The Ethical Assassin

The cop, Jim Doe by Melford’s account, squinted at me. He rubbed at his nose, and his fingernail clawed for one unconscious instant at a hard booger encrusted at the tip of his nostril. “What the hell you doing wandering in the woods when you’re supposed to be selling books? Your boss go

“It’s a long day,” I said. “I wanted to take some downtime before heading back on the road. You can understand the value of resting a bit before hard work, I’m sure, Officer.”

“I don’t see how trespassing on a hog lot is downtime,” he said. “In fact, it seems to me that what you were doing was breaking the law. Not a whole lot else besides, either.”

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t see any signs telling me I couldn’t be here.”

“I guess you didn’t see that big yellow sign saying NO TRESPASSING, did you? Didn’t see that gate that keeps folks out?”

“I came through the woods,” I said, not knowing if such a thing were possible. “Anyhow, I was just leaving. I think you can understand my mistake, can’t you?”

The sales technique didn’t seem to be doing the trick. “I’d better look around to make sure you didn’t fuck anything up. Then I’m going to take you to jail on trespassing charges.” He stepped toward me. “Now turn around and face the car. Hold your hands behind your back.”

“I don’t think this is really necessary,” I said. My voice wavered as panic began to set in.

Doe grabbed my shoulders, digging into the flesh hard enough to bruise. He twisted me around and shoved me into the side of the cruiser. If I had not yanked my neck back, my head would have slammed against the passenger-side window, and for a dizzying moment I thought I would fall down. Somehow I managed to maintain my balance, but Doe gave my head a shove, and my nose hit the window hard. The blood began to trickle out of one of my nostrils.

There was only a moment to process this pain before the next wave began. Doe slapped the cuffs down on my left wrist and then the right. The cold clamping of metal cut into me, and then a curious combination of sharp, tearing pain and a growing numbness shot up my arms.

Another claw on my shoulder, and I was spi

“These cuffs are too tight,” I gasped. “You’re cutting off my circulation.”

“Shut your fucking hole.” Doe punched me in the stomach.

The air went out of me, and I bent over and let out an oof but then straightened myself up. Vegetable lo mein churned in my stomach. As much as it hurt, I knew that Doe had pulled his punch, and I knew I didn’t want to taste the real thing.

“Now,” Doe said, “you cut out the bullshit and tell me what you’re doing here.”

“I told you,” I said, wincing at how feeble I sounded. Blood trickled out of my nose and into my mouth. A whooshing noise roared in my ears.

“You haven’t told me shit. You keep showing up in the most fuck-all places, boy, and your story about wandering onto this property ain’t going to convince me of nothing.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“You ain’t that lucky.” Doe opened the door to the backseat. He shoved me inside, making sure to knock my head against the roof on the way in. “You’re going to sit in here while I go look around to see if I can tell what you were up to. You better hope I don’t find nothing, either, or you may be getting a better look at that there shithole.” He gestured toward the waste lagoon and then shoved the door shut.

I wasn’t going to cry, despite the watering of my eyes and the growing mass in my throat. This wasn’t Kevin Oswald from gym class knocking me hard in the locker room so I fell backward over the bench and smashed my head into Teddy Abbott’s locker. This was a cop clearly operating outside the law, possibly guilty of murder, who was intent on doing something really terrible to me. I concentrated on licking away the salty blood that trickled slowly out of my nose and settled on my upper lip.

I tried to wiggle, but it hurt too much, and my hands felt like overfilled hot-water bottles, ready to burst. I wondered if the cuffs were going to do any permanent damage, and I wondered if permanent damage was even something I needed to be concerned about. Just what were the chances that I would have the opportunity, say, ten years from now, to rub my wrists and think that the old cuff injury was acting up again?

Where the hell was Melford? Surely he would take a little time off from tending to the livestock to come back to rescue me. Melford would not be intimidated by a little thing like going up against a policeman. He had removed himself from the ideological state apparatus, or so he claimed, so he would have no compunction about sneaking up on a cop and bashing in his head. That’s what I was hoping, because I also had to wonder if Melford would take advantage of the opportunity and leave me holding the bag for everything that had happened.

I looked out the window and saw Doe walking slowly, legs wide like an old-time cowboy, toward the barn. Was Melford still in there, making clucking noises while casting hog chow to diseased pigs? Or was he at that moment pla

I didn’t want to be party to another murder, particularly a policeman’s murder. Though I was now well convinced that Doe was the kind of guy who needed killing, the kind of person I would gladly sacrifice to save a dog of even moderate bravery, I still had more significant qualms about murder than Melford did. I sure as hell didn’t want to be a fugitive from a cop killing. Doe could be a baby raper, but if he was killed, every cop in the world would pursue the murderer with unceasing rage.

All of that became irrelevant, because just then I saw another cop car coming down the dirt road and out of the thick of pine trees. That meant Melford was now outnumbered. Doe had backup, and the cops back at their station knew about the call. If something happened to these guys, we would be world-class fugitives.

Then I noticed something about the second cop car. It wasn’t navy blue like Doe’s; it was brown. Instead of CITY OF MEADOWBROOK GROVE along the side, it had GROVE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT. I glanced over at Jim Doe, who had also turned to look at the car, and even from the distance I could see him mouth a single syllable. It looked a lot like “Shit.”

Doe started power-walking back to his car, one arm swinging hard, one hand pressed to the crown of his hat to keep it from falling off. The brown sheriff’s department car pulled directly in front of Doe’s, and a woman came out, dressed in an unflattering brown uniform.

It was hard to say what might have been flattering on her. She wasn’t ugly, but she was stocky and rugged, with a ma

She glanced at Doe and then into the back of Doe’s car, making eye contact with me for a moment. She then reached into her own car to pull out her radio mike.

“Hold up there,” I could hear Doe say, though his voice was muted by the glass of the car. With one hand still on his hat, he speed-waddled toward her. “Let’s just hold up a second.”

The woman put the mike back. I suspected that it might have been a bad move, but I wasn’t about to start shouting or knocking on the window with my skull. I couldn’t even decide if the presence of this new, potentially uncrooked cop was good news or bad news.

“No need to call in nothing,” Doe said, slightly winded from his jog. He offered a smile certainly meant to be friendly, but it looked grotesque to me. “What’s the hurry, Aimee?”