David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

He was probably in his fifties, though he looked younger. His slightly long white hair gave him an angelic cast, and he had one of those easy-grinning faces that made him a natural at sales. He looked you right in the eye when he spoke to you, as if you were the only person in the world. He smiled at everyone with fond familiarity, the lines around his eyes crinkling with good humor. “A born fucking salesman,” Bobby had called him. He still rang doorbells two or three days a week, to stay fresh, and rumor had it that he hadn’t blanked in more than five years.

When I walked in, the Gambler hadn’t yet arrived. He was always the last to show, strutting into the room like a rock star coming out onstage. Ronny Neil and Scott were off in the corner, talking loudly about Ronny Neil’s truck back home and how big the tires were, about how a cop had stopped him for speeding but let him go because he admired the tires.

The Gambler’s Gainesville crew finally came in, strolling with the confident sense of superiority of a king’s retinue. The Gambler drove a van, so he had a large crew- nine in all- but only one woman. Encyclopedia sales held particular challenges for women, and even the good ones generally didn’t last for more than two or three weeks. Rare was the crew with more than a single woman. Long hours spent walking by deserted roadsides, going alone into strangers’ homes, lecherous customers, and lewd insinuations from the other bookmen dwindled their ranks, and I suspected, with great sadness, that this one wouldn’t last, either. Nevertheless, I’d been thinking about her since her appearance the previous weekend.

Chitra. Chitra Radhakrishnan. During the past week, I’d caught myself saying her name aloud, just for the pleasure of hearing its music. Her name sounded kind of like her accent. Soft, lilting, lyrical. And she was beautiful. Stunning. Far better looking than any woman I thought myself entitled to like, even from a distance. Tall and graceful, with caramel skin and black hair pulled into a ponytail and big eyes the color of coffee with skim milk. Her fingers were long and tapered, finished off with bright red polish, and she wore tons of silver rings, even on her thumb, which I’d never seen anyone else do.

I hardly knew her, I’d had only a single extended conversation with her, but those words had been electric. For all that, I couldn’t say why this woman should be the one to send me into a tumbling vortex of infatuation. There were other women in the group, though not many, and there had been, in a purely objective sense, far prettier ones in the past. I’d never had a crush on any of them.

I had to consider the possibility that it was Chitra’s foreignness. Perhaps her being Indian among the otherwise all white population made her a misfit and therefore accessible. Or maybe for all her beauty, and it was considerable, there was something vaguely awkward about her- a slightly ungainly walk, an absent, self-effacing way of holding her head in conversation.

Whatever it was, I wasn’t alone in admiring her. Even Ronny Neil, who complained bitterly about his daily interactions with mud people, couldn’t take his eyes off her. Now he rose and went over to her, just like that. The words came out of him, easy as anything. I couldn’t hear except that Ronny Neil said, “Hi there, baby,” and Chitra smiled at him as if he’d said something worth smiling about.

I felt a comforting rage- comforting because of its familiarity and because it had nothing to do with the murder, which for a moment I could tuck into a neat little compartment toward the back of my brain. I could understand why Ronny Neil liked Chitra. She was beautiful. That would be enough for him. But why would Chitra even speak to Ronny Neil? Surely she was the anti-Ronny Neil, with her quiet reserve, her skeptical glances at the Gambler, the kindness she radiated that stood in counterbalance to Ronny Neil’s malevolence.

I knew almost nothing about her, but I was already certain that Chitra was smart, and Chitra was discerning, but she was also from India. She had been here since she was eleven- she’d told me that in a brief conversation I had strategized into existence the previous Saturday night- but she was still from a foreign country. She spoke English well, having studied it even before moving here, but she spoke in the formal way many foreigners had, suggesting they’re always tripping over something, always making decisions, worried about mistakes.

To me, her foreignness raised the possibility that she might not be able to recognize the furnace of assholery that smoldered inside Ronny Neil. Surely they didn’t have rednecks in Uttar Dinajpur, from which she told me her family had emigrated. They had assholes of their own variety, obviously- singularly Uttar Dinajpur-ish assholes, assholes who would send up asshole flags the instant they entered an Uttar Dinajpur bar or restaurant- but it might be hard for an American instantly to see such a person for who he was. Chitra was clever, but Ronny Neil might nevertheless prove illegible to her. So I had my eye on her. To keep her safe.

Ronny Neil sat next to her, and the two of them started talking quietly. The fact that I couldn’t hear a word of it made me furious, and for a moment I considered getting up, going over to them, inserting myself into the mix. The problem was, I knew it would make me look foolish and desperate, make my situation immeasurably worse.

My position was just fine for the moment. The previous week, after a couple of rapidly consumed cans of Miller beer, I’d managed to work up the courage to sit next to her and casually introduce myself. She’d listened to my bookman advice, laughed at my bookman war stories- a genuine laugh, too, an infectious, almost convulsive giggle that came with mild torso rocking. She talked about the novels she liked, how after the summer she would be starting at Mount Holyoke, where, she had already decided, she would do a dual major in comp lit and philosophy. She loved living in the United States, she said, but she missed Indian music and street food and the dozens of varieties of mangoes you could buy in the markets. The conversation had been marvelous and full of promise, but I hadn’t initiated it until two in the morning, and I had hardly overcome my initial nervousness before she announced she absolutely had to get some sleep.

I saw her the next morning but did nothing more than smile politely and say good morning, lest I betray the fact that I liked her. Now I kept still, averted my eyes for as long as I could before sneaking glances. Then I watched them talk while trying not to think about the dead bodies I’d seen that night. Though “dead bodies” already seemed a bit of sanitizing. I hadn’t seen dead bodies, I’d seen bodies becoming dead. That, surely, ought to keep me from dwelling on Chitra, on the graceful length of her neck, on the vaguest hint of cleavage that peeked out from her white blouse. It ought to have, but somehow it didn’t.

Meanwhile, the Gambler had started talking. He’d been saying something about how it was all in the attitude, about how the people out there wanted what we had to sell.

“Oh yes, my friends,” he cried out. His face was darkening, not with the blood red of exertion, but with the vibrant pink of exuberance. “You know, I see them out there every day. They’re out in front of their homes with their plastic swimming pools and their Big Wheels and their lawn jockeys. You know what they are, don’t you? They’re moochie. They want to buy something. They’re looking around with their greedy little eyes, and they’re thinking, What can I buy? What can I spend my money on that is going to make me feel better about myself?”

The Gambler stopped and unbuttoned the collar of his blue oxford and loosened his tie with one finger like Rodney Dangerfield not getting respect. “See, they don’t understand money. You do. They want to get rid of it. They want you to have it. You know why? Because money is a good thing to have. You know those songs? You know the ones- they tell you money isn’t important. Only love matters. That’s right. Love. You get together with your special love, and as long as you have each other, nothing else counts. You can live in a run-down shack as long as you have love. You can drive a beat-up old car as long as you have love. That’s awful pretty.”