The Ethical Assassin

People glanced at us as we walked in, offered a few friendly nods, but no waves, no one shouted, “Hey, come over here and join us.” All of which was fine by me. I didn’t need my humiliation to go public.

They led me to one of the booths and pushed me in. Scott blocked me, and Ro

“Most important meal of the day,” he said. “There’s a lot of people don’t know that.”

The waitress, a plump blonde in her late twenties, came by and began to put down the table settings.

“How you doing this morning, darling?” Ro

“Just fine, baby.”

It was going to be one of those god-awful polite exchanges, full of empty endearments, and somehow that infuriated me more than my near abduction. “Only two,” I said to her. “I won’t be staying.”

“Yeah, you will,” Scott said.

“No, I won’t. Get up and let me out of here.”

“Don’t mind him,” Ro

I shook my head. “Scott, get out of my way.”

“Just sit and shut,” he said.

“Juth thit and thut,” Ro

I turned to the waitress. This was a big and enormously dangerous gamble, but I couldn’t live with myself if I backed down now. I was done with backing down, at least for the moment. “Call the police, please.” I hardly wanted the cops around, but I wasn’t in Meadowbrook Grove, so it was worth at least conjuring the idea of law enforcement.

Her eyes narrowed. “You serious, hon?”

I nodded. She nodded back.

“Now, hold on,” Ro

I pushed my way out and past Scott, avoiding eye contact with the waitress or any of the other bookmen. I didn’t know how they read this exchange, and I didn’t want to know. Instead, I turned to Ro

Maybe if it had been a movie, something dark would have crossed his face. He would have recognized he’d gone too far, and he would have winced, pushed himself back into the padding of the booth. That was the myth: Bullies are cowards, and if you stand up to them, they’ll back down. It was the most insidious of fables, of course. It was the lie that parents told their children because they liked to tell it to themselves; it was an excuse to avoid the social awkwardness of getting involved, of standing up for their kids, of facing the bullies’ parents, surely as frightening and unhinged as their issue.

Ro

“I guess we’ll just see you later, then,” Ro

Inside the Waffle House, everything had been cold with air-conditioning and vibrant with energy. There had been loud conversations, music, the sizzle of the grill, the ring of the cash register, the clink of coins dropped on a table for tips. Outside, the world was hot and still and sticky. I trembled in tight little spasms, fight or flight pounding through my system, but it had suddenly become distant, as though the conflict with Ro

There would be consequences. I knew it. I knew that my situation had grown almost inconceivably dangerous. This was no longer a matter of boys calling one another names or the occasional fingers flicked hotly against earlobes. This was deadly and dangerous. Anything could come at any time and from anywhere.

I squinted across the parking lot and saw Chitra making her way toward the restaurant. She walked with her head down, slightly slouched, and her gait tended to be a bit shambling. It was quite possibly unsexy, but I found it remarkably endearing- and therefore utterly sexy. Fu

She caught my eye and smiled. “Oh, you’ve eaten already?”

I was sure she was looking for company, and I might have been as acceptable a companion as any of a dozen others. Or I was nearly sure, because Melford had said she’d thought I was cute. “No,” I said. “There’s an IHOP about a quarter mile up the road. Let’s go there?”

“What’s wrong with the Waffle House?”

“I can’t believe that’s a serious question,” I said with a forced grin. I didn’t want to tell her about Scott and Ro

Chitra didn’t actually say that she wanted to go down the road, but somehow we were walking there, keeping to the ragged side of the street, trying not to stray too much into the weeds unless a car or a mammoth truck came barreling past. Every ten paces or so, I would sneak a look at her profile, angular and dark and breathtakingly beautiful. A couple of times she caught me, gave me a half grin, and then looked away. I didn’t know how to take it, but I had a feeling that maybe those little half grins would be enough to get me through this mess.

Inside the restaurant, which smelled deeply of maple syrup, we sat down and watched our waitress place before us coffee in thick white cups with droplets spilled over the side. It felt like permission to start talking in earnest. I didn’t know what I had to say.

“This is the first time we’ve been alone since last week,” Chitra said.

That sounded promising. “I guess it is.” Think of something clever. Something witty and seductive and disarming. “It presents all kinds of opportunities.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Such as?”

Had I gone too far? Had I been cheeky? Too suggestive? I needed to make a quick recovery. “For conversation. I mean, not to be critical of anyone, but you’re not like the other book people.”

“Neither are you.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“How do you mean?” She smiled slyly at her coffee cup.

My cheeks burned. “You just seem, you know, more together than a lot of the others. You’re going to a women’s college and all.”

She gave me a look of pleasant surprise. I’d scored a point, thanks to Melford’s sensitivity training.

“I expect it will be a friendlier place for me than the world of book sales,” she said.

“I’ll bet. You know, I never asked you. How does someone like you end up here?”

She shrugged, maybe not very comfortable with the question. “Summer came around and I needed extra money, and more than I could make working at a store in the mall.”

“I know how that goes.” I had already told her about my quest to raise money for Columbia.

“I wish I could have taken a year off like you. My father owns a dry-cleaning business, and he had a problem with his crooked landlord, and that ended up with my father having some debts. But he refuses to let me offer him any money from my college account. So I’m trying to earn extra cash and take the burden off them.”

I laughed. “I have the opposite problem. My parents have the money, but they won’t give it to me.”

“Well, believe me. I have problems of my own with my parents. They think I’m far too American, they hate the way I dress, the music I listen to, my friends, my boyfriend.”

I took a casual sip of my coffee and forced a smile that must have looked grotesque. I felt like I was trying to get the corners of my mouth to touch each other somewhere behind my head. “Yeah?” I somehow managed.

Her eyebrows knit together. “Ex-boyfriend, really. Mostly. Anyhow, people in my family are pretty good about getting, you know, feelings about people. My father had a feeling about Todd. My boyfriend.”