The Psalmist by James Lilliefors Page B

handful of fries.
    â€œMight have something. Pickup truck ID’d from description.”
    â€œVideo?”
    â€œPartial plate. Checking.”
    â€œOkay.”
    Fischer often spoke in a peculiar verbal shorthand, which Hunter was able to decipher.
    â€œAnything?” Ship asked, glancing over.
    â€œDon’t know yet. Maybe.”
    Maybe it’s the break we’re looking for, Hunter thought. But probably not. At least ninety-­five percent of her work on homicide cases ended up as wasted time. But she had to go through it to get to the five percent that wasn’t. Meaning none of it was really wasted, just incredibly tedious.

 
    Chapter 7
    T HE BIG MAN had been eating pancakes alone at two-­twenty in the morning, the only customer seated at the counter, when the phone vibrated in his trousers pocket; it was the one call he had to take.
    â€œGil Rankin.”
    â€œHe needs to see you,” the familiar voice said.
    â€œI thought we were finished.”
    â€œNo. One more.”
    So Rankin, his muscles still tingling from pumping iron, had no choice but to follow instructions. He flew that morning to New York City, where a driver met him at LaGuardia and took him to meet the Client. This time the man was sitting in the back of a delicatessen in midtown, eating a pastrami on rye and drinking coffee, the Daily News open in front of him to the sports pages. A slight, otherwise plain-­looking man, with silvery hair and dark, disturbing eyes.
    â€œI wish it hadn’t come to this, Gilbert,” he told Rankin, taking his time folding the paper closed. “It isn’t a result any of us wanted. But it has to be done. This sort of betrayal—­it’s like fruit that has gone bad. Have you ever seen spoiled fruit made good again?”
    â€œNo,” Rankin said, trying, with mixed success, not to look at his client’s eyes. It was like looking at the sun, something you shouldn’t do.
    â€œNo, that’s right,” his Client said. “It doesn’t happen.”
    How did things get to this point, anyway? Rankin asked himself on the limo ride back to LaGuardia, watching the city through a driving, icy rain. It was hard to say. He had worked for lots of high-­end clients over the years, all sorts of characters. But a decade ago his list had shrunk to one, and stayed that way ever since. His assignments now were infrequent but always lucrative. And the rest of his time was his, to do whatever he wanted. For a man who liked to work after dark, Rankin had made a good life for himself in the Sunshine State. He was married to a beautiful, intelligent, Puerto Rican–born woman who was also his best friend. They lived in a 17,000-­square-­foot Spanish-­style place on the water, paid for, fully staffed. They had one boy in elementary school, one in middle school. Sometimes, Rankin and his family took his boat into the Gulf of Mexico, far from everything, for days at a time. Nothing made him happier.
    The only thing he didn’t have anymore was the luxury of saying no. That was their arrangement: you take the assignments you’re given, you know the pay will be enormous, you don’t ask questions. And Rankin did a good job. It was the only reason he’d gotten to where he was today.
    This deal, from the beginning, had been the Client’s strangest assignment. But it came with the sweetest incentive: this job could be his last, if that’s what Gil Rankin really wanted. Meaning, he could walk away, if he wanted, millions of dollars richer, and never have to go back. There was an adage he’d heard all of this life—­that eventually, everybody gets caught. It wasn’t strictly true, but close enough. Rankin had known hugely successful ­people who now resided in nine-­by-­nine-­foot prison cells because they’d played too long and gotten sloppy, or made deals with clients who were wearing wires. He had always