The Suppressor by Erik Carter (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

The card in Silence’s hand was opaque with a frosted, matte finish—like a glass shower door. He moved his fingers behind the card, watching the faint pinkish outlines through the plastic.

On the left side of the card were two dark blue geometric slashes, one slightly darker than the other. He couldn’t help but grin. There had been several pre-designed templates, and while he could have gone with a completely blank card, he’d chosen one of the designs.

In hindsight, he couldn’t say why he’d added a bit of flare to such a purposeful item. It seemed silly now. But he liked it.

It was a little bit of his future, looking back at him from the palm of his hand. Each time he would meet someone he was to help, he would hand the person a card. His voice was too damn jarring. The card would be his means of introduction.

Of course, once the introduction was made, he would ask for the card back. Couldn’t have it floating around in the wide world.

Which meant he was going to have plenty of extras. The smallest order size available had been one hundred.

He put the card back in the box with the other ninety-nine.

Silence looked in the mirror.

He was drawing a much needed bath, and the air was getting chewy thick as piping hot water filled his old clawfoot bathtub. Whoever had taken the lead in redesigning Silence’s 1955 home to his chic tastes had decided to leave certain retro-cool details intact, such as the clawfoot tub. He was impressed. The mystery person seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

Fog inched in from the edges of the mirror, tightening around his reflection. He felt moisture on his fingers and finally pulled his attention away, looked down. He saw that his fingers were clenched tight on either side of the vintage sink—another purposefully preserved detail—and his left hand pinned his PenPal to the porcelain. Moisture from the steamy air had condensed on its yellow plastic cover, tickling his fingertips.

He opened the notebook, flipped through the contents. The first several pages were leftovers from his Jake Rowe days. More precisely, the Pete Hudson days. As he continued turning, the notes evolved from his shorthand notes in the early days of the undercover investigation to the ones written on the fateful evening that led to the end of his former life. He saw the notes he’d written to Mayer, the mob doctor, when he got his leg stitched up.

Grab something for the pain, dickhead

A couple pages of these notes, then there was the list of names—Burton and his men. All eight names were now crossed off. The previous night, after the events at the port, he’d put the final slash through Burton’s name.

Cobb

Gamble

Hodges

Knox

McBride

Odom

Glover

Burton

Next was the five-word script he’d written for himself when he’d parked the Grand Prix, something he’d used to test his voice after the sight of C.C.’s body had given him selective mutism, literally scaring him speechless.

My name is Jake Rowe

He’d held the PenPal by the car’s rearview mirror, read the note, tried to say the words—and nothing had come out.

Another flip revealed the message he’d shown Odom.

Did you hurt her?

Then the pages became filled with notes from Nakiri’s training. Firearms data—cartridge types, muzzle velocities, effective firing ranges. Details about biomechanics and orthopedics. A reading list, exhaustive, years’ worth of books.

He flipped to the last marked page, another list, one he’d written only moments earlier, after he’d turned on the water but before he’d faced the mirror.

It was a second list of names.

Identities.

Jake Rowe

Pete Hudson

Loudmouth

Asset 23

A-23

Suppressor

dummy

Si

Silence Jones

He pressed the PenPal against the mirror, into the encroaching steam. His eyes flicked back and forth between the list and his stern reflection.

Nine monikers in less than a year.

His fingers clenched the edges of the notebook, quivering, and for a moment, he wanted to throw it—out the door or into the filling bathtub or crashing through the thin awning window high on the wall near the ceiling.

Then C.C.’s voice came to him.

Life doesn’t happen to you, love. It happens for you, she’d said. One’s identity is forged by the way one meets life’s challenges.

He took a deep breath, just like she would tell him to do. From the stomach. A diaphragmatic breath.

He tasted the thick, warm moisture in the air, felt it in his lungs. The water gurgled in the tub.

C.C. would tell him to meditate now, that he needed to, that one can meditate anywhere, anytime.

He closed his eyes.

Another deep breath, from the stomach. He monitored his body and became aware of the moment, of his presence. His legs, rather tight. His waist. His core. Up through his chest. His arms. Into his face. His jaw was clenched. C.C. used to tell him he carried a lot of his tension in his jaw muscles. He released it. The air felt cooler. The gurgling water echoed.

His eyes opened.

He blinked, felt the notebook in his hand. And something compelled him to look at one of the notes he’d studied moments earlier. He flipped back through the pages, found it.

My name is Jake Rowe

Months ago, he’d held this note beside the Grand Prix’s rearview mirror and hadn’t been able to say the words.

He looked at the old note, then quickly flipped through the pages, past all the other notes, past the list of names he’d written a few minutes earlier, to the first clean page. He pulled the mechanical pencil from the PenPal’s spiral binding, scribbled out a note, and slapped it back on the wet mirror.

He looked at his reflection in the tiny bit of clean mirror that the steam hadn’t yet consumed. The muscles at the corners of his jaw—on this new, angular face of his—bulged taught and hard. He did carry his tension there, just like C.C. had always said. He released the strain again, and his eyes flicked over to the note he’d just written.

My name is Silence Jones

This was a second chance.

His throat was