“Don’t you read the papers?” Wolf asked.
Everybody, Malone reflected, seemed to be asking him that lately. “I haven’t had time,” he said.
“The governor of Mississippi was assassinated yesterday, at Miami Beach,” Wolf said.
“Ah,” Malone said. He thought about it for a second. “Frankly,” he said, “this does not strike me as an irreparable loss to the nation. Not even to Mississippi.”
“You express my views precisely,” Wolf said.
“How about the killer?” Malone said. “I gather they haven’t got him yet, or Burris wouldn’t be on his way down.”
“No,” Wolf said. “The killer would be on his way here instead. They haven’t got him, Malone. It seems Governor Flarion was walking along Collins Avenue when somebody fired at him, using a high-powered rifle with, I guess, a scope sight.”
“Professional,” Malone commented.
“It looks like it,” Wolf said. “Nobody even heard the sniper’s shot; the governor just fell over, right there in the street. And by the time his bodyguards found out what had happened, it was impossible even to be sure just which way he was facing when the shot had been fired.”
“And, as I remember Collins Avenue—” Malone started.