Who’s Who

The man you never meet, and everyone around the building who knows a little more than they let on.

Personnel file · The Hitman

The Hitman

Also known as: Top man at Assassins Anonymous · Name withheld
Current status: Downtown on business. Back in sixty minutes.
First seen: Hitman, Perth CBD, 6 July 2022 (on the record)
Motto: “Never be seen. Never be late. Never take the lift in a storm.”
Fan rating

The top assassin at Assassins Anonymous, and the one character in the room you never meet. He is always out on a job while you are in his office, and he is always on his way back.

Fans know remarkably little about him: he takes his noodles without chilli, he files his paperwork on time and he has won Employee of the Month more often than anyone can count. Nobody knows his name. That is rather the point.

Known for: Never being there · Employee of the Month · Coming back in sixty minutes

Personnel file · The Chair

The Chair

Also known as: Chairperson, Assassins Anonymous · Keeper of the minutes
Current status: Calling the meeting to order
First seen: The Minutes, Meeting No. 1
Motto: “Remember, members: we are anonymous. Please stop wearing name badges.”
Fan rating

Every organisation needs someone to run the meetings, and Assassins Anonymous has the Chair: a tidy, patient figure in a grey cardigan who brings biscuits and insists on minutes.

The Chair takes the “Anonymous” part very seriously, which is why the minutes refer to every member by a code name, and why nobody has noticed that the firm’s office is on a floor that does not exist.

Known for: The minutes · The biscuit tin · Points of order

Read the minutes →

Personnel file · Gus Pagano

Gus Pagano

Also known as: Night doorman · Thirty years on the desk
Current status: At the front desk, doing the crossword
First seen: The Doorman’s Night Book
Motto: “I don’t see anything. That’s why they pay me.”
Fan rating

The night doorman of the Midtown building, who has signed in everyone from couriers to the mayor and knows exactly how many floors the building has. He also knows the lift sometimes stops at one more.

Gus keeps a night book of everything that happens on his shift, writes it in pencil in case he needs to rub any of it out, and has never once pressed the button for floor seven and a half. Not on purpose.

Known for: The night book · The crossword · Knowing which floors exist

Read his night book →

Personnel file · Frankie Lo

Frankie Lo

Also known as: Owner, the Lucky Noodle · Open till late
Current status: Wrapping your order, extra napkins
First seen: The Lucky Noodle order spike
Motto: “Everyone’s night starts with noodles. Not everyone’s ends well.”
Fan rating

Frankie runs the Lucky Noodle on the corner, which is where every Hitman crew’s night begins: noodles, rain on the neon and then a power cut.

Frankie also delivers to the Midtown building every Thursday, to a floor that is not on the directory, for a customer who always pays in exact change and never opens the door. The tips are excellent. Frankie has learned not to ask.

Known for: Noodles · The Thursday delivery · Fortune cookies with uncomfortably accurate fortunes

Personnel file · Detective Ruth Calloway

Detective Ruth Calloway

Also known as: Midtown Precinct · The one who almost knows
Current status: Pinning another photo to the corkboard
First seen: The Midtown Ledger, front page
Motto: “There’s a floor in that building. I just can’t find the button.”
Fan rating

A Midtown detective with a corkboard, a lot of string and one theory: that the city’s most professional assassins work out of an office that the building swears is not there.

She has interviewed Gus, eaten at the Lucky Noodle and ridden the lift forty times. It has never stopped for her. The Club thinks the lift knows.

Known for: The corkboard · The string · Taking the stairs

Personnel file · Benny “Volts” Ruggiero

Benny “Volts” Ruggiero

Also known as: Building electrician · Blamed for everything
Current status: Up a ladder, swearing at a fuse box
First seen: The Doorman’s Night Book
Motto: “It wasn’t me. It was the storm. It’s always the storm.”
Fan rating

The building’s electrician, called out every time the storm knocks the power out and the lift sticks between the seventh and eighth floors.

Volts has rewired that lift six times and it still stops at the floor that isn’t there. He has started to suspect that somebody likes it that way.

Known for: The fuse box · Blaming the storm · Never getting the lift fixed

The Hitman and Assassins Anonymous come from the room. Everyone else, including the Chair, was invented by the Club.