the dead man's crimes: that he had done things of unspeakable cruelty. She hoped so. She took no pleasure at all in having participated in this man's death, however wicked he might have been. Her only source of consolation was that for Helmut Gregor, the invisible hand that had killed with such detached precision had struck him like the fist of God. Not that the man climbing down from the top of the wardrobe looked much like an angel of the Lord. There was something about the American's face that made her feel uncomfortable. No laugh lines around the mouth, not even the line of a frown on the high forehead, and as for the eyes - it wasn't as if they were dead or anything grotesque like that, it was just that they were always the same, with the right eye -the one he used to peer through the sniper-scope - permanently narrowed, so that even when he was looking at her he appeared to be choosing some feature on her face as his next aiming point.
Tom slid the rifle into a tournament-size golf bag, disguising the barrel end with a numbered head cover. He added the clubs, hoisted the bag on to his shoulder, and then checked his appearance in the wardrobe's full-length mirror. There were a number of excellent golf clubs in the suburbs of BA - the Hurlingham, the Ranelagh, the Ituzaingo, the Lomas, the Jockey, the Hindu Country Club - and, dressed in a pair of dark-blue flannels, navy-blue polo-shirt, and matching windcheater, Tom thought he looked to all the world like a man with nothing more lethal on his mind than the dry Martinis he might consume at the nineteenth hole.
And, but for the fact that it was late in the afternoon and would soon be dark, he might even have played. He was a keen golfer and often used a bag of clubs to disguise the fact that he was carrying a rifle. This particular bag and the cheap set of Sam Sneads it contained (not so cheap when he remembered the ad valorem they'd charged him at the airport) he had brought with him from the pro shop at the Miami Shores Country Club where he usually played, and he planned to give them to Sylvia's father after she had disposed of the rifle. The old man was a member of the club at Olivos, close to where Eichmann had been living until rabbit farming took him to San Fernando and the house on Garibaldi Street from which he had been kidnapped.
You're just going to carry it out the front door of the hotel?' asked Sylvia, closing the bedroom window.
Sure. You got a better idea?' He thought she was looking a little green around the gills. Never seen anyone shot in colour before. Probably just a few old SS newsreel shots of Jews getting it in the back of the head. Not the same thing at all.
She shook her head. No, I guess not,' she admitted.
You look like you need a cup of mate,' said Tom, who'd developed quite a taste for Argentina's national drink himself. A herbal alternative to coffee, mate was a refreshing drink as well as being considered a great remedy for mild stomach upsets.
How can you do that?' she whispered. How can you kill someone like that? In cold blood.'
Why do I do it? Why do I take down contracts?'
Tom considered the question for a moment. It was one he'd been asked many times before, mostly in the army, when he'd been more up-front about being a shooter. Somehow it never seemed to satisfy people merely to say that it was all a matter of training. Not that he usually felt much of a need to explain himself. But during the three or four days he had spent with Sylvia he had come to like her. There was something about this girl that made him want to tell her that he wasn't filled with hate any more than he was some kind of psycho. That he was just a man doing what men were always best at, which was killing other men. Never very articulate, Tom searched for a form of words that she might understand, and in doing so he shrugged, pursed his lips, bobbed his head one way and then the other, and took a deep breath through his nose before finally he answered her.
I go to the movies a lot. I'm in a lot of strange towns, killing time, y'know?' He smiled wryly as he reflected on that particular choice of words. One movie I saw. Shane. With Alan Ladd? Pretty damn good movie. It's about this stranger that arrives in a little Wyoming town, who tries to forget his previous life with a gun. Only you know he won't be able to do that. He'll try and he'll fail and that's all there is to it. Which means that right from the moment the bad guy, Jack Palance, appears on screen, you know he's going to be shot. And that Shane is going to be the one to kill him. The guy's a walking dead man and he doesn't even know it. Just waiting to fall into his grave.
It's the same with these guys I kill. When I take the contract they're dead already. If it wasn't me who killed them, it'd be someone else. The way I see a contract is that it's better for them it's me because I'm good at what I do. Better for them: a clean shot; better for me: I'm well paid for what I do. If it wasn't for the money I'd probably still be in the army. Money's the how and the why of just about everything in this world. Whether it's cutting a man's hair, pulling his teeth, or shooting him dead.'
Sylvia was shaking her head. There were tears in her eyes.
You're young,' he said. You still believe in shit. In morals. In an ideal. Zionism. Marxism. Capitalism. Whatever. You think that stuff's any less corrosive to society than what I do for a living? Let me tell you, it's not the people who believe in nothing you gotta worry about, it's the people who believe in stuff. Religious people. Political people. Idealists. Converts. They're the ones who are going to destroy this world. Not people like me, the people who pay lip service to no creed or cause. Money's the only cause that will never let you down and self-interest's the one world philosophy that won't try to bullshit you. There's a dialectic for you that'll always make sense.'
Tom smiled and shifted the golf bag on to his other shoulder. There were times when he almost convinced himself with his own bullshit. And if that wasn't politics then he was the man in the Hathaway shirt.
Now let's get the hell out of here before someone smells our gunpowder.'
Chapter 2
Quiniela Exacta
It was a hot and humid Friday evening in September when Tom Jefferson left his Biscayne bayfront home in Miami Shores and drove twenty minutes southwest, to the jai alai frontA3n on 37th Avenue and North West 35th Street. The ancient Basque sport of jai alai, though popular in Spain and France, was played nowhere in North America except Florida, reflecting the sunshine state's uniquely heterogeneous character. It had been two Cubans who built America's first frontA3n in the shadow of Hialeah, the grande dame of Florida racetracks, back in 1928. This edifice lasted only as long as the great hurricane of 1935. Subsequently, another frontA3n was built just a short way south of the original, right next to Miami International Airport and, until 1953, when an enthusiastic aficionado from Chicago erected a second frontA3n in Dania, the one on 37th held a monopoly on the game.
Tom followed jai alai the same way he followed baseball and football, which is to say he rarely got a chance to go, but paid close attention to the results published in the Miami Herald. Besides, tickets were hard to come by. Played indoors, the seating capacity of the frontA3n on 37th was just three thousand five hundred. Hugely popular among the city's Latin population, especially at the weekend, the promoters could have sold two or three times as many tickets. But for the ticket he had received in the mail, Tom, who was part Cuban himself, would never have dreamed of actually going to the Friday night jai alai. Let alone going there to discuss a contract. People who wanted other people killed nearly always preferred to meet somewhere quieter, where there was less chance of being overheard. Which meant that the mysterious Mr Ralston, who had sent Tom his ticket, was either a rank amateur in the business of killing and hence someone to be avoided, or someone so sophisticated in the purifying euphemisms of the trade that he felt comfortable talking contracts in a crowd.
The game listed was an eleven-game doubles for seven points, with all sixteen pelotaris who were in action coming from as far away as Cuba, Mexico, and Spain's Basque region. Tom never minded making a small bet on jai alai: the number of players involved meant that the game was hard to fix. So upon entering the frontA3n, and glancing over the players, he purchased a five-dollar quiniela exacta from one of the pari-mutuel, state-run betting machines. To collect on this ticket meant that it was necessary not only to have picked the winning pair, but also the runners-up.
When it was approaching a quarter to seven, Tom went to find his seat. This was a good one, the best Tom had ever had - right in front, next to the protective glass wall. But of his host there was, as yet, no sign. Just after seven, the four pelotaris already warming up on court, a man carrying a copy of the New York Times and a paperback novel sat down beside him.
I'm John Ralston,' he said, shaking Tom by the hand. Nice to meet you. And thanks for coming.'
It was a strong handshake, stronger than the man's business-like, not to say dapper appearance might have indicated. He wore heavy-framed dark glasses, a cream shirt and tie, a well-cut beige linen suit, a folded silk handkerchief in the breast pocket, more than a hint of cologne, and a large ruby ring. The silver hair above Ralston's high, tanned forehead was a little longer than was fashionable, but neat, and from time to time he touched it as if it had been recently cut. Straight away Tom decided that the man was no amateur: Ralston was not in the least bit fearful of Tom.
Thanks for asking me,' said Tom.
