The Silver Bear

He cut me off. “You think you are the first one to do this job? To be a professional?”

“I don’t—”

“There are reasons why I picked you. Number one.

No father and mother. Number two. No father and mother. Do I make sense? Yes?”

I stood there, smarting.

“Relationships are weakness. In this line of work, you can have no weakness. Or, I assure you, your weakness will be discovered and exploited.”

“By whom?”

“By whom?” he snorted. “I forget what a babe you are. You are now in the business of killing men. Women and children, too, if that is your assignment. When you do this job, you make enemies. Enemies in law enforcement, enemies in the families of the person you kill, enemies who are rival assassins. Yes. That’s right. I am not the only fence in this country; not even in this city. There are others who will do whatever they can to stop you from continuing to do what you do. And they will find this girl and exploit her. I promise you that.”

“She’s the first girl—”

“What? Who cared for you? Who made love to you? Bah. Let me tell you this, Columbus . . . she is nothing but a weight on your chest, pushing down on your breastbone, crushing the wind out of you. You must let her go. Tell her you will never see her again. I can give you no better advice than this.”

“I understand.”

“We’re in agreement, then?”

“I said I understand.”

I said it passionately, too, and he stared at me for a long time, measuring me, trying to read my thoughts. I diverted my eyes and picked up the envelope.

“What’s this, then?”

“Your next mark.”

“Will I get a chance to prove myself this time?” Vespucci stood up. “That is not up to me.”

“Who is it up to, then?”

“To God, I suppose. Study the contents of that envelope.” He made it to the door. “And forget this girl, Columbus.”

He didn’t wait for my reply as he shuffled out into the hall.

THE name at the top of the page in the second envelope was Edgar Schmidt, a police detective. I did not get the call to kill him, but read about his death on the front page of the Globe three weeks later. The third envelope contained the name Wilson Montgomery, a pipefitter who had dealings with the mob. He died a week later, though I never found out how. The fourth envelope was devoted to a man named Seamus O’Dooley, a nightclub owner. He was gunned down in the alley behind his establishment.

I studied all of these files with undiminished intensity. In fact, each time I wasn’t called in to complete the mission only served to make me more focused on the next file.

But I didn’t forget the girl, despite what Vespucci ordered of me. I wanted to please him, but I wasn’t about to cast off the only part of my life that had ever meant anything. So when the holidays rolled around, Jake and I took off in her little Honda for New Hampshire.

Her family met us at the door. Her father, Jim, took my hand and warmly pumped it as he guided us into the house. In the fireplace, warm flames licked the screen that kept the embers at bay. The house was rustic, like many of the homes dotting the New England country-side, and the inside was filled with wooden Western-style furniture. A brown leather sofa took up most of the living room, and the home felt as warm as the fire. It was a home, a real home, something I’d never experienced.

Her mother, Molly, studied my face, a broad smile on her own, and said, “Well, don’t just stand there, Jim, grab his bag. We’re gonna put you in Louis’s room. It gets a little cold at night, but we’ll throw some extra blankets on your bed and you’ll be snug as a bug.” It seemed that once Jake’s mother opened her mouth, she couldn’t stop the onslaught of words tumbling from it.

Jake smiled and rolled her eyes when Molly wasn’t looking, as if to say “I tried to warn you . . .”

THE food covering the dining table was enough to feed a dozen people: peaches wrapped with prosciutto, a warm pear-and-endive salad, a honey-baked ham with a brown-sugar crust, baked beans, and no less than three pies waiting on a side table: pumpkin, key lime, and buttermilk chess.

“Jake tells us you work for a distribution company?” Jim asked when we had stacked our plates.

“Yes, sir. It’s just a start until I can earn enough money to begin school.”

“Oh?” Molly said, more of a comment than a question.

“Yes, ma’am. I didn’t—”

Jake rescued me. “Mother—”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

I looked at Jake and nodded, like I had this under control. “My parents died when I was an infant, and I was raised in foster homes, though not by parents you would call ‘loving.’ So if I want to go to college, it’s up to me to pay for it. And I don’t believe in owing the government a nickel, so, like I said, I’m just building up my account.”

Jim cast a stern eye at his wife, then looked back at me. “Well, I think that is not only a refreshing attitude but an admirable one.” He deftly changed the subject . . . “Well, what did you think of the drive into Nashua? Jake always likes to come in the back way, but I’ve been saying for years the Interstate can slice twenty minutes off . . .”

“Jesus, Daddy, you’re embarrassing me!” she squealed happily and tossed her napkin at him.

The conversation stayed in the mundane, and Molly didn’t let anything dampen her ability to dominate a conversation. Her sentences ran together without punctuation . . . I’m not even sure she took breaths. But I loved every minute of it . . . the food, the conversation, the family, and Jake’s hand that made its way under the table to mine. She squeezed it in three pulses, as if to say “I love you,” and I believed she did, believed it like I had never believed anything. And I started to think, we could be like this, Jake and me, thirty years from now, talking over a table to our own child and her new boyfriend. We could be having a meal like this.

I left the light on next to my bed so I could read the latest file Vespucci handed me before I left. He had been in the hallway when I returned from a hard run, and I didn’t invite him in. I don’t know why I didn’t, or even if he gave a shit. He just waited for a second, studied my face, and when I didn’t extend the invitation, he turned and left. I had the feeling he knew I was still seeing Jake, that I was going to be out of town that weekend, but I didn’t open my mouth to confirm it. Hell, if he wanted me to kill for him, I wasn’t giving this up. And if we never talked about it again, that was all right by me.

The name at the top of the file was Janet Stephens. She was a judge in the 5th Circuit Court, City of Boston. She was not married, but had an ongoing relationship with a female attorney named Mary Gibbons. She lived in a town house in the Back Bay, not far from Beacon Street, with a corgi named Dusty. The courthouse was downtown, a twenty-minute walk through the Common from her front gate.

The picture of Janet revealed a middle-aged woman with a broad forehead and cocoa skin. Her father was black and her mother was white, and she had that beautiful tone found in a lot of offspring of mixed parentage. Her eyes were a piercing shade of green, and her hair fell in tight dark curls down to her chin. Her nose was disproportionately big, however, and it marred what was otherwise a handsome face. She stayed in shape, too, working out five days a week with a personal trainer . . . alternating upper and lower body workouts with cardio training each session. Her gym was equidistant between her town home and her courtroom.

Now, whether there was a hit on her because she sent the wrong guy up or because she was about to preside over an important trial, I didn’t have the slightest idea. Maybe the contract on her life had nothing to do