Hit Man

“It’s a Japanese car,” the clerk told him, “but it’s actually produced right here in the US of A.”



“That’s a load off my mind,” Keller told him.



He checked into a motel half a mile from the previous one and called in from a restaurant pay phone. He had a batch of questions, things he needed to know about Barry Moncrieff, the fellow who was at once Client #1 and Assignment #2. Dot, instead of answering, asked him a question of her own.



“What do you mean, you miss them both? Where’s the dog?”



“I don’t know.”



“She ran off with your dog? Is that what you’re saying?”



“They went off together,” he said. “Nobody was running.”



“Fine, she walked off with your dog. I guess she figured she needed him to help her go look for herself. What did she do, skip town while you were in Cincinnati?”



“Earlier,” he said. “And she didn’t skip town. We talked about it, and she said she thought it would be best if she took Nelson with her.”



“And you agreed?”



“More or less.”



“ ‘More or less’? What does that mean?”



“I’ve often wondered myself. She said I don’t really have time for him, and I travel a lot, and… I don’t know.”



“But he was your dog long before you even met her. You hired her to walk him when you were out of town.”



“Right.”



“And one thing led to another, and she wound up living there. And the next thing you know she’s telling you it’s best if the dog goes with her.”



“Right.”



“And away they go.”



“Right.”



“And you don’t know where, and you don’t know if they’ll be back.”



“Right.”



“When did this happen, Keller?”



“About a month ago. Maybe a little longer, maybe six weeks.”



“You never said anything.”



“No.”



“I went on about how you should pet him and kiss her, whatever I said, and you didn’t say anything.”



“I would have gotten around to it sooner or later.”



They were both silent for a long moment. Then she asked him what he was going to do. About what, he asked.



“About what? About your dog and your girlfriend.”



“I thought that’s what you meant,” he said, “but you could have been talking about Moncrieff and Strang. But it’s the same answer all around. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”



What it came down to was this. He had a choice to make. It was his decision as to which contract he would fulfill and which he would cancel.



And how did you decide something like that? Two people wanted his services, and only one could have them. If he were a painting, the answer would be obvious. You’d have an auction, and whoever was willing to make the highest bid would have something pretty to hang over the couch. But you couldn’t have bids in the present instance because the price had already been fixed, and both parties independently had agreed to it. Each had paid half in advance, and when the job was done one of them would pay the additional 50 percent and the other would be technically entitled to a refund, but in no position to claim it.



So in that sense the contract was potentially more lucrative than usual, paying one and a half times the standard rate. It came out the same no matter how you did it. Kill Moncrieff, and Strang would pay the rest of the money. Kill Strang, and Moncrieff would pay it.



Which would it be?



Moncrieff, he thought, had called first. The old man had made a deal with him, and a guarantee of exclusivity was implicit in such an arrangement. When you hired somebody to kill someone, you didn’t require assurance that he wouldn’t hire on to kill you as well. That went without saying.



So their initial commitment was to Moncrieff, and any arrangements made with Strang ought to be null and void. Money from Strang wasn’t really a retainer, it came more under the heading of windfall profits, and needn’t weigh in the balance. You could even argue that taking Strang’s advance payment was a perfectly legitimate tactical move, designed to lull the quarry into a feeling of false security, thus making him easier to get to.



On the other hand…



On the other hand, if Moncrieff had just kept his damned mouth shut, Strang wouldn’t have been forewarned, and consequently forearmed. It was Moncrieff, running his mouth about his plans to do the fat man in, that had induced Strang to call somebody, who called somebody else, who wound up talking to the old man in White Plains.



And it was Moncrieff’s blabbing that had made Strang such an elusive target. Otherwise it would have been easy to get to the fat man, and by now Keller would have long since completed the assignment. Instead of sitting all by himself in a motel on the outskirts of Cincinnati, he could be sitting all by himself in an apartment on First Avenue.



Moncrieff, loose of lip, had sunk his own ship. Moncrieff, unable to keep a secret, had sabotaged the very contract he had been so quick to arrange. Couldn’t you argue that his actions, with their unfortunate results, had served to nullify the contract? In which case the old man was more than justified in retaining his deposit while accepting a counterproposal from another interested party.



Which meant that the thing to do was regard the fat man as the bona fide client and Moncrieff (fat or lean, tall or short, Keller didn’t know which) as the proper quarry.



On the other hand…



* * *



Moncrieff had a penthouse apartment atop a high-rise not far from Riverfront Stadium. The Reds were in town for a home stand, and Keller bought a ticket and an inexpensive pair of field glasses and went to watch them. His seat was out in right field, remote enough that he wasn’t the only one with binoculars. Near him sat a father and son, both of whom had brought gloves in the hope of catching a foul ball. Neither pitcher had his stuff, and both teams hit a lot of long balls, but the kid and his father only got excited when somebody hit a long foul to right.



Keller wondered about that. If what they wanted was a baseball, wouldn’t they be better off buying one at a sporting goods store? If they wanted the thrill of the chase, well, they could get the clerk to throw it up in the air, and the kid could catch it when it came down.



During breaks in the action, Keller trained the binoculars on a window of what he was pretty sure was Moncrieff ’s apartment. He found himself wondering whether Moncrieff was a baseball fan, and if he took advantage of his location and watched the ball games from his window. You’d need a lot more magnification than Keller was carrying, but if Moncrieff could afford the penthouse he could swing a powerful telescope as well. If he got the kind of gizmo that let you count the rings of Saturn, you ought to be able to tell whether the pitcher’s curveball was breaking.



Made about as much sense as taking a glove to the game, he decided. If a man like Moncrieff wanted to watch a game, he could afford a box seat behind the Reds’ dugout. Of course these days he might prefer to stay home and watch the game on television if not through a telescope, because he might figure it was safer.



And, as far as Keller could tell, Barry Moncrieff wasn’t taking a lot of risks. If he hadn’t guessed that the fat man might retaliate and put out a contract of his own, then he looked to be a naturally cautious man. He lived in a secure building, and he rarely left it. When he did, he never seemed to go anywhere alone.



Keller, unable to pick a target on the basis of an ethical distinction, had opted for pragmatism. His line of work, after all, was different from crapshooting. You didn’t get a bonus for making your point the hard way. So, if you had to take out one of two men, why not pick the man who was easier to kill?



By the time he left the ballpark, with the Reds having lost to the Phillies in extra innings after leaving the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, he’d spent three full days on the question. What he’d managed to determine was that neither man was easy to kill. They both lived in fortresses, one high up in the air, the other way out in the sticks. Neither one would be impossible to hit-nobody was impossible to hit-but neither would be easy.



He’d managed to get a look at Moncrieff, managed to be in the lobby showing a misaddressed package to a concierge who was as puzzled as Keller was pretending to be, when Moncrieff entered, flanked by two young men with big shoulders and bulges under their jackets. Moncrieff was fiftyish and balding, with a downturned mouth and jowls like a basset hound.



He was fat, too. Keller might have thought of him as the fat man if he hadn’t already assigned that label to Arthur Strang. Moncrieff wasn’t fat the way Strang was fat-few people were-but that still left him a long way from being a borderline anorexic. Keller guessed he was seventy-five to a hundred pounds lighter than Strang. Strang waddled, while Moncrieff strutted like a pigeon.



Back in his motel, Keller found himself watching a newscast and looking at highlights from the game he’d just watched. He turned off the set, picked up the binoculars, and wondered why he’d bothered to buy them, and what he was going to do with them now. He caught himself thinking that Andria might enjoy using them to watch birds in Central Park. He told himself to stop that, and he went and took a shower.



Neither one would be the least bit easy to kill, he thought, but he could already see a couple of approaches to either man. The degree of difficulty, as an Olympic diver would say, was about the same. So, as far as he could tell, was the degree of risk.



A thought struck him. Maybe one of them deserved it.



“Arthur Strang,” the woman said. “You know, he was fat when I met him. I think he was born fat. But he was nothing like he is now. He was just, you know, heavy.”



Her name was Marie, and she was a tall woman with unconvincing red hair. Early thirties, Keller figured. Big lips, big eyes. Nice shape to her, too, but Keller’s opinion, since she brought it up, was she could stand to lose five pounds. Not that he was going to mention it.



“When I met him he was heavy,” she said, “but he wore these well-tailored Italian suits, and he looked okay, you know? Of course, naked, forget it.”



“It’s forgotten.”



“Huh?” She looked confused, but a sip of her drink put her at ease. “Before we were married,” she said, “he actually lost weight, believe it or not. Then we jumped over the broomstick together and he started eating with both hands. That’s just an expression.”



“He only ate with one hand?”



“No, silly! ‘Jumped over the broomstick.’ We had a regular wedding in a church. Anyway, I don’t think Arthur would have been too good at jumping over anything, not even if you laid the broomstick flat on the floor. I was married to him for three years, and I’ll bet he put on twenty or thirty pounds a year. Then we broke up three years ago, and have you seen him lately? He’s as big as a house.”



As big as a double-wide, maybe, Keller thought. But nowhere near as big as an estate.



“You know, Kevin,” she said, laying a hand on Keller’s arm, “it’s awful smoky in here. They passed a law against it but people smoke anyway, and what are you going to do, arrest them?”