He was Madison Avenue smooth, all the way, and had really done his homework. Knew about my wife and Williams and the publicity (even though he did not live in California). We sat at a scarred table in my crap pad and he politely accepted a rum and Coke in a Yogi Bear jelly jar and told me how badly I’d been treated, by my wife, by the media, by my family, by the law.
I thought the law had done fine by me, actually. And what did he know about my family, and how did he know it?
I am good at remembering conversations. I can even recall the nuances, right down to gestures and tone of voice, and I can report everything from the time of day to the weather, including the clothing worn…usually. But as you’ve seen, my memory of conversations with darling Joni is limited. And that first conversation with the Broker — arguably the most important of my life-is similarly vague in my mind.
I do distinctly remember him saying, “I have an unusual opportunity for you, Mr…” He used my real name. “A money-making opportunity.”
He didn’t come right out and say, “Are you interested in killing for hire?” It wasn’t like I’d filled out a truck stop matchbook, answering a question like, Looking for Opportunities in the Murder Trade? Can you draw Winky?
No, but he did say something very similar to “How would you like to make real money at home doing what you did for almost no money overseas?”
There’s no question that he caught me at just the right moment. Maybe I would have pulled out of my tailspin some other way, had I been offered some other, more mainstream opportunity. Still, I knew-just like the Broker knew-that I had only one marketable skill.
I knew how to kill people.
And I knew how to do it dispassionately. Because I understood, when the Broker explained that the individuals I would be asked to remove were already tagged for death.
I believe he put it this way: “Essentially, they are walking around, marking time, until who they are and what they’ve done catches up with them. No one has earned the dubious distinction of being targeted for death without due cause.”
Broker made it sound like all of the targets were bad persons whose transgressions could not be addressed by the legal system. But that was a rationalization designed to draw me in. I soon understood that a given target might be a decent sort who stood in the way of another party’s selfish interests.
Anyway, none of it had anything to do with me. Someone with money enough to have another person killed had decided to do so, and that was that. The decision was made well before I got in the picture. My role was impersonal- clients opened a drawer, stuck in their hand, and I was the weapon they pulled out.
I worked with the Broker for over five years. He described himself as “sort of an agent,” a middleman in the murder game, providing insulation between client and killer. Actually, killers, because the Broker’s system was to use those two-man Passive and Active teams I mentioned.
The details are not important to this narrative, but you need to know that the Broker eventually betrayed me. And after disposing of him, I wound up with what today you’d call a database, but in the mid-’70s was just a list.
A very valuable list, however-over fifty names of guys like me, who had worked for the Broker, with full detailed files on each. Seeing my file with my face in it, as well as detailed info on two dozen kills of mine, I swore I’d never work through a middleman again. Not in the murder business, anyway.
Of course, I could have exited that business-I had some money saved-but an interesting thought presented itself. I saw how I could use the Broker’s list, and keep working, in a new way, and on my own terms.
I would choose a name from the Broker’s file-someone like myself-and travel to where that name lived and stake him out, then follow him to his next job. (I should note that a few of the names were female.) Through further surveillance, I would determine the identity of the target, whom I’d approach, offering to eliminate the threat. For a healthy fee, the hit team would be discreetly removed. For a further fee, I could also look into who had hired the hit, and remove that threat, too.
It was risky. What if a target-approached by a stranger with a crazy story, claiming to be a sort of professional killer himself-called the cops or otherwise wigged out?
But remember-anyone designated for a hit is somebody who almost certainly has done something worth getting killed over. Such an individual tends not to be a sterling model citizen-or, at least, is somebody well aware of a powerful, ruthless adversary, capable of such malfeasance.
My hunch had been that these people would welcome help, especially since the other option was to take a bullet or get run over or fall down icy stairs. The money I could demand of my clients meant that I’d only have to perform this risky task once a year or so.
And so far my thinking had proved valid-Nick Varnos was the sixth name I’d plucked from the Broker’s list. I’d watched him in Vegas for a month, and now I was in Boot Heel, Nevada, where I’d followed him. Admittedly, I’d got a little ahead of myself. But running into my talkative old pardner Jerry had saved me a lot of work.
I already knew who the target was-I just needed a name. Couldn’t be too many movie directors staying at the Spur Motel. Of course, Nick Varnos was staying there as well, and I had to make my pitch to my prospective client before Nick made an accident happen.
What the hell-I needed a place to stay myself.
Maybe the Spur had another room available.
THREE
The Spur Motel was not my first stop, after returning to Boot Heel; in fact, I rolled right past it in the late Jerry’s red Mustang. I had another motel in mind, which required making my way through Main Street’s four-block minicanyon of neon.
Traffic was modest-this was a Thursday night in the little casino town-as I made my way to the northern outskirts where that other motel awaited…the Saddle Up, which I have to say is one of the best names I ever heard for a sleazy little motel.
The Saddle Up certainly fit that shabby bill. The Spur, which I’d only glimpsed, was three stories and quite modern. This was a horizontal strip of rooms with a freestanding office, a light-blue badly cracked and chippedup stucco structure that had been around since Bonnie and Clyde went looking for places to shack up away from the law. Billy the Kid may have attended the grand opening.
Not that there was anything grand about the Saddle Up. Even its neon sign couldn’t deliver, depicting not a saddle but a horseshoe, a red one with yellow nails, several of which had burned out. Yellow neon lettering filled the upside-down U:
COOL AIR
COLOR TV
NO VACANCY
These were shorting in and out. No pool, just a gravel lot. Twelve rooms with only three cars, despite the buzzing No Vacancy notice.
Which I knew to be inaccurate. Jerry had been staying here, and he’d checked out, all right. Maybe not from the Saddle Up, but…
I nosed the Mustang into its stall outside Jerry’s room- number eight-and used the key I’d found in his wallet. I’d considered stopping at my car, which you may recall was parked on Main Street down from the Four Jacks, to get my nine millimeter Browning out of the glove compartment. But I didn’t really see any need for a weapon. Jerry was dead, and his partner Nick had no idea I was in town. It pays to be paranoid in my business, but why go to extremes?
When I flipped on the light switch, I for the first time felt sorry for the late Jerry. That he’d had to live in this dump for the last month or so of his life was a small tragedy. The best that could be said for number eight was that the bed was made; oh, and for a quarter the mattress would vibrate. And the chugging air conditioner indeed delivered the cool air the neon sign promised.
Looming over the bed’s nubby piss-color spread was one of those garishly framed matador prints that every
