'If it's any consolation,' I said, 'you almost succeeded.'
'It is no consolation,' Rugar said.
The cell was a cage of heavy wire mesh backed against a yellow-tiled wall in the basement of the precinct house. The cells on either side were empty. The area was lit by a ceiling fixture in the hallway, where a low wattage bulb was overmatched by the space it had to light. Outside in the corridor, under the ineffective ceiling light, a uniformed cop with a thick moustache rested his back against the far wall out of earshot and watched us. The moustache was partly gray though his hair was dark.
'They don't know who you are,' I said.
Rugar was quiet.
'They can't match your prints anywhere. You seem to have no arrest record.'
Rugar was still quiet.
'You want to bargain?' I said.
'What have I to bargain?'
'The name of the guy who hired you.'
'And what have you?'
'My testimony.'
'Without your testimony, there is no case against me.'
It was my turn to be quiet.
'On the other hand,' Rugar said, 'even with your testimony there is simply your word against mine.'
I waited.
'You can prove that you were shot last year.'
Rugar seemed to be thinking out loud. I nodded and let him keep thinking.
'I have been so successful, for so long, I had begun to think I was impregnable,' he said.
I waited some more. I didn't say anything. Rugar looked at me as steadily as he had.
'The longer they hold me,' he said, 'the more chance they have to look into my identity.'
'Good point,' I said.
'And giving up the man who hired me would cost me nothing.'
'Another good point,' I said.
He paid no attention. As far as I could tell he was talking to himself.
'I promised him nothing. I never expected to fail, so there was nothing to promise. Had I succeeded, I could not implicate him without implicating myself, and he could not implicate me without implicating himself. Each had to keep the other's secret.'
'But that's not how it is now,' I said.
'No,' Rugar said. 'It isn't, and that is my fault. I have failed in my assignment. I am forced to compromise myself.'
'There's another way to look at it,' I said.
'Yes?'
'You didn't fail,' I said. 'I succeeded.'
'My present situation remains the same,' Rugar said.
'It can be changed,' I said. 'You give me the guy who hired you, and you testify against him, and you walk away from this.'
'You are willing to let me go free after I came so close to fulfilling my assignment?'
'Yep.'
'Do you fear I will try again?'
'No.'
'Really,' Rugar said. 'Why not?'
He seemed genuinely interested.
'You are a professional. You do this for money. You don't allow ego or fear or compassion to motivate you. If you give me your client, you have no further reason to chase me.'
Rugar looked past me for a moment at the cop leaning on the wall outside the cage. Then he shifted his eyes back to me.
'And how do you know this about me?' he said.
I shrugged. He kept looking at me for a moment and then, oddly, he smiled.
'It is because that is also how you are,' he said.
'Gimme a name,' I said.
