The Last Assassin

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 just don’t know why we can’t admit it to ourselves. I bet sales of Prozac would go down if we could.”
    “Maybe,” I said, absently.
    “You see my point, though, right? You are what you are, just like that hunter. The rest is just excuses for what you want to do anyway.”
    “I hope this doesn’t mean you think you’re the bear.”
    He laughed. “What I’m trying to say is, at some point, you should face up to your nature. I think you’d be more at peace with yourself if you would. Hell, look at me. Why do you think the ladies like me so much? I mean, aside from the generous nature of my natural endowments. It’s because I’m comfortable in my own skin. Ladies like that kind of thing.”
    I closed my eyes. “If you see another way out of this situation, tell me, and I’ll take it.”
    “I don’t know that there is another way, right now. But that ain’t really the point, and you know it.”
    I nodded. “Look, I need to go. We’ve got to leave for Tokyo early in the morning and I haven’t even made reservations yet and I’m running on fumes.”
    “Shit, man, don’t look so glum. Last night was a near thing, but you handled it. How many people you think could have come through like that? You’re goddamn exceptional is what you are. And now you’ve got a good plan for fixing things and a good partner to help you. So snap out of this misery or I swear I’ll kick your ass right here in this restaurant.”
    “All right,” I said, giving him a wan smile. “I’ll think about what you said.”
    He laughed again. “You mean you’ll try to find reasons to reject it. And you might find a few. But they won’t last you. Because what I’m telling you is the truth.”

13
    I LEFT FOR TOKYO from JFK in the morning. I would have preferred an indirect route, but we didn’t have a lot of time. For security, Dox was traveling separately, and we would link up again at Narita.
    Before going through security, I found a restroom at the end of the