The Assassinator Narratives - chapter 2

Gabriel O'Brien

Assassinators come in all different shapes and sizes. There were towering giants like Sean Andrews (but no other assassinator was as towering as Sean – not even thin-as-a-beanpole Donald Richardson, who due to his excessive thinness was theoretically taller than Sean, but only theoretically – because he was the tallest of them all), tiny fellows like Justin Theroux (whose sense of personal dignity was as tiny as his body), and Mr. English’s administrative assistant Gabriel O’Brien in between them. There was also Martin Demme in between Sean and Gabriel, ex-assassinator Dudley Smith in between Sean and Martin, Pablo Escobar in between ex-assassinator Dudley and Martin, and further comparisons.

If all the assassinators at the time of Narrator’s arrival were to be lined up based on height, at the lower end of the line was where Rufus Sewell would be found. Rufus, in actuality, was slightly taller than Justin by the way he combed his straight black hair – long by a male’s standard – so it jutted upward, and this hair, reinforced by a little touch of gel, did not flutter at a strong wind like Stephen Lang’s hair does, but Stephen never bothered with gel anyways.
Although polar opposites in terms of their appearance and personality, Rufus and Edmund Clark were partners-in-assassinations, along with Stephen, who they both considered a genius on the same level as whoever invented the video game joystick and who they often booked to be on their team a week in advance prior to missions, as their technical assistant, solving problems such as jammed sniper rifles and eye-balling a curve-shot angle they should make with their arm to let a bullet turn a corner to hit their target. Stephen was very good at eye-balling curve-shots, considering that he fires a shot only one in five missions.
Edmund Clark, in the spectrum of assassinators by height, would be in the higher end, somewhere between Pablo and Sara Healy (she herself would fall between Edmund and Alec Wagner, who – although he never admits it – was forever Robert Benton’s sidekick, even though Robert was shorter than Alec by a whole inch, but height doesn’t mean anything really). Edmund’s brown hair was also straight and long, like Rufus’, and he kept it without gel, matted against his skull under a red and white baseball cap just short of his eye brows at the front. There’s the difference between them already. Another difference between Rufus and Edmund was that Edmund liked to playfully and menacingly at the same time insult people who are shorter than he (that definitely included Rufus, perhaps most of all, because Rufus was so accessible to him) and are perceived by him to be inferior in all other ways too, while Rufus was obligated to be on the receiving end of Edmund’s insults. However, the most memorable insult given to Rufus – there were quite a few, all of which complimenting his insufferable quality of being annoying as hell (in actuality, Justin was much more annoying during missions, if given Stephen’s opinion, or that of Drake Murphy, who vocally discussed his opinion of each assassinator with his closest circle of friends – especially Sam Shepherd, and later, after Narrator’s arrival to the assassinators, Howard Fast, who in a few months had been accepted to at least one of the cliques in the fraction – and occasionally by accident with members he don’t know very well at all) – by Alan Holmes, who one afternoon after a missions briefing was finally fed up with Rufus incessantly poking him in the side, he turned around and said loudly to Rufus seated behind him holding the ball-point pen in stab motion that was the source of Alan’s discomfort, and said loudly in his intellectual-worthy voice, stop touching me, you tiny human!
Rufus grinned and replied, but I wasn’t touching you.
Well stop touching me indirectly then, you tiny human!
The others around them that included Stephen, Gabriel, Martin and Edmund all heard Alan and the phrase you tiny human stayed in their minds from that moment onwards. It was decided that Rufus was indeed the shortest of the assassinators - whether directly or indirectly due to Alan's remark, nobody had thought about yet - when in fact Justin was shorter.

The Assassinator Narratives - chapter 1

Mr. English

 

For one week in a district newspaper of the City, an advertisement appeared in the classified section that also advertised for hookers, drugs at reduced prices and black market merchandise. It's not like the newspaper is legally allowed to advertise these things, well, not the drugs at reduced prices part anyway, it's just that the Chief of Police Aaron Copland's police department is so understaffed, underfunded and underpaid that they can't possibly care about what's being advertised in the newspapers. These policemen, grizzled old veterans or rookies from out of Police Academy alike know that this is beyond their control. In a city plagued by crooks and their crooked colleagues in City Hall, the only thing law enforcement can do is play by the rules of these crooks and pretend everything is under control - their control - which in reality it's not, but who cares about reality?
For one week it was there, one little advertisement, two columns in width, written in Courier New, black and white, and one telephone number at the very bottom:

Are you skilled with a firearm or weapon of melee? 

Do you have a special set of skills that make you dangerous? 

Have you an amoral or immoral conscience? 

Have you ever killed a person? 

If not, are you willing to kill a person? 

Do you want to be an employed “Assassinator”? 

If your answer is yes to any of the above questions, please contact Mr. English by pay phone at the number below…

After one week, the advertisement disappeared. Not many people in the district where the newspaper ran answered to this advertisement despite the high unemployment rate; people were either indifferent to the sinister advertisement and the job it pertained, or they were instead seeking a job working directly for one of the many organized crime syndicates operating in this particular district, and had no interest in a job working for a wet work organization that works for the organized crime syndicates. On Monday evening following the week the advertisement came and disappeared, at one of the piers in the City harbor, Rebekah Wyler and her companion Miranda Isaacman were waiting for Mr. English to finish interviewing Gerard Narrator, the first candidate.
Nobody knows Mr. English’s first name. People usually assume it’s an ancient name in the likes of Archibald or Bartholomew or Ezekiel, names hardly anyone knows are names now days.
Nobody also knows that Mr. English in his advanced age is still a virgin. Sure he experienced the brief flings with relationships in his teenage years like all teenagers do no matter what era human history is in, but none of those flings resulted in him ever losing his virginity. And after his teenage years of what could have been golden opportunity, he entered the very professional trade of the Assassinator and dedicated his full self to the trade, so he had neither time nor need for relationships, and thus remained a virgin all his life up to now.
Mr. English had given vague instructions to each of the callers. They were to arrive at the warehouse on their assigned time and wait for him. That was it. Rebekah was the second caller Mr. English received when the job listing was published. She had called on behalf of Miranda too since Miranda is her life-long companion and she always drags her life-long companion into whatever she was up to. That was the deal they made – to drag each other into whatever each one of them had gotten themselves into – when they were two kids in an orphanage. The deal stuck.
Gerard went into his interview known to Rebekah as Gerard, and came out as Narrato. According to him, no one’s ever called him by his first name and no one ever did call him that. Rebekah was already impatient that Narrator took too long and gave him a look that frightened and baffled him for the rest of their time knowing each other. Though Narrator was slow during the interview, he was hired on the spot, without him realizing it. Mr. English didn’t have to interview Rebekah for a long time. Miranda only had to wait two minutes before it was her turn. She didn’t have much to say, and the girls were hired on the spot, in five minutes flat, just as Arliss Stanton, the next candidate showed up after participating in a drunken bar fight.
Next, Howard Fast arrived, nervous and five minutes earlier than he should, and after him was Ruslan Brockovitch, five minutes later than instructed, and then the last candidate woke up from the garbage pile where he had been sleeping since Narrator’s interview and strolled into the warehouse. Homeless drifter Boris Krazynski was the final candidate.
Before they start working professionally, all Assassinators undergo a month of training to learn the way of the Assassinator, much like a modernized, commercialized version of the way of the Ninja.
Mr. English instructed the seven candidates he interviewed that evening at that warehouse at the same spot he had trained Assassinators at ever since he arrived at the city many years ago. At the end of that month, the last thing he had to tell now-professional Assassinators Rebekah, Miranda, Arliss, Howard, Ruslan, Boris and Narrator were the rules of the way of the Assassinator. There are five rules.
The first rule about being an assassinator, brief pause by Mr. English, speaking in his elegant monotone, is you don’t assassinate children.
Yeah, does that include teenagers? Said Rebekah, bored.
The second rule about being an assassinator, another brief pause, is you don’t assassinate women.
Pfft, he didn’t even answer my question. Rebekah said loudly, under her breath. Miranda shushed her. Miranda is a quiet, soft-spoken girl who rarely talks to anyone except Rebekah.
Unless, of course, if the woman in question is a bitch, then the second rule does not apply, this remark caught everyone off guard, even Boris looked up from his staring at the pebbles embedded in the pavement of the old abandoned lot this was taking place in.
Aren’t you talking about every woman in the world? Arliss the ugly, tough-talking thug hollered gleefully.
Fuck you, misogynist! Rebekah hollered back.
What are you gonna do about it, bitch? You wanna go?
Woah, don’t fight now, listen to the rules, Mr. English doesn’t repeat them, Gabriel O’Brien said, stepping between Arliss and Rebekah, who had both stepped out of line and were within an arm’s reach of each other’s neck. Gabriel is a neat, clean-shaven Assassinator veteran, but he usually helps out Mr. English and rarely goes out on a job.
The third rule about being an assassinator, brief pause as predicted, is you don’t assassinate a person you are not assigned to assassinate, in which case it will be considered murder and you will be charged for murder should you be arrested.
Rebekah and Arliss had stepped back in the line of the seven graduate Assassinators. Arliss was disappointed he didn’t get to fight Rebekh; he could even have tried to tear her top off which would have made his day or even his whole week. Arliss has a sick mind.
By the way, nobody had anything to say about rule number three.
The fourth rule about being an assassinator…
Can’t he just shorten his sentences already? We don’t need the rules numbered for us. Rebekah interrupted and Mr. English stopped speaking. She signed dramatically. Miranda quietly shushed her again. Mr. English resumed speaking.
…is as an assassinator, you must accept all assignments from all clients, without exception, unless refusal to take part in the assignment is a directive from the Assassinator commissioner, who if you don’t already know is myself.
The seventh person in line, timid, rural runaway Howard was writing each of the given rules down in a small notepad. Arliss, who was standing next to him, thought it would be amusing to knock the notepad out of Howard’s hand, which he did.
Howard blinked in surprise and bent down, hand stretched, to retrieve his notepad. Arliss stomped the heel of his boot onto Howard’s hand as it closed around the fallen notepad. Howard cried out and collapsed in a heap.
Rebekah meanwhile had come up behind Arliss. She tapped him on the shoulder. As Arliss turned around to the source of his interruption from making Howard’s life miserable, Rebekah socked him across the face with Boris’ trash picker – which she borrowed from his for the moment without asking – and when Arliss did not fall to the ground unconscious because of his thick skull, Rebekah cracked another blow to his temple, and Arliss was knocked out cold. Boris snatched his trash picker from Rebekah and stuffed it back into his burlap sack which contained all his possessions.
Look what you did. Now he isn’t going to hear all the rules, Gabriel said, shaking his head in disappointment. He stood on the right side of Mr. English, dressed in the same impeccable attires. In his pockets he always keeps packets of hand sanitizer and a spray tin of breath freshener.
Don’t worry, nobody gives a shit, Rebekah said, and gave him a wink. Feeling accomplished, she returned to her spot in the line.
Howard stood back up, massaging his injured hand with his other one. He took a step away from the unconscious form of Arliss, muttered thanks to Rebekah which she didn’t hear and pocketed his notepad, having no more courage to take down the rules.
The fifth rule about being an assassinator is as an assassinator, you are to never assassinate other assassinators. This also goes against the way of the assassinator and is punishable by assassination.
Ooh, what a tongue-twister, the suave, courageous, handsome Ruslan remarked in his suave, courageous, handsome accent. He winked at Rebekah, who replied with a smirk.
That will be all, and also, will one of you be so kind to tell Mr. Stanton the rules he had missed after he was knocked unconscious by Miss. Wyler. That will be greatly appreciated on my part. Now, I hereby declare you seven, Mr. Brockotivch, Mr. Fast, Miss. Isaacman, Miss. Wyler, Mr. Stanton, and Mr. Narrator members of the Assassinators brethren.
I’ll be taking you to our lodgings. Gabriel spoke up, follow me to the van.
When Narrator looked back to where Mr. English had been standing a moment before, he had vanished. Narrator scratched his head in puzzlement.
The other Assassinators were leaving the lot. Narrator hurried to catch up. Gabriel’s van was parked beneath the power lines far out in the marshlands to the west. They were at the outskirts of the City’s industrial zone.
This was the graduation of the assassinators-in-training; they were now assassinators-in-working. The unceremonious ceremony took place on the vast overgrown lot of a factory that once manufactured automobiles residing abandoned in the industrial section of the City on a fine, cloudless day. The sun was shining, and a light breeze accompanied the cooling weather, stirring up trash and fallen leaves in the City’s roads, announcing the coming of winter (always a source of sorrow for the City’s large homeless population; an average of two percent of them freeze to death in the streets each winter).