Lawrence Block - Hit List

“So you called Avis.”

“I called everybody. I remembered the name on that license and credit card of yours, but suppose you were using something else? Anyway, Avis had your reservation, and they said they’d see that you got the message, and they were as good as their word. So it worked.”

“Not entirely,” he said. “While they were at it, they canceled my reservation.”

“ I canceled your reservation, Keller. You don’t need a car because you’re not going anywhere, aside from the next plane back to New York.”

“Oh?”

“Three hours ago, while you were over what? Illinois? Iowa?”

“Whatever.”

“While you were experiencing slight turbulence at thirty-five thousand feet,” she said, “a couple of uniforms were making vain efforts to revive Heck Palmieri, who had put his belt around his neck, closed the closet door around the free end of the belt, and kicked over the chair he was standing on. Guess what happened to him?”

“He died?”

“For our sins,” Dot said, “or for his own, more likely. Either way, it leaves you with nothing to do out there. Other hand, who says you have to make a U-turn? I’ll bet you can find somebody to rent you a car.”

“They were all set to reinstate the reservation.”

“Well, reinstate it, if you want. Have some lunch, see the sights. You’re where, Orange County? Go look at some Republicans.”

“Well,” Keller said. “I guess I’ll come home.”

“It’s a good way to miss jet lag,” Keller said, “because I was back where I started before it could draw a bead on me.”

“How were your flights?”

“All right, I guess. Pointless, but otherwise all right.”

They were on the open front porch of the big house on Taunton Place, sitting in lawn chairs with a pitcher of iced tea on the table between them. It was a warm day, warmer than it had been in Southern California. Of course he’d never really felt the temperature there, because he’d never stepped outside of the air-conditioned airport.

“Not entirely pointless,” Dot said. “They paid half in advance, and we get to keep that.”

“I should hope so.”

“They called here,” she said, “to call it off, but of course your flight to California was already in the air by then. They said something about a refund, and I said something about they should live so long.”

“A refund!”

“They were just trying it on, Keller. They backed down right away.”

“They should pay the whole thing,” he said.

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, the guy’s dead, isn’t he?”

“By his own hand, Keller. His own belt, anyway. What did you have to do with it?”

“What did I have to do with Klinger? Or Petrosian?”

“May they rest in peace,” Dot said, “but they’re our little secret, remember? Far as the clients were concerned, you showed them the door, sent them on their way. With Palmieri, you were up in the air when he decided to check out the tensile strength of a one-inch strip of split cowhide. Don’t look at me like that, Keller. I don’t really know what kind of belt he used. The point is you were nowhere around, so how are they going to figure it was your doing?”

“Something you said last time,” he said. “About how my thoughts are powerful.”

“Oh, right, I’ll quick pick up the phone and sell that to the client. ‘My guy closed his eyes and thought real hard,’ I’ll tell him, ‘and that’s why your guy decided to hang himself. It’s a suicide, but we get an assist.’ How can they possibly say no?”

“They cut the deal,” Keller said doggedly, “and next thing you know the guy’s dead.”

“Probably because he knew somebody was coming for him and he didn’t want to wait.” She leaned back in her chair. “For your information,” she said, “I tried on something similar. ‘You wanted him dead and he’s dead,’ I said. ‘So we should get paid in full.’ But it was just a negotiating technique, a counter for them asking for their initial payment back. They laughed at me, and I laughed at them, and we left it where we knew we were going to leave it.”

“With us getting half.”

“Right. Keller, you didn’t really expect the whole thing, did you?”

“No, not really.”

“And does it make a difference? I mean, are you stretched financially? It seems to me you’ve had a batch of decent paydays not too far apart, but maybe it’s been going out faster than it’s been coming in. Is that it?”

“No.”

“Or maybe there’s some stamp you were counting on buying with the Palmieri proceeds, and now you can’t. Is it anything like that?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t leave a girl hanging, Keller. What is it?”

He thought for a moment. “It’s not the money,” he said.

“I hope you’re not going to tell me it’s the principle of the thing.”

“No,” he said. “Dot, remember when I was talking about retiring?”

“Vividly. You had enough money, and I told you you’d go nuts, that you needed a hobby. So you started collecting stamps.”

“Right.”

“And all of a sudden you couldn’t afford to retire anymore, because you spent all your money on stamps. So we were back in business.”

That was a simplification, he thought, but it was close enough. “Even without the stamps,” he said, “I couldn’t have retired. Well, I could have, but I couldn’t have stayed retired.”

“You’re saying you need the work.”

“I guess so, yes.”

“You need to do what you do.”

“Evidently.”

“Some inner need.”

“I suppose. I don’t get a kick out of it, you know.”

“I never thought you did.”

“Sometimes, you know, it’s tricky, and there’s the satisfaction that comes from solving a problem. Like a crossword puzzle. You fill in the last square and the thing’s complete.”

“Stands to reason.”

“But that’s only some of the time. Mostly all it is is work. You go someplace, you do the job, you come home.”

“And you get paid.”

“Right. And I don’t mind long layoffs between jobs. I find ways to keep busy, and that was true even before I started with the stamps.”

“But all of a sudden something’s different.”

“Roger’s got something to do with it,” he said. “The idea that somebody’s out there, you know? Lurking in the shadows, waiting to make his move. Doesn’t even know who I am and he wants to kill me anyway.”

“Stress,” Dot said.

“Well, I suppose. And, you know, once we figured out what he was doing and why, the bastard disappeared.”

“We stopped giving him opportunities,” she pointed out. “Once you started flying to less obvious airports and we stopped letting the client send somebody to meet you, we shut Roger out. I’d have to call that a good thing, Keller. You’re still breathing, right?”

“Right.”

“And the last three jobs, well, even if he was lurking on the scene, he still couldn’t get a look at you, could he? Because you didn’t do anything.”

“I would have,” he said. “If I’d had any kind of a chance.”

“But you didn’t, and if Roger was around all he could do was stand there with his thumb up his nose, and you came home and got paid. I don’t see a major problem here, Keller.”

“It’s being teased like this,” he said. “Packing my bag, going someplace, figuring out what I’ll do and how I’ll do it, and the rug’s pulled out from under me. I don’t like it, that’s all.”

“I can understand that.”

He lowered his eyes, sorted out his thoughts. Then he said, “Dot, I almost killed somebody.”

“Except you couldn’t, because he killed himself first.”