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of yours bought it off the Internet or from a drug dealer, then there’s a good chance it’s fake. And if it is, you could have a real problem on your hands. But even if it is real, death by cyanide is not the romantic death you think it is. Nor will you die in seconds. I’m guessing you think this is one of those suicide pills that spies take to die instantly, but those contain liquid cyanide, not this solid stuff.”

      Reseng flicked the cellophane packet onto the floor like a cigarette butt. She scrambled for it, panicked, as if it were precious to her, then looked up at him dubiously.

      “It won’t kill me?”

      “Two hundred and fifty milligrams is enough to kill most people. But it’s extremely painful. Your muscles get paralyzed, your tongue and throat burn, your organs melt, and it can take anywhere from minutes to hours until you eventually die of asphyxiation. Some people take longer, and some actually survive. Not only that, you don’t leave a very pretty corpse behind.”

      The woman’s shoulders slumped. Her face filled with despair. She turned to the window; she’d stopped crying or even shaking. She just stared blankly at the sky, her eyes unfocused. Reseng checked his watch: 4:30. He had to get out of there before it got dark. Once the sun went down, the alleys would be crawling with prostitutes, their faces freshly painted, and johns drunk on booze and lust.

      “Lucky for you, I have the perfect thing.”

      Reseng gestured at the attaché case. The woman turned to look.

      “Barbituric acid. Peaceful way to go. Doesn’t hurt like cyanide or rat poison, and won’t leave you looking messed up or ugly. It’ll be just like falling asleep. A scientist back in the mid-nineteenth century, Adolf von Baeyer, came up with barbiturates while working on sedatives and sleeping pills. He named it after his friend Barbara. It’s still used as a sedative. It’s also been used for hypnosis, as a tranquilizer, and even has hallucinogenic properties. Other drugs, like barbital and ruminol, were based on it. It’s used for euthanasia all over the world.”

      The woman made a face at his long-winded explanation, but she nodded.

      “I’ll give it to you if you answer something for me,” Reseng added. “Then you’ll get the peaceful death you want.”

      She nodded again.

      “Do you remember a tall man who was hired to kill you?”

      “Yes.”

      “Why did he let you live?”

      She shifted her weight from side to side and pressed her hand to her forehead. As she recalled the events of that day, her expression kept changing from wonder to horror and back again.

      “I honestly don’t know. He stared at me for almost half an hour and then left.”

      “That’s it?”

      “Yes. He just sat there quietly and looked at me.”

      “He didn’t say anything?”

      “He said, ‘Stay away from your regular places. Don’t go back. If you’re really lucky, you might just survive.’ That’s what he told me.”

      Reseng nodded.

      “Is he dead?” she asked.

      “He’s still alive, but probably not for long. Once you’re on the list, your chances are shot.”

      “Is he going to die because of me?”

      “Maybe. But not only because of you.”

      Reseng checked his watch again. He gave the woman a look to indicate that time was up. She didn’t react. He opened the briefcase and took out a pill bottle and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

      She watched him silently, then asked, “If you cremate me in secret, no one will know I’m dead, right? My mother will spend the rest of her life waiting for me to come home.”

      Reseng paused in the middle of taking the pills out of the bottle. The woman started crying. He was relieved she wasn’t crying loudly. He waited for her tears to stop. Was it her quiet weeping that had stopped Chu’s clock? After five minutes, he rested his hand on the woman’s shoulder to tell her they couldn’t delay any longer. She brushed his hand away in irritation.

      “Can I write my mother a letter?”

      Reseng gave her a pained look.

      She added, “It doesn’t matter if she never gets it.”

      Her eyes were still brimming with tears. Reseng checked his watch again and nodded. She took a pen and a small appointment book out of her bag and began to write on one of the pages.

       Dear Mom,

       I’m sorry. I’m sorry to Dad in heaven, too. I meant to save up money and go to school and get married, but it didn’t work out. I’m sorry I died before you. Don’t worry about me. Dying this way isn’t so bad. The world’s a rotten place anyway.

      A tear fell on the word heaven, blurring the ink. She signed it, then tore the page out and handed it to Reseng.

      “Pretty handwriting,” he said.

      What a dumb thing to say. Reseng had no idea why he’d said it. The woman put the appointment book back into her bag. He assumed she was reaching for a handkerchief next to wipe away her tears, but to his surprise she took out a makeup pouch. She gave him another look to indicate that she needed a little more time. He raised his hand to tell her to go ahead. During the more than ten minutes she spent carefully reapplying her makeup, Reseng stood and stared, one eyebrow raised. What sort of vanity was this? She finished touching up her face and put her makeup away. The click of the bag closing sounded unusually loud.

      “Will you stay with me until I’m gone? I’m a little scared,” she said with a smile.

      Reseng nodded and offered her the pills. She stared at them for several seconds before taking them from his palm and swallowing them with the glass of whiskey he poured for her.

      Reseng tried to help her to lie down, but she pushed him away and stretched out on the bed by herself. She rested her hands on her chest and stared up at the ceiling. It didn’t take long for the hallucinations to start.

      “I see a red wind. And a blue lion. Right next to it is a cute rainbow-colored polar bear. Is that heaven?”

      “Yeah, sure, that’s heaven. You’re on your way there now.”

      “Thanks for saying that. You’re going to hell.”

      “Then I guess we won’t be seeing each other again. Because you’re definitely going to heaven, and I’m definitely going to hell.”

      She let out a small laugh. A single tear spilled from her smiling eyes.

      Chu held out another two years after the woman died.

      Like the sly jackal that he was, like the insane thorn in the side of the plotters that he was, Chu stayed one step ahead of the frenzied, persistent hunt. Rumors spread about trackers and assassins falling prey to Chu, too blinded by the promise of reward money to watch their own tails while tailing him, and those same rumors got twisted up and blown out of proportion and kept the denizens of the meat market entertained for some time. Reseng wasn’t surprised. Those third-rate hired guns and aging bounty hunters accustomed to nothing more challenging than chasing down runaway prostitutes were no match for Chu and never had been. But there was no way of knowing whether any of the rumors floating like wayward soap bubbles around the meat market were true. Most deaths in their world, of trackers and assassins alike, never surfaced. At any rate, maybe the rumors were true, because Chu could not be caught.

      About a year after he’d gone underground, Chu went on the offensive. He hunted down several plotters and killed them, along with several contractors and brokers. At one point, he sauntered right into the midst of the meat market and smashed up a contractor’s office. But the plotters he targeted had nothing to do with the botched

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