The Butcher and His Boy by Laura Lascarso

Author:Laura Lascarso [Lascarso, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Laura Lascarso
Published: 2023-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

9

JOHN

“It seems I interrupted you,” the assassin says to John upon greeting. An androgynous man with elegant features and a lethal presence, he is known to John only by his code name, Nightingale. And to the assassin, John is simply the Butcher.

John was introduced to Nightingale by Matthieu a few years ago as one of the Hand’s own, and John has encountered the assassin a few times since under these same circumstances. He’s has studied Nightingale’s work on the bodies he leaves behind–gunshots, stabbing, strangulation, poison too. His methods are varied, but whatever the medium, the assassin delivers death swiftly and without evidence of torture. John respects him more for it.

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” John says. The assassin has followed him into the basement in order to help lift the body onto the table. This one weighs two hundred pounds at least, and though John is strong, he’d prefer not to throw out his back, especially not with the long night ahead of him.

“I saw your house guest in the upstairs window,” the assassin says glibly.

John bites back a growl. “I don’t discuss my personal life with strangers.”

“We’re hardly strangers. I see you more than I see my accountant.”

“I don’t even know your real name,” John argues, not appreciating the assassin’s sudden curiosity one bit.

“Julien.” The man holds out one elegant hand. “Julien Benoit. And you are?”

“John… Ambroz,” he says with some hesitation. This seems like a bad idea, but the assassin likely knows his identity already. People like him don’t take chances. They shake hands, and John directs his attention back to the body.

“On three. One… two… three.”

Together, they grab both ends of the bedsheet and heft the body onto the table. John is tempted to peel back the fabric to see if he recognizes them as one of Emile’s henchmen, but he doesn’t want to arouse Julien’s suspicion. It sometimes happens that a gangster will get killed in the line of duty, and their bodies must also be disposed of discreetly so that the police don’t ask questions. But the Hand’s elusive Nightingale is only brought in for jobs that require finesse.

John isn’t sure if the assassin reports directly to Matthieu or if he takes his orders from someone higher up in the food chain, nor does he ask. John chooses not to embroil himself in the Hand’s politics but stay as removed from the organization as possible.

“Care to join me for a smoke?” Julien asks.

“No, thanks.”

“Come now, John, I insist.”

John could refuse him, but some instinct tells him not to.

Back outside the shop, with an oily steam rising off the pavement and a sliver of moon high in the sky, Julien offers John a cigarette from his pack, then lights them both. John takes a deep inhale, instantly transported to long nights in the desert when he was on watch duty at the base, listening for the pop of gunfire or the chatter of insurgents interrupting the otherwise silent night. Oscillating from hypervigilance to boredom, John used

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