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gone. His mother and father were dead, and there was no reason to stick around. One day he went into the woods with his rifle and took a shot at a squirrel or two, but the thrill was gone. When you were used to hunting men you didn’t get much kick taking pot shots at a squirrel. He packed, again, and headed for Chicago.
    For a few years he floated. Then one night in a bad section of St. Louis a man started a fight and pulled a knife on Garrison. Ray took it away from him and broke the blade on the bar top. Then, with his hands, he beat the other man to death.
    The police didn’t get there in time. They’d been nowhere near the place and by the time they got there Ray was in a fat man’s apartment. The man told Garrison he was okay, there was work for someone like him. He asked Garrison was he good with a gun and Garrison just smiled.
    That’s ancient history, he thought now, the car hugging the road and heading south from Tampa. Ancient history. All those years with the mob, all those syndicate jobs for fast, clean cash, they were done with. The syndicate wanted too much. They wanted to own you, and Garrison didn’t want to be owned. So he worked freelance now. He worked for whoever hired him, did an average of four jobs a year, at an average of five grand a job. When not on an assignment, which was ninety percent of the time, he loafed. He floated around the country, stayed in good hotels, read Rimbaud. He liked Rimbaud.
    He was in Key West in the morning. The little island was quiet, warm. He parked the car in a field, unlocked the trunk, broke down the high-powered rifle and packed it in his suitcase with his clothes. He went through his wallet, destroyed the few pieces of identification made out to David Palmer. He didn’t need the car now, didn’t need Palmer. He picked up the suitcase and lugged it down the main street of the town. He stopped at a restaurant for breakfast, ate a double order of ham and eggs and drank a quart of cold milk.
    The counterman was short and bald. “I want to charter a boat,” Garrison told him.
    “Fishing?”
    Garrison shrugged. “A speedy little launch. Something quick and easy. Who do I see?”
    The counterman thought about it. “Try Phil Di Angelo,” he suggested. “You can most times find him down at the fourth pier, or at the Blue Moon, it’s a bar down there.”
    Garrison thanked him and left. He tried the docks and didn’t find Di Angelo. In the Blue Moon the bartender pointed to a dark, unshaven man sitting alone with a bottle of beer at a table in the back. Garrison carried his suitcase across the dirty floor and sat down near Di Angelo. The man looked up. He had been drinking, Garrison saw, but he was not drunk.
    “You’ve got a boat for hire,” Garrison said.
    Di Angelo looked at him. “You wanta hire her?”
    “I might. Is she fast?”
    “Fast and trim. The fishing’s so-so now, not too good and not too bad. You won’t get a sail, if that’s what you’re looking for. No sail and no tarpon. We might have some fun.”
    “I don’t fish.”
    “No?” Di Angelo’s eyes were shrewd, appraising. “Go on, man.”
    Garrison said “I want to go to Cuba. Havana.”
    “You crazy?”
    “No.”
    “You must be crazy.”
    Garrison didn’t say anything. He waited for Di Angelo to make up his mind.
    “I could do it, man. It’ll cost you.”
    “How much?”
    “A grand.”
    Garrison sighed. He stood up and started to leave.
    “Hey—”
    “It’s too much,” he said.
    “How much, then?”
    “Half,” Garrison said. “Five hundred, no more.”
    Di Angelo tried to haggle but it didn’t work. “All right,” he said finally. “When do we leave?”
    “Tomorrow.”
    “Jesus, it takes time. It takes a hell of a time. You can’t just—”
    “It’s a ninety-mile trip and it takes a couple of hours. Cut the crap.”
    “There’s boats,” Di Angelo said desperately. “Patrol boats, ours and theirs. You can’t just dodge them.”
    “You’re going to