in Bradley. No doubt he’s kept eyes on us. The five-oh are probably on our trails already.”
“Five-oh?”
“Cops,”
“Oh, that five-oh.”
Geist snapped his laptop shut and slid it into his bag. “We’re going to have to split. Don’t go home. Everything you own is compromised. Assume your friends and family are too.”
“Thought you didn’t want to take me with you,” said Ellie.
“Change of plans. We can share out the cash when Hardin is out of the picture.”
“How are we going to do that?”
Geist shoveled one day’s clothes into the bag and tested its weight. “Correction, how am I going to. You’re going to leave the country.”
“My passport’s at home.”
Geist scribbled down an address on the hotel notepad. “He’ll take care of it. Mention my name. Buy a different top for the photo, do your hair differently, passport control people are funny about that stuff. Probably won’t hold you for more than a minute but a lot can happen in that minute. No hold-ups, got it?”
“Where will I go?”
Geist pressed an airplane ticket into her hand. He would get in touch with his guy at the airport, make sure she was looked after. He had a son of a bitch of a job ahead of him, he didn’t need her breathing down his neck.
She had shot a damn decoy. Why would she do that? Maybe it was too dark in the rafters for her to make out that it wasn’t Hardin. Maybe she didn’t know what he looked like.
Or maybe she had been part of the plan all along.

Geist didn’t have a plan of his own to take down Hardin. He had the germ of an idea, maybe. The guy didn’t like to get his own hands dirty, clearly. It was a bad job to let some pack of amateurs do the hard part and just reap the rewards. Not against the rules, mind. Just frowned upon, unless you did it with exceptional style or hypnotism or something like that, although gimmicks were also generally considered gauche at best and a major risk of exposure at worst. He had once known an assassin who used as the basis of his contracts a series of stage magic old standards. All well and good, until you run out of the good ones. There’s only so many “saw-a-lady-in-half”s you can pull before you have to start resorting to embarrassing gags like “pulling a Black Mamba out of a hat,” which bring the whole tone of the profession down. The Astounding Malvolio hadn’t lasted long after that.
Someone was following him, and not well. He was darting from shadow to shadow, peering round lampposts and generally being as conspicuously stealthy as possible. Geist could see him in the window of the store, reflected clear as day.
“If you’re going to kill me with some sort of poison dart can we please get it over with? I’m having a very stressful day,” said Geist wearily. He turned to face his would-be assassin.
The face he had known until recently as “Friend” looked back at him.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Geist said flatly.
“You’re the second person to tell me that today.”
“Hardin?”
John nodded. “Dead as a doorpost. I saw from his information that you were here. Tipped off the pigs in the opposite direction.”
“Thanks for the assist.”
“Where’s Ellie?” asked John.
“She’s safe. She’s on her way to the airport.”

Geist and John got their flights arranged for a few days later, to avoid drawing attention. In all that time, Geist didn’t check his laptop. There were plenty of record stores to keep him occupied.
The airport was bustling when they arrived. So busy that Geist barely noticed the weight dropped into his coat pocket as he brushed past a stranger at the terminal. He turned to check on John, who was negotiating with the taxi driver.
A shrill shriek shocked him senseless. “GUN!” screamed a woman. In an instant, Geist was tackled to the ground by armed security. Some very interesting evidence against him would later be submitted anonymously to Scotland Yard, leading to his eventual conviction for the brutal murder of one Maximilian Bradley.
Ellie Hardin slipped on her sunglasses and disappeared into the crowd.