I've said it before, I'll say it again - there's an art to not being noticed.

I'm not talking about not being seen - I'm talking about being noticed. Trust me, there's a difference. A big one.

I've watched some other hitters working from time to time, and there were more than a couple of times when I'd scratch my head and wonder what the hell they were thinking. My best guess is that many of them had an unshakeable mental image of what the life of a hired gun must be like, and they went out of their way to fulfill it. You know, the sunglasses, the trench coat, the toothpick hanging out of the side of the mouth. The dangerous, menacing looks they'd give to anyone within range. They're the ones that people look at and think to themselves, 'That guy really looks like a hit man.'

It's kind of the opposite of what you want.

They're also the ones who are most likely going to be hopping in and out of the shadows during a job, caught up in the heady rush of going after their mark, brandishing a high powered rifle out in the open, living their dream. This despite the fact that there's nothing that attracts people's attention quicker than someone who is acting suspiciously, darting here and there and looking shifty. I don't know why they do it. It baffles me.

There's another type that are equally baffling, of course. They're the ones like the young mister GQ; the 'master of disguise' types who think the whole secret to a successful hit is to look like someone else completely. You know, to layer on makeup, wear a wig, add years to their face, and whatever else they can manage in order to make it so even their own mother wouldn't recognize them. I guess they figure if nobody can tell it's them, or pick them out of a lineup later on, they'll be fine.

There are times when dressing up like an old man can be very useful, don't get me wrong. It's just that there are just as many times when walking around looking like Colonel Mustard is going to grab more attention then it deflects. The point isn't to disguise yourself and look completely different - the whole point is to blend in, and look the same.

In order to blend in and look the same, you usually have to do something other than sneak around. You have to be obvious, act like you belong.

And so, despite how strange it may sound, when it was time for me to make my move on Diavolo's warehouse, I did nothing unusual. I simply pulled up into one of the parking stalls outside of it, parked my car, grabbed my bag from the back seat, slammed my door and headed on over, muttering curses and kicking at a few errant rocks and assorted street debris.

It was practically a guarantee that there would be a ridiculous number of closed circuit cameras monitoring the area around the warehouse, and there was no point in trying to avoid them. So, I made as if I was pissed off that I had to be there in the first place, like I was following orders. Anyone watching me would see I was walking around in plain view, perhaps jot down the time if they remembered to, and then promptly forget all about me.

I walked up to the door, stopped, and then struck it three times with my fist.

A few seconds later, a rough voice called out, "Yeah?"

"My sister said you were having a party, do you need olives?" I said loudly and clearly, over-enunciating every word, my tone suggesting that I was already bored with this 'super-secret password' crap.

The door opened a crack, and then opened halfway, revealing a tall, portly man with the most unfortunate nose I'd ever seen in my life.

He smiled a big, gap-toothed smile at me, and somehow that was even more disturbing than the nose had been.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that. Boss's orders. Can't be too careful right now, right?"

"Right," I said, stepping inside the dimly lit warehouse. "Say, could you hold this for me?"

In one swift move I jabbed a very specific spot along his trapezius with the micro-syringe of Kuryakin-1 hidden by my palm, pressing hard. His eyes locked on me, confused. Then they locked on something only he could see, somewhere in the distance. This was followed shortly after with him falling to the floor, unconscious.

I put the cap back on the syringe before carefully returning it to my jacket pocket. It was expensive as all hell, and could only be purchased in Azerbaijan, but for how quickly this stuff worked on people it was most definitely worth it.

Once he was completely out of it, I dragged him off to one side and deposited him underneath the wall-mounted coat-rack. On impulse, I took down a couple of coats and covered him up with them . It was probably dark enough that nobody would notice him even if I didn't, but it didn't cost me anything to do, and I've found that little things like that can be the difference maker in a situation that is largely about timing.

That done, I pulled out my tranquilizer-pistol, along with a thirty-eight that had a 'dog whistle' sound suppressor on the end.

There's a reason for the pairing. Contrary to what you see in what television and movies have to offer, a silencer isn't particularly quiet. That 'pthhhht!' sound you're always hearing? It's bullshit.

See, guns are really, really loud, and what most silencers try to do is take some of that sound and convert it to a frequency outside of human hearing, with varying degrees of success. If the average gunshot is, say, one-hundred and sixty decibels, the addition of a very good silencer will bring that number down to about one-hundred and twenty.

This is about as quiet as your average rock concert.

That was the real reason I used a tranquilizer-gun during stuff when I was going to be roaming around, all sneaky-like. It wasn't because I cared overmuch about the lives of the people I'd encounter along the way . . . it's because a gas-powered tranquilizer gun is much, much quieter than a regular gun. When there's four or more guys between you and the person you want to get to, stealth is your best friend in the whole world.

It didn't mean that I wouldn't still end up using my thirty-eight along the way, but I prefer the element of surprise. I inspected the guns I held.

Sleep on the left, kill on the right. I recited it a few times.

Grabbing my bag and slinging it over one shoulder, I located a nearby set of wooden stairs and climbed them. Once at the top, I encountered a large man in a suit, who I gave a huge smile to just before shooting him high in the chest with the gun in my left hand.

That gun makes a 'pthhhht!' sound.

He twitched a little from the dart and looked at me, surprised. He seemed to remember where he was, and was in the middle of reaching for his weapon when he got wobbly and collapsed against the floor, which was little more than an improvised walkway constructed from two-by-fours.

I hopped up onto the rickety platform he'd been standing on and took about ten silent strides, pistols extended, looking down into the main warehouse area. About twelve feet above the floor, it was a position where I could see everything, since the walls dividing the various warehouse sections were only about eight feet high or so, and uncovered. There was a smallish office area that was little more than a walled-off area of the warehouse that I could easily see into from my vantage point.

There were also three guys standing around talking to each other just outside the doors to that small office area, about sixty feet away, which meant that distance was going to be a problem. Additionally, there was one other guy who was much closer, sitting on an oil drum around the corner and off to one side, talking to someone on a cellphone. Thinking furiously, I considered my options. None of them were really all that good.

Frowning, I took aim with my left and shot mister cellphone in the thigh.

"Ow!" he cried, swatting at his leg as though it were on fire. "What the fuck? What in . . . no, not you baby! I just felt something that . . . whoa! What the fuck? Hey, I'm-"

He toppled over to one side and collapsed onto the concrete floor, cellphone spinning crazily away. With Kuryakin-1, hitting the leg works a lot slower than hitting the upper body, which was kind of the point to tagging him in the leg like that. I was giving him a chance to yell and attract attention.

The noise caused the three guys chatting by the office to turn as one.

"Yo, Frankie!" one called out, his voice containing a huge helping of that 'quit fucking around' vibe. When his hail wasn't answered immediately, his brow furrowed, and he reached into his jacket and pulled out his gun.

"Fuck . . . jumpy much?" his bald companion asked, laughing.

"Shut up," he hissed back. Then, in the direction of the hallway, he called out, "Hey, Frankie! You a'ight?"

Geeze, I hate that word. "A'ight." I managed to refrain from shooting the guy who said it, but right at that moment, I really, really wanted to.

There were a few moments of silence.

"Frankie?" the first guy yelled called a second time. The other two with him put on concerned faces and also drew their guns as well. As one, they slowly crept forward towards the corner area where the unconscious Frankie lay, hidden from view. No additional guys appeared from anywhere else, which kind of made me a little suspicious. Wasn't this supposed to be where everyone was gathered? Three guys down, three guys still up and mobile? How many were going to be in that little room where Diavolo was likely hunkered down?

Well, I'd probably find out how many able-bodied men were around soon enough. I reached into my duffel bag and pulled out a flash bang grenade, waiting for them to get in range.

"Frankie, this ain't funny. Say something, man!" said Baldy. "If we gotta raise an alarm a second time because of your worthless ass, Boss ain't gonna be too happy with you!"

Interesting. They were really jumpy. Nervous enough to have already had a false alarm or two. Well, I probably wouldn't be helping matters any.

I armed the disk-shaped grenade, counted to two, and threw it frisbee-style into the aisle they were turning into. Then I looked away, my eyes tightly shut.

A deafening 'boom' erupted, followed by three exclamations of surprise and panic. I quickly turned back to the scene and took aim at the stunned, blinded men. The gun in my left hand went 'thwwwwp!' a total of four times, my first shot having been aimed too low. In short order, all three of the large men were in various states of collapse, and would be out for at least a few hours.

I know . . . there was no need to stay quiet after an explosion like that one, so I could have used my thirty-eight. Well, what can I say - I'm just such a nice guy sometimes.

Scanning for any signs of additional activity, I scooted high up along the wooden platform, itching for a better view of the inside of the 'office', which was really just four wall partitions with no ceiling. Nobody came running out of it, nor was anyone coming from any other part of the warehouse, which struck me as extremely odd. I'd thought there would have been at least a perimeter watch, guys with rifles or automatics.

Which meant that Diavolo might not be here after all. Hmm.

I heard a familiar voice bellow some curse words from somewhere in the vicinity of the office area, and I smiled. At the very least I should probably go pay a visit to my old friend Shoe . . . say hello or something.

The roof of the warehouse was standard for its kind - I-beams and girders criss-crossing to form a lattice of support, like the underside of a train bridge. They weren't too high, well within reach of the platform I was standing on, and the girders were wide enough for me to climb across if I was careful. I plotted a poorly lit route that would take me from where I was to directly over the office area, and climbed up, whisper-quiet.

As I was heading over, I noticed the office door below me open up a bit and then close again, as though someone were risking a quick peek outside of the office. Probably Shoe, since he didn't exactly strike me as the patient sort.

I continued moving from one beam to the next, up in the rafters, inching my way forward until I could see down into the interior of the office, which was illuminated by two floor lamps and a very nice desk lamp. There were two desks, five chairs, two large filing cabinets, two bookshelves, and an open laptop computer. There were also two figures in the room, one by the door and one sitting calmly at the desk. The one at the door was my buddy, Shoe.

The one at the desk was the woman I'd heard called 'Maria'.

Shoe was looking edgy, and I saw him mutter something under his breath. He had his gun out, and despite having several decent places to take cover available to him, he had his back pressed against the thin drywall of the office interior, looking as though he expected gun-play to erupt at any second.

I knew Shoe wasn't exactly bright, but it suddenly occurred to me that I might be witnessing a very advanced kind of stupid here. You would think someone with even a passing familiarity with guns would realize that things like masonite paneling and drywall didn't do a heck of a lot when it came to stopping a bullet. It was like those guys who would take cover behind a cardboard box, and then had the nerve to look shocked when you shot a round through the box and into their chest. It's pretty goddamned stupid. Then again, Shoe probably hadn't been hired because of an overabundance of brains.

Maria was simply sitting there, hands on her desk, waiting.

Obviously, I was the one she was waiting for. It also went a ways to explaining why there were so few people in the warehouse.

Once I was directly over their room, I stopped. Carefully, quietly, I took the rope out of my bag and used a reef knot to secure one end to the top of a nearby girder, where it met the ceiling. I balanced the coil of rope on the metal beam I was standing on, which would allow me to create a repelling line with nothing more than a quick kick. I took aim at Shoe's chest with the gun in my left, aiming high to account for gravity. Then I fired, grabbing the rope near the ceiling while simultaneously kicking the rest of the coil from its perch.

The dart took Shoe right below the collarbone, and he swatted at it instantly, looking annoyed and surprised. Then his eyes focused on it, and he seemed to realize something. He looked up in my direction just as I began sliding down the rope, one leg twined around it so I was still holding both guns, one pointed at each of the two figures.

Recognition caused Shoe's face to become a mix of chemical-induced relaxation and pure rage, and he tried to sputter some curses at me as his legs wobbled beneath him.

"Hiya, cupcake!" I beamed, shooting him in the chest with another dart, just for fun. "Did you miss me?"

Choking and turning a bit red, he slowly fell to his knees, glaring at me right up until the point where his eyes closed and he slammed face-first into the hard concrete of the floor.

Maria watched her compatriot fall without changing her expression, and then watched me finish lowering myself into the room in a similarly dispassionate fashion. Her eyes were bright, alert, but she showed no signs that she was at all worried. She simply sat there, waiting for me to finish extracting myself from the rope.

I figured I should start. Politeness, all that.

"Hello again. Maria, was it?"

She gave me a smile that I was tempted to call 'dazzling' just then. "And here I was worried you'd forgotten me. Good evening, Joe."

"And to you as well. Say, is your boss around?"

Maria very slowly reached for something resting on the table and slowly held up one of those walkie-talkie style cellphones you still see every now and then. She depressed a button with her thumb, and I found myself tensing for action.

"Angelo?" she said in a loud, clear voice. "Mister Nobody is here, asking for you."

There was about ten seconds of silence, followed by static-laced squawk. I heard a tinny version of Diavolo's voice come out of the speaker, sounding good-naturedly cheerful.

"Hello Joe! Sorry I couldn't be there to discuss this in person, but I wanted to take a few precautions, based on our last meeting. An employee of mine who was keeping tabs on the situation informed me you'd found the piano shop earlier today. You do have this tendency to . . . express yourself rather enthusiastically when you're upset, and I figured it would be smarter to be somewhere else in case you decided to share some more of your newest feelings. Hope you understand."

I took a deep breath in, letting it out slowly and trying to remain expressionless.

I hate being predictable.

"I see. So instead, you sent Maria in here to meet with me and hoped for the best, is that it?"

"Well, I hadn't precisely wanted that, either. She was the one who assured me that she'd be fine, and that you'd likely use some sort of non-lethal way of expressing your frustrations this time around, maybe just to make the point that you were upset. Which reminds me . . . Maria?"

Maria briefly held the phone differently so it was facing her instead of me.

"Tranquilizer gun. I thought he was using poison at first, because of how fast it worked on the others, but Shoe does still appear to be breathing. There was an explosion earlier, probably a flashbang. I didn't hear any gunshots."

Diavolo chuckled over the phone. "She's been right about you from the very beginning, you know. Kept pointing out the fact that I wasn't being smart, keeping things from you. You're quite a bit brighter than some of the other mechanics I've had dealings with. Very unexpected."

"Well," I shrugged, realizing as I did so that there was no way he'd be able to see the gesture, "what can I say, Angelo? I'm just fucking thrilled by this entire situation. First you keep things from me for reasons I don't understand, and now you're telling me it's because you thought I was stupid enough not to notice, despite being offered advice to the contrary. From the sounds of things, I should be working for Maria instead of you."

Maria gave me a crooked grin, but said nothing.

"Yes, well," Diavolo continued, sounding the slightest bit put out, "she's made a very convincing argument for letting you in on exactly what's going on, and-"

"She has? Oh wow, I'm so honored! Gee . . . I finally get to know what the hell is going on? How can I ever possibly thank you?"

"Mister Nobody," he said, a decided edge in his voice, "the very nature of this rather unique situation of mine is one of the reasons why you, and those before you, were not told everything. You will no doubt understand precisely why these details were not shared with you once you've heard them. However, in the meantime, I would encourage you to remember exactly who it is you are speaking to."

A good point. Professionalism. I'd already killed one of his employees, and had disabled a half-dozen others. In the face of all that, I guess there's only so much glibness a guy like him is going to be willing to put up with.

"I apologize," I said, bobbing my head, realizing that I'd once again tried to gesture to a guy on the other end of a walkie-talkie phone. Well, I was still kind of jazzed from the trip in, so maybe I had an excuse. "And yes, just so we're clear - I'm rather pissed off. 'Incensed' might be overstating it, but not by much. I'll either be learning everything there is to know about this situation right now, or our contract is in default, and I'll be keeping the money I've already been given. I've happened upon too many things that don't add up already, and I'm not interested in getting killed just because someone thinks I might be dumb enough to allow it."

"Indeed, which is why I shall be telling you everything, though I warn you now that some of it will likely seem a little strange."

"I can handle strange much better than I can handle being kept in the dark," I said.

"Understood," Daivolo said. "Maria?"

"Yes Angelo?" she replied, still holding the phone up in front of her.

"Full disclosure from this point on. If I'm unable to answer Mister Nobody's questions to his satisfaction, supply additional details as you see fit."

"Yes, sir," she said, her tone crisp and businesslike. Perhaps just a little more military than I was expecting.

"Very well then. Joe? Are you a particularly spiritual or religious man?"

"Uh, not as such, no," I said. "That whole 'thou shalt not kill' rule seemed a bit exclusionary to me."

"Well, be that as it may, I suppose I should ask. Um-" he said, his voice crackling over the speaker. There was an uncomfortable pause, much like trepidation. "Joe, have you ever heard of a 'revenant' before?"