The Ethical Assassin: A Novel Read Free Page A

even know it. They’d hand over the check and shake my hand. They’d invite me back, ask me to stay for dinner, ask me to meet their parents. Half the people I tricked into buying told me if I ever needed anything, if I ever needed a place to stay, I shouldn’t hesitate. They lapped up everything I served, and, evil or not, it felt good. It made me ashamed, but it still felt good.
    Now I wanted another one. The company offered a $200 bonus for a double, and I wanted to rack up another score before I saw Bobby again. Of course I wanted the money; $600 for the day would be pretty satisfying. And I’d done it before, my very first day on the job, in fact—an act that had all but anointed me the new boy wonder. The truth was, I loved the look on Bobby’s face—the happy surprise, the sheer giddiness of his expression. I couldn’t have said why Bobby’s approval was so important; it even troubled me that I cared so much. But I did care.
    “Hi there. I’m Lem Altick,” I told the gaunt, sort-of-pretty-sort-of-bitter woman, “and I’m in your neighborhood today talking to parents, trying to get some feedback on how they feel about the local schools and the quality of education. Do you by any chance have children, ma’am?”
    She blinked at me a couple of times—appraising sorts of blinks. The lizards were blinking, too, but more slowly, and their eyelids came up from the bottom. “Yeah,” she said after a moment to think. Her gaze went right past mine and toward the blue pickup, which was still parked alongside the road. “I got kids. But they ain’t here.”
    “And may I ask how old they are?”
    She blinked again, this time more suspiciously. It had been only a couple of years since a boy named Adam Walsh had disappeared from a mall in Hollywood, Florida. His head had been found a couple of weeks later a few hundred miles to the north. Nobody had ever again looked the same way at kids or at strangers who showed an interest in kids.
    “Seven and ten.” Her hand gripped the side of the door more tightly, and her fingers went white around her chipped fuchsia-polished nails. She was still looking at the Ford.
    “Those are great ages, aren’t they?” Not that I knew. I’d never spent much time around kids since being one myself, and in my experience, those ages were as unredeemably rotten as the rest. Still, parents liked to hear that sort of thing, or at least I figured they did. “So, if your husband is home, I was hoping I might be able to take just a few minutes to ask you some questions for a survey. Then I’ll be out of your hair. You’d like to answer a few questions about your ideas on education, wouldn’t you?”
    “You with him?” she asked, gesturing toward the pickup with a flick of her first two fingers.
    I shook my head. “No, ma’am. I am here in your neighborhood to talk to parents about education.”
    “What are you selling?”
    “Not a thing,” I told her. I feigned a slight, almost imperceptible surprise. Me? Ask you to buy something? How very silly. “I’m not a salesman, and if I were, I’d have nothing to sell you. I’m just asking some questions about the local educational system and your level of satisfaction. The people I work for would love to hear what you and your husband have to say. Wouldn’t you like to tell us what you think of the local schools?”
    She pondered this for a moment, clearly unfamiliar with the idea that anyone could possibly care what she had to say. I’d seen the look before. “I don’t have the time,” she said.
    “But that’s exactly why you should talk to me,” I said, using a technique called “the reverse.” You told the prospect that why they couldn’t do it or why they couldn’t afford it was exactly the reason they could. Then you dug deep and came up with a reason that it was true. “You know, studies show that the more time you dedicate to education, the more free time you have.” I made that up, but I thought it sounded