The Ethical Assassin

Chapter 2

INSIDE, THE SMELL OF OLD CIGARETTES replaced the stench of garbage and filth. Everyone in my family smoked cigarettes, every last relative with the exception of my stepfather, who smoked cigars and pipes. I’d always hated the odor, hated the way it seeped into my clothes, my books, my food. When I was young enough to still bring a lunch to school, my turkey sandwich would smell like Lucky Strikes- my mother’s improbable brand.

The woman, who also smelled of cigarettes and had nicotine stains on her fingers, told me her name was Karen. The husband looked younger than she did, but also like he was aging faster, and I could see his balloon would be out of air before hers. Like Karen, he was unusually thin, with a hollowed-out look to him. He wore a sleeveless Ronnie James Dio shirt that showed bony arms insulated with layers of wiry muscles. Straight reddish hair fell to his shoulders in a southern-fried rock cut. He was good-looking in the same way as Karen, which was to say he might have been more appealing if he didn’t give the impression of someone who hadn’t eaten, slept, or washed in the better part of a week.

He came in from the trailer’s kitchen, holding a bottle of Killian’s Red by its neck as though he were trying to strangle it. “Bastard,” he said. Then he switched the bottle to his left hand and held out his right for shaking.

I wasn’t sure why he would call me a bastard, so I held back.

“Bastard,” he repeated. “It’s my name. It’s a nickname, really. It ain’t my real name, but it’s my real nickname.”

I shook with what I considered an appropriate amount of skepticism.

“So, where’d you find this guy?” Bastard asked his wife. It came out just a little too fast, a little too loud, to be good-natured. With a tic of the neck, he flung back his longish hair.

“He wants to ask us some questions about the girls.” Karen had wandered into the kitchen, separated from the living room by a short bar. She gestured with her head toward me, or maybe toward the door. The two of them were jerking their heads around as if they were in a Devo video.

Bastard stared. “The girls, huh? You look too young to be a lawyer. Or a cop.”

I attempted a smile to mask the kudzu creep of alarm working over me. “It’s nothing like that. I’m here to talk about education.”

Bastard put his arm around my shoulder. “Education, huh?”

“That’s right.”

The arm came off almost right away, but the inside of the trailer was beginning to feel more dangerous than outside. I’d seen some weird stuff inside people’s homes-Faces of Death videocassettes mixed in with the Mickey Mouse cartoons, a jar of used condoms on a coffee table, even a collection of shrunken heads once- but this weirdly intimate moment put me on my guard. I didn’t leave, though, because the redneck was surely still out there, and that made it a lose-lose deal. Might as well stay where there was a chance of closing a deal.

Not much of a chance, though. I took a guarded look at the trailer; it was the kind of place that warded off salesmen the way garlic warded off vampires. They had no toys scattered around, no empty cases from kids’ videos or coloring books or haphazard Lego towers. They had no toys of any kind. And there wasn’t much in the way of adult crap, either. There were no plastic hanging plants or not-available-in-stores garish cuckoo clocks or oil paintings of clowns.

Instead, they had a beige couch and a phenomenally not matching blue easy chair and a cracked glass coffee table full of beer bottles and beer bottle rings and coffee cup stains. A single coffee mug- white with OLDHAM HEALTH SERVICES printed in bold black letters- rested against the glass in such a way that I felt sure it would take both hands to pry it off. The coffee inside had condensed into tar.

In the kitchen, the linoleum floor, the kind of tan that looked dirty when clean and extra dirty when dirty, was chipped and peeling and in places curling up. In one spot it had rolled up over a white towel and looked like a Yodels.

Yet despite it all, there was some small reason to hope. Yes, their stuff was absolutely awful, and yes, they clearly had no money, except- Except. A chipped Lladró, a ballerina in midtwirl, sat on top of the television. Maybe it had been a gift or inherited from a grandparent or found by the trash. It didn’t matter. It was a Lladró, and Lladrós were gold. Lladrós were moochie. The spirit of mooch, no matter how diminished and repressed, dwelled within.

Bastard now put a hand on my back. “So, you’re like, asking parents questions about their thoughts on education? Something like that?”

Had he heard me at the door? “That’s right. About education and your kids.” The kids who, I noticed, left no hint that they’d ever passed through their own home.

“So, what you selling?” A spark of amusement flashed in his dull eyes.

“I’m just here to ask questions about education. I’m not here to sell.”

“Okay, see you later, jerk-off. There’s the door. Get out.”

I was about to open my mouth, to observe politely that his wife had said she wanted to take the survey, and after all, it would only be a few minutes. But I didn’t get that far. Karen pulled him aside to the bedroom, where they exchanged some heated and hushed words. In a minute or two they came out, and Bastard had a plastic grin on his face.

“Sorry about that,” he told me. “I guess I didn’t realize how much Karen wanted to talk about, you know, education.” He slapped my back. “You want a beer?”

“Just water or soda or something, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem, buddy,” Bastard said with an enthusiasm that frightened me more than the shoulder squeezing.

Karen led me to the kitchen card table, where she directed me to sit with my back to the door in a metal folding chair, the kind they brought out for ad hoc municipal gatherings in school gymnasiums. She made some uneasy small talk and handed me lemonade in another OLDHAM HEALTH SERVICES coffee cup. I still felt a phantom tingling on my shoulder where Bastard had grabbed me, but the anxiety was beginning to dissipate. They were strange- strange and unhappy- but almost certainly harmless.

I tried not to drink the lemonade in a single gulp. “This who you work for?” I asked, gesturing toward the coffee cup. I didn’t direct the question toward either of them in particular.

Bastard shook his head, let out a little noise, something short of a laugh. “Nah. We just have them.”

“They’re nice,” I said. “Nice and thick. Keep the coffee warm.” I waited a moment to let the idiocy of my words dissipate. “What do you folks do?”

“Karen used to waitress some,” Bastard told me, “till her back started to bother her. I’m the site manager for a hog farm.”

Site manager sounded impressive enough, as though they’d be able to make the payments, at least, which was all I needed. I unfastened the strap of my bag, and took out one of the photocopied survey sheets.

I set my papers on the kitchen table next to the basket of plastic fruit- another faint hint of moochiness there- and asked Bastard and Karen the questions. When I’d been in training, I’d balked at first seeing them, sure anyone with a pulse would smell the bullshit a mile off. But Bobby had laughed, assured me that this sales pitch had been designed by experts. It was one of the most successful pitches ever devised. Having sold for three months now, I had no problem believing it.

Would your child benefit from greater access to knowledge? Would you be happier if your child was learning more? Do your children have questions left unanswered by their education? The last one was my personal favorite: Do you believe that people continue to learn even after they complete their schooling?

“They say you learn something new every day,” Bastard announced cheerfully. “Isn’t that right? Hell, just last week I learned I was even stupider than I thought.” He let out a big laugh and then slapped his leg. Then he slapped my leg. Not hard, but even so.

Karen watched Bastard. There was a kind of suspicion there, even a wariness. If I had not known they were married, I might have thought they’d never met before. As it was, I figured they were well on their way to petty claims divorce court. Not the best environment in which to sell, but pickings were, at the moment, slim.

I dutifully wrote down their answers and took a moment to review the responses, to study them. I put on a serious face, knit my brow, contemplated the gravity of their answers.

“All right,” I said. “I just want to be sure I understand you now. So you think that education for children is important?”

“Sure,” Bastard said.

“Karen?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded.

This was all part of the pitch- make them agree as much and as often as possible. Get them in the habit of saying yes, and they’ll forget how to say no.

“And you think that items, products, or services that aid in a child’s education are good ideas? Bastard? Karen?”

They both agreed.

“You know,” I said with an expression of puzzled amazement- I hoped it looked spontaneous, but I’d practiced it in the mirror-“looking over all of this, it seems like you two are just the sort of parents my employers would love to have me talk to. You obviously care a great deal about your children’s education, and you have a deep commitment to seeing that their educational needs are met. My company has sent us out here to try to measure the level of interest for a product they intend to introduce in this area. Now- Karen, Bastard- since you two are obviously such education-oriented parents, it occurs to me that you’re exactly the sort of people I’ve been authorized to show a preview of these products, assuming, of course, you’re interested. Do you think you’d like to look at something that is beautiful, affordable, and, best of all, will significantly increase the education and, ultimately, income potential of your children?”

“Okay,” Bastard said.

Karen said nothing. The lines around her eyes deepened, her cheeks collapsed, and her thin lips parted as she began to speak.

I would not let her. I’d never been asked to leave at this point, but I knew perfectly well that it could happen, that it would happen here if I let it. Outside, the redneck in the pickup might still be waiting, and I didn’t want to find out one way or the other.

“Let me tell you up front,” I said, barely managing to beat her to the punch, “that I’ve got a lot of people I need to see in this area. I’m happy to take the time out to show you this stuff, but first we need to make a contract, the three of us. If at any point you lose interest or you think that it’s not the sort of educational tool you’d like to provide for your children, just let me know. I’ll get up and leave. I don’t want to waste your time, and I’m sure you understand that I don’t want to waste my time, either. So can you promise me that? The minute you don’t want to see any more, you’ll speak up? That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“Fair.” Bastard let out a loud, phlegmy snort. “Congress never passed a law saying life had to be fair. Not unless you’re a Spanish, a black, a woman, or a congressman.”

I smiled politely, doing my best to appear nonjudgmental, another skill I’d honed over the past three months. “C’mon, Bastard. Let’s be serious. It’s fair, isn’t it.”

“Sure. Fair,” he agreed. He looked up at the ceiling and let out a long sigh.

“How about you, Karen? Do you think you would be able to tell me if you lose interest in these valuable educational tools that will improve the quality of your children’s lives?”

She exchanged a look with her husband and then reached over to the counter for a pack of Virginia Slims and a cherry red Bic. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, then. You guys ready?” Just another gratuitous yes question.

“We said we’re ready,” Bastard grumbled toward the ceiling.

I nodded in the kindly but authoritative way Bobby had taught me and reached into my bag for the first brochure, a glossy, colorful little booklet with a couple of well-groomed, successful-looking kids spread out on a carpeted floor with their books. These were kids like they would never raise, in all likelihood never know. These were the kids they wanted instead of the ones they had. And that made Bastard and Karen the perfect candidates for me.

Bobby had taught us that there was pretty much no way to sell books to comfortable suburbanites. It had taken me a while to understand, but I understood now. Karen and Bastard looked at their first pamphlet and soaked in their first glimpse of the future of their children, and they saw what they were supposed to see- a different life. The kids in the pamphlets weren’t the ignorant, ill-behaved, destructive children of ignorant, ill-behaved, destructive adults. They weren’t living in trailer park squalor, but lounging in affluent suburban bliss. They laughed and played and learned, their inner potential and outer grooming nurtured by unceasing exposure to wonderful tomes of secret knowledge. The ability to discover the five principal exports of Greece or the social structure of bonobo groups or the mysterious history of the Mayan Empire would make everything different. The mere proximity to books that contained these glorious facts and more meant the difference between success and failure.

I managed a quick peek at my watch. Almost seven-thirty now. I was confident that by ten o’clock these people would be financing a $1,200 set of encyclopedias.

The resistance, not surprisingly, came from the aptly named Bastard. I made it through the bonus books- the handbook of emergency health care, the field guide to local wildlife, the compendium of educational games for kids- but hadn’t yet reached the presentation of the sample volume of Champion Encyclopedias when I’d had about all I could take of Bastard. He interrupted me, made fun of the books, imitated my voice, tickled his wife, tried to tickle me once, got up to make a sandwich.

“Now,” I said, holding up the children’s history of the United States, “you can see how this is the sort of book your children would find educational and would improve their understanding of American history, can’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Karen.

Somewhere along the way, consumer longing had taken the place of blank apathy. The rugged skepticism on her face had smoothed away, and her lips had parted not in preparation to object, but in slack acquisitive desire.

“You think they’ll ever have a woman president?” Bastard asked. “I bet she’ll be a real honey. With big knockers. Great big knockers, man. Bigger than Karen’s, anyhow.”

“And you understand, don’t you, that an improved understanding of American history will be of use to your children?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Karen said, jamming a cigarette, smoked down to the scorched filter, into the makeshift ashtray- the bottom third of a torn-open Pepsi can, whose jagged edges she avoided with grace. “There’s all kinds of tests in school where they have to know those things, and that book would help them get better grades.” She’d learned along the way that I liked to hear concrete examples of how the books would help, and she was now working hard to come up with good ones.

“But will it get them dates? That’s what I want to know,” Bastard said. “Maybe if I’d known all about Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross, I’d have gotten laid more in school.”

I’d been working against it since I’d started the pitch, but there was only so much cheer I could maintain. It was just common sense that I wasn’t going to make the sale without Bastard, and I wasn’t going to get Bastard without breaking him. I had to do something, so I reached for a move Bobby had told me about. It had sounded so brilliant when he’d explained it, I’d been looking for an opportunity to try it.

I let out a sigh. “You know what,” I said. “Clearly these materials are not for you. Bastard, I asked you to let me know if you weren’t interested, but it seems like you haven’t been honest with me. It’s okay that you’re not interested. These materials won’t appeal to every parent- some are just more education oriented than others- and that’s fine. I only wish you hadn’t let me sit here for so long, wasting all of our time.” Then I began to gather my things. Not slowly so as to seem like I wanted to be pulled back, but with the wooden determination of a lawyer who’d just lost a trial and wanted to get the hell out of the courtroom.

“Wait,” said Karen. “I’m interested.”

“What the fuck,” Bastard said. “Let the little shit go.”

“Bastard, apologize,” the wife ordered. “I want them.”

“What the fuck for? The girls?” he sneered.

“We’ll send them.” Her voice sounded small, pathetic. Then something shifted, and she sounded hard. “Apologize, or I swear to Christ, I’ll tell him everything.”

I didn’t know who the “him” might be, but I knew it wasn’t me. And I was beginning to get the sense I’d walked into the middle of something and my best bet was to cut my losses and get the hell out. With stoic calm, I placed the last book into my bag and stood.

“Bastard, do it!”

He let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Lem. Okay? It’s not that I’m not interested. I just don’t like to sit still for so long. Go easy on me, buddy. Show us the rest.”

“Please stay,” said Karen. Her voice had become small, the voice of a child begging for education. Please, sir, may I learn some more?

I nodded slowly, a sage weighing his options. I’d been willing to bail, but now I saw this was a clear victory. The real trick was to keep from grinning. They’d begged me to stay. They might as well just take out the checkbook now and save everyone the time.

By a quarter to ten, I’d spread everything out on the table right next to the wrecked soda can crammed full of lipstick-ringed cigarette butts. It was all there- the books and brochures, the pricing sheet, the payment schedule, and, of course, the credit application, the all-important app. Karen had taken out the checkbook for the down payment: $125. Like my own mother, fastidious before the tranquilizers, she filled out the receipt portion prior to writing the check, and she did it with torturous slowness. I wanted it in my possession. I wanted it done. Until they handed over the check, there was always the chance they’d back out.

I didn’t want to let it get to where the check might break the deal. I’d closed this deal before even mentioning the check. I had Karen hungry, starving for these books. I’d broken Bastard, who now sat without making a sound other than a strangely wheezy breathing, as though he were winded from the act of respiration itself. He looked at me with big, moist eyes, hoping for approval. And I shoveled the approval out in spades.

Karen pressed down one pink-tipped finger and tore the check along the perforated edge, then held it out to me. She might have set it on the table, but she wanted me to take it from her hand. I’d seen it before; it always happened late in the sale. Encyclopedia sales had allowed me to shed my high school skin, my loser skin, and turn into something else, something that some women found even a little sexy- because I had power. The bookman has power the way a teacher or a political candidate or the lead in a production of Our Town has power. It’s the power of the spotlight. I was young and had energy and enthusiasm, and I had come into her home and given her reason to hope. She didn’t exactly want to sleep with me and didn’t exactly not want to. I understood it with absolute clarity.

I had just about put my fingers on the check when I heard the front door open. I didn’t turn around, in part because I wanted that check and in part because I’d trained myself not to look at visitors, not to listen to phone calls. This wasn’t my house, and it wasn’t my business.

I didn’t stray from the check grab. At least not until I saw Karen’s eyes go wide and her face go pale and her mouth form into the comical surprise of an O. At the same moment, Bastard toppled over along with his chair, felled by an invisible punch, a punch that left a gaping hole, a dark and bloody hole, in the middle of his forehead.

Now I heard it. A puffy squeak of air, and Karen fell over, too. Not the whole chair, just Karen, out of her seat and onto the floor. The second shot hadn’t been as neat as the first, and above her eyes it looked as though someone had smashed her with the claw end of a hammer. Blood began to pool around hair on the beige linoleum floor. The air was full of something sharp and nasty. Cordite. I didn’t know what cordite was, I couldn’t even remember how I knew the word, but I knew that’s what I was smelling. The stink assaulted me, along with the horrible understanding. Two shots had been fired, two people hit in the head. Two people had been murdered.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’d been accepted into Columbia University, but my parents had refused to pay. I was raising money, that’s all. I just wanted money for college. None of this had anything to do with me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing it away. But it wasn’t going anywhere.

I turned around.