Hit Man

“You’ve sort of… ”



“Sort of been living here. See, the place I was staying, it didn’t work out, and there’s one or two people I could call, but I thought, well, Nelson and I get along so good, and I could really spend lots of time with him if I just, like-”



“Stayed here.”



“Right,” she said. “So that’s what I did. I didn’t sleep in your bed, Mr. Keller-”



“Why not?”



“Well, I figured you might not like that. And the couch is comfortable, it really is.”



She’d tried to keep her impact on his apartment minimal, she told him, stripping her bedding from the couch each morning and stowing it in the closet. And it wasn’t as though she were hanging out there all the time, because when she wasn’t walking Nelson she had other clients to attend to.



“Dogs to walk,” he said. “Plants to water.”



“And cats and fish to feed, and birds. There’s this couple on Sixty-fifth Street with seventeen birds, and there’s something about birds in cages. I get this urge to open the cages and open the windows and let them all fly away. But I wouldn’t, partly because it would make the people really crazy, and partly because it would be terrible for the birds. I don’t think they’d last long out there.”



“Not in this town,” Keller said.



“Just the other day one of them got out of his cage,” she said, “and I just about lost it. The windows were closed so he wasn’t going anywhere, but he was swooping and diving and I couldn’t think how to get him back in his cage.”



“What did you do?”



“What I did,” she said, “is I centered all my energy in my heart chakra, and I sent this great burst of calming heart energy to the bird, and he calmed right down. Then I just held the cage door open and he flew back in.”



“No kidding?”



She nodded. “I should have thought of it right away,” she said, “but when you panic you tend to overlook the obvious.”



“That’s the truth,” he said. “Let me ask you something. Do you have a place to stay tonight?”



“Well, not yet.”



“Not yet?”



“Well, I didn’t know you were coming home tonight. But I know some people I can call, and-”



“You’re welcome to stay here,” he said.



“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”



“Why not?”



“Well, you’re home. It wasn’t really right for me to stay here when you were out of town-”



“It was fine. It meant more company for the dog.”



“Anyway, you’re home now. The last thing you need is a houseguest.”



“One night won’t hurt.”



“Well,” she said, “it is a little late to start looking for a place to stay.”



“You’ll stay here.”



“But just for the one night.”



“Right.”



“I appreciate this,” she said. “I really do.”



Keller, freshly showered, stood at the sink and contemplated shaving. But whoever heard of shaving before you went to bed? You shaved in the morning, not at night.



Unless, of course, you expected to have your cheek pressed against something other than your pillow.



Cut it out, he told himself.



He got into bed and turned out the light, and Nelson sprang onto the bed beside him, turned around the compulsory three times, and lay down.



Keller slept. When he awoke the next morning, Andria was gone. The only trace of her presence was a note assuring him that she’d come walk the dog at her usual time on Friday. Keller shaved, walked the dog, and rode the train to White Plains.



It was another hot day, and this time Dot was on the porch with a pitcher of lemonade. She said, “Keller, you missed your calling. You’re a great diagnostician. You gave the man a little time and he died of natural causes.”



“These things happen.”



“They do,” she agreed. “I understand he fell in his food. Probably never get the stains out of his tie.”



“It was a nice tie,” Keller said.



“They said it was cardiac arrest,” Dot said, “and I’ll bet they’re right, because it’s a hell of a rare case when a man dies and his heart goes on beating. How’d you do it, Keller?”



“I centered all my energy in my heart chakra,” he said, “and I sent this bolt of heart energy at him, and it was just more than his heart could handle.”



She gave him a look. “If I had to guess,” she said, “I’d have to say potassium cyanide.”



“Good guess.”



“How?”



“Switched salt shakers with him. The one I gave him had cyanide crystals mixed in with the top layer of salt. He used a lot of salt.”



“They say it’s bad for you. Wouldn’t he taste the cyanide?”



“The amount of salt he used, I don’t think he could taste the meat. I’m not sure how much taste cyanide has. Anyway, by the time it occurs to you that you don’t like the way it tastes-”



“You’re facedown in the lasagna. Cyanide’s not traceless, is it? Won’t it show up in an autopsy?”



“Only if you look for it.”



“And if they look in the salt cellar?”



“When Dinsmore had his attack,” he said, “a few people hurried over to see if they could help.”



“Decent of them. You don’t suppose one of them picked up the salt cellar?”



“It wouldn’t surprise me.”



“And got rid of it somewhere between the restaurant and the airport?”



“That wouldn’t surprise me either.”



He went upstairs to make his report. When he came downstairs again Dot said, “Keller, I’m going to start worrying about you. I think you’re going soft.”



“Oh?”



“There was only one reason to pick up the salt cellar.”



“So they wouldn’t find the cyanide,” he said.



She shook her head. “If they ever start looking for cyanide, they’ll find it on the uneaten food. No, you figured they wouldn’t find it, and somebody else would use that salt and get poisoned accidentally.”



“No point in drawing heat for no reason,” he said.



“Uh-huh.”



“No sense in killing people for free, either.”



“Oh, I couldn’t agree with you more, Keller,” she said, “but I still say you’re going soft. Centering in your heart choker and all.”



“Chakra,” he said.



“I stand corrected. What’s it mean, anyway?”



“I have no idea.”



“You will soon enough, now that you’re centered there. Keller, you’re turning human. Getting that dog was just the start of it. Next thing you know you’ll be saving the whales. You’ll be taking in strays, Keller. You watch.”



“That’s ridiculous,” he said. But on the train back to the city he found himself thinking about what she had said. Was there any truth to it?



He didn’t think so, but he wasn’t absolutely sure. He’d have to talk it over with Nelson.



5 Keller's Karma



I n White Plains,Keller sat in the kitchen with Dot for twenty minutes. The TV was on, tuned to one of the home shopping channels. “I watch all the time,” Dot said. “I never buy anything. What do I want with cubic zirconium?”



“Why do you watch?”



“That’s what I ask myself, Keller. I haven’t come up with the answer yet, but I think I know one of the things I like most about it. It’s continuous.”



“Continuous?”



“Uninterrupted. They never break the flow and go to a commercial.”



“But the whole thing’s a commercial,” Keller said.



“That’s different,” she said.



A buzzer sounded. Dot picked up the intercom, listened a moment, then nodded significantly at Keller.



He went upstairs, and he was with the old man for ten or fifteen minutes. On his way out he stopped in the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. He stood at the sink and took his time drinking it. Dot was shaking her head at the television set. “It’s all jewelry,” she said. “Who buys all this jewelry? What do they want with it?”



“I don’t know,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”



“Ask away.”



“Is he all right?”



“Why?”



“I just wondered.”



“Did you hear something?”



“No, nothing like that. He seems tired, that’s all.”



“Everybody’s tired,” she said. “Life’s a lot of work and it tires people out. But he’s fine.”



Keller took a train to Grand Central, a cab to his apartment. Nelson met him at the door with the leash in his mouth. Keller laughed, fastened the leash to the dog’s collar. He had calls to make, a trip to schedule, but that could wait. Right now he was going to take his dog for a walk.



He headed over to the river. Nelson liked it there, but then Nelson seemed to like it everywhere. He certainly had a boundless enthusiasm for long walks. He never ran out of gas. You could exhaust yourself walking him, and he’d be ready to go again ten minutes later.



Of course you had to keep in mind that he had twice as many legs as a human being. Keller figured that had to make a difference.



“I’m going to have to take a trip,” he told Nelson. “Not too long, I don’t think, but that’s the thing, you never really know. Sometimes I’ll fly out in the morning and be back the same night, and other times it’ll stretch to a week. But you don’t have to worry. As soon as we get back to the house I’ll call Andria.”



The dog’s ears pricked up at the girl’s name. Keller had seen charts ranking the various breeds in intelligence, but not lately. He wasn’t sure where the Australian cattle dog stood, but he figured it had to be pretty close to the top. Nelson didn’t miss much.



“She’s due to walk you tomorrow anyway,” Keller said. “I could probably just stick a letter of instructions next to your leash, but why leave anything to chance? As soon as we get home I’ll beep her.”



Because Andria ’s living situation was still as tenuous as her career, the only number Keller had for her was that of the beeper she carried on her rounds. He called it as soon as he got home and punched in his number, and the girl called him back fifteen minutes later. “Hi,” she said. “How’s my favorite Australian cattle dog?”



“He’s fine,” Keller said, “but he’s going to need company. I have to go out of town tomorrow morning.”



“For how long, do you happen to know?”



“Hard to say. It might be a day, it might be a week. Is that a problem?”



She was quick to assure him that it wasn’t. “In fact,” she said, “the timing’s perfect. I’ve been staying with these friends of mine, and it’s not working out. I told them I’d be out of there tomorrow and I was wondering where I’d go next. Isn’t it amazing the way we’re always given guidance as to what to do next?”