David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

“Oh?” She leaned forward, and her large eyes grew larger.

She liked me. She had to like me. She was flirting with me. Wasn’t she?

“The thing is…,” I began. I tugged on the sugar packet again, this time almost hard enough to rip it and send sugar sprawling over the table. That would be bad. “The thing is, I kind of get the feeling that Ronny Neil is interested in you.”

“Ronny Neil Cramer,” she said wistfully. She put a hand to her chin and let her eyes roll upward in delight. “Chitra Cramer. Mrs. Ronny Neil Cramer. What colors do you think for my bridesmaids?”

“You’re teasing me,” I observed.

“Can you seriously think that I would need to be warned off a fellow like that?”

“I don’t know. I figured, you know, you’re not American, and he’s such an American type. He might not be as obvious to you as he is to me.”

“Mmm,” she said.

“Have I offended you?”

She said nothing for a moment. Then, a massive, dazzling smile, white against the vibrant red of her lips. “No. Not at all. I only wanted to make you squirm a bit.”

On the way back to the motel, Chitra kept glancing over at me and grinning in a way that felt absolutely wicked. It was driving me crazy in virtually every way.

“What exactly is so funny?” I finally said.

“I grew up in a family of lapsed Hindus,” she said. “My parents aren’t religious, and we ate fish and chicken, but never red meat- out of habit, I suppose. I’ve never had a hamburger.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’ve never had one. Do you think I should?”

“Well, they taste good, but as a new vegetarian, I can’t really endorse a move like that.”

“You know what?” She was now twirling a little strand of hair above her right ear. Her ears were unusually small. “I think we should go out for hamburgers.”

“Except that I’m a vegetarian. You’re forgetting that part.”

“I’ve never had one, and you’re not supposed to have them. That’s what will make it fun. Don’t you find the forbidden exciting?”

I could think of no way to tell her that I’d had enough of the forbidden in the last twenty-four hours to last me some time. “Hamburgers aren’t forbidden to me. I’ve given them up.”

“Well, now you’re challenging me, aren’t you? I’m going to make it my mission to cause you to lapse.”

“I have pretty good willpower.”

“We’ll see.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that everyone has a breaking point.”

“Not me,” I told her. “Once I decide to do something, that’s it.”

“Oh? Suppose I offered to sleep with you if you eat a hamburger?”

I stopped in my tracks.

She let out a laugh, playful and strangely innocent. “I’m not actually offering to sleep with you,” she said, not stopping so that I had to dart to catch up. “I’m just making a point. You think you have an iron will, but we’ll see.”

“You’re assuming I want to sleep with you.” I had no idea why I would say such a thing, but I felt exposed.

“I suppose I am,” she said.

I had no response, and we walked for a moment in strained if amicable silence. I decided it was time to change the subject and raise the question I’d wanted to ask. It needed to seem casual, relaxed. “So, what’s it like being in the Gambler’s crew?”

She studied me as we walked. “Why?” Her voice was strangely flat.

“No reason. I’m just wondering. I work for a nice guy, but you work for the big boss. I was wondering what it was like.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s pretty much the same as anyone else’s. Or maybe I haven’t been around long enough to know.”

“Is he always like he is in the meetings? You know? So vibrant?”

“Sometimes.”

“Does he ever talk about his own boss?”

There was a pause now. A long one. An unnaturally long one, as if she were trying to think about how best to answer. “Why are you asking me all of this?”

“I’m a curious guy.”

“Well, there are better things to be curious about.”

“Like what?”

“Like me,” she said.

And that pretty much killed my line of questioning.

SETTING UP A PLACE TO MEET was the tricky part, since the Gambler didn’t want to be seen with Jim Doe in public, and he figured the feeling was mutual. That meant that the police trailer and restaurant were out. So more often than not, they met in the Gambler’s motel room. Doe had complained about the arrangements, finding them too gay, but as he’d been unable to come up with an acceptable alternative, the arrangements had stuck.

Now he sat in the Gambler’s room, drinking a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, with a little Rebel Yell splashed in for good measure. It helped him to keep his head clear.

The Gambler gazed at him, looking in that high-and-mighty way that made Doe want to stick his fist through the Gambler’s face. Doe saw how this was shaping up. The dust had cleared, all of Doe’s hard work was getting lost in the haze of greed, and now that asshole was trying to figure out who was looking to rip him off and how.

“You’re still walking funny,” the Gambler said. “You should see a doctor about that.”

“I just pulled something moving the bodies.”

“You were walking funny before we got to the bodies. If you’re having leg pain or something, you shouldn’t ignore it. Have a doctor check it out.”

Doe didn’t need this bullshit. “It ain’t nothing. Jesus. I got enough problems without you trying to be my mother.”

“Okay, fine. I’m just saying to see a doctor, is all.” He paused for a minute to recover his momentum. “I talked to the kid.”

“Yeah?” Doe asked. “What he have to say?”

“Fuck-all. They were going to buy, but balked at the last minute. What I don’t get is, why would they invite him in, let him sit there for three hours, pretend they had kids?”

“Karen has kids,” Doe said. “Had them, anyways. From her first husband. Little smart-ass fucker named Fred George, if you can believe that. Two first names. Worked for the bank and seemed to think that was some sort of big deal, something everyone ought to just marvel at, like being a pro football player or something. He took off and grabbed the kids when Karen first started doing meth.”

“Why would she pretend she wanted to buy encyclopedias? She didn’t know about the arrangement with me, did she?”

Doe didn’t know the answer, but he knew that the Gambler thought he knew the answer, thought he was being clever, getting the best of the conversation. “I don’t fucking know, Gamb. I don’t think she did. And as for why, I can’t guess what went on in her head. I don’t know what she was doing there with Bastard. Maybe he was looking to rip us off, you know. Maybe he had a plan to stash the money there, maybe he was doing a deal with that money and it went bad. Could be a lot of things.”

“Kid said something else.”

“Yeah?” He took a sip of the coffee. It could have used more Yell.

“Said he saw you hanging around outside.”

“He don’t know me. How’s he gonna say he saw me?”

The Gambler clucked his lips impatiently. “He gave a description that matched you.”

“Handsome guy?”

The Gambler stared. “What?”

“That’s a description that would point you right to me. Handsome guy?”

“Fucking hell, Doe. Is this all a big joke to you? We got dead bodies piled up to our dicks, we’ve got missing money, and I’ve got B.B. on my case.”

“B.B. is always on your case.”

“Yeah, well, he isn’t always on my case so much that he’s even as we speak in a car on his way here to find out where the fuck his money is.”