Lawrence Block: Hit and Run

“Jesus, I coulda sworn—”

“Suppose I just call this number a couple of times a day,” Keller said. “That’ll work, won’t it?”

The man wanted to bring him another phone, or a charger, or both, but Keller managed to talk him out of it. He’d call that number every morning and afternoon, and before he turned in for the night. And, he added, with a little steel in his voice, he hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer, because Des Moines was an okay place, but he had things to do back home.

“Probably tomorrow,” the fellow said. “Gimme a call first thing in the morning.”

But the first thing he’d done the following morning, after a quick breakfast down the street, was find his way back to Gregory Dowling’s ranch house in West Des Moines. He’d driven past it once before, just to make sure he remembered where it was, and this time his quarry was out in front again, not watering the lawn but on his knees alongside a flower bed, doing something with a trowel.

Keller had taken the trouble to leave his Days Inn room so that he wouldn’t need to return to it. He’d packed his bag, wiped down the few spots he might have touched, and did everything but drop his key at the desk. If he got the go-ahead from his contact, he could take out the target and go straight to the airport. If not, the room would be waiting for him.

Without having planned it, he braked to a stop right in front of Dowling’s house, leaned across the front seat, rolled down the window. He couldn’t quite bring himself to honk, it struck him as impolite, but he didn’t have to; the man had heard the car approach and trotted right over to see if he could be of help. Keller told him he was new in the neighborhood and had managed to get lost trying to find the Rite Aid, and while the fellow was providing elaborate directions, Keller’s hand dropped into the pocket where he’d stowed the revolver.

Be nothing to it. Dowling, blissfully unaware, was gripping the window opening with one hand while gesturing expansively with the other. Whip out the gun, point it at him, give him two in the chest. The motor was running, so all he’d need to do was put the car in gear and he’d be around the corner before the body hit the ground.

Or forget the gun and just grab the poor bastard by the hair and the shirtfront. Yank him in through the open window, break his neck, then give him a shove and let him go.

Al might not be happy. But the job would be done, and what could they do, make him come back and do it over?

“Well,” Gregory Dowling said, straightening up and stepping back. “If there’s nothing else—”

“You’ve been a big help,” Keller told him.

He followed directions to the drugstore — it was as good a place as any to find a pay phone — and called the number. If he’d done that in the first place, he thought, the job would be done by now. Okay, fair enough, he’d make the call now, and if he got the green light he’d go right back and tell the fellow he must have misheard him, and they’d go through the farce again, only this time he’d use the gun or his hands and finish the job once and for all.

He made the call. “No, today’s no good,” he was told. “Give us a call first thing tomorrow morning.”

And he’d done just that, only to get the same message yet again. “Tomorrow,” the man told him. “Tomorrow’s a sure bet. In fact tomorrow morning you don’t even have to check with us, okay? Because it’s all set up. Anytime tomorrow, morning or afternoon, you can just go and do what you gotta do.”

“We’re all set for tomorrow,” he told Dot.

“High time.”

“You said it. I’ll be glad to get back.”

“Back to your own bed.”

“The bed’s okay. Tell you the truth, it’s better than my own. I’m overdue for a new mattress.”

“The things you don’t know about a person.”

“What I miss,” he said, “is my TV.”

“Fifty-inch, hi-def, plasma, flat panel. Did I forget anything?”

“No, and neither did the manufacturer. It’s just about perfect.”

“You’ve talked so much about the damn thing I’m gonna have to get one myself. I feel for you, Keller, having to make do with motel TV.”

“What’s aggravating,” he said, “is there’s no TiVo.”

“Now there I have to agree with you,” she said. “TiVo changed my life. And there you are, poor baby, stuck in Des Moines with all the commercials you used to be able to speed through.”

“And I can’t pause the thing when I go to the bathroom, or back up when there’s a line of dialogue I missed, and—”

“For God’s sake, hurry up and come home,” she said, “or I’m gonna have to tell Al you need a hardship bonus.”

He rang off and started walking over to the TV, then stopped himself. He’d looked up stamp dealers in the Yellow Pages the previous afternoon, and he checked again, and called James McCue to make sure he was open for business. No reason to pack the suitcase this time, as he knew he’d be coming back to the motel, so all he’d done was grab up his Scott catalog and his tongs and head out the door.

That was what, a couple of hours ago? Now the governor of Ohio was dead, and he had to do something and wasn’t sure what. If he’d packed his bag and wiped his room down, he wouldn’t have to go back to it. But he’d probably be going there anyway, because where else could he go?

When he got to the Days Inn he took a slow turn around the parking lot, looking for any sign of police activity, or indeed anyone at all taking a special interest in the place. But it looked the way it always looked, and he parked his car in its usual spot and went to his room.

Inside, he turned on the television set. The assassination of Governor Longford was all over the dial, unless you wanted to watch QVC or the Food Channel. Keller chose CNN and heard a couple of experts trying to estimate the likelihood of riots in Cleveland. The weather, one of them pointed out, was a significant variable. Heat and humidity added up to riot weather, she said, while a cold snap and rain kept folks indoors.

That was sort of interesting, but Keller, stuck in Des Moines, couldn’t bring himself to care about the weather in Cleveland. He hung in there while they talked the subject to death, but hit the Mute button in a hurry when they rang in a Nexium commercial.

At least the remote had a Mute button. You couldn’t fast-forward, you couldn’t pause, and you couldn’t reverse, but the one thing you could do was make the damn thing shut up, and he did.

Should he pack?

He wasn’t going to try leaving Des Moines, not yet. Whether all of this was coincidence or something a good deal more sinister, he’d be safer holed up than running around in the open. He hadn’t done anything, not even what he’d come here to do, but that wouldn’t matter to anybody who picked him up with bogus ID and an unregistered handgun just a matter of miles from where Longford had been shot dead.

By two shots from a handgun — that’s what someone had been saying, just before they got the weather report from Cleveland, and it just now registered. An unknown assailant brandishing a handgun who’d fired twice at point-blank range and escaped — how, for God’s sake? — into the crowd.

A Glock, he thought. A Glock automatic, the gun he’d been offered and turned down. The gun he’d handled.

He could remember the way the grip had fit his hand. And how he’d turned the gun over in his hands, deliberating, before handing it back to the man with the hairy ears. He’d be willing to bet that was the gun they’d used, and that it still had his prints on it. That’s why they’d offered him two guns, and the important gun wasn’t the one he’d chosen, it was the one he’d touched and rejected.