Lawrence Block - Hit List

“It’s a good one, Keller.”

“Tell me about it.”

It was in Baltimore, so you could fly there in less than an hour or get there by train in under three. The train was more comfortable, and, when you factored in the cab rides to and from the airports, it was about as fast. And you didn’t have to show ID when you got on a train, and you could pay cash without drawing a raised eyebrow, let alone a crowd of security types. All things considered, Keller figured trains had a definite edge.

There was a section of Baltimore called Fells Point, a sort of funky ethnic neighborhood that was starting to draw tourists and people with something to sell them. And-

“You’re nodding,” Dot said. “You know the neighborhood? When did you ever go to Baltimore?”

“Once or twice years ago,” he said, “but just in and out. But I know about Fells Point from TV. There’s this cop show set in Baltimore.”

“Didn’t it get canceled?”

“It’s in reruns,” he said. “Five nights a week on Court TV.”

“You watch a lot of Court TV, Keller? As a sort of preparation for jury duty? Never mind.”

There were, she explained, the usual conflicts that develop in a neighborhood in transition, with one faction desperate to pin landmark status on every gas station and hot dog stand, and the other every bit as eager to tear down everything and build condos and theme restaurants. There was a woman named Irene Macnamara who was a particularly vocal force for or against development, and someone on the other side had reached the conclusion that shutting her up constituted an all-important first step.

While there had been a lot of loud outbursts at planning commission hearings, a lot of harsh words at press conferences, so far the controversy had not turned violent. So there was no reason for Macnamara to be on her guard.

Keller thought about it. He said, “You’re sure they haven’t called anybody else?”

“We’re their first choice.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That Macnamara better not buy any long-playing records, because we were on the case.”

“You phrased it that way?”

“Of course not, Keller. I just put that in to brighten your day.”

“Today’s Friday.”

“Well, I’ll try to come up with something for Saturday as well. There’s that page in Reader’s Digest, ‘Toward More Picturesque Speech.’ Maybe it’ll give me ideas.”

“What I mean, today’s Friday. I could go down there tonight and I’d have tomorrow and Sunday.”

“Catch a train home Sunday night and you’re ready to do your civic duty bright and early Monday morning.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“No LP’s for Macnamara, and no green bananas either. I don’t know, Keller. I like it but I don’t like it, if you follow me.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“So I’ll say two words. St. Louis.”

“Oh.”

“Now that was a quick one. Out and back the same day. Unfortunately…”

“Does this client know he can’t change his mind?”

“As a matter of fact, he does. I made sure of it. But that’s not the only thing that’s wrong with hurrying. If you go to Baltimore knowing you’ve got less than forty-eight hours to get the job done…”

Keller got the point. It wasn’t great when you could hear the clock ticking.

“I wouldn’t want to cut corners,” he said, “but say I go down there tonight and spend the weekend looking things over. If I get the opportunity to close the sale, I take it. If not I’m on the train back Sunday night.”

“And then I tell the client to go roll his hoop?”

“No, what you tell the client is I’m on the case and the job is as good as done. Jury duty isn’t a lifetime commitment. How long can it take?”

“That’s what the lady in L.A. said, when they picked her for the O. J. jury.”

“I’ll go back to Baltimore next weekend,” he said, “and the weekend after that, if I have to, and by then I’ll be done doing my civic duty. Did the client put a time limit on it?”

“No. He wouldn’t want her to die of old age, but there’s no clause in the contract saying time is of the essence.”

“So at the most we’re looking at two, three weeks, and if there’s any question you tell them I’m in Baltimore, trying to make sure I do the job right.”

“And you could always catch a break along the way.”

“A break?”

“The famous Keller luck. Macnamara could stroke out or get run over by a cable car.”

“In Baltimore?”

“Whatever. Oh, and this doesn’t have to be natural causes, by the way, and in fact it’s better if it’s not. She’s supposed to be an object lesson.”

“An example to others.”

“Something like that.”

He nodded. “I won’t hurry this one,” he said, “but I hope I get it done this weekend.”

“I thought you liked to take your time.”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not always.”

The bar, called Counterpoint, was on Fleet Street, and pretty much in the heart of Fells Point. Keller got a very strange feeling walking into it. On the one hand he felt oddly at home, as if he’d spent a lot of happy hours within its walls. At the same time, he sensed that it was not a safe place for him to be.

It certainly looked safe enough. The crowd ran to twenty or thirty people, more men than women. They were mostly white, mostly in their thirties or forties. Dress was casual, mood relaxed. Keller had been in bars where you knew right away that half the customers had criminal records, that people were doing coke in the rest rooms, that before the night was over someone was going to break a bottle over someone else’s head. And this simply wasn’t that kind of place, or that sort of crowd. No crooks, no cops. Just ordinary folks.

And then he got it. Cops. He kept feeling as though the place ought to be full of cops, cops drinking away the tension of the job, other cops behind the bar, drawing beers, mixing drinks. It was that damned program, he realized. The cops on the program had opened a bar together, it was supposed to provide comic relief or something, and he felt as though he’d just walked into it.

Was this the very place? It wouldn’t be staffed with cops in real life, obviously, but it could be where the TV crew filmed those scenes. Except it wasn’t, the layout was different. It was just a bar, and an unequivocally comfortable one, now that he’d finally figured out what had seemed wrong about it.

He settled in on his stool and sipped his beer.

It would be nice to take his time. The neighborhood was the sort he would have liked even if he hadn’t already grown fond of it on television. But he hoped he’d be done with this job in a hurry, and not just for the reason he’d given Dot.

Irene Macnamara might be a preservationist or a developer, Dot hadn’t known which, and he didn’t know either, not for a fact. But he figured the odds were something like ten to one that she wanted to keep Fells Point the way it was, while their client wanted to throw up hotels and outlet malls and bring in the chain stores. Because that’s where the profit was, in developing an area, not in fighting a holding action to keep it unchanged.

This didn’t necessarily mean she was a nice person. Keller knew it didn’t always work that way. She could be a holy terror in her private life, nagging her husband and slapping her children and poisoning the pigeons in the park. But as far as the future of Fells Point was concerned, Keller was on her side. He liked it the way it was.

Of course, that assumed she was a preservationist, and he didn’t really know that for sure. And that was the whole thing, because he really didn’t want to know one way or the other. Because he had the feeling that, the more he got to know about Irene Macnamara, the less inclined he’d be to do the job.