Perfect Victim (Nadia Stafford 3.6)

"N-no. You've made a mistake."

"Do not play this game. It does not become business men like ourselves." Jack took a wad of bills from his pocket. "Haggling is a waste of my time. The rate is, I believe, fifty thousand per pest. I have one I need taken care of. I will give you five thousand now, as a measure of goodwill."

"Fifty thousand dollars? To kill--"

Jack cut him off with a frown. "Please do not use that word, Mr. Forrest. It is unseemly."

"Who the hell told you I do that?"

"Shall I repeat the names? Yes, I know that was not work--it was personal. But you have been very clear that it was you, and yet you have not been charged. We are impressed. We wish to hire you."

"I don't--I don't do that. At all."

Jack narrowed his eyes. "Who have you been speaking to? Is it Wilhelm? Has he snatched you from under my nose?"

"No." Forrest backed up, both hands raised. "You have the wrong guy. Totally wrong. I've never . . . gotten rid of anyone. I just said that to scare my ex."

"It was a joke?"

"Sure, yeah." A ragged laugh. "A joke."

"It is not funny." Jack looked over Forrest's shoulder. "Do you think it is funny, Bruno?"

Forrest glanced back and saw Cypher standing right there behind him. Forrest let out a yelp . . . and a wet spot spread across the front of his trousers.

Jack didn't let Forrest go quite that easily. He tried to bribe him. He tried to threaten. One way or the other, if Forrest were capable of doing what Jack asked, he would have agreed. He didn't.

On to Louis Stanton, which meant a change of both clothes and persona. Wash out the temporary black and add more gray. Hawaiian shirt. Chino shorts. Sandals . . . with socks, of course. Sunglasses. No scars, but a hint of a tattoo showing below his neckline. Scars and tattoos provided "distinguishing features" that people remembered for the cops. "I have no idea what the guy looked like, but he had a Mickey Mouse tattoo on his hand--that's gotta help, right?" Not if that tattoo washed off with soap and water . . .

Stanton was easy to get in touch with. He wanted to be in touch. He'd splashed his name across the Internet and invited men to join his crusade against the "tyranny" of the family law system and its "bias" toward women. Men were encouraged to contact him and share their stories. So Jack called and offered to buy him a coffee. Stanton readily accepted, which might have had something to do with Jack name-dropping a few leaders of national men's rights organizations. To be honest, Jack hadn't known there were men's rights organizations--and he was still a little fuzzy on the concept--but twenty minutes on the Internet had given him what he needed to know.

He picked up Stanton in a rented Jaguar.

Stanton whistled as he climbed in. "Nice ride."

Jack shrugged. "It'll do. They didn't have much selection."

The coffee shop was within easy walking distance, but Jack hadn't suggested they do that. In his current persona, he was not the kind of man who walked.

Stanton filled the five-minute drive with meaningless chatter, growing increasingly nervous when Jack remained silent. Stanton waited until they were seated in the shop, coffees in hand, before he said, "So, tell me about your situation."

"My ex is a bitch."

Stanton laughed, relaxing into his booth seat. "Aren't they all?"

"Not until you serve the divorce papers." Jack paused. "Nah, it starts with the wedding. You get little hints of it after that, but the sweet's still mixed with the sour. That's how they keep you on your toes. One minute, it's all about how you're traveling too much, and she's tired from looking after the kids, and who's that woman calling all the time. Then the next minute, she's making your favorite meal and running out to buy you beer and showing off her new lingerie."

Stanton chuckled. "That's not just how they keep you on your toes. It's how they keep you. At least until they've locked you in with kids."

Jack nodded. "And then they're a lot more worried about that woman's number on your phone, and the next thing you know, here's a private eye's report, proving you've been screwing around, and oh, yeah, she wants a divorce and the kids and half of everything you made. Worst fucking thing? Whose money do you think paid for the goddamn private eye?"

"I hear ya."

Jack let this go on for a while. It was easy enough to pull it off. In the old days, he'd met plenty of guys like Stanton, guys who wanted their wives killed for no reason other than these petty outrages. Guys who mistook their marriages for ones from the nineteenth century, where they could do as they pleased, so long as they paid the bills.

Jack wished that he could say he'd never taken one of those contracts. There were many contracts he wished he could say that about. Sometimes, he'd only taken one, and it bothered him too much to take another like it, but even one was an indelible smudge on his conscience.

That's why he'd insisted Nadia research every job. Clients lied, and it only took one hit to lose the high ground of saying, "I've never done that." So, yeah, he'd pulled a few spousal hits back in the earliest days when he was too numb, too dead inside to give a shit. Then came the one where he'd found his mark in a playground, swinging alongside her kids, laughing and teasing, and he'd looked at her and seen his mother, and he'd thrown up in the bushes.