David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

Back in my own room, still shaken from my run-in, I stared at the information I’d copied down and tried to figure out what I was going to do with it. Then, all at once, I knew.

I took out the yellow pages and flipped through it in search of “Private Investigators.” Nothing, but I was redirected to “Investigators.” There were perhaps two dozen listings, but only three ads. I wanted someone who had taken out an ad, because I couldn’t risk some small-timer running a scam- not the way I was planning on handling this. After examining the ads, I went with Chris Denton Investigations. The quarter-page ad featured the silhouette of a man crouching and taking a picture with a telephoto lens. The text assured me that Chris Denton excelled in surveillance, criminal investigations, check-mates (which I assumed had nothing to do with chess), preemployment screening, process serving, employee fraud, missing persons, child custody evidence, contested wills, and loss prevention, whatever that was. More to the point, he could do background checks and record retrieval, which I guessed might be exactly what I wanted.

It was a local number, so I didn’t need my phone card, yet it didn’t seem like a good idea to me to talk in the room, thereby leaving evidence of the call on my bill. So I wrote the information on the same sheet of paper on which I’d copied everything from William Gunn’s business card and headed outside. I’d seen a phone booth behind the motel, where the parking lot met the highway, so I strolled over to the phone booth.

A shrill voice answered on the first ring. “ Denton.”

Here I was mouthing off to Officer Toms about gender equality, and it had never occurred to me that Chris Denton might be a woman. “Oh,” I said stupidly. “I thought you would be a man.”

“I am a man, you asshole,” the voice shot back. “I’m a man who sounds like a woman, okay? Everyone thinks I’m a woman on the phone. Can we move the fuck on?”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry.”

“Don’t sorry me, douche. Just state your business.”

“Okay, can you do a background check on someone for me?”

“How’d you get my number?” he asked.

“From the ad in the phone book.”

“Did the ad say I could do background checks, Sherlock?”

“It might have alluded to something like that.”

“Then you’ve got your fucking answer, don’t you? Look, I’m just finishing up some paperwork. Be at my office in an hour.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m sort of in a tight spot, and I need to do this over the phone.”

“You gonna shove my fee through the phone, too?”

“I’ll give you a credit card number. You can run it first, if you like, just to make sure everything is legit.”

“Can I now?” he snorted. “Thanks so fucking much for the permission. Okay, give me what you have.”

I read him the info off my piece of paper. “I’m looking for anything in the public domain about this guy. Does he have a criminal record? Are there any press articles about him? That sort of thing.”

“Fine,” Denton said.

“I need it pretty fast.”

“Said the priest to the whore. How fast?”

“Today fast,” I said.

A brief pause. “I need four or five hours, but a rush job will cost you. Two hundred.”

It was more than I wanted to spend, and certainly more than I wanted to put on my credit card. I knew I was going to get it from Andy. Even if I told him in advance, gave him the money in advance (which I wouldn’t do, since the last time I did that, he claimed I hadn’t given him anything when the bill came), he’d still give me a hard time, tell me I was wasting his credit (as though credit were like the elastic on a pair of briefs that could get stretched out). But the money had to be spent, so I read him the credit card information and hung up.

When I turned around, Melford’s car was parked directly in front of the booth. I hadn’t seen him pull up. “Howdy, stranger,” he said through the rolled-down window.

The truth? I was happy to see him. Clearly he’d had no problems with Doe and made a clean escape. But that didn’t mean I was ready for more adventures. “No thanks,” I told him.

“We’ve been through this,” Melford said with mock gravity. “Let’s cut to the place where you get in the car.”

“Forget it,” I told him. “I’ve seen people killed, I’ve broken into buildings, I’ve been harassed and hurt by cops and nearly arrested. And you know what the worst thing is? You hung me out to dry, Melford. You were going to let me go down for your crimes. So, if you think I’m getting back in that car with you, you’re crazy.”

“I hung you out to dry?” he asked. “Lemuel, I was right there, every step of the way. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you.”

“Yeah, what were you going to do about it?”

“Who do you think called the sheriff’s department in the first place?” he asked. “You think that nice lady cop just happened to show up? I knew getting someone from the county cops would defuse the situation, so I got them there. I’d have put a bullet through Jim Doe’s head if I had to, but I was hoping to avoid it. I thought you’d want me to avoid it.”

“Wow, that’s kind. No one’s ever refrained from killing a cop for me before.”

“Look, you were in a tight spot, I don’t deny it. But we’re already in a tight spot. You didn’t choose to get into this, and I’m sorry that you’re in it, but you are. You are just going to have to accept that. And when things got hairy, I got you out, didn’t I? You were in trouble, and I fixed the situation. Right?” He grinned at me. “I did, didn’t I?”

He did, but I didn’t quite want to admit it yet, even though I was pleased, maybe even delighted, that I no longer had to believe Melford had betrayed me. The truth was, the Gambler and Jim Doe were looking at me now, and they’d be looking at me regardless of whether or not I was spending time with Melford. Going it alone just didn’t make sense- not when having Melford around would actually keep me safer.

More out of frustration with myself than Melford, I kicked at the dirt and then walked around to the passenger side. “I’m not happy about this.”

“What can you do? You can either watch the world come tumbling down on your ass or you can get the hell out of the way of the rubble.”

“Keep the aphorisms coming. They’re cheering me up.”

Melford studied me, looked me up and down. “You’re very cynical. On the other hand, you’re also perfectly presentable. All washed up, blood off your face. I’m glad to see you’re ready to go.”

“Go where?”

“To play detective.”

H IGH NOON was on the TV, but B.B. didn’t much feel like watching it. He could remember once liking that movie, thinking that Gary Cooper was cool and efficient, bucking up to do what he had to do, but now it seemed dull. Cooper was old compared with his earlier movies, as tired and irrelevant as his character. And as westerns went, it didn’t stack up against the really good ones. Now, Shane. That was a movie.

Feeling good about himself, his future, his phone call, B.B. strolled over to the closet to examine himself in the full-length mirror- not out of vanity, but to make sure his linen suit wasn’t too wrinkled. Always the problem with linen. “Wear it once and throw it in the trash,” Desiree liked to say. He’d been keeping on his sunglasses, even inside, since calling Doe, but now he removed them. The suit looked good, and the black T-shirt, too- crisp and right around his neck. He hated a T-shirt with a sagging neck. The hair was okay. A bit long in the back and thinning in the forehead, but that was that. The leather brown color was more real than nature herself.