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gonna be after me. Ya gettin’
    the picture?”
    Jack swallowed hard. “A little too well.”
    “None a my hideouts gonna be safe. I got a stash hid outside Quartzsite. Goin’ there fer money ’n’ weapons. Then we gotta get new ID. Gotta go ta LA fer that, but need cash first.” Throughout this speech, D’s unblinking eyes didn’t leave Jack’s face but pinned him there against the passenger door like an amoeba under a microscope.
    “Okay,” Jack said, nodding.
    D sighed. “But don’t go thinkin’ it’s jus’ you with a bull’s-eye on yer forehead.” He turned toward the road again and pulled back onto the highway.
    They drove in silence for a good half hour. Jack watched the spare expanse of southwestern scenery scroll by outside the car, trying to empty his mind of thoughts…
    but one kept recurring. “What did you mean when you said it might not have been the Dominguez brothers who hired you?” Jack asked.
    It took D long enough to answer that Jack started to wonder if he was going to. “I got no proof was them.”
    “Isn’t them wanting me dead proof enough? I don’t think anyone else is that mad at me.”
    D cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Mighta been more about me killin’ ya than you bein’ dead.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Possible some parties wanted ta see if I’d do it.”
    “Why would they think you wouldn’t?”
    “Don’t matter.”
    “Fine, whatever.” Jack fell silent again. The sun was setting, and he was starting to get sleepy. He squinted into the spectacular sunset that was, sadly, lost on him in his distraction and let D’s words percolate into his brain. He tucked himself into the corner of the seat and rested his eyes on D’s profile as he faced relentlessly forward, both hands on the wheel, the picture of steely resolve even engaged in such a mundane task as driving.
    With his shorn hair and stubble, D’s head looked like it had been sandblasted and weather-stripped. Jack had spent most of his professional life cutting people’s faces open, and his surgeon’s eye showed him the bones beneath D’s skin, although his seemed much closer to the surface than most people’s. His jawline was like a flying buttress, his brow like one of the table mesas that lurked on the horizon. His skull was geologic in its architecture. One could only imagine the seismic events and plate tectonics that had gone on in his life to shape him into this… whatever he was.

    Zero at the Bone | 19

    Jack knew that he ought to be afraid of D, and in a way, he was, but he got no sense of evil or malice from the man. He just seemed so rigidly defended that Jack wondered if any emotional considerations were even possible, and yet he’d displayed emotion in Jack’s own living room when faced with his homicidal task. Since then, however, he’d been about as accessible as the saguaro cacti dotting the landscape.
    How accessible would you want to be if you were a hired killer? Jack suppressed a shiver. How many people had D killed? Dozens? Hundreds? How many had begged for mercy? How many had families, children, spouses to support? How many, like him, had done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time? He looked away, having managed to give himself the creeps. This guy could decide to kill you at any moment, Jack. Just because he gave you a pass today doesn’t mean you’re in the clear, and you better not forget that, not for one moment.
    Jack reconsidered the wisdom of trying to get away. He’d probably have the chance if he stayed on his toes. He’d already had chances. Get to a phone and call your contact in the program. It was tempting, but D had said that might not be safe. He could just be making that up so you won’t call the authorities.
    Jack rubbed his eyes. He was talking in circles, and giving himself a headache to boot. The plan D had described seemed like a good enough one to Jack, and he was just too tired to think of a reason why he