David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

And then he did that odd thing. His arms were out, flailing wide, as if he were about to hug a bear, and he just paused, held the pose in the air. He didn’t do this every session, not even every weekend, but I’d seen him do it three or four times before. It was weird theater, but the crowd loved it. Everyone broke out into applause and cheers while the Gambler held the position for twenty, maybe thirty seconds, and then he went back to his rant.

“Yeah,” he said, as though he hadn’t been playing statue, “those words are nice, but those songs don’t tell you about when the guy from that better neighborhood drives by in his brand-new Cadillac on his way to his beautiful home, and he winks at that in-love woman standing in front of her run-down shack. See, now that beat-up car don’t seem like it’s enough.

“Those people you sell to, they’re looking for something. And so are you. They’re looking for what you can give them- a sense of doing the right thing. My Lord, friends, it is so beautiful. You believe in God? You better thank God right now for helping you to find this job, this job that lets you help others while you help yourself.”

This went on for another half an hour. The Gambler made those who had scored feel like royalty, and those who had blanked would burn to get back out there and try again. He possessed and harnessed an incredible energy that I saw and understood, even though it left me unmoved. Where everyone else fed off his enthusiasm, I saw a core of meanness, as though it were not money but anger that kept him going. I saw the guy who would happily steal the poor in-love woman from her poor but in-love man just for the pleasure of meanness.

“Now, there’s one more thing,” the Gambler told the crowd. He was winded, slightly bent, and breathing deeply. “I just learned that there may be a reporter who’s interested in us. I don’t know the details, but he’s gonna be taking a look at what we do. May already be here among us, for all I know. And let me tell you a little something about the news, folks, ENCYCLOPEDIA SALESMEN BRING KNOWLEDGE AND OPPORTUNITY TO NEEDY FAMILIES doesn’t make as good a headline as ENCYCLOPEDIA SALESMEN TRICK CUSTOMERS. Hard as it is to believe, that’s how they’re going to want to show us. So if a reporter comes up to any of you, I don’t want you to say anything. Not a thing other than ‘No comment.’ You hear? You find out their name, who they work for, get a business card if you can, and bring it to me. Are we all on the same page?”

“Yes!” the room roared.

“These people want to stop you from making money and our customers from learning. I don’t know what the hell their problem is, but as long as I’m head of this crew, we’re going to keep on making the world a better place, and we’re gonna make money while we do it.”

After the meeting, everyone began to file out by the pool, the way we did every night. I moved through the crowd, trying to keep an eye on Chitra. I heard her say something to Ronny Neil and walk off. He hesitated and followed, but I got the sense they weren’t going together.

By the pool, the crew bosses would be grabbing cases of tall boys, Bud or Miller or Coors or whatever was cheapest, and shoving them in coolers. Someone would bring out a radio or a tape player. If people in the rooms above them minded the noise, we never heard about it.

I always joined them, at least for a while, but that night I wasn’t up to it. I needed to be alone. The after-sales meeting had been a torture, but at least it had distracted me for a few minutes; now, alone again, I felt like I had to get away. I wasn’t able to make idle conversation, to laugh at stupid jokes. I was afraid that if I had a beer or two, I’d start to cry.

I went back to the motel room. It had two beds shared by four guys- Ronny Neil demanded his own bed, and Scott and Kevin were willing to share, which meant I ended up on the floor. We didn’t pay for the motel ourselves, so I couldn’t complain. It was hard to tell how much was the room and how much the roommates, but when I walked in, the scents of mold and sweat and cigarettes and something stale and crusty slapped my senses. Even so, the feeling of solitude and privacy comforted me.

I sat by myself for a moment, staring at the blank, gray face of the TV. Maybe there was something about the murders. Maybe I should be watching. I continued to stare, afraid of what I might see or not see, until, in a surge of bravery, I lunged forward and turned it on.

The late news would be long over by now, but I figured if there was a murder, the local news stations would jump at the chance to use their generally useless live broadcast equipment. Nothing. No police cars or helicopters hovering over the mobile home. I sat at the edge of the bed, hands pressed against the tattered bedspread that smelled like a mix of ashtray and aftershave, and stared with unfocused eyes at Johnny Carson, who was laughing hysterically at Eddie Murphy. I didn’t really know who or what Eddie Murphy was imitating, but I took comfort in Johnny Carson’s appreciation. Could I really have witnessed a murder in a world full of Carson ’s belly laughs?

I wanted to embrace the doubt, but there were too many questions. So I opened the night table drawer and took out the phone book to look up Oldham Health Services. Nothing in the yellow pages or the business white pages. It didn’t prove anything. It could be reasonably close by without being in the same county, but unless I knew where it was, I didn’t see how I could get a number to call them and ask them who they were and- and what? If they knew a guy named Bastard? That wasn’t exactly a conversation I wanted to have.

I stood up and looked out the window, pressing the thick brownish curtain to one side and trying not to cough from the storm of dust I’d unleashed. About thirty book people were out now. The tinkle of music and laughter filtered through the window. I’d flipped off the gurgling air conditioner for a moment so I could hear what there was to hear. Through the glass I could just discern the furiously optimistic jangle of “Walking on Sunshine.” That song was everywhere that summer, and as much as I hated it, its rhythms pumped with an undeniable pull. It announced cheerfully that people were having fun somewhere else. Quite possibly everywhere else. And sure, it was stupid, mind-numbing fun, but it was still fun, and sitting in a tobacco-saturated motel room with globs of ancient semen encrusted into the carpet, trying to decide if I’d really seen two people gunned down that night, was a hell of a lot less fun than walking on sunshine down to the pool, drinking watery beer, and possibly even flirting with Chitra.

I looked out the window again and there was Chitra, sitting on the edge of a slatted reclining chair, the sort sunbathers across the country- the world, for all I knew- endured in order to tan themselves. A tall boy was wrapped around those long, silver-ringed, red-tipped fingers. Like everyone else, she still wore her selling clothes- in her case, black slacks and white blouse, so she looked like a waitress. A beautiful waitress.

The fact was, I was going to be eighteen in January, and this virginity business was beginning to get me down. Not in a frenetic, must-visit-the-whorehouse, Porky’s sort of way, but more in a life-is-passing-me-by way. It felt as though everyone I knew had been invited to a party from which I was barred. I could hear the music and the peals of laughter and the clinking of crystal champagne flutes, but I couldn’t get in.

From my room, I could make out Chitra’s distant smiling face. It was a big, easy, open, and unself-conscious grin. She was one of those pretty girls who didn’t fully appreciate or factor in the effect pretty girls had on men, so she believed the world to be a much nicer place than it was. The brutality of people like Ronny Neil remained invisible to her not only because she wouldn’t know a redneck if he did doughnuts on her lawn in his four-by-four, but also because they weren’t assholes around her, were they? They didn’t insult her, crowd her space, make her feel that only the thinnest gossamer thread kept her safe from a monumental ass kicking. No, they tripped over themselves, they told her how nice she looked, they gave up their seats for her, they offered her a piece of Kit Kat. And for a moment, I felt an incredible jolt of envy- envy not of those who were close to Chitra, but of Chitra herself and that beautiful, protected, fantastical universe into which she’d been given a free pass.