Harlan Coben: Just One Look

Scott Duncan sat across from the killer.

The windowless room of thundercloud gray was awkward and still, stuck in that lull when the music first starts and neither stranger is sure how to begin the dance. Scott tried a noncommittal nod. The killer, decked out in prison-issue orange, simply stared. Scott folded his hands and put them on the metal table. The killer – his file said he was Monte Scanlon, but there was no way that was his real name – might have done likewise had his hands not been cuffed.

Why, Scott wondered yet again, am I here?

His specialty was prosecuting corrupt politicians – something of a vigorous cottage industry in his home state of New Jersey – but three hours ago, Monte Scanlon, a mass executioner by any standards, had finally broken his silence to make a demand.

That demand?

A private meeting with Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Duncan.

This was strange for a large variety of reasons, but here were two: one, a killer should not be in a position to make demands; two, Scott had never met or even heard of Monte Scanlon.

Scott broke the silence. “You asked to see me?”

“Yes.”

Scott nodded, waited for him to say more. He didn’t. “So what can I do for you?”

Monte Scanlon maintained the stare. “Do you know why I’m here?”

Scott glanced around the room. Besides Scanlon and himself, four people were present. Linda Morgan, the United States attorney, leaned against the back wall trying to give off the ease of Sinatra against a lamppost. Standing behind the prisoner were two beefy, nearly identical prison guards with tree-stump arms and chests like antique armoires. Scott had met the two cocky agents before, had seen them go about their task with the sereneness of yoga instructors. But today, with this well-shackled prisoner, even these guys were on edge. Scanlon’s lawyer, a ferret reeking of checkout-counter cologne, rounded out the group. All eyes were on Scott.

“You killed people,” Scott answered. “Lots of them.”

“I was what is commonly called a hit man. I was” – Scanlon paused – “an assassin for hire.”

“On cases that don’t involve me.”

“True.”

Scott’s morning had started off normal enough. He’d been drafting a subpoena on a waste-disposal executive who was paying off a small-town mayor. Routine matter. Everyday graft in the Garden State of New Jersey. That had been, what, an hour, an hour and a half ago? Now he sat across the bolted-down table from a man who had murdered – according to Linda Morgan’s rough estimate – one hundred people.

“So why did you ask for me?”

Scanlon looked like an aging playboy who might have squired a Gabor sister in the fifties. He was small, wizened even. His graying hair was slicked back, his teeth cigarette-yellow, his skin leathery from midday sun and too many long nights in too many dark clubs. No one in the room knew his real name. When captured, his passport read Monte Scanlon, an Argentinean national, age fifty-one. The age seemed about right, but that would be about it. His fingerprints had not popped up in the NCIC computer banks. Facial recognition software had come up with a big goose egg.

“We need to speak alone.”

“This is not my case,” Scott said again. “There’s a U.S. attorney assigned to you.”

“This has nothing to do with her.”

“And it does with me?”

Scanlon leaned forward. “What I’m about to tell you,” he said, “will change your entire life.”

Part of Scott wanted to wiggle his fingers in Scanlon’s face and say, “Ooooo.” He was used to the captured criminal mindset – their serpentine maneuverings, their quest for an edge, their search for a way out, their overblown sense of importance. Linda Morgan, perhaps sensing his thoughts, shot a warning glare across his bow. Monte Scanlon, she’d told him, had worked for various connected families for the better part of thirty years. RICO hungered for his cooperation in a starving-man-near-a-buffet way. Since his capture, Scanlon had refused to talk. Until this morning.

So here Scott was.

“Your boss,” Scanlon said, gesturing with his chin at Linda Morgan, “she hopes for my cooperation.”

“You’re going to get the needle,” Morgan responded, still trying to give off the scent of nonchalance. “Nothing you say or do will change that.”

Scanlon smiled. “Please. You fear losing what I have to say much greater than I fear death.”

“Right. Another tough guy who doesn’t fear death.” She peeled herself off the wall. “Know what, Monte? The tough guys are always the ones who soil their pants when we strap them to the gurney.”

Again Scott fought off the desire to wiggle his fingers, this time at his boss. Scanlon kept smiling. His eyes never left Scott’s. Scott didn’t like what he saw. They were, as one would expect, black and shiny and cruel. But – and Scott might have been imagining things – maybe he saw something else there. Something beyond the standard vacancy. There seemed to be a pleading in the eyes; Scott couldn’t turn away from them. There was regret there maybe.

Remorse even.

Scott looked up at Linda and nodded. She frowned, but Scanlon had called her bluff. She touched one of the beefy guards on the shoulder and gestured for them to leave. Rising from his seat, Scanlon’s lawyer spoke for the first time. “Anything he says is off the record.”

“Stay with them,” Scanlon ordered. “I want you to make sure that they don’t listen in.”

The lawyer picked up his briefcase and followed Linda Morgan to the door. Soon Scott and Scanlon were alone. In the movies, killers are omnipotent. In real life, they are not. They don’t escape from handcuffs in the middle of a high-security federal penitentiary. The Beef Brothers, Scott knew, would be behind the one-way glass. The intercom, per Scanlon’s instructions, would be off. But they’d all be watching.

Scott shrugged a well? at him.

“I am not your typical assassin for hire.”

“Uh huh.”

“I have rules.”

Scott waited.

“For example, I only kill men.”

“Wow,” Scott said. “You’re a prince.”

Scanlon ignored the sarcasm. “That is my first rule. I kill only men. No women.”

“Right. Tell me, does rule two have anything to do with not putting out until the third date?”

“You think I’m a monster?”

Scott shrugged as if the answer was obvious.

“You don’t respect my rules?”

“What rules? You kill people. You make up these so-called rules because you need the illusion of being human.”

Scanlon seemed to consider that. “Perhaps,” he allowed, “but the men I’ve killed were scum. I was hired by scum to kill scum. I am no more than a weapon.”

“A weapon?” Scott repeated.

“Yes.”

“A weapon doesn’t care who it kills, Monte. Men, women, grannies, little kids. A weapon doesn’t differentiate.”

Scanlon smiled. “Touché.”

Scott rubbed his palms on his pant legs. “You didn’t call me here for an ethics class. What do you want?”

“You’re divorced, aren’t you, Scott?”