Hit Man

“Down my street?”



“Or up your alley. I think it’s a Briticism, down your street, but we’re in America, so the hell with it. It’s up your alley.”



“If you say so.”



“And you’ll never guess where this second caller lives.”



“ Cincinnati,” he said.



“Give the man a cigar.”



He frowned. “So there’s two jobs in the same metropolitan area,” he said. “That would be a reason to do them both in one trip, assuming it was possible. Save airfare, I suppose, if that matters. Save finding a room and settling in. Instead I’m back here with neither job done, which doesn’t make sense. So there’s more to it.”



“Give the man a cigar and light it for him.”



“Puff puff,” Keller said. “The jobs are connected somehow, and I’d better know all about it up front or I might step on my own whatsit.”



“And we wouldn’t want anything to happen to your whatsit.”



“Right. What’s the connection? Same client for both jobs?”



She shook her head.



“Different clients. Sametarget? Did the fat man manage to piss off two different people to the point where they both called us within days of each other?”



“Be something, wouldn’t it?”



“Well, pissing people off is like anything else,” he said. “Certain people have a knack for it. But that’s not it.”



“No.”



“Different targets.”



“I’m afraid so.”



“Different targets, different clients. Same time, same place, but everything else is different. So? Help me out on this, Dot. I’m not getting anywhere.”



“Keller,” she said, “you’re doing fine.”



“Four people, all of them different. The fat man and the guy who hired us to hit him, and target number two and client number two, and… ”



“Is day beginning to break? Is light beginning to dawn?”



“The fat man wants to hire us,” he said. “To kill our original client.”



“Give the man an exploding cigar.”



“A hires us to kill B, and B hires us to kill A.”



“That’s a little algebraic for me, but it makes the point.”



“The contracts couldn’t have come direct,” he said. “They were brokered, right? Because the fat man’s not a wise guy. He could be a little mobbed up, the way some businessmen are, but he wouldn’t know to call here.”



“He came through somebody,” Dot agreed.



“And so did the other guy. Different brokers, of course.”



“Of course.”



“And they both called here.” He raised his eyes significantly to the ceiling. “And what did he do, Dot? Say yes to both of them?”



“That’s what he did.”



“Why, for God’s sake? We’ve already got a client, we can’t take an assignment to kill him, especially from somebody we’ve already agreed to take out.”



“The ethics of the situation bother you, Keller?”



“This is good,” he said, brandishing the lemonade. “This from a mix or what?”



“Homemade. Real lemons, real sugar.”



“Makes a difference,” he said. “Ethics? What do I know about ethics? It’s just no way to do business, that’s all. What’s the broker going to think?”



“Which broker?”



“The one whose client gets killed. What’s he going to say?”



“What would you have done, Keller? If you were him, and you got the second call days after the first one.”



He thought about it. “I’d say I haven’t got anybody available at the moment, but I should have a good man in about two weeks, when he gets back from Aruba.”



“ Aruba?”



“Wherever. Then, after the fat man’s toast and I’ve been back a week, say, you call back and ask if the contract’s still open. And he says something like, ‘No, the client changed his mind.’ Even if he guesses who popped his guy, it’s all straight and clean and businesslike. Or don’t you agree?”



“No,” she said. “I agree completely.”



“But that’s not what he did,” he said, “and I’m surprised. What was his thinking? He afraid of arousing suspicions, something like that?”



She just looked at him. He met her gaze, and read something in her face, and he got it.



“Oh, no,” he said.



“I thought he was getting better,” she said. “I’m not saying there wasn’t a little denial operating, Keller. A little wishing-will-make-it-so.”



“Understandable.”



“He had that time when he gave you the wrong room number, but that worked out all right in the end.”



“For us,” Keller said. “Not for the guy who was in the room.”



“There’s that,” she allowed. “Then he went into that funk and kept turning down everybody who called. I was thinking maybe a doctor could get him on Prozac.”



“I don’t know about Prozac. In this line of work…”



“Yeah, I was wondering about that. Depressed is no good, but is mellow any better? It could be counterproductive.”



“It could be disastrous.”



“That too,” she said. “And you can’t get him to go to a doctor anyway, so what difference does it make? He’s in a funk, maybe it’s like the weather. A low-pressure front moves in, and it’s all you can do to sit on the porch with an iced tea. Then it blows over, and we get some of that good Canadian air, and it’s like old times again.”



“Old times.”



“And yesterday he was on the phone, and then he buzzed me and I took him a cup of coffee. ‘Call Keller,’ he told me. ‘I’ve got some work for him in Cincinnati.’ ”



“Déjá vu.”



“You said it, Keller. Déjá vu like never before.”



Her explanation was elaborate-what the old man said, what she thought he meant, what he really meant, di dah di dah di dah. What it boiled down to was that the original client, one Barry Moncrieff, had been elated that his problems with the fat man were soon to be over, and he’d confided as much to at least one person who couldn’t keep a secret. Word reached the fat man, whose name was Arthur Strang.



While Moncrieff may have forgotten that loose lips sink ships, Strang evidently remembered that the best defense was a good offense. He made a couple of phone calls, and eventually the phone rang in the house on Taunton Place, and the old man took the call and took the contract.



When Dot pointed out the complications-i.e., that their new client was already slated for execution, with the fee paid by the man who had just become their new target-it became evident that the old man had forgotten the original deal entirely.



“He didn’t know you were in Cincinnati,” she explained. “Didn’t have a clue he’d sent you there or anywhere else. For all he knew you were out walking the dog, assuming he remembered you had a dog.”



“But when you told him… ”



“He didn’t see the problem. I kept explaining it to him, until it hit me what I was doing. I was trying to blow out a light bulb.”



“Puff puff,” Keller said.



“You said it. He just wasn’t going to get it. ‘Keller’s a good boy,’ he said. ‘You leave it to Keller. Keller will know what to do.’ ”



“He said that, huh?”



“His very words. You look the least bit lost, Keller. Don’t tell me he was wrong.”



He thought for a moment. “The fat man knows there’s a contract out on him,” he said. “Well, that figures. It would explain why he was so hard to get close to.”



“If you’d managed,” Dot pointed out, “I’d shrug and say what’s done is done, and let it go at that. But, fortunately or unfortunately, you checked your machine in time.”



“Fortunately or unfortunately.”



“Right, and don’t ask me which is which. Easiest thing, you say the word and I call both of the middlemen and tell them we’re out. Our foremost operative broke his leg in a skiing accident and you’d better call somebody else. What’s the matter?”



“Skiing? This time of year?”



“In Chile, Keller. Use your imagination. Anyway, we’re out of it.”



“Maybe that’s best.”



“Not from a dollars-and-cents standpoint. No money for you, and refunds for both clients, who’ll either look elsewhere or be reduced to shooting each other. I hate to give money back once it’s been paid.”



“What did they do, pay half in front?”



“Uh-huh. Usual system.”



He frowned, trying to work it out. “Go home,” she said. “Pet Andria and give Nelson a kiss, or is it the other way around? Sleep on it and let me know what you decide.”



He took the train to Grand Central and walked home, rode up in the elevator, used his key in the lock. The apartment was dark and quiet, just as he’d left it. Nelson’s dish was in a corner of the kitchen. Keller looked at it and felt like a Gold Star Mother, keeping her son’s room exactly as he had left it. He knew he ought to put the dish away or chuck it out altogether, but he didn’t have the heart.



He unpacked and showered, then went around the corner for a beer and a burger. He took a walk afterward, but it wasn’t much fun. He went back to the apartment and called the airlines. Then he packed again and caught a cab to JFK.



He phoned White Plains while he waited for them to call his flight. “On my way,” he told Dot.



“You continue to surprise me, Keller,” she said. “I thought for sure you’d stay the night.”



“No reason to.”



There was a pause. Then she said, “Keller? Is something wrong?”



“ Andria left,” he said, surprising himself. He hadn’t intended to say anything. Eventually, sure, but not just yet.



“That’s too bad,” Dot said. “I thought the two of you were happy.”



“So did I.”



“Oh.”



“She has to find herself,” Keller said.



“You know, I’ve heard people say that, and I never know what the hell they’re talking about. How would you lose yourself in the first place? And how would you know where to look for yourself?”



“I wondered that myself.”



“Of course she’s awfully young, Keller.”



“Right.”



“Too young for you, some would say.”



“Some would.”



“Still, you probably miss her. Not to mention Nelson.”



“I miss them both,” he said.



“I mean you both must miss her,” Dot said. “Wait a minute. What did you just say?”



“They just called my flight,” he said, and broke the connection.



Cincinnati ’s airport was across the river in Kentucky. Keller had turned in his Avis car that morning, and thought it might seem strange if he went back to the same counter for another one. He went to Budget instead, and got a Honda.