The Ethical Assassin

She appeared to be pondering this question when there was a knock at the door.

She excused herself and came back a minute later, shaking her head. “We just got a call that Bastard, Karen, and Karen’s mother checked in. They’re visiting relatives in Te

Melford strikes again, I thought. I tried not to smile. “So if they’re not dead, there’s no murder, and you no longer have to protect me from being wrongfully prosecuted.”

She winced. “Sure sounds that way, doesn’t it. But I have to tell you, I’m not convinced you’ve been honest with me. I don’t know what you’re up to, but take it somewhere else. I don’t want it going on around here.”

I didn’t say anything. There was no percentage in denying it again, and I didn’t want to nod as though she were right. “I guess I’ll go, then. But maybe you should take that pet business more seriously.” Why was I getting into this instead of getting the hell out of there?

“Look, we’ve got robbery and drugs and murder and rape aplenty to keep us busy. Missing doggies and kitties are pretty low on the list of priorities.”

“So a guy like Bastard can do what he wants so long as he denies it?” I applauded myself on the clever use of the present tense.

“Basically, yeah. Besides, next time you wander over to the hog lot, take a look inside. When you see how those pigs are treated, maybe you’ll get a new perspective. I mean, how different are they from dogs and cats, except they’re not cute and cuddly, right? So if it’s no big deal to kill one, why not the other?”

It was a good question, but I suspected Melford would say she was answering it the wrong way.

Only once I got outside did I wonder how I was going to get back to the motel. I went back in and told the cop at the front desk that I needed a ride.

“This isn’t a taxi service,” he said.

“Well, I didn’t ask to be picked up and taken here on charges of killing people who aren’t dead, so maybe someone can give me a lift back.”

“This isn’t a taxi service,” the cop said.

I conceded the point, told him I understood it was a police station, and asked if I could be put in contact with an actual taxi service.

“I’m not a phone book,” the cop said.

“Can you please tell me how I can get a cab?”

The guy shrugged, reached behind his desk, and handed me a yellow pages and then pointed to a pay phone. At least I had some coins so I didn’t have to hear how the cop was not a change machine.

With the cab on its way, I returned the phone book and went to wait outside. Five minutes later, the cab showed up. I told him to take me to the bus station, where I hoped I might still be able to catch Chitra. I slunk into the backseat and leaned against the torn leather, closing my eyes, almost ready for sleep.

When I felt the car slow down, I opened my eyes again, but we weren’t near the bus station yet. Instead we were on the grassy roadside- a ten- or fifteen-foot patch of crabgrass and weeds that separated the road from the algae green canal. I saw flashing blue and red lights as the cab pulled over. The car behind us was navy and white, and I recognized the stretch of road. We were in Meadowbrook Grove, and I watched Doe get out of his car and swagger over toward me.

Chapter 36

DOE SAUNTERED OVER TO THE CAR, licking his lips. He was enjoying this. He peered at the cabbie for a minute. “You know you were speeding?”

“No sir, I wasn’t. I know this is a forty-five zone, and I was going forty-five.”

“You were going forty-seven,” Doe said.

The cabbie laughed. “Two miles an hour. You’re go

“Don’t matter,” said Doe. “That’s the limit. The limit ain’t a rough estimate. It’s the limit. It’s the speed over which you don’t ever go, not a speed you try to stick to.”

“That ain’t right,” the cabbie said.

“Take it to court.” He gri

He went back to his car and wrote up the ticket. He returned and handed it over. “I’ll advise you not to speed anymore in my town.”

The cabbie said nothing.

“Oh, and by the way,” Doe said, “you know you got a wanted criminal in the backseat?” He rapped on the window with his knuckles. “Hey there, friend. You’re under arrest.”

This time, at least, he didn’t bother with the handcuffs. He just put me in the back of the car. The whole thing had been a disaster. I kept telling the cabbie to call the police, and the cabbie kept saying that this guy was the police. “The county,” I said. “Call Officer Toms at the sheriff’s department and tell her that this guy arrested me.”

“Look, I don’t know what you want,” the cabbie said while Doe led me away.

“I just told you what I want,” I shouted, but after Doe locked me away he went back for a few more words to the cabbie, and I somehow didn’t think the message would get through.

Now, in the back of Doe’s police car, which smelled of stale French fries, Yoo-hoo, and sweat, I glanced out the window, watching the bleak scrub brush on the empty lots pass by. I could hardly feel the air-conditioning in the back, and the sweat was rolling down my sides.

Not that my comfort much mattered, since I might very well be dead soon. I considered this idea with a measured calm, though calm might be putting it too strongly. Resignation, maybe. I ran over all the possibilities I could think of- Doe would arrest me, question me, hand me over to the Gambler, torture me, let me go, all of it- but I kept coming back to one inevitable conclusion: It seemed pretty likely that Doe would kill me. Sure, there were reasons why it would be ill-advised. Aimee Toms had her eye on the situation and all that sort of thing. But if Doe killed me and hid the body, it would look like I’d just taken off. It was what I’d been pla

So, it wasn’t as though I were trying to convince myself that everything would be all right. I didn’t believe everything would be all right. I thought it extremely unlikely that everything would be all right. But there was a calm nevertheless, like I imagined what a soldier must feel before he went into a hopeless battle, or a fighter pilot on realizing that he’d been critically hit and that he was going down with the plane. So, here I was. Crashing.

Doe drove to the hog lot. No surprise there. He parked the car around the back, where it would be invisible to any but the most diligent search party, and then he shoved me, still unhandcuffed, toward the pig warehouse.

Maybe I should make a break for it, I thought. I’d already outrun Doe once, and he walked like a man who had trouble moving- legs wide apart, ambling, slow. But there was too much open space, and we were too far from anyone who might see or hear my efforts to escape. Doe would have an easy shot at me if he wanted. A more heroic man might have tried to overpower the cop, but I knew that would only end badly, if not laughably. So I allowed myself to be pushed forward, and I waited for an opportunity and hoped for a lucky break, or at least the ability to comport myself in a respectable way.

Doe took out a set of keys and shoved one into the padlock on the door. It opened, blasting us in the face with heat and stench. I winced but watched as Doe didn’t. He was used to it, I thought. Or he just didn’t care.

Doe pushed me inside the building and through the narrow corridors separating the pens. I had seen it before, of course, but now, in the dim light of the pig warehouse, with the low and despairing grunts of the animals around me, I felt a new and sharper sense of pity. Maybe it was identification. The pigs backed away from us, and the slow movement of the exhaust fans strobed their movements.