The Contractor

by Paul Moomaw

  I walk out the door without answering.

  Chapter 5

  If Edward Angwin had asked me if I have a soul, I could not have answered him, but I am sure my father did not. My conscious memories begin in the southwestern Montana town of Livingston, where my father worked in the yards for the Burlington Northern Railway, but I think I was not born there. When I look at the photo of myself as an infant, I have an impression of heat, and green; and my father’s speech had a touch of Southern butter. I am being held by a woman in a flowered print dress. She is rail thin, and has red hair in bangs and a sprinkle of freckles on her nose and cheeks. She is smiling but she looks sad and frightened. I understand that little boy is me, Daniel Harms, but I cannot connect with him. That child got left behind somewhere, and when I glance at those photos it is like looking at someone I can vaguely remember having met. He existed and now he is gone. I am not that Daniel and I never can be.

  My first clear memory is of my seventh birthday, standing in the dusty yard of the Iron Horse Trailer Court while my father sits on the steps of the mobile home and drinks beer. I cannot conjure up a picture of my father that does not include a beer bottle—never a can, he claimed they ruined the taste—in his hand, at his lips, or by his side. I am staring at him, unable to comprehend what he is doing. A neighbor couple, I do not recall their name, had built a small rabbit cage on legs and given it to me for my birthday, complete with three young bunnies. My father took the cage back to the neighbors and told them in a loud voice not to meddle in his life. Then, and this is the picture etched indelibly in my memory, he tossed the rabbits, one by one, into a pen for his dogs to kill. That was the day I understood that I hated him.

  My father had a lot of dogs. A parade of them passed through my life. None stayed long. My father fought them. He took them every Sunday night to a farmer’s barn in the Paradise Valley south of Livingston, and sooner or later they did not return, or came back so torn that he had to kill them. When I was twelve I loved one of them, and then it was gone, and I grieved it privately and briefly, and never loved another animal.

  There were no women in our lives, although my father was not a celibate. Occasionally I woke to hear a female voice, and once or twice screams of pain from his violence; but mostly he kept that part of his life away from the trailer court, and later from the run down little house near the railroad tracks where we lived from the time I was eleven until I left Livingston. He never spoke of the woman who was my mother, and I did not ask about her. I think I learned early, before my memories begin, not to ask him questions about the past. I know nothing of grandparents, or extended family. The photographs I have, I found in a trunk. I hid them away for years, and took them with me when I left. I do not know if he ever noticed they were missing.

  I use the word father, but he was not a father in the commonly accepted sense of the word. He was an elemental force in my life, something to be watched and feared. Except for things I did that had a direct impact on him, he took no interest in me. He brought home food, which I cooked for both of us, and he beat me if the meal failed to satisfy him. He gave me money from time to time so that I could purchase necessities, and never asked how I had spent it. I ran away once. He did not look for me, or notify the authorities that I was gone. When I finally slunk back three evenings later he took my belt from me and beat me with it. Then he opened a beer, told me to cook supper, and went outside to wait until it was ready.

  When I was seventeen, the first two positive events in my memory occurred. I graduated from high school with grades so good that my counselor told me I could go to any college I could afford, and my father slipped on the tracks and fell under a switch engine, leaving me with a settlement from the railroad that let me afford any college I wanted. I packed my belongings and headed to Sewanee, Tennessee, and the University of the South. A woman psychologist I saw briefly before I gave up the delusion of leading a conventional life told me I went south for college in an unconscious search for my mother. The psychologist was a big believer in the unconscious. I suppose I may have one down there somewhere, just as a house can have a basement that is never used.

  Chapter 6

  The first payment has been made. Lucifer Cain’s account, and therefore mine, is forty thousand dollars larger and it is time for me to earn my pay. I go through the list and try not to see Katherine Danner’s name, but that is a waste of effort. I have found myself unable to not think of her unless I fill my mind with other business. Then, as soon as there is a quiet space, she slips back in. I find myself looking at her photograph during odd moments, and feeling foolish for that. I tell myself it is only the novelty of a woman target, but I know that is a lie.

  I go over the other four names. One lives over the Cascades in Spokane, less than three hundred miles from Seattle. Another has an address in the Willamette Valley south of Portland, Oregon. A third lives on the Gulf Coast in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the fourth is to be found in Dillon, high in the Colorado Rockies.

  I settle on the man in Spokane. It seems a good place to begin, close and convenient. The target’s name is Arden Frost. I get up, pour myself a brandy, and go to the computer. I log onto the internet and go to the web site of the Spokane Spokesman Review. I type in Arden Frost and click on the search button.

  Frost has a large file. The latest story in the paper is about him being indicted for fraud, and earlier stories explain why. Frost ran a sizable stock scam out of a bucket shop on Division Street, along with another man, a Steven Manzoni, who lived a life of ill-gotten ease on the shores of Lake Coer D’Alene, about forty miles east of Spokane, until he sailed drunk into the teeth of a storm and fell into the lake, leaving Frost to face the music. They specialized in small investors, elderly retirees and risk-taking would-be day traders. The scheme was powered by the dot-com frenzy, and for close to three years Frost and Manzoni were able to generate enough new business to keep the old customers happy in a classic Ponzi scheme. Then the tech bubble burst, and there were no more new suckers to feed the kitty. Frost declared bankruptcy, said the whole thing had been Manzoni’s operation, that he was just another stooge, and that now he did not have a penny. No one believed him, of course, including, I suspect, his attorney, who is a high profile individual even I have heard of, and who, I assume, expects to be paid. The stories state that numerous threats have been made on Frost’s life, and that he has hired a bodyguard.

  I shut down the computer and pour myself another brandy. Evening has begun to spread across the Sound. I put on a CD of Bach, Vladimir Feltsman playing the Goldberg Variations, and settle into my favorite chair. It is deep, with a tall back and worn leather that long ago learned the contours of my body. I sip my brandy and watch the city below me. Lights begin to blink on, and the air above is clear, something that happens more often than the myth of Seattle would allow. Mount Rainier blinks once pinkly before it vanishes for the night. Sometimes, sitting here and watching the city chase its tail below me, I imagine that I could be an angel of death, the messenger of one of the less loving gods, and that I could reach out anywhere down there and snuff out a life with the flick of my middle finger. But those thoughts only come when my mind is idle, usually after a second brandy, when I am feeling grandiose. Three days ago a man backed into my car, a vehicle in which I take great pride. He caused only slight damage, more to my feelings than to the car’s paint. When I reproached him for his carelessness, he shrugged and said, “So shoot me.” It was the kind of small irony that makes life enjoyable.

  The fact is that my Seattle life is beyond reproach and completely separate from my work. I live here under my real name. I own this house and pay all my bills on time. I have a place in Montana, too, a cabin in the Yaak Valley in the northwest corner of the state. Someday I plan to settle there. I am scrupulous about reporting my income, which I tell the IRS is from my services as a personal relationship consultant, and paying my taxes. I have never even had a traffic ticket. I do not know my neighbors except to nod to in passing,
but who does these days? The people I deal with on a daily basis—shop keepers, waiters, Post Office workers—all know me as a polite and friendly man. I am the kind of person of whom they would say, if they found out how I make my living, “I can’t believe it. He is such a nice man.” One little boy in the neighborhood certainly sees me as a hero. He was walking on the sidewalk on Galer with his puppy in his arms. It wriggled loose and ran into the street. I jumped after it and scooped it up. I have no idea what made me do it. I usually have better impulse control. But I did, and did not get hit by a car, and carried the dog back to the boy. He was crying as he thanked me. It would have been touching if I were touchable, but feelings are something I put behind me long ago. They get in the way and make you do reckless things. They have their place, of course, and I have learned how to keep them there.

  I pour another brandy and then settle more deeply into the chair. The austere notes of Feltsman’s piano swirl around me and begin to settle inside. I have loved Bach since I was a boy, although he was a stranger in our house. I grew up without music of any kind. We did not even have a tape player or a radio. My father did not believe in music. He thought it was for sissies. But one day when I was eight or nine and walking home from school I heard music coming from inside a house as I walked past. I had never heard anything like it and so I stopped outside the house to listen. It was a minuet by Bach and that was followed by one of the movements from the Goldberg, although I did not know that then. I stayed, still as a statue, staring at the window that the music was coming through until it finally stopped. Then I went home. I was late, which meant I was also late cooking my father’s supper, and he beat me with a belt. My belt. That was one of his rituals. Whenever he decided I needed a whipping I was required to take off my belt and give it to him to use.

  The next day the music was there again, and I listened and was late getting home again, and got another whipping. By then I had already learned to ignore pain and so I kept on listening and my father finally got bored and gave up beating on me. One day as I was listening the music stopped and the front door opened. An old woman looked at me and said, “Wouldn’t you hear better if you came inside?” Her name was Kate Tremple and she taught piano and played Bach for her own delight. I never took lessons but I stopped by every school day after that until spring. Then one day when I went to the door other people were there and they told me she had died during the night.

  That was the end of music in my childhood, but I have continued to like Bach. He intrigues me. I am fascinated by the idea that someone living in the middle of one of Europe’s most violent and deadly eras could write music of such transcendental serenity.

  That empty space opens in my mind and Katherine Danner slips in again. I fight off an impulse to go and look at her photograph, take another swallow of brandy, and direct my thoughts to Arden Frost. I like the idea that others have already been publicly interested in causing his death. That will give me any number of suspects with which to camouflage myself. I am not sure, yet, how I feel about the bodyguard. That could be a complication, or, as I continue to consider the issue, an advantage. Time will tell which.

  Chapter 7

  I worked once as a bodyguard, before I had completely accepted my affinity with death, and still hoped to express it in a socially acceptable way. I was in New Orleans and unemployed, and an acquaintance pointed me toward an outfit that called itself Airtight Security Services. Most of its business was the standard stuff, but it also boasted a small, specialized staff of men and women who offered protection to people who needed it, or believed they did. Applicants had to have a clean record, not even traffic tickets were allowed. The man who interviewed me grinned about that one and said they didn’t care how anyone drove. They just wanted people who were good at not getting caught. Then there were a series of tests to pass—skill with firearms was required, and with blades. I asked if fencing counted, because I had been captain of my college fencing team. That did not get a grin, just a look that said this was serious business and I had better understand that. Martial arts experience was also demanded, and tested by being placed in a cluttered room with two ugly men and told to fight my way out or leave on my back. It was my first chance to truly appreciate the virtues of kenpo, American kenpo, a style perfected by a man named Ed Parker, who came a few times to our dojo to give clinics and test our sensei for her next black belt level. He was a ham, a bit of a blowhard, and so stove in from years of combat that he groaned when he walked; but he knew how to fight, and how to use his surroundings as a weapon. He invariably opened his clinics with a reminder that traditional karate practitioners call American kenpo glorified street fighting, and that the proper response is, “Thank you.” Finally there was a field test, out on the street, where I escorted a client who was, of course, a staff member, and required to spot and avoid a potential attacker, on the rationale that the best fight is no fight. The first time I got careless, and nearly lost my client. The second time I was too cautious, and spent so much time avoiding that I failed to get the client to his destination on schedule. The third time, I got it right and they hired me.

  My first assignment for Airtight Security was my last. The client was a woman, fortyish, worn and frightened. She had deep red hair that she wore in a French twist, with a mother of pearl comb to keep it in place. Her face, pale and dusted with freckles, had clearly been beautiful once, and still echoed the shadow of that beauty. Her name was Christine, and she was in the middle of a divorce from her husband, a police sergeant in Baton Rouge. She said he used to beat her, but that she could put up with that, because he had a stressful job and had to take it out on somebody. But the night she walked into her six-year-old daughter’s bedroom and found her sitting on the edge of the mattress naked, and him with his face buried between her outspread thighs, she knew she had to leave. She said he threatened to kill her and that she believed he would.

  She was staying in a shelter in New Orleans, and needed an escort between there and the courthouse in Baton Rouge. That was my job—get her there and get her back in one piece. It should have been easy. A pleasant drive up the Mississippi River, something to read while my ward was in court, and then back down to the Big Easy; but five miles after we crossed the line into East Baton Rouge Parish, red lights flashed behind us and a siren hooted. I pulled over and stopped, and a patrol car drew up behind. Another appeared around the curve in front of us, crossed the center line and stopped, facing me, lights flashing. A voice over a loudspeaker told me to get out of the car, slowly, and with my hands up. Rule Number One of the Airtight Security training was never argue with a cop. I got out, and the voice told me to place my hands on the top of the car and stay there. I obeyed, and two officers got out and approached me. Both had guns drawn. The cop in front stopped five feet away and held his weapon on me. The other stepped behind me, patted me down, and found the little Beretta tucked into a hideaway belt holster.

  “You got a license for this?” he asked. I nodded.

  “In my wallet,” I said.

  The patrolman eased the wallet from my hip pocket. “Put your hands behind you,” he said. I did as I was told, and felt handcuffs slip around my wrists.

  “We’re going to have to check on you in town,” he said. “This car’s been reported stolen.”

  “My passenger is on her way to a court hearing in Baton Rouge,” I said.

  The patrolman guided me to his car, opened the rear door, and eased me in gently enough. The other man went to my car and opened the front passenger door. I saw him say something to Christine, and she got out. He led her to the other patrol car and opened the door for her. She looked back at me once, terror in her eyes.

  I spent three hours in a cell in a little place called Prairieville, which was as close as I ever got to Baton Rouge. Then they let me go. No apology, no explanation. I never saw Christine again, and I never went back to New Orleans. A week later, in Houston, I mailed a letter of resignation to Airtight Security Services.

  Ch
apter 8

  I run frequently, and fast. I enjoy the sensation of my legs stretching in a smooth, whispering stride that I can maintain for miles. Today I have chosen a route I ordinarily avoid—the Burke-Gilman Trail. It began existence as a narrow gauge railroad, a useful thing to be. Now it serves as a route for hundreds of runners and brain-dead bicyclists and roller-bladers who can, if they wish, dodge each other on its paved surface all the way from the shores of Lake Union to the northern end of Lake Washington. It is not the path for someone like me, who runs for solitude as much as for health. But remembering Christine has made me ponder Katherine Danner, whose brother wants so badly for her to die. The Burke-Gilman offers a way to make my first contact with her aura. She lives in a house on one of the dead-end roads that cross the trail and drop to the lake shore. This is how I like to begin learning about my victims, experiencing the walls they surround themselves with, and the space that those walls enclose. As I run, I ponder what she has done to her brother to make him want her death. No, more likely, what he has done to her. I have found more than once that victims are most hated by the people who have victimized them.

  It is early on a weekday morning, and as I move farther north, across Ninety-Third Street and beyond the park at Mathews Beach, I find a degree of solitude I did not expect. For close to the final mile along the trail I encounter no one. Then, as I turn down the road that will take me to the lake and Katherine Danner’s house, a woman approaches from the opposite direction, riding a bicycle. Her hair is dark red, cut in curls that lie close to her head. She wears running shorts and a white mesh singlet, and her upper body is whippet thin; but her legs are strong, with powerful thighs whose muscles ripple visibly under skin that is more ivory than white. She is still too distant for me to tell the color of her eyes, but I know they will be dark, because this is the women in the picture Edward Angin gave me.