Namaste by Sean Platt, Realm, Sands, Johnny B. Truant

in fatty, carbohydrate-laced good feeling. He had his Dercum's disease; he had the deal Bhoorman had screwed in Germany; he had that letter from the IRS (not taxes, but a troublesome audit); he had the matter of replacing his best man, Telford Hayes. And of course, he had Hayes’ killer haunting the front of his mind.  
    Benny and the guys at the gate hadn’t seen the odd baldy in over a week, but last Monday the freak spotted Kyle coming up from behind “as if he were psychic or something.”
    He grabbed a slice, took a fat bite, chewed, and swallowed.  
    “Hey Anthony, why don’t you turn it up? I can’t hear anything.”  
    The kid actually reached for the remote before Jason waved him away. Thinking his teenage son liked things too loud was a sign that he was getting old, and couldn’t be far from standing on his porch in boxers and a wife-beater, yelling at kids to get the hell off his lawn. But what could you do? He was 45, obese, and probably had Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with all the money he’d ever need. He had earned his right to be crotchety.
    Jason finished the first slice without even realizing it, then reached for another and showed it no mercy.  
    He looked at Anthony, then Marie, then his wife, Julia. They’d been having a fun time bunkered in over the past week, but their collective nerves were beginning to thin. They’d gone out for dinner once, but the tables to either side of were filled with large, well-dressed men. They’d gone shopping once in the mall, but all together, surrounded by the same large men, this time outfitted casually. Jason tried to spin the whole thing, convince his kids and wife that they were all hanging out together because they deserved some family time. Usually, he was always out of the house, working. Now, he had some time off (because Telford Hayes was dead and those above him were shuffling for a replacement), and they should spend time as a family while they had it. They stayed inside the grounds with the gate closed because they didn’t want to be bothered in the midst of so much family mirth. They went shopping together because it was fun. And they were constantly accompanied by six bodyguards because it was only prudent for a respectable vitamin water kingpin such as himself.  
    The pizza was half gone. He could see Tony’s flier under the wax paper. Jason thought the fliers were as obnoxious as the previews on DVDs. He hadn’t even watched the movie before they were trying to sell him on another, same with Tony and his pizza.  
    He pressed his fist to his chest and waited for a gas bubble to gurgle up his throat. He should stop, and would, if stopping didn’t mean thinking about his leukemia.  
    Jason finished the piece of pizza in his hand, wiped his fingers with the napkins, and looked at the large wall-mounted screen. Still previews. He was halfway done with his dinner, and the fucking movie hadn’t started.  
    His eyes wandered. He looked through the bulletproof sliding glass door, seeing the wall in the distance. Well-lit lawn stretched between house and wall. They were locked down, and if he reached for his tablet Jason could see live footage of the men walking the perimeter. The assassin had infiltrated Hayes’s security, but Hayes’s security, even after the upgrades, had been a joke. Jason’s was 10 times better. No one was getting inside. Still, the blue-robed man had cleaned Telford Hayes’s house in a way that was disturbing like a blood clot in the brain. Jason had seen the photos, and they’d made his gut clench — his gut, ample and used to blood from torture. He wondered where the man had gone. Could he have surrendered in the week gone by? He’d gotten to Hayes. Maybe that was enough to settle the man’s debt. Jason had no idea what the man’s grievance might be. Nothing strange had gone down in a while: a few monetary transfers, some purchases, a handful of ordinary lot sales, and a few loose ends that needed tidying. There was