The Last Assassin

'It was… good.'

He rolled his eyes. 'John Rain, Captain Eloquence. Did you at least… you know.'

I looked at him. 'Did I what?'

'You know… did you get any.'

'Oh, for Christ's sake…'

'You got some then.'

I shook my head in exasperation and said nothing.

He grinned. 'And here you were just in Barcelona with the lovely Miss Delilah. You slut.'

'I just called Delilah.'

'How was that?'

'I don't know. I told her things were complicated, that I needed a little time to sort them out. She got pretty sullen with me. She does that sometimes. But with the shit I'm up against, I just can't deal with it right now. I can't.'

'Well, making a woman like Delilah sullen, that's quite a privilege.'

'Look, let's talk about Japan, okay? Are you interested?'

''Course I am. You're in a tight spot, I ain't gonna let you down.'

I nodded. I was going to owe this man more than I could ever repay. At least it looked like he might walk away with a good payday this time.

'According to the informant,' I said, 'the shipment is unusually large. So we should be talking about an unusual amount of cash, too. Still, no guarantees.'

'Well, I never imagined myself squaring off against the Japanese and Chinese mobs, but I guess that's where the money is. Plus it's the kind of killing and thievery a man can feel good about after it's done. You know, it ain't like we're raping and pillaging a bunch of candy stripers.'

'No, you can bet these people won't be candy stripers,' I said. I wanted to add, Don't get cocky, but at the moment, I wasn't in a great position to dispense advice.

He took a swallow of beer, then leaned back and belched. 'Well, the potential upside is fine,' he said. 'You can count me in for that. But you're not doing this for the money, are you?'

'I'm not going to give it to charity afterward, if that's what you mean.'

'What I mean is, you're doing this to try to clean up the mess you made outside of Midori's apartment last night.'

'That's right.'

'So you can be with her and your boy.'

'Yes.'

'So you can get yourself a normal life.'

I nodded, uncomfortable, not sure what he was getting at.

'I've got a little joke I want to tell you,' he said. 'I think you might like it.'

I looked at him. 'Okay.'

'There's this hunter. He's in the woods with his rifle, and he sees a big, ugly-looking bear. Takes aim, shoots, and he misses. The bear walks over and says, 'Mister, I don't like the feeling of being hunted. I reckon I'm just gonna have to teach you a lesson.' So the bear bends the hunter over a log, pulls his pants down, and sodomizes that boy for all he's worth.'

'Okay…' I said again.

'So a little later, the hunter is still prowling around, he sees the bear again. He takes aim, he shoots, and he misses again. The bear walks over and says, 'Damn, son, you sure are a slow learner. Okay, I guess we'll just have to repeat the lesson.' And he bones him a second time.'

I wondered where he was going with this.

'Well, sure enough, an hour later the hunter sees the bear again. And he tries to shoot him again, and he misses again. Well, this time, the bear comes over looking especially grave and sober. And he says, 'Mister, I want you to be honest with me. This isn't really about hunting, is it?''

At that, Dox burst into laughter. I looked at him, quietly marveling at his sense of humor.

After a moment, his guffaws subsided. 'You get it?' he asked.

'Yeah, but…'

'The hunter is you, partner. You keep telling yourself you're just trying to do the right thing, or be with your family, or get out of the life, or whatever. But it always comes down to killing with you. Always.'

For a guy who liked to play the hick, Dox had insight that could cut like a scalpel.

'It's like America,' he went on. 'I mean, look at us, we're always telling ourselves how peace-loving we are. 'We're a peace-loving people, we love peace.' I guess that's why we spend more on our military than the rest of the world combined, why we have over seven hundred overseas military bases in a hundred and thirty countries, and why we've been at war pretty much continuously since we were just a bunch of colonies. Shoot, you think if a Martian visited Earth and tried to identify the most peace-loving culture, he'd pick the U.S. of A.? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, mind you. We're a warlike people, it's obvious, we're good at war and we like it. I