David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

“What is this? Like a riddle?”

“No, Lemuel. It’s not a riddle. It’s a test. I want to see what you can see. And if you can’t at least try to peer past the gauze, there’s no point in knowing what’s on the other side, because no matter what I say, you won’t be able to hear it.”

Melford made a left onto Highland Street, where Bastard and Karen had made their home up until the time of their murder. We cruised about halfway down the block, and I wondered if he was planning on stopping right in front of the trailer. Probably not, I decided. Just casing the neighborhood first.

That turned out to be a smart move, since when we drove past we saw that there was a cop car in the driveway. We almost missed it because the lights were off. No headlights, no blue and red flashes of strobing disaster. In the darkness, with no car lights and no porch lights, a policeman in a brown uniform and a wide hat stood talking to a woman, one hand on her shoulder. And she was crying.

COME ON,” Melford said once we made it safely past the cop, who didn’t hop in his car and come chasing after us. He didn’t even notice us. “What did you expect? They had to find the bodies sooner or later. You can’t be surprised.”

“I was hoping we could get the checkbook,” I said, my tone shrill and nearly hysterical.

“Right. The checkbook. Well, the check wasn’t written out to you, was it? It was written out to a company?”

“Educational Advantage Media. That’s who I work for.”

“Holy cow. You’ve got to love their shamelessness. So, how will they know you were the one providing the educational advantage?”

“I was the only one working that area. Plus my fingerprints are all over the trailer. If they sample everyone’s, they’ll come up with a match for me. Fuck,” I added. I pounded my knee with the palm of my hand.

“Doesn’t prove anything. So, you went there, you tried to sell them some books, it didn’t work out. You have no motive. If you just sit tight, you’ll be fine.” Melford placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

Great. Now the gay assassin is going to make a pass at me. “That isn’t my idea of a solution. Sitting tight and being acquitted.”

The hand, mercifully, went back to the steering wheel. “It won’t get past the grand jury.”

“Wow, that’s comforting. Next you’ll cheer me up by promising me a sentence of nothing more than time served. Just a few minutes ago, you were talking about how unfair it would be for me to even be arrested.”

“Okay, okay.” He held up a hand as if I were his nagging wife. “I’ll think of something.”

Melford parked the car, and for the first time since we saw the police cruiser outside Karen and Bastard’s trailer, I examined my surroundings. We were outside a bar or something like a bar- a run-down-looking shack of a building with peeling white paint and a couple of dozen vehicles, mostly pickups, parked out front. The parking lot was an empty patch of land, pounded down by the weight of tires and drunks.

It wasn’t exactly like the music screeched to a halt when we walked in, but it might as well have. Men looked up from their beer. Men looked up from the pool table. The men at the bar craned their necks to look. No women that I could see. Not a single one.

Part of me wanted to believe that Melford knew exactly what he was doing, but the bar seemed to me a very bad idea. The braggadocio of David Allan Coe blasted from the jukebox and did a fair job of drowning out the sound of blood thumping in my ears. The sight of the cop had so terrified me that a cold pain had ripped across my body, as though someone had stabbed me in the heart with an icicle.

The place was a longish room with a concrete floor and cinder-block walls with a “Miller Time” clock, a flashing Budweiser sign, and a giant poster of buxom Coors girls. There were no chairs, just picnic tables and benches, and in the far corner stood a large, old-fashioned jukebox- the kind with the rounded top. Closer to the surprisingly ornate wooden bar were four well-kept pool tables, all of them occupied. As far as I was concerned, it meant that there were, at any given moment, eight rednecks with weapons at the ready.

Melford led the way to the bar, where we took a seat while he waved over the bartender, a burly, ponytailed man who looked a hard-lived fifty- haggard, with multiple burns on his hands that suggested he’d been letting someone jab at him all night with a lit cigarette. Melford ordered two Rolling Rocks, which the bartender set down with a skeptical thud. I eyed the faded blue tattoos that crept up his forearm. He eyed my turquoise knit tie, which I wished I had remembered to take off. Behind us, pool balls cracked with sharp menace.

“Four dollars,” the bartender said. “You boys want something to eat before the kitchen closes up? Got good burgers here, but Tommy, the cook, is about fifteen minutes away from being too drunk to man the grill.”

“Got that on a timer?” Melford asked.

“Just gotta watch the color of his face. We’re about fifteen minutes away now from him passing out or sitting in the corner and crying. We also take bets on which it’s going to be.”

“I’ll have to wait until I know Tommy better.”

“Fair enough, but the smart money tonight is on tears. So, you boys want burgers?”

Despite everything that happened, I realized I was hungry, a hollowed-out sort of hunger that left me feeling on the brink of organ failure. “I’ll have one,” I said. “Medium rare.”

“You want fries or onion rings?” he asked.

“Onion rings.”

“Just an order of onion rings,” Melford asked, picking at the label on his beer bottle.

“You got it. One burger with rings and one order of just rings.”

“No burger at all,” Melford corrected him. “I’m not having anything, and he’ll just have an order of onion rings. Better make it a double. He looks hungry.”

The bartender leaned forward. “How is it that you know what your friend wants more than he does?”

“How is it you know your cook’s going to be crying and not sleeping?”

The bartender tilted his head in a gesture of concession. “You got a point.”

Melford smiled. “Onion rings.” He put a five on the bar. “Keep the change.”

The bartender gave him a half nod.

“I have to eat onion rings?” I asked. “Is that part of the secret code of ideology, too?”

“Sort of. You want to hang out with me, you have to give up eating meat.”

“I don’t want to hang out with you. I want you out of my life, and I want this day out of my life. Isn’t it enough of a punishment to hang out with you? I have to give up burgers, too?”

“I can understand how you feel,” Melford said. “I don’t take it personally. It’s been a big day for you.”

“Thanks for being so freaking understanding.” I looked away and took a breath to calm myself. I had to remember that just because Melford said Karen and Bastard had it coming didn’t mean they had. It might be best not to piss him off. So I changed the subject. “No meat? What, are you some kind of a vegetarian?”

“Yes, Lemuel, in observing that I don’t eat meat, you have correctly deduced I’m a vegetarian. And you know what? If you knew how animals were tortured, you’d give up eating meat on your own. But you don’t know, and you probably don’t care, so I’m forcing you to give up meat. We’ll backtrack later and you’ll learn why. For now, you can follow me and walk the ethical path.”

“I’m going to take ethics lessons from you?”

“Funny how that works.”

“I’ve never met a vegetarian before,” I said. “No wonder you’re so thin.”