stupid or psychopathically greedy people were, they never failed to know when the man they were dealing with couldn’t wait to die. A man who regarded life as nothing more than a long, boring wait at the airport held the ultimate means of intimidation. No one wanted as his enemy a man whose only friend was death.
Of course, there’d been those few exceptions even to this rule. People who didn’t trust what they glimpsed in Stark’s eyes, didn’t really believe he was what he appeared to be, dismissed his lethal stare as a bluff.
But Stark never bluffed. That was, he thought, the ultimate secret of success. If you said you’d walk away, you walked away. You said to yourself, I don’t fucking care, and you turned and you didn’t look back. And if you said you would do a thing, you did it no matter what the cost. You said to yourself, I don’t fucking care, and you did it, and it was done, and you never calculated the risk you’d taken, nor ever the size, be it large or small, either of the penalty or of the reward. Not to care what you won or lost, this was the cold, hard ground of dignity, and standing on that ground was the only thing that made life bearable.
Stark knew that he could convey all of this in a single deadly glance. But he also knew that inevitably some people would fail to read that glance correctly. And so, on those very rare occasions when he’d had some doubt that the point was made, he’d simply ratcheted up the stakes, drawn the nine-millimeter from his jacket, and kindly asked the offending person to open his mouth. The object of Stark’s attention always did so, his eyes widening as Stark pressed the blunt steel barrel into their gaping mouths, careful to scrape the sensitive roof with the metal sight, and thus cause that little nip of pain that so eloquently underlined the desperate nature of the case.
The problem at the moment, however, was that Stark was no longer sure of what his assignment was. Mortimer had asked for a favor, but reluctantly. He’d never done that before, and it was this odd twist in the road that now chewed at Stark relentlessly, urging him to get to the bottom of Mortimer’s strange behavior.
But how? He decided he would pretend that he believed Mortimer’s story. He would tell himself that whatever peculiarities he sensed in the deal might well be harmless, and on that assumption he would work in the normal way, using whatever information Mortimer brought him as the springboard for further investigation.
He took a regional map from the file and spread it across his desk. Since the runaway wife hadn’t taken her own car, the husband would first need to determine if his wife had taken a cab either to her destination or to some other form of transportation. There were several small airports in the vicinity of Montauk. It would not be hard to determine if the woman had used any of them. There were also several bus depots in the area, as well as a single commuter train. The bus or train could have taken her into New York, from which she could have gotten passage to anywhere on earth.
The trick, then, was to narrow the field, shrink the wide world of possibility into a small, tight knot of likelihood. But that couldn’t be done until the husband supplied the added information he’d promised Mortimer. Until it came, Stark could only wait.
But waiting was hard, and even as a child Stark had noticed how little patience he had for the undone deed. He liked to be on the hunt, and if he were haunted by anything, dreaded anything, it was the idle time between jobs. During those intervals, he felt his life grow numb. It did not surprise him that soldiers of fortune were prone to suicide. For how could a man who thirsted for danger possibly endure the absence of it, the long days when he felt himself imprisoned in an empty and unlighted room. He knew the usual means by which such men made the clock move. Drugs. Alcohol. Whores. But the drugs wore off, and the alcohol drained away, and the whore finally had to dress and find another john. And after that, the soldier lay in the dull aftermath and dreamed of jungle firefights, the thrill of being cornered, wounded, left for dead, the ecstasy that ever accompanies the narrowest escape. Denied this primal excitement, how banal and uneventful the rest of it must seem. And so why not press the barrel to your head if the hourly alternative offered nothing more than the unbearable pall of the commonplace?
Stark drew the nine-millimeter from the drawer of his desk, caressed it with affection, thought of Marisol, and marveled with what dreadful accuracy Neruda had hit the mark, understood that in the sickly sweet smell of aftershave the total horror was revealed.
ABE
Abe recognized the man who came toward him from the front of the bar as a semi-regular, a guy who came in sporadically, took a place in the darkest corner he could find, and ordered scotch without designating any particular brand. He wore a faded black suit, with shiny pants that fit him badly, and an old hat that looked as if it had been run over by a truck, then pounded back into shape. Over the years, they’d had a few conversations, but Abe had learned little beyond the guy’s first name and the vague notion that he was some kind of investigator, though exactly what type the man had never said, save that he “found people.”
“How you doing, Morty?” he asked now.
“Abe,” Mortimer said. He slid onto the stool opposite.
Abe smiled. “What’ll you have?”
“Scotch,” Mortimer said.
Abe usually poured the house brand, a cheap blended scotch that wasn’t all that bad. But Mortimer looked so hangdog, he decided on a better one, grabbed a smooth single malt and poured a shot.
Mortimer knocked it back quickly, with no sign that he tasted any difference.
“Another?” Abe asked.
“Yeah,” Mortimer said.
Abe poured a second round.
Mortimer knocked that back, then placed the shot glass on the bar and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Abe tried to lighten the atmosphere. “You don’t sing by any chance, do you, Morty?”
“Shit,” Mortimer said glumly.
Abe poured another round. “Sip this one,” he said. “You might enjoy the taste.”
Mortimer did as he was told.
“What do you think?”
“Good,” Mortimer said.
“You look a little . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Fucked,” Mortimer said.
“Yeah, that’s the word,” Abe said. “What’s the trouble?”
Mortimer’s eyes suddenly lifted from the glass, and Abe could see just how deep the trouble was.
“I got these fucking tests back.” Mortimer looked surprised that the information had flown from his mouth so suddenly. “A death sentence. Three months on the outside.” He rolled the glass slowly between his hands. “Liver’s shot.”
Abe had no idea what to say, and so he said, “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Mortimer shrugged. “No hope. Couple months, on the outside.”
For a moment the two men sat silently. Then Abe said, “I’m really sorry to hear it, Morty.” He poured a fourth round. “On the house. From now on,” he said.
“From now on,” Mortimer repeated, his voice oddly filled with emotion. “You’re a real friend, Abe. Always there for me.”
Abe stared at him, astonished that Mortimer could regard him in such a way. Before now he could remember no conversation that hadn’t included the weather.
Mortimer put out his hand. “My best friend.”
Abe shook Mortimer’s hand lightly.
Mortimer smiled at him warmly, then finished off the drink. “I didn’t tell Dottie yet.”
“Dottie?”
“My wife.” Mortimer ran his finger around the rim of the empty glass. “I ain’t told nobody but you, Abe.”
“You should tell your wife,” Abe said, now suddenly aware that this was Mortimer’s best friend talking.
“The trouble is, I got nothing to leave her.” Mortimer shook his head despondently. “Horses, you know?”
Abe realized that for Mortimer this amounted to a heartfelt confidence. “So, what are you going to do?” he asked. “I mean . . . about . . . what was your wife’s name?”
“Dottie.”
“Yeah, Dottie.”
Mortimer considered Abe’s question briefly, his eyes gazing into the empty glass as if it were a crystal ball. Then he sat back and lightly slapped the bar with both hands. “I better get going.” He grabbed Abe’s hand and
