The Ethical Assassin Read online

  It was a little steak-and-seafood place near the Ft. Lauderdale airport, far enough away from Miami that he wouldn’t just happen to bump into anyone he knew, and catering largely to the old and retired set, so that his sort of people- the nonwithered, the surgically nonwithered, the power-golf players, the Rolex wearers, and the convertible drivers- would never be caught dead in a place like this. B.B. believed firmly in picking places that drew the old and the retired. A man could be a prince in the eyes of a waiter simply by not sending back the drinking water for being the wrong temperature.

  On the other side of B.B.’s candlelit table, Chuck Finn sat in concentration as he worked a breadstick with a waxy slab of butter. He’d have it under control for a second or two before it slipped out from under his knife, and Chuck would lurch in sudden and astonishingly ungraceful motions to regain his grip on it. And each time he would smile at B.B., flash those slightly crooked teeth in sophisticated self-deprecation, and then go back to his business. The third time, B.B. had been forced to reach across the table to keep the boy from knocking his goblet of Saint-Estèphe onto the tablecloth. At $45 a bottle, he wasn’t about to let any of it tip over, particularly when the boy had taken his first sip, probably his first sip of wine ever, and nodded with knowing appreciation. At a steakhouse, a man drinks a nice Bordeaux. It doesn’t get much more complicated than that. Most of the other boys, maybe all of the other boys, had taken a sip, grimaced, and asked for a Coke. Chuck had half closed his eyes in pleasure and let the tip of his very pink tongue tickle his upper lip. Chuck got it, and B.B. began to suspect that he had on his hands not only a boy willing to be mentored, but one ready to be mentored.

  He’d taken only one sip, and then somehow the glass was covered with greasy boy-fingerprints. B.B. understood that’s what it was to be a boy. Boys made messes. They almost knocked over wine. Sometimes they did knock over wine, and unless you were eager to keep from drawing attention to yourself, you didn’t much care because you didn’t keep boys from being boys. That wasn’t a mentor’s job. A mentor turned a boy in the right direction so that at some future date, when the time was right, he’d become a man. That’s how you mentored.

  “Be graceful, Chuck,” B.B. said in what he hoped was his most mentorly tone. “Grace is poise, and poise is power. Look at me. You want to be like me when you grow up.”

  B.B. pointed at himself when he spoke, as if he were exhibit A. If you pointed at yourself, people looked, and he had no reason to mind that. He had turned fifty-five this year- a bit on the mature side, though still in his prime- but people mistook him for forty, forty-five max. Partly it was the Grecian Formula, the use of which he had elevated to an art, and partly it was the lifestyle. An hour with the Nautilus machines three times a week wasn’t much of an investment for youth. Then there were the clothes.

  He dressed, and there was no other term for it, Miami Vice. He’d been considering linen suits and T-shirts before the show came on the air, but once he saw those guys strutting around in those clothes, B.B. knew it was the look for him. It was the right look for a man of hidden but smoldering power. And that show- God bless it- was single-handedly transforming Miami from a necropolis of retirees, marbled with pockets of black or Cuban poverty, into someplace almost hip, almost fabulous, almost glamorous. The smell of mothballs and Ben-Gay drifted off, replaced by the scent of suntan lotion and titillating aftershave.

  B.B. watched as Chuck continued to work the butter, and the breadstick was now glossy and slick and, though it might have been a trick of the light, even starting to sag a little.

  “I think that’s enough butter.” He said it in a mentorly tone- sympathetic but firm.

  “I like a lot of butter,” Chuck said with naïve cheer.

  “I understand you want it, but there’s such a thing as discipline, Chuck. Discipline will make you a man.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Chuck set the butter knife, with its half-used pat still clinging, onto the tablecloth.

  “Place the butter knife on the bread plate, where it belongs, young man.”

  “Good point,” Chuck observed. He set the breadstick on the bread plate as well, wiped his hands on the heavy linen napkin on his lap, and then took another sip of the Saint-Estèphe. “That’s really good. How did you get to know so much about wine?”

  Working as a waiter in Las Vegas, trying to make it through my shift so I could go lose even more money I didn’t have, get into it even deeper with a bodybuilding, shirtless Greek loan shark would not have suited as an answer, so B.B. offered a knowing shrug, hoping it would impress.

  He had selected boys before, boys from his charity, the Young Men’s Foundation. These were special boys he thought would be able to dine with him, spend a few hours alone in his company, and mature from the experience. He looked for calm and steadiness in the boys, but he also looked for the ability to keep a secret. These dinners were special, and because they were special, they weren’t any of the world’s business. The dinners were only for those very exceptional boys worthy of extra mentoring, but in the three years he had been taking boys out to eat, a thought had always nagged at him- that he selected his dining companions for their ability to keep a secret rather than for their readiness to be mentored.

  Now, here was Chuck- quiet, slightly introverted if not antisocial, trashy-novel-reading, journal-writing, obliviously-badly-haircutted Chuck- who knew how to keep a secret but had a sense of humor, had an intuitive appreciation for complex wines, obedient and pliable, but with an impish resistance. B.B. felt an excited tingle shoot out from the center of his body like a miniature supernova. Here, he dared to speculate, might well be the boy he’d been looking for, the special mentee, the reason he had wanted to help boys in the first place.

  What if Chuck was everything he appeared? Smart, interested, full of soft-clay potential? Could B.B. arrange to spend more time with him? What would the boy’s worthless mother say? What would Desiree say? Nothing could work without Desiree, and he knew, without quite admitting it to himself, that Desiree would not be happy.

  Chuck now turned his attention to the breadstick. He picked it up and was readying himself to take a bite when B.B. reached out with one hand and gently encircled Chuck’s wrist. Normally he didn’t like to touch the boys. He didn’t want them or anyone else to think that there was something not right about his mentoring. Nevertheless, sometimes when two people were together there was going to be a certain amount of touching. Life worked that way. They might accidentally brush up against each other. B.B. might put an affectionate hand on a boy’s shoulder or tousle his hair, press a hand to his back, give him a pat on the butt to hurry him along. Or it might be something like this.

  Chuck had been an instant away from putting the breadstick in his mouth when B.B. saw the fingernails. Black dirt, packed into discrete geologic chunks, hibernating under the shelter of nails weeks overdue for trimming. Some things you could dismiss, put in the boys-will-be-boys category, look the other way. Some things, however, you could not. Some things were too much to ignore. If B.B. was a mentor, then he had to mentor.

  He kept his grip gentle but the hand motionless. “I want you to put the breadstick down,” B.B. said, “and go wash your hands before you eat. Scrub those fingernails good. I don’t want to see any dirt under them when you get back.”

  Chuck looked at his nails and then at B.B. He had no father, an impatient gnome of a mother, an older brother in a wheelchair as the result of a car accident- the impatient gnome of a mother had slammed her Chevy Nova into a sable palm a few years back, and B.B. suspected to the point of deep certainty that there’d been heavy drinking involved. Chuck slept on a tattered foldout couch with springs, he felt sure, as pliant and welcoming as upturned dinner forks. He did miserably in school because he tuned out his teachers and read whatever he felt like during class. He wasn’t the weakest kid around, but he got his share of ass kicking, and he gave his share, too.

  Chuck had plenty of pride, and it was the frai
l and bitter pride of a desperate boy. B.B. had seen it often enough- these powerless boys growing red in the face, flashing their teeth like cornered lemurs, lashing out at their mentor because their pride demanded they lash out at someone, even if it was the only person in the world who truly wanted to help. B.B. understood it, anticipated it, knew how to defuse it.

  This time, however, he did not get it.

  Chuck studied his fingernails and then turned to B.B. with another of those self-deprecating smiles that made B.B. feel as though something in his body had just melted.

  “They are pretty dirty,” he agreed. “I’ll go wash up.”

  B.B. let go of the wrist. “You’re a fine young man,” he said. And then he watched Chuck walk away. The kid looked good, there was no denying that. He’d made an effort to clean his best clothes- a pair of green chinos and a button-down white shirt. He wore a cloth belt, his socks matched his brown shoes, and his brown shoes had been polished. It all meant one thing: The boy was letting himself be mentored.

  He was back in under two minutes. He’d just scrubbed and returned. Hadn’t even taken the time to piss. Now he sat, took another drink of the wine, and nodded at B.B. as though they’d just entered into a contract. “Thanks for taking me out like this, Mr. Gunn. I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Chuck. You are an exceptional young man, and I’m happy to help you in any way I can.”

  “That’s really nice of you.” Chuck held B.B.’s gaze with mature confidence.

  The astronomical tingling was back, turning into B.B.’s own private cosmic event. It was almost as though Chuck were trying to tell him something, trying to let B.B. know that he was comfortable with the friendship between a young man and his mentor. B.B. looked at the boy with his thin frame, his face a little too round for his body, his tousled brown hair and strangely brilliant brown eyes. The boy was trying to tell him something, that he was ready for mentoring, whatever mentoring B.B. might wish to pursue, and the air at the table was electric.

  Chuck finished his glass of wine, and B.B. poured him another. Then the boy bit into the breadstick with a ferocious clamp of his jaws. Crumbs sprayed out across the table, and the sound of it echoed halfway across the restaurant. Chuck looked up at his mentor, alarm preparing to settle on his face, but he saw B.B.’s amused smile, and he let out a little laugh. They both laughed. Several of the retirement zombies looked over with disapproving scowls. B.B. made eye contact with all of them, dared them to say anything.

  When the black man approached their table, at first B.B. thought it might be the manager there to complain. Maybe one of the retirees had convinced them to initiate an effective-immediately no children policy. But the black man didn’t work for the restaurant. It was the darkness that kept B.B. from recognizing him right away. Otto Rose.

  He wore a blue suit, and even in the dark B.B. could tell it was just a nudge short of electric blue, but the rest of the outfit was conservative and businesslike: richly polished oxfords, a white shirt, a rep tie crafted into a massive and artful four-in-hand. Otto hovered over the table with that imperial grace he loved to exude. He looked something like a cross between an actor and a third world dictator. Though barely thirty, which was irritating enough, he appeared hardly more than twenty, even with his head shaved. B.B. had been watching his hair thin with each year, maybe even each month, but Otto shaved his head and looked good doing it. The slick of his skin glowed from the candles of the surrounding tables.

  The sudden and inexplicable appearance of Otto Rose was, by any standards B.B. could think of, bad news. Bad news because no one but Desiree was supposed to know where B.B. was. Bad news because Otto Rose was standing there, watching him mentor, watching him dine with an eleven-year-old boy in an expensive steakhouse, a bottle of Saint-Estèphe opened and two glasses, one for an underage boy. Bad news because Otto might be a business friend, but he was the kind of friend B.B. would love to shed. Bad news because there was no reason in the world why Rose should want to find him unless it was bad news.

  “Hello, young man,” Rose said to Chuck. His West Indian accent came out thick and chunky, full of island hospitality and humor, the way it always did when he cranked up the charm. He set his hand on the bottle of Bordeaux. “Can I pour you some more wine, or has Mr. Gunn been taking care of you?”

  Chuck held on to his breadstick and looked up at Rose, not quite making eye contact, but he didn’t say anything. B.B. expected as much. South Florida might be diverse- there were Cubans and Jews and regular white people and Haitians and West Indians and regular black people and all sorts of South Americans and Orientals and who the hell knew what else- but the fact was none of them wanted anything to do with any of the others. White kids clammed up around black people. Black kids clammed up around white people. B.B. had seen it a million times when mentoring, and if you were going to mentor, you had to understand these things.

  Rose, however, was undeterred. “I am Otto Rose. What is your name, young sir?” He stuck out his hand for shaking.

  Chuck appeared to know he was trapped, and being trapped, he chose to forge ahead. “I’m Chuck,” he said in a steady voice. The handshake looked firm and unafraid.

  “And Mr. Gunn is your friend? He is a fine man to have for a friend.”

  “He’s my mentor,” Chuck said. “He’s been very nice to me.”

  “And this is a fine restaurant for mentoring,” Rose said, the humor percolating just under the surface of his voice. “And nothing goes with mentoring like a glass of wine.” He picked up Chuck’s glass and gave it a good sniff with his eyes closed. “A Saint-Estèphe?” he asked as he put down the glass.

  “Wow.” Chuck’s eyes went wide. “You can tell that from the smell?”

  “I read it on the bottle.”

  B.B. saw that the retirees in the restaurant were looking over at them. They didn’t like the big, bald black man standing around. The waiters were eyeing them as well, and it would only be a moment until one of them came by to ask if the gentleman wished to join their table. B.B. would be fucked if Rose said he would, so it was time to snip this one in the bud.

  B.B. pushed himself out of the chair and away from the table, rising with Miami Vice poise. He might be half a foot shorter than Rose, but he held his own next to the guy. B.B. knew who he was, knew what he commanded, knew that there were people all over the state who would shit in their pants if they heard B. B. Gunn was pissed off. It was time to make sure Otto knew enough to shit in his pants.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” he said to Chuck. “I’ll be back as soon as I take care of some grown-up business.”

  “Okay,” Chuck said. There was something forlorn in his voice.

  B.B. knew instantly that Chuck might be a mature kid, he might be a spunky kid with a good sense of humor and the will to rise above the misery of his life, but he didn’t want to be left alone. He wanted, maybe above all things, companionship, and that was but one more reason to be pissed off at Otto Rose for showing up like this and fucking up his dinner.

  “Follow me,” B.B. said to Rose. It was time to establish the pecking order in his barnyard. Rose thought he was clever, finding out where B.B. was eating, making sly little insinuations about Chuck. But now it was Rose following while the alpha male led.

  They stepped outside, and the temperature rose by nearly thirty degrees in an instant. It was humid and sticky, and the sounds of cars off I-95 hissed past.

  Desiree was out there, leaning against B.B.’s convertible Mercedes, arms folded over her breasts. She wore moderately, though not obscenely, tight Guess jeans and a lavender bikini top. The pink of the massive scar along her side glistened in the neon light of the restaurant.

  Rose broke out into a gregarious grin. “Desiree, my darling. How are you, lovely?” He leaned over and rested a hand on her scar, as he always did, just to show that it didn’t trouble him, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t see you on the way in.”

  Desiree allowed herself to
be kissed, but her lips were pressed tight into a cynical little smile. “Sure you did, though you made a pretty good show of acting like you didn’t.”

  He pressed a hand to his heart. “You hurt me when you say such things.”

  B.B. couldn’t be bothered to let this play out. “If you saw him coming in, why the hell didn’t you stop him?”

  She shrugged. “What for? You’d have come out, and we’d be right where we are now.”

  What for? Jesus, did he have to spell it out for her? It was mentoring time. She knew perfectly well he didn’t want to be bothered while mentoring. She knew, and she’d let Rose in because she was still angry with him. It had been a month, and she was still angry, and it was starting to make B.B. crazy. She was his assistant, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to think about what life would be like without her, but life with her was starting to be a problem.

  “Okay,” B.B. said. He took an authoritative suck of air. “Let’s make this fast.”

  “Of course. You have that young man in there.”

  “I’m mentoring him,” B.B. said.

  “Oh, I am certain of it. I see he likes breadsticks.”

  Fuck if B.B. was going to take this kind of thing from Otto Rose. “What do you want? How did you know I was here, and what is it that can’t wait until morning?”

  “You’re easier to find than you think,” Rose said, “and as to why it can’t wait, I think you’ll be happy I did. Number one, I’ve just received a tip. There’s a reporter in Jacksonville.”

  “They’ve got a newspaper there,” B.B. said. “And TV stations, last time I checked. Of course there are reporters.”