Flash Fic – NICK THE BRICK

Nick the Brick sipped his espresso and checked his gun. The cafe where he sat was empty, so he was able to take out the 9mm, pull back the slide a half inch, and see the copper bullet in the chamber. It was a bad habit, one which his father had berated him over endlessly.

“Nikolai!” the old man would tell him in Greek, “you must know that your weapon is loaded and ready to go! Checking and checking like a lady checking her makeup is for amateurs.” Still, Nick the Brick liked to be sure. He added a sugar cube to his espresso but did not stir it. He liked the bitter syrup at the bottom, sandy and sweet, and as he stood he tossed back the dregs. He nodded to Georgie the owner, who knew his father, and he went out into the wind.

The man he was to kill today was across the street eating lunch in the Italian bistro. Nick crossed the street when a city bus covered him most of the way, and he ducked behind the ad-covered bus shelter once the bus had passed. It didn’t matter anyway if someone saw him. Nick the Brick was unknown in this city, which was the reason he had been brought here from Zurich. But Nick liked to be sure. And in any case, with his belted topcoat and slicked-back black hair, he looked just like a young well-to-do Italian. Pretty soon it would be too late for anyone to wonder who he was.

He went into the bistro and stood in the vestibule, and he took out his cell phone and held it to his ear. He carried on a sham conversation with his girlfriend, careful to keep his target in his peripheral vision, careful not to look directly at him.

“Look, Maria, I told you I’d be there, and I’ll be there,” he said into the phone.

His target, a businessman, sat at a table with another man and a woman. The woman was talking on her smart phone, and for a moment Nick imagined her to be his fake girlfriend, that it was she he was talking to. The other man was looking through papers in a folder, and the man who was about to die paid great attention to the pasta on his plate. Nick watched him chew like a thick-lipped pig. It helped him, in times such as this, to think of his targets as something other than human. Not that he needed help, but Nick the Brick liked to be sure.

“Maria, I don’t care what she said, you want to listen to me or the girl in the day-spa? Uh huh. Right. Don’t answer that.”

Nick felt the hostess approach, and he turned and smiled at her. She smiled back, and he pointed to his phone and rolled his eyes and circled his finger at the ceiling, as if to say What are you gonna do?

“Well, sure, yes. Right. Uh huh. Listen, I’m at the restaurant now, and I’ll be here until I know for a fact you’re not coming, and then I’m going home. Okay?”

The two men and the woman at the table were now leaned over a laptop computer, and the woman was explaining figures and projections, Nick supposed. Just another day for them, just another business lunch. Nick glanced at the upper walls. There were no cameras in the corners. The hostess would remember only his coat and black hair and the phone conversation, but he turned his face from the hostess as he spoke to his nonexistent girlfriend. Nick the Brick liked to be sure.

“I know, baby, I love you too. I hate to fight with you. Anyway, get away if you can, because I want to see you. Bye.” He closed the phone and put it in his pocket. The hostess was still smiling at him.

“Table for two?” she said. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”

“Yes, please, but not just yet,” he said. “Where’s the restroom, please?”

“Over there across the dining room,” she said, and he peered in that direction, squinting like his eyes were bad. Nick already knew where the restroom was.

“Thanks, I’ll be right back,” he told her, and he walked into the room, keeping the target’s table on his left. The businesswoman glanced up as he passed, but neither of the men looked at him. He went into the restroom, counted to thirty under his breath, flicked off the safety on his gun, and when he came back out the target and his associates were still sitting at their table. Someone mentioned dessert. Nick came around on the other side, like he was just some guy walking back to the front, and in a smooth motion that no one noticed he took out his gun and shot the target in the back of the head. The other man caught most of the blood, but the businesswoman’s face broke out in red freckles. The target slumped forward into his greasy plate.

Ignoring the screams of the businesswoman and the hostess and the shouts of the businessman, Nick the Brick shot the target a second time through the base of his neck. It wasn’t necessary, but Nick the Brick liked to be sure.