Free Get Blank (Fill in the Blank) by Justin Robinson

to be noticed, so no tattoos, no tribal gauges in his ears, no festive penile piercings. Well, none that could be seen through pants, anyway.
    Something bugged me about that picture. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was like a tiny piece of glass in my palm, too small to cut but big enough to itch. Like I said, I’ve never killed anybody, but since I turned into the go-to gofer for the Information Underground, I’ve been around a lot of death. Hits, assassinations, frame-ups, and even your occasional accidental autoerotic mishap. Wasn’t even the first friendly I’d seen lain out flat, or even the worst condition. But something was wrong.
    Neil was found dead Friday night after neighbors reported a single gunshot. Police arrived to find the scene as the picture showed in horrifying detail. Neil Greene, late bureaucrat, was found in his living room, his head pretty much blown off. He’d been shot once in the back of the head at close range by a .12-gauge pump-action shotgun. The weapon was found on the scene, wiped down for prints. Of course, that didn’t matter, because the gun was purchased by credit card online by Mina Duplessis. Unfortunately, my testimony that Mina would rather hump a polar bear than own a gun probably wouldn’t carry much water, especially when I gave a false name under oath.
    To make matters worse, the cops found a ton of emails between Neil and Mina, painting a picture that they were involved in some kind of tortured love affair. As the emails progressed, Neil was trying to break it off and Mina was becoming more and more unhinged. In the final one, Neil dumped her.
    Let me pause here for a second.
    There was no way Neil and Mina were dating. This isn’t the ego of a jilted man talking. I mean, I know Mina has suspect taste in men because she’s seeing me. But Neil? He made me look like a more considerate version of Don Draper. Still, even if she saw something in the guy, it wasn’t in her to cheat. I’d like to say there was a little wheedling voice in my head reminding me not to be a sap, but there wasn’t. I knew Mina. I trusted Mina. That wasn’t her.
    Still, the evidence piled up. There was a parking ticket for Mina’s car outside Neil’s place. When they arrested Mina, she had a key to Neil’s place in her belongings, and she had no alibi. That last part was my fault: her alibi was that she was having a lovely relaxing weekend with me, someone whose existence couldn’t be revealed. Mina even used some tail-losing protocols when she drove up north just to make sure she wasn’t followed.
    It was perfect. It was clean. It led to one place, and one place only. Mina Duplessis had murdered Neil Greene, and now all that remained was fitting her for an eight by ten concrete room.
    I put the paper down and muttered, “Goddamn it.”
    “Looks pretty bad from where I’m sitting,” Lara said. She had the decency to sound apologetic.
    “Sure does.”
    “Means if it is bullshit, someone went through a lot of trouble to frame her.”
    “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
    “Someone with a lot of influence, more power, and some kind of vicious beef. You best watch out for her, Bobby, or she’s fucked.”

 
     
     
[5]
     
     
     
     
     
    THEY SAY FRIENDS HELP YOU MOVE, but real friends help you move a body. If that’s the case, then I became real friends with the Kosher Nostra two years into my old life. It was the first time I’d ever been accessory to murder, so if there’s some kind of baked good associated with celebrating an anniversary that dark, mark me down for two. I had no idea I’d entered the trust circle with them, either. I’d just been dispatched on one of my errands: they handed me a bag with a sandwich and some potato salad. That hid the note, greasy now from the french dip, which listed an address and two words: “CLEAN UP.”
    When I got there, I saw why. The entire room looked like it had been hosed down with blood, and there were pieces, human