He looked over at the crappy TV sitting on top of an equally crappy dresser, the picture wavering enough to give him a headache. He saw a news report with that Harrington dude up on a dais, looking like a regular tragic hero, giving his withdrawal speech. He listened with half an ear to the garbage flowing like smooth honey out of Harrington’s mouth when he heard Harrington say the target’s name—Kent Harper—and he straightened like a shot. What was going on here? What was that all about? His agent had told him Harper had to die because he knew some things that couldn’t get out, but that was all. A reporter shouted out something about Harper and sexual improprieties. What a stupid way of saying he liked to screw around. He wouldn’t be much of a man if he didn’t, would he? And it was Harper and Harrington together? Was Harper blackmailing Harrington? Or maybe Harper had screwed the wrong man’s wife?

Whistler decided he didn’t really care what it was all about. In his experience, everyone was always screwing around on everyone else, trying to gain an advantage, no matter what it took. He’d get his one hundred thousand dollars. If it looked like Harper would live, he’d just have to kill him before the doctors let the cops question him.

He took a deep breath, upended his Coors can, swallowed the warm beer. He tossed the can into the stingy wastebasket, got up, and began to pace. He was proud of his record. No way would he allow anyone to ruin it, not some schmuck in a freaking hospital.

Whistler paced the skinny room back and forth, and each time he did, he walked by the bed with its cheap faded chenille bedspread. He wished there’d been a room at the Holiday Inn down the road. At least he’d get good breakfasts and the maids wouldn’t have cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, looking at him like he was some sort of rodent.

But he always kept to his deals, and this low-end piece of crap motel was close to I-95 and a quick exit, or an easy drive back to Bellevue Hospital.

A spear of light splashed across one of the dingy walls and he automatically started his shadow play his mother had taught him when he was a kid. Now it was a lifelong habit that eased his mind and relaxed him. He stretched his fingers, turned them this way and that until he saw Brutus, a huge mongrel from his neighborhood, a mean bugger who used to chase the kids. He wiggled Brutus’s nose, his ears, then gracefully segued into a rooster that had no name, twisting his fingers just so to form a rooster’s comb. He finished off with an alligator he’d named Lou, who always made him smile.