The Last Assassin

1958 Highland Park, one of the finest single malts on earth—ridiculous at 150 Euros the measure, but life is so short.
    Afterward we strolled more. Delilah hooked an arm through mine and snuggled close in the chill night air. It felt so natural it almost worried me. I wondered what it would feel like to be this way all the time. Then I thought of Midori again.
    We drifted south, into the Barri Gòtic, where the maze of stone streets narrowed and the crowds thinned. Soon the echoes of our footfalls, the shadowed walls of dark cathedrals and shuttered apartments, were our only companions.
    A few blocks west of Via Laietana, I heard loud voices speaking in English, and as we turned a corner I saw four young men coming in our direction. From the clothes and accents, I guessed working-class British, probably football hooligans; from the volume and aggressive tone, I guessed drunk. My immediate sense was that they had struck out with the local girls in La Ribera, hadn’t found any prostitutes to their liking along Las Ramblas, and were now heading back to La Ribera for another pass. My alertness ticked up a notch. I felt Delilah’s hand on my arm stiffen just slightly. She was telling me she had noted the potential problem, too.
    The street was narrow, almost an alley, and there wasn’t much room to let them go by. I steered us to the left so I would have the inside position.
    They saw us and stopped shouting. Not a good sign. Then they slowed. That was worse. And then one of them peeled off and started crowding our side of the street, with the others drifting along with him. That was unwelcome indeed.
    I eased out the Benchmade and held it hidden against my open palm with my thumb. I didn’t want anyone to know there was a knife in play until I decided to formally introduce them to it.
    I had hoped simply to pass them, maybe absorbing a predictable shoulder check en route. But they had fanned out widely enough so that going past wasn’t an option. Well, I could go through just as easily. I envisioned dropping the nearest one with osoto-gari, a basic but powerful judo throw, which I expected would provide an attitude adjustment sufficient for the remaining three. And if Delilah had fallen in behind me, I would have done just that. But she was close beside me, and therefore in my way. I felt her slowing, and I had to slow, too.
    A paranoid notion tried to grip me: Delilah could have set this up. But I knew instantly it wasn’t that. The four of them were too young, for one thing. Their vibe was too hot, too aggressive. For professionals, violence is a job. For these guys, it felt like an opportunity.
    Besides, Delilah hadn’t been leading me as we walked. I would have noted that, as I had noted its absence.
    We all stopped and faced one another. Here we go, I thought.
    “Lovely evening, isn’t it, ladies?” said the one who had originally started drifting onto our side of the street. He was looking at me, smirking.
    “You must be the leader,” I responded, my voice low and calm.
    “What’s that?” he said, his brow furrowing.
    “You moved first, and your friends followed you. And now you’re talking first. I figure that means you’re the leader. Am I wrong?” I glanced behind us just to ensure no one was closing in from the other direction—all clear—then back at the other three. “Is it one of you? Come on, who is it?”
    The interview wasn’t going the way they had hoped. I wasn’t cringing. I wasn’t blustering. If the idiots had any sense, they would have realized that now I was interviewing them.
    “Oh, it’s me, all right,” the first one said, trying to recover some initiative.
    I nodded as though impressed. “That’s brave of you to say.”
    “Why?”
    I smiled at him. The smile was in no way pleasant.
    “Because now I know to kill you first,” I said.
    He glanced at his friends as though reassuring himself of their continued presence, then back at me. I felt him starting to reconsider.
    But one of his friends was too stupid or drunk or both to notice the position they were in. “He’s calling you a wanker, man. You going to take that?”
    Fuck. “I’m not calling anyone a wanker,” I said, my voice still calm and steady. “I’m just saying neither of us wants to spoil the other’s evening. La Ribera’s like an outdoor party right now. Isn’t that where you’re going?”
    The last question was calculated: not a command, just a reminder, a mere suggestion that could be