“It’s not that complicated,” Scott said.

“No, I guess not. But you see, nowadays we communicate by e-mail. I’ll set up a temporary e-mail account with Hotmail or Yahoo! or whatever, with fake names. Nothing that can be traced back. But even if it could, even if you could find out who sent it, where would it lead you? All e-mails were sent and read at libraries or public places. We were totally covered.”

Scott was about to mention that this total coverage had eventually landed Scanlon’s ass in jail, but he decided to save it. “What does this have to do with me?”

“I’m getting to that.” Scott could see that Scanlon was warming up to his own tale. “In the old days-when I say old days, I mean, eight, ten years ago-we did it mostly with pay phones. I’d never see the name written. The guy would just tell me over the phone.”

Scanlon stopped and made sure that he had Scott’s full attention. His tone softened a bit, became less matter-of-fact. “That’s the key, Scott. It was by phone. I’d only hear the name on the phone, not see it.”

He looked at Scott expectantly. Scott had no idea what he was trying to say, so he went, “Uh huh.”

“Do you understand why I’m stressing that it was done by phone?”

“No.”

“Because a person like me, a person with rules, could make a mistake with the phone.”

Scott thought about that. “I still don’t get it.”

“I never kill women. That was rule number one.”

“So you said.”

“So if you wanted to put a hit on someone named Billy Smith, I’d figure Billy was a man. You know, with a y. I’d never think Billy would be a woman. With an ie at the end. You understand?”

Scott went very still. Scanlon saw it. He dropped the smile. His voice was very soft.

“We talked before about your sister, didn’t we, Scott?”

Scott did not respond.