David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

“You’re kidding. I hate this place. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“I think you’re the kidder. This is the land without art or values or even the most basic cultural orientation. Nothing matters but real estate and shopping malls. There are more golf courses than schools, prefab housing subdivisions growing like cancers, an aging and dangerous driving population, the Klan, drug lords, hurricanes, and twelve-month summers.”

“Those sound like bad things to me.”

He shook his head. “In Florida, you get to live in perpetual irony. It keeps you from settling into false consciousness.”

“I just want to get out and never come back,” I said.

“Well, there’s that position, too, I guess.”

We rode in silence for another ten minutes until I asked where we were going.

“You’ll see.”

“I want to know now.” While I might have felt a strange liking for Melford, despite all I had seen, I couldn’t stand this. I couldn’t stand being boxed out and left in the dark.

“You’re awful curious, aren’t you?”

“I just don’t want to be shot in the head or anything.”

I regretted it the instant I said it- not because I had endangered myself, but because it seemed to hurt Melford’s feelings. His eyes narrowed and he looked away.

“Surely by now you realize I don’t solve all of my problems with violence,” he told me. “Violence is a tool. It’s like a hammer. It has its uses, and it is great for those uses. But if you use a hammer to change a baby’s diaper, there’s going to be trouble. I chose to use violence with those two because I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.” I didn’t, and it was clear from my tone that I didn’t.

Melford shook his head. “I don’t enjoy hurting anyone, Lemuel. I only do it when there’s no choice.”

“But you won’t tell me why.”

“I’ll tell you why when you can tell me why we have prisons.”

“I don’t have the energy for your prison riddle. I want to know why.”

“And I want to tell you, but until you’re ready, there’s no point. It would be like telling a four-year-old about relativity. There may be a will to understand, but not a capacity.”

I thought to blurt out something defensive, like he thought I was no smarter than a four-year-old, but I knew that wasn’t what he meant.

“For now,” Melford was saying, “what’s important is that we’re in this together. You are in serious trouble, my friend. We both are. There is dangerous stuff going on around here, and we’ve had the bad luck to land in the middle of it.”

“But I don’t have anything to do with it. It’s not my fault.”

“That’s right. It’s not your fault. And if your house was hit by lightning and started to burn, that wouldn’t be your fault, either. So do you stand there and shout at the flames, or do you do what you can to save yourself and put out the fire?”

I didn’t have an answer because he was just convincing enough to piss me off.

Melford stopped outside a Chinese restaurant and announced that it was time for lunch. I was reasonably hungry, not having eaten much of my breakfast. The dairy-free oatmeal had tasted like Elmer’s glue, and I’d been too nervous about talking to Chitra to try to force it down.

“Chinese restaurants are great for vegetarians,” he told me as we sat at a table in the smallish dining room lined with red wallpaper flocked with gold Buddhas. There were an additional two Buddha statues by the door, a tank full of white and orange koi, and a small fountain. “They tend to have lots of nonmeat options, and they don’t traditionally cook with dairy.” He poured tea into white cups with cracked enamel.

Eating breakfast with Chitra, I’d been determined to abandon all animal products. Now, here with Melford, I wanted to be a carnivore. This morning, I’d wanted to impress Chitra with my sensitive soul. Now, I wanted to impress Melford with my defiance. I needed to decide if I agreed with the principle or not- if I wanted to be a vegetarian or if I just wanted to stay away from meat when I thought it might impress the ladies.

I looked at the menu. “What about fish?”

Melford raised an eyebrow. “What about them?”

“Do you eat fish? The sea bass with black bean sauce looks pretty good.”

“Do I exclude fish from my moral calculus because they live in the water instead of land? Is that what you’re asking me?”

“I think I get the answer,” I said, “but come on, we’re talking about fish here. Not fluffy bunnies or Bessie the cow. They’re fish. We put hooks in their mouths every day.”

“So, cruelty justifies itself. You, of all people, ought to know better than that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when I came up to you with those two guys at the motel last night, I had the feeling that it wasn’t the first time some mindless assholes decided to turn you into a pincushion. The fact that it’s happened before doesn’t mean it’s okay for it to happen again. The fact that we’re cruel to fish doesn’t mean we should be cruel to them. Just because they live underwater and have scales instead of skin or fur doesn’t make it okay.”

I sighed. “Fine.” When the waitress came I ordered the vegetable lo mein. Melford ordered vegetable dumplings.

“I’m not especially hungry,” he said.

“Then why are we here?”

Melford shrugged. “Mostly I wanted to see if the woman following us would come in with us.”

“What woman?”

“She was driving a Mercedes, and now she’s at the table behind you. Don’t turn around. Actually, no need to bother, since it looks like she’s heading over here.”

The woman came around and stood between us and looked us over as though deciding which of us she might choose to bring home. She was pretty and tall, dark blond shoulder-length hair, rounded features that would have once been considered hyperfeminine and now seemed girlish. As if to offset that effect, she dressed to draw attention, wearing tight pink jeans and a nearly translucent white blouse that exposed her black bra underneath. “You don’t want to let him eat fish?” She was now looking over sunglasses at Melford, her eyebrows knit together. “Why do you make him miserable about his lunch- boss your friend around like that?”

We were silent for a moment. Finally I ventured, “He’s not really making me miserable.”

“He’s giving you a hard time, isn’t he?” She then looked at Melford. “Are you a bully?”

“He’s not a bully,” I said, not sure why I should stand up for Melford or defend him to this woman, whoever she might be.

“Sometimes people are so bullied that they don’t even know they’re being bullied,” she told me. Then she looked at Melford. “Isn’t what people eat a matter for their own choice?”

“No,” said Melford, nothing but kindness in his voice. When I said no it came out blunt and hostile and defensive. He made it sound like an invitation. “Whether or not to wear clothing that exposes our underwear is a matter of choice. Whether or not to apply lipstick or go to the movies or enter the goofy golf tournament are matters of choice. When you do something that inflicts suffering on another, then it becomes a moral question.”

The woman looked at him in a way that seemed both sly and appraising. “You know what?” she said. “You just might be more interesting than I thought at first. Can I join you?”

“I’d be delighted,” Melford said.

She sat down and angled her chair slightly toward Melford and put her sunglasses in the breast pocket of her diaphanous blouse. “I’m Desiree,” she said. And as they shook, Melford glanced at a series of lines drawn on the back of her hand. He gently kept hold of her fingers for a moment, almost as if he were getting ready to kiss her hand. “Hsieh?” he asked.