The Bad Guys: THE SMILING ASSASSIN

He calls himself a drifter. Just wandering from town to town, he says. In fact, that's how he happened to be at the bus station the day Luke and Laura (alias Lloyd and Lucy Johnson) arrived in Beecher's Corners. There was nothing suspicious about it. Blond, blue-eyed and blue-jeaned, Jefferson Smith Hutchins had the look of a scruffy angel and his soft-spoken tales of life on the road rang true to these two Port Charles kids on the run.

Laura needed to believe Hutch's story. She refused to accept that behind his boyish grin there lurked the mind of a killer. A grim vision haunted her day and night: the dead man in the department store with two bullets in his back, bullets meant for Luke and her. Maybe Hutch could help them escape the killer's deadly aim.

Luke wanted to believe Hutch could be trusted, but he wasn't convinced. Luke knew a con man when he saw one. After all, he was one of the best in the business himself. Luke did everything he could to unmask Hutch--searched his wallet, checked his I.D., tried to trick him into revealing himself--but nothing worked. Hutch came up clean. In fact, there was more evidence of his friendship. Hutch had helped them out of some tight spots and if he was a hired assassin, why weren't they dead?

By the time they arrived at Fair Oaks, a town down the road from Beecher's Corners, Luke was grateful to have Hutch as an ally. "I've been on the road most of my life," Hutch would tell him, "I know all its dangers. Just listen to me and you'll come through this okay."

Hutch wasn't lying when he said he was a traveling man--he went wherever someone needed his special skills as a one-man Murder, Inc. When Frank Smith offered him the contract to hit Luke and Laura, Hutch said it would be no problem. But when he found out that his two targets had a little book which held the secret of a buried stash of gold worth $10 million he decided to let them live long enough to lead him to the treasure.

Frank Smith, however, was in no mood to play games, especially a waiting game. He was angry Hutch hadn't fulfilled his contract. Accordingly, he found another hit man to stalk Luke and Laura, with Hutch added to the hit list. The hunter had now become the hunted.