The Long Fall

I was somewhat troubled that we worked so well together.

Hush squatted down in front of our target and pinched his cheek until the skin was bright red.

Moore’s eyes came open and fear filled them to the brows.

Hush showed him his pistol.

“We are going to talk,” he said. “Understand?”

Moore nodded.

“Get in the chair,” I ordered, partly to wrest control of the interrogation from Hush.

Tim was a little unsteady getting up but he made it.

“You were tû€3">“You rying to have me killed,” I said in a markedly pleasant tone. “Why?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t lie. I am all out of patience. Just answer my question and maybe you’ll see another day.”

Moore burped loudly. It had a wet sound to it.

I could see a dozen lies forming and dissipating behind his eyes.

Hush settled on the arm of the big chair, holding his pistol almost carelessly. This pose might have seemed unprofessional, but I could see the ever-growing concern in Moore’s eyes. Something about Hush reeked of finality.

Mr. Hush’s wasn’t the only scent. Moore’s sweat was, if anything, even stronger than it had been in my office.

I noticed a small picture frame standing on the little table. It was a photograph of the woman that Moore had in his wallet.

“Hull,” Tim said and then he burped again. “Roman Hull.”

Finally . . . something that made sense.

“How’s that work?” I asked.

“He, he called me and said to be ready.”

“And?”

“A delivery service dropped off a box about fifteen minutes later. There was this cell phone in it. Maybe fifteen minutes more and I got a call.”

“From Roman?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It was another voice. They offered me a whole lot of money. A whole lot.” He emphasized the last words as a kind of explanation. After all, wouldn’t I kill him for the kind of money he was suggesting?

“How do you know Hull?” I asked.

“A long time ago I used to be his driver sometimes. He kept in touch with me when I was in Attica. After I got out he’d give me jobs now and then.”

“Where’s the cell phone?”

“Same guy came and picked it up an hour later. He left me the briefcase, too.”

Hush sat up and Timothy flinched.

“Just to get this straight,” I said. “The money was to kill me.”

The frightened man nodded.

“How do you get in touch with him?”

“I don’t.”

Hush stood up.

“Go on down to the car, LT,” he said.

“Hey, wait!” Timothy pleaded. He cut off in mid-screech when Hush showed him a single finger.

“No,” I said.

“Just step outside the door then,” Hush offered.

“We’re not here to kill anybody.”

“But you heard him.”

“I’m turning over a new leaf,” I said. It sounds comical to me now, but I was deadly serious at the time.

“Me too,” Hush replied, “but this man here tried to murder you. That’s a death sentence.”

“It’s over now.”

Maybe for me. But murder had been unleashed in Hush’s nervous system and he needed time to let it work its way out. I stood very still while the slender merchant of death allowed the demon to sink back into his bones.

I don’t think that Timothy Moore drew a breath.

“Call your friend LouBob,” Hush said to Tim. “Ask him what he thinks you should do now that you’re living when you should be dead.

“I’ll meet you downstairs.” These last words were from Hush to me.

He went out the door. I waited for a few beats and was about to follow when a thought occurred to me.

“Hey, Tim.”

“What? What?”

“That picture on your table.”

“What about it?” he said with the barest sliver of steel in his voice.

“That’s Margot for real?”

“Yeah.”

“She left you, huh?”

He nodded.

“Was it over an Asian girl named Annie?”

“Yeah.”

The truth is always the best way to lie.

Ê€„

47

T

his time I sat in the front seat as Hush drove down toward Manhattan. Most of the way we rode in silence, but a few blocks from my door he began to speak in a voice so deep it seemed to be coming up from out of the ground.

“That was very unprofessional.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Why didn’t you let me kill him?”

“I don’t kill people,” I said. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of things . . . and some of them have ended up with people dying. But I steer clear of anything like that nowadays.”

“Found religion?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just one day I realized something.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s hard to explain. I mean, it’s not a thing, it’s a feeling.”

“Like what?”

He pulled to the curb in front of my building.

“It’s like you walk up behind somebody that you intend to kill,” I said, trying to speak his language, I guess. “There you are with your gun pointed to the back of the man’s head. You feel cold inside. It’s just a job. And all of a sudden you aren’t the man holding the gun but the one about to be shot. And you don’t have any idea that there’s somebody behind you, and all the days of your life have led you to this moment.”

“So it’s like you’re killing yourself,” the assassin intoned.

It felt as if I were instructing a newborn deity who was moments away from ascension.

Hush was staring at me. His eyes tightened.

“So, then, it felt like you were saving my life in there?” he asked.

“And mine.”

Hush’s laugh was a friendly thing, boyish and almost silly.