The Ethical Assassin

by David Liss

  “Maybe you want to shut those thoughts the fuck up. Did you ever think of that?”

  “No, I never thought of that. But since you did, maybe you should tell me why.”

  Doe shook his head in sad disbelief. “First of all, I didn’t kill Bastard. And that means someone did, and that someone is still out there and has the money. You can believe me or not, but we’ve been doing this thing long enough that you know if I’d killed him, I’d admit it. Hell, if I stole the money and killed him, I’d still admit to killing him. I’d say he tried to rip us off and got caught and tried to kill me.”

  “Now that we’ve established how you would be lying if you were lying, let’s hear number two.”

  “Number fucking two,” Doe said, “is why the fuck would I rip you off? You cut me out or try to find the balls to take me out, I’m worse off than if we keep going on like we’ve been. I’m earning way too much from this shit to dick it up, so think with your fucking head for a second instead of B.B.’s. Snoop into my shit, if you want. I don’t got any debts, I got a pile in the Caymans. I want more, and I’m not going to fuck with the system.”

  It was all true. Doe had relatively little to gain in the short term and nothing to gain in the long term by ripping them off. In fact, the only thing that made the Gambler still doubt Doe was the Altick kid, who said he’d seen the chief snooping around Bastard’s trailer. But that could have had something to do with the girl, he supposed.

  He sat still, looking thoughtful for a few more minutes. “And those are your two points?”

  “No, I got one more point. Point number three,” he said, “is that B.B. called the station today, disguised his voice, and said that you killed Bastard and took the cash. Now, I don’t know who has the money, but maybe that doesn’t matter so much right now, because B.B. has decided to fuck you up, and I think you want me on your side.”

  “How do you know it was B.B. if the voice was disguised?”

  “Because he’s an asshole, and I recognized him. Besides, who knows that Bastard is dead besides you, me, B.B., and his whore?”

  Doe gave a half nod. “And how do I know you aren’t setting him up?”

  “I guess you don’t. But you maybe want to decide what you believe, because if B.B. figures out I’m not going to deal with you, he might have a backup plan that takes you by surprise.”

  The Gambler finished his drink and set down the plastic cup. “Okay,” he said after a minute or so, a minute he needed mostly to keep Doe waiting. “I’ll keep this information in mind. But let’s be clear about something. I don’t care if you stole the money or not. This is your house and your mess, and you need to clean it up. I’ll look into what you say about B.B., and I’d better not find out that you’re fucking with me, or I’m going to be pissed off. But if you’re not, then we’re going to be under new management, and new management says you clean up your fucking mess.” He stood up. “Because if you can’t get your act together, then you’re fucking worthless to me. So by Monday morning I want that money or I want to know what happened to it. And if you go with choice number two, you’d better make me believe you’re telling the truth. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Doe finished his bottle and dropped it on the floor. “I like that,” he said. “I like that forceful shit. We need more of that around here.” He walked to the door and then turned around. “You want me to take care of B.B.?”

  “Why?” the Gambler asked. “Because things on your end are running so smoothly that you have lots of extra time?”

  “No,” Doe said, “because I figured you might want to keep your hands clean. But have it your way, boss.”

  When Doe was gone, the Gambler rose to fix himself another drink. Fucking B.B. trying to screw him over. Why? And his efforts were so inept, it hardly mattered. An anonymous phone call. He’d lost it completely, and even if he hadn’t been conspiring against the Gambler, he’d have to go, just for safety’s sake.

  So maybe there was some order in the universe, he thought. Maybe there was a way to turn liabilities into assets. And maybe, he thought, there was a way to turn Scott’s inappropriate rage into something more useful.

  ***

  After his unsatisfying meeting with the Gambler, B.B. had gone out to a local McDonald’s for a strawberry milk shake and to take in the local scene. He liked to go to McDonald’s. There were always lots of happy kids getting the crappy food they loved. In his work with the Young Men’s Foundation, he saw only the unhappy boys. He liked the happy ones, too.

  B.B. brought a newspaper with him but couldn’t be bothered to read it. He looked into nothingness and tried to avoid the stare of the big-eyed black kid behind the counter who acted as though he’d never seen a man drink a milk shake before. He ought to have seen it. It probably happened pretty often in here.

  After nearly an hour with no one interesting to look at, B.B. went back to the hotel. He figured he ought to be thinking about the money, but that was Desiree’s job. And where was Desiree? He hadn’t heard from her all day except for one hasty phone call in which she’d said that the kid appeared to be hapless and clean, but she was going to keep tailing him. It wasn’t like her not to check in more often.

  Approaching his room from the parking lot, he could see there was a piece of paper taped to his door. It was yellow, wide-lined notebook paper with torn perforation. When he pulled it free, it took a good chunk of the door’s aqua blue paint along with the tape.

  It would be from the Gambler, or maybe Doe, possibly even Desiree. Instead, a clumsy, childish hand had written in scrawling letters, “Mister my Dad called and said he wont be back before Late and my little brother gone off with his aunt. Can I have that Ice Cream now, and mabey talk about some stuff that’s going on with my dad? Carl. Room 232.”

  B.B. folded up the note and held it in his hands. Then he unfolded it and read it once more. He held the paper in one hand and then the other, as though he could gauge its import from its flimsy weight.

  Could it be a joke? Who would play such a joke? And what would be the point? On the other hand, how would that kid know his room number? Maybe he’d asked the Indian behind the counter. The guy wasn’t supposed to give out that sort of information, but he probably didn’t know any better, since who knew what sorts of ideas about privacy they had in India, where cattle wandered in and out of people’s houses? Besides, Carl was nothing but a little kid who surely didn’t mean any harm. Carl, he thought. Carl.

  B.B. went into his room and washed his face, combed his hair, and put on a little bit of aftershave. Not too much, since kids didn’t like too much, but enough so that he’d smell mature and sophisticated. That’s what boys Carl’s age wanted in a mentor. They liked to be in the presence of a grown man who knew how to talk to a boy.

  Not that Carl was worth all this fuss. No reason to think he was. Back at home was Chuck Finn, and Chuck Finn would be worth the fuss. Even so, spending a little time with Carl might be productive. It would certainly be helpful to the young man, and that was why he did this work, after all. He did it for the young men, and for himself, if he was going to be honest. He liked the feeling of being helpful. And there was something else, too, something on the edge of his vision, just outside his range of hearing, a smell too vague to identify but strong enough to notice. But this wasn’t the time. Maybe next week, maybe with Chuck, but not just now.

  B.B. felt as though something from the highway had soiled his suit, so he dusted himself and headed out the door, up the stairs, and around back, where he found the room. Somewhere in the distance, he heard electronic pop from someone’s room. Assholes needed to learn to keep it down. But Carl’s room was mostly quiet. The curtains were drawn, but he could see a light on inside and vaguely hear a television droning. Before knocking, he took out the note and read it once more, making sure he had the room right and that he hadn’t misunderstood the boy’s intentions. No, there could be no misunderstanding. He’d been invited.

  B.B. knocked firmly yet kindly.
At least he hoped it sounded firm but kind. In the distance he heard a voice say that he should come in. He tried the handle and found it unlocked, so he pushed it open.

  On the bed he saw a yellow toy tractor, so he knew he was in the right place. But no sign of Carl and, inexplicably, sheets of translucent plastic were covering the carpet. “Hello,” he called out.

  “I’ll be right there,” came the voice, high and childish. B.B. felt himself smiling for just an instant. He took another step inside and looked around. It was like every other motel room, but strangely neat for a place where two boys had been alone all day. The bed was made, no clothes around, no toys but the tractor. Most of the lights were off, and the TV, which was tuned to a sitcom, flashed blue into the gloom. The laugh track erupted as someone did something, and B.B. took a step closer to see what was so funny.

  Then it struck him. The voice that called to him, it didn’t sound like the boy from the pool. That boy hadn’t sounded quite so young, quite so childish. In fact, the more he thought about it, the less that voice had sounded like a child’s. It sounded like someone imitating a child.

  Then he heard the door close behind him.

  B.B. spun around and saw one of the Gambler’s assholes sitting there. The fat one. A rank odor like piss wafted up. The kid’s piggy eyes were wide with excitement, and he had a kind of openmouthed grin, as though he’d just issued the coup de grâce to a piñata. And B.B. knew, he fundamentally knew, that this grinning asshole was the least of his worries.

  He turned and saw the other one, Ronny Neil. Ronny Neil also had a good-size grin going on. In addition, he had a wooden baseball bat with a fair number of dents in it, dents that suggested it had been used for something other than drives to left field.

  “You sick fucking pervert,” Ronny Neil said.

  The baseball bat arced high over his head, and B.B. raised his hands to protect himself, knowing even as he did it that his hands weren’t going to do him one bit of good.

  Chapter 32

  THE WALK TO THE KWICK STOP took a little over fifteen minutes at a brisk pace. I was certain I’d seen an OPEN 24 HOURS sign out front, and when I got there I bought a flashlight, batteries, and a large coffee to go.

  I sat out front and loaded up the flashlight. The coffee was lukewarm, burned, and too thick, but I drank it quickly, and within five minutes I was ready to go again.

  I didn’t much like the idea of wandering around Meadowbrook Grove after dark. I would be in Jim Doe country, and if the cop found me, I had no doubt that I’d be in trouble. Serious trouble. The kind of trouble from which you don’t ever return.

  But I was close to that kind of trouble now. Wasn’t that what I’d learned from Melford, what I’d learned to put into practice that night with Ronny Neil? It wasn’t really a matter of how much trouble you were in, but how you tried to get out of it. I had to do something other than sit in the motel room. I might have done that last week, but not any longer.

  I stayed off the roads. I tried to stick to backyards, ignoring the itch of insects and the various crawling, hopping, scurrying, and slithering noises of the animals I startled from either sleep or their rounds. I had to be careful of domestic animals, too. Frantic barking would draw attention. I knew from my late night rambles selling books, those long hours after dark when I was trying desperately to bag one more shot at a sale before it was time to go home, that dogs barked and owners ignored them. At least they did at nine-thirty. But at close to two in the morning, they might pay a bit more attention to furious barking.

  When I turned onto Bastard and Karen’s street, I stuck close to the trailers, trying to keep out of the light. It had been there all along: the box of files in the trailer with “Oldham Health Services” written along the side. It held the key to everything- to why Melford had killed them and what he was hiding from me.

  I felt a strange, almost giddy excitement. Once I read through those files, I would finally know. I would finally know who Melford really was, what he was after. And I would know if he really intended to let me out of all this unharmed.

  I looked around the back of the trailer and saw that the door leading to the kitchen was open. No sign of a car or of flashlight beams inside. I went up to the door to listen. No sound.

  It was stupid. Idiotic. I knew it, but I went inside anyhow, because I had to see.

  I turned on the flashlight for a quick scan. It was cheaply built, and the light slouched out anemically, but I still caught a glimpse of something on the kitchen floor.

  I supposed I ought to be getting used to death, but the sight of the body hit me like a punch in the gut. I took a staggered step back and hit the kitchen counter.

  I turned the feeble light on the figure again to be sure. But there was no mistaking it. In the distorting yellow of the flashlight beam, I saw the face of the man who’d been in the Gambler’s room, the one in the linen suit, the one who’d looked as though he hadn’t been paying much attention. The one I believed to be B. B. Gunn.

  His face was well bloodied, but I couldn’t tell how he had been killed. In fact, I was largely past concerning myself. I turned to rush out the door, but a flashlight, much brighter than my own, hit my eyes. I couldn’t say I was particularly surprised. In a way, it seemed inevitable.

  I stopped in my tracks. The light was too bright for me to see who held it, but I knew. It could be only one person.

  “Well, well, if it ain’t the hirer of private detectives,” Jim Doe said.

  I stared at him. How could he have known that?

  “You stupid fucking shit,” he said with a slight cackle. “You go to find out a thing or two about B.B., and you hire a buddy of mine to do it. Didn’t you think for a minute that a guy who lives in Meadowbrook Grove might know me? But I guess it don’t matter, because it seems to me like you are under arrest for murder.”

  There was a second, maybe two seconds, before I acted, but I thought of lots of things in those couple of seconds. I thought about how unlikely it was that Doe would shoot me, an unarmed encyclopedia salesman. Doe wanted to keep attention away from himself, not draw attention closer. Considering that our earlier encounter had been observed by Aimee Toms, the county cop- the county cop who had warned Doe to stay away from me- a shooting now would only draw the kind of scrutiny Doe could not afford. On the other hand, Doe might easily shoot me and make me disappear. And if that happened, I would never see Chitra again.

  So I ran.

  Chapter 33

  THE PUNK RAN. Well, what had Doe expected? That he would sit there and say, “I guess I got no choice but to come with you and probably get killed”? He was a fast runner, too. Doe wasn’t about to chase after him. Christ, with the pain in his nuts he could barely walk, let alone run. He tried to pursue, made it maybe a hundred feet before he had to stop. As it was, he felt like he might faint. Or puke.

  Well, let him go. It wasn’t like Doe needed to arrest someone for B.B.’s murder. He could just toss the body in the waste lagoon. Probably better that way, anyhow.

  Now, bent over, breathing in hard, painful bursts, hands on his knees, Doe spent a minute just trying to clear his head, get the swirling black things out of his vision. The problem now was going to be getting rid of B.B., and it was pretty much Doe’s problem alone. Earlier that night his phone had rung, and on the other end a disguised voice, his second of the day- but Doe had known without a doubt that it was the Gambler’s punk asshole Ronny Neil- had told him he’d better get over to Karen’s trailer. There was a surprise waiting there.

  He couldn’t fault the little shit for being dishonest. B.B.’s dead body was a surprise all right. He’d been worked over good, too- beaten so that his legs were like jelly and his head half caved in. One of his eyes, bulging wide open, was half out of its socket. They’d killed him good and proper.

  No message, no instruction, but Doe didn’t need to be told what it meant or what he needed to do. The Gambler had taken B.B. out, which was only right. If anything, Doe was relieved
that the Gambler had stepped up to the plate. Like he’d said before, there were bigger things involved here, certainly bigger than his ego. There was money, and even if B.B. hadn’t been fucking with the Gambler, he’d been slipping up right good. Still, this body presented some real problems, the first being that the freaky cunt would think that Doe had done it. They’d dumped the body on Doe’s turf just to make trouble for him, to make sure he knew this was the Gambler’s show.

  Doe didn’t care. Doe didn’t care who called the shots as long as the shots got called and as long as the money came with it. The Gambler thought he had some tough-guy shit to prove, that was just fine. He thought he needed to put the pressure on Doe, say come up with the money or an explanation, that was fine, too. Doe didn’t get to where he was by not being able to deal with the pressure.

  He’d do what the Gambler wanted as a show of good faith, so he’d get the message that things were working and there was no point in messing up an orderly system. The Gambler would have to understand that this operation worked because it was under the radar. It worked because no one was paying attention to them. That had always meant small crews, limited exposure, and no bloodbaths. Four people had died this weekend, and that was plenty. No way the Gambler was going to take him out. Even so, he might get cut out or cut back or slighted. Begging to remain in good graces might be beneath his dignity, but if it meant cash, then Doe would deal with it for now.

  All of which meant getting to the bottom of this shit. And that was fine, too, because Doe knew what was what now. He knew why the kid had squealed on him to the Gambler, and he knew where the money was. It was now that simple. Find the kid, find the money.

  Chapter 34

  I HAD NEVER BEEN, by track team standards, an especially fast runner. I did better in longer races, but even in those I’d win only rarely. Still, I would do well once in a while with the five-hundred-meter. With half marathons the point wasn’t to win, but to finish. But if I hadn’t been the fastest runner in the county, or even at my own school, I was a hell of a lot faster than an aging, out-of-shape, crooked cop with a bad haircut.