And yet he could not deny that he was enjoying this afternoon. The younger man’s company was refreshing in its way, there was no denying that, and the idolatry he provided was pleasant food for the ego.
And it was not as if he had any pressing engagements.
“So you’d like to hear me talk about... what? My life and times? My distinguished career?”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Anecdotes and bits of advice? The perspective gained through years at the top of this crazy business? All that sort of thing?”
“All of that. And anything else you’d care to tell me.”
Wilson Colliard considered for a moment, then rose to his feet. “I’m going to smoke a cigar,” he announced. “I allow myself one or two a day. They’re Havanas, not terribly hard to get if you know someone. I acquired a taste for them, oh, it must be twenty years ago. I did a job of work down there, you see. But I suppose you know the story.”
“I don’t, and I’d love to hear it.”
“Perhaps you will. Perhaps you will, Michael. But first may I bring a cigar for you?”
Michael Haig accepted the cigar. Somehow this did not surprise Wilson Colliard in the least.
As the afternoon wore on, Colliard found himself increasingly at ease in the role of reminiscent sage. Never before had he trotted out his memories like this for the entertainment and education of another. Oh, in recent years he had become increasingly inclined to sit at this window and look back over the years, but this had heretofore been a silent and solitary pursuit. It was quite a different matter to be giving voice to one’s memories and to have another person on hand, worshipful and attentive, to utter appropriate syllables and draw out one’s own recollections. Why, he was telling young Haig things he hadn’t even bothered to think about in years, and in so doing he was making mental connections and developing perceptions he’d never had before.
With the cigars extinguished and fresh glasses of sherry poured, Colliard leaned back and said, “Now how far are we with our Assassin’s Credo, Michael? Point the first — minimize risk. And point the second — seize the moment, strike while the iron is hot, all those banalities. Is that all we’ve established so far? It’s certainly taken me a great many words to hammer out those two points. You know, I think the third principle is more important than either of them.”
“And what is that, sir?”
“Look to your reputation.”
“Ah.”
“Reputation,” Colliard said. “It’s all one has going for oneself in this business, Michael. We have no bankable assets, you and I. We have only our reputations. And what reputations we possess are underground matters. We can’t hire public relations men or press agents to give us standing. We have to depend wholly upon word of mouth. We must make ourselves known to those who might be inclined to engage our services, and they have to be supremely confident of our skill, our reliability, our discretion.”
“Yes.”
“We are paid in advance, Michael. Our clients must be able to take it for granted that once a fee has been passed to us the target is as good as dead. And, because the client himself is a party to criminal homicide, he must be assured that whatever fate befalls the assassin, the client will not be publicly involved. Skill, reliability, discretion. Reputation, Michael. It’s everything to us.”
They were silent for a moment. Wilson Colliard aimed his eyes out the window at the expanse of green far below. But his gaze was not focused on the park. He was looking off into the middle distance, seeing across time.
Tentatively Haig said, “I suppose if a man does good work, sooner or later he develops a good reputation.”
“Sooner or later.”
“You make it sound as though there’s a better way to go about it.”
“Oh, there is,” Colliard agreed. “Sometimes circumstances are such that you can be your own advertising man, your own press agent, your own public relations bureau. Now and then you will find yourself with the opportunity to act with a certain flair that captures the public imagination so dramatically, so vividly, that it will go on to serve as the very cornerstone of your professional reputation for the remainder of your life. When such a chance comes to you, Michael, you have to take hold of it.”
“I think—”
“Yes?”
“I think I know the case you mean, sir.”
“It’s quite possible that you do.”
“I was wondering if you would mention it. I almost brought it up myself. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the story. It’s at the very heart of the legend of Wilson Colliard.”
“Indeed. ‘The Legend of Wilson Colliard.’ ”
“But you are a legend, sir. And the story — I hope you’ll tell me just what did and didn’t happen. I’ve heard several versions and it’s hard to know where the truth leaves off.”
Colliard smiled indulgently. “Suppose you tell me what you’ve heard. If I’m to tell you the truth it wouldn’t hurt me to know first how the legend goes. If the legend’s better than the truth I’d probably be well advised to leave well enough alone.”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, you accepted two assignments at about the same time. A businessman in New Jersey, I believe in Camden—”
“Trenton, actually,” Colliard said. “Not that it makes any substantial difference. Neither city has ever been possessed of anything you might be inclined to call charm. Of course, this was some time ago and the urban blight was less pronounced then, but even so, both Trenton and Camden were towns no one ever went to without a good reason. My client manufactured bicycle tires. The business is long gone now, of course. I believe some bicycle manufacturer bought up the firm and absorbed it. My client’s name — well, names don’t really matter, do they?”
“And he wanted you to murder his wife.”
“Indeed he did. Men so often do. If they want their mistresses killed they’re apt to perform the deed on their own, but they call a professional when they want an instant divorce.”
“And before you could conclude the assignment, a woman hired you to kill her husband.”
“It’s an interesting thing,” Colliard said. “When a woman wants her husband done away with she’s very much apt to hire help, but what’s odd is she more often than not engages the services of a rank amateur. The newspapers are full of that sort of thing. Typically the woman works it all out with her lover, who’s likely to be some rough-diamond type out of a James M. Cain novel. And the paramour knows someone who went to jail once for passing bad checks, and the bad-check artist knows somebody who served time for assault, and ultimately an exceedingly sloppy operation is mounted, and either the woman is swindled out of a couple of thousand dollars by a man who hasn’t the slightest intention of killing anybody or else the husband is indeed killed and the police have everybody in custody before the body’s had time to go cold. Interesting how often women operate in that fashion.”
“Well, after you’d accepted both assignments, and of course you’d been paid in front by both clients—”
“A matter of personal policy.”
“—Then you discovered that your two clients were husband and wife, and each had engaged you to murder the other.”
“And what did I do?”
“According to what I’ve heard, the husband hired you first, and so the first thing you did was murder the wife.”
Wilson Colliard nodded, smiling gently at a memory. “The husband had to go to Chicago on business. We scheduled the affair for that time. I called him at his hotel there to make very certain that he was indeed out of town. Then I went to his home. He and his wife shared an enormous Victorian pile of a house in the heart of Trenton. It was still a decent neighborhood at the time. By now the old house has probably been partitioned into a half dozen apartments. But that’s off the point, isn’t it? I went there and did what I was supposed to do. Made it look like a burglary, left some signs of forced entry, overturned dresser drawers, and added a few professional flourishes. I killed the bitch with a knife from her very own kitchen. I thought that was a nice touch.”