David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

“Bobby, this is all a big mistake, and when I meet this guy he’s going to tell you it was all a big mistake. Believe me, I have no interest in talking to any reporters.”

“Sure,” Bobby said.

We were now outside the Gambler’s door. Bobby gave it a curt, irritated knock, and in an instant the Gambler opened up. He flashed a murderous glance and mouthed something that I couldn’t quite get.

Sitting near a glass table by the far window sat a man in a white linen suit with a black T-shirt. His eyes were hidden behind his glasses, but I had the feeling he wasn’t looking at me. Not really. I thought that odd, and I thought that he didn’t look like any reporter I had ever seen. Not that I’d ever seen any in real life, but this guy was way more Miami Vice than Lou Grant.

When the door opened wider I saw another man, sitting on the opposite side of the glass table. A steno pad rested against one folded knee, and he twirled a felt-tip pen, fingers twitching with desire to write. This clearly was the reporter.

It was Melford.

ISTARED AND STARTED TO SPEAK, but I checked myself. I’d never asked what Melford did for a living, and he might as well be a reporter as anything else. He might as well sell me down the river as anything else, too. But the thing was, Melford wasn’t going to screw me over lightly, not when we knew each other’s secrets the way we did. At least that’s what I had to assume.

So the best thing to do was to sit tight and follow Melford’s lead and hope to hell this thing didn’t turn out to be the total disaster it looked like.

Bobby took a seat on the dresser, the Gambler on the bed. I eyed the older man with the linen suit, to whom I hadn’t been introduced. I had the sense that this guy was important, that he was maybe beyond names or something scary like that. Like maybe this was B. B. Gunn.

“So, you’re Lem,” Melford said, standing up. “Melford Kean. It’s finally nice to meet you in person.” He held out a hand. His hair had been combed back. He looked almost like a regular person, though a tall and pale one.

We shook. “Um, we’ve never met before in any form. In person or out of person.”

“Lem,” Melford said with a grave voice. He shook his head as he sat back down. “It’s clear to me now that you weren’t supposed to talk to me. If during our phone conversations you had told me that, I wouldn’t have betrayed your confidence. But you didn’t tell me, did you?”

“I haven’t told you anything about anything,” I said. “We’ve never spoken.”

“Let’s be honest,” Melford said. “There’s no point in lying.”

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Should I go along with him or not, though not going along with him would have involved exposing my connection to the murders. But there was something encouraging in Melford’s eye, and I was almost certain he wanted me to keep going the way I had been.

“Look, I’m sure you’re very good at your job,” I said, “but there’s some fundamental mistake here. I’ve never spoken to you about my work. I’ve never spoken to you about selling encyclopedias. And I’ve never spoken to you on the phone.”

Melford shook his head. “I’m sorry I got you in trouble, but denying it isn’t going to help. I think maybe you should tell us why you called me in the first place. Maybe we can hash out some of your complaints in front of these guys. In any case,” he offered with a self-satisfied smile, “I’d like to hear how they respond to what you have to say.”

I was floundering. I didn’t know what Melford expected of me. Should I keep denying the charges? Would that be enough? And why the hell would he do this to me without giving me a heads-up?

“You need to listen to me,” I said. “There’s been a mistake.”

“Jesus fucking dick,” the Gambler snapped. “B.B., what do you want to do with this asshole?”

The man in the linen suit looked up. “I don’t really know. I’m waiting for Desiree to call me back. I want to talk to her before I make any decisions.”

The Gambler snorted at me. “I’m getting sick of hearing you deny it. You’ve spoken to him, and we know it. Now, say whatever it is you want to say so we can tell him what bullshit it is.”

“Well, I think maybe we should go a little more gently with Mr. Altick,” Melford suggested. “The fact is, he was shy enough about talking to me in the first place that he disguised his voice on the phone.”

I suddenly felt like I was being prompted. “Disguised my voice?” I asked.

“Yeah, it was a pretty good job. You sounded totally different with your southern accent and all. It was very convincing. And your lisp.”

And that’s when I almost got it. I hadn’t realized that Melford had overheard enough of my encounter with Ronny Neil and Scott to have picked up on it, but clearly he had. I still had no idea why he was doing this, but at least the what was clear. “I don’t have a lisp.”

“I can see that now.”

“Hold on one second,” Bobby said. “The guy who called you had a lisp.”

“That’s right.”

“Did he have kind of a high-pitched voice?”

Melford nodded. “Now that you mention it.”

“Fuck,” Bobby said.

“Scott Garland, that piece of shit,” the Gambler said.

“I don’t get it.” Melford looked at them blankly.

“You fucking asshole.” The Gambler slammed his palm down hard on the table and then jabbed a finger in my direction. “Did you have to piss him off so much that he’d do something like this to get back at you?”

“I think,” Bobby proposed, “that you may be taking this out on the wrong person.” He looked at me. “I owe you an apology, Lemmy. I should have known you wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Give me a fucking break,” the Gambler groaned. “Get out of here,” he told me.

“Wait,” B.B. said. “I don’t get it.”

“If I could suggest something else about Scott and Ronny Neil-,” I began, but I didn’t get any further.

“Get the fuck out of here!” the Gambler shouted again. And I did.

From the railings I could see Chitra down at the pool, drinking a tall boy and laughing at something that Yvette from Jacksonville was saying. No sign of Ronny Neil or Scott, and I had a feeling that the two of them would be disappearing pretty soon. The Gambler wasn’t going to take this lightly.

Melford’s ruse had been brilliant. He’d taken the heat off me while putting it onto my enemy. Granted, this would have been a lot better if he had warned me. But maybe not. Maybe Melford could tell that I wasn’t built for this kind of deception and that preparation would only have made things seem false.

None of that explained why he would bother to show up at all. To help me exact petty revenge against Ronny Neil and Scott because he’d seen them picking on me? It didn’t ring true.

I glanced down at Chitra once more. I wanted to get that room with her, more than ever. But first I needed to make a call.

Back in my room, I dialed the number and a weary-sounding Miami Herald operator picked up. I asked if there was such a thing as a night desk editor. I hadn’t known that I was aware of any such position, but there clearly was, because without responding the operator put me through to a ringing line.

In a second, a woman picked up the phone and mumbled her name with a fatigued slur. Something McSomething.

“I don’t know if you can answer this,” I said, “but I’m calling from outside of Jacksonville, and I’m wondering if you have a reporter named Melford Kean on staff.”

The woman laughed. “Kean, huh? What’s the trouble?”