Lawrence Block - Hit Man

Keller went to the window, flung it wide open. “I’m not going to shoot you,” he said.

“I’ve never been the least bit suicidal,” Breen said, pressing his back against a wall of bookshelves. “Never.”

“You’ve grown despondent over the death of your ex-wife.”

“That’s sickening, just sickening. And who would believe it?”

“We’ll see,” Keller told him. “As far as the therapeutic crisis is concerned, well, we’ll see about that, too. I’ll think of something.”

The woman at the animal shelter said, “Talk about coincidence. One day you come in and put your name down for an Australian cattle dog. You know, that’s a very uncommon breed in this country.”

“You don’t see many of them.”

“And what came in this morning? A perfectly lovely Australian cattle dog. You could have knocked me over with a sledgehammer. Isn’t he a beauty?”

“He certainly is.”

“He’s been whimpering ever since he got here. It’s very sad, his owner died and there was nobody to keep him. My goodness, look how he went right to you! I think he likes you.”

“I’d say we were made for each other.”

“I can almost believe it. His name is Nelson, but of course you can change it.”

“Nelson,” he said. The dog’s ears perked up. Keller reached to give him a scratch. “No, I don’t think I’ll have to change it. Who was Nelson, anyway? Some kind of English hero, wasn’t he? A famous general or something?”

“I think an admiral. Commander of the British fleet, if I remember correctly. Remember? The Battle of Trafalgar Square?”

“It rings a muted bell,” he said. “Not a soldier but a sailor. Well, that’s close enough, wouldn’t you say? Now I suppose there’s an adoption fee to pay, and some papers to fill out.”

When they’d handled that part she said, “I still can’t get over it. The coincidence and all.”

“I knew a man once,” Keller said, “who insisted there was no such thing as a coincidence or an accident.”

“Well, I wonder how he’d explain this.”

“I’d like to hear him try,” Keller said. “Let’s go, Nelson. Good boy.”

“N ow here’s mysituation ,” Keller said. “Ordinarily I have plenty of free time. I take Nelson for a minimum of two long walks a day, and sometimes when the weather’s nice we’ll be out all afternoon. It’s a pleasure for me, and he’s tireless, literally tireless. He’s an Australian cattle dog, and the breed was developed to drive herds of cattle vast distances. You could probably walk him to Yonkers and back and he’d still be raring to go.”

“I’ve never been to Yonkers,” the girl said.

Neither had Keller, but he had passed through it often enough on the way to and from White Plains. There was no need to mention this.

“The thing is,” he went on, “I sometimes have to travel on business, and I don’t get much in the way of advance warning. I get a phone call, and two hours later I’m on a plane halfway across the country, and I may not get back for two weeks. Last time I boarded Nelson, and I don’t want to do that again.”

“No.”

“Aside from the fact that the kennels expect you to make reservations a week in advance,” he said, “I think it’s rotten for the dog. Last time, well, he was different when I picked him up. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was days before he was his old self again.”

“I know what you mean.”

“So I’d like to be able call you,” he said, “when I find out I have to travel. You could come in every day and feed him and give him fresh water and take him for a walk twice a day. That’s the kind of thing you could do, right?”

“It’s what I do,” she said. “I have regular clients who don’t have the time to give their pets enough attention, and I have other clients who hire me just when they go out of town, and I’ll come to their houses and take care of their pets and their houseplants.”

“But in the meantime,” Keller said, “I thought you and Nelson ought to get to know each other, because who knows how he’ll react if I just disappear one day and a few hours later you turn up and enter the apartment? He’s pretty territorial.”

“But if Nelson and I already knew each other-”

“That’s what I was getting at,” he said. “Suppose you were to walk him, I don’t know, twice a week? He’s not stupid, he’d get the idea right away. Then, by the time I had to leave town, you’d already be an old friend. He wouldn’t go nuts when you tried to enter the apartment or resist when you tried to lead him out of it. Does that make sense to you? And what would be a fair price?”

They worked it out. She would walk Nelson for a full hour twice a week, on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons, and for this Keller would pay her fifty dollars a week. Then, when Keller was out of town, she would get fifty dollars a day, in return for which she would see to Nelson’s food and water and walk him twice daily.

“Why don’t we start now?” she suggested. “How about it, Nelson? Want to go for a walk?” The dog recognized the word but looked uncertain. “Walk, walk, walk!” she said, and his tail set to wagging.

When they were out the door Keller began to worry. Suppose she never brought the dog back? Then what?

Dogs Walked, Plants Watered,the notice had read. Responsible Young Woman Will Provide Quality Care for Your Flora and Fauna. Call Andria.

The notice had appeared on the community bulletin board at the neighborhood Gristede’s, where Keller bought Grape-Nuts for himself and Milk-Bone for Nelson. There had been a phone number, and he had copied it down and dialed it, and now his dog was in the care and custody of this allegedly responsible young woman, and all he really knew about her was that she didn’t know how to spell her own name. Suppose she let Nelson off the leash? Suppose she sold him to vivisectionists? Suppose she fell in love with him and never brought him back?

Keller went into the bathroom and stared hard at himself in the mirror. “Grow up,” he said sternly.

An hour and ten minutes after they’d left, Nelson and Andria returned. “He’s a pleasure to walk,” she said. “No, don’t pay me for today. It would be like paying an actor for an audition. You can start paying me on Tuesday. Incidentally, it’s only fair to tell you that the payment you suggested is higher than my usual rates.”

“That’s all right.”

“You’re sure? Well, thanks, because I can use it. I’ll see you Tuesday morning.”

She showed up Tuesday morning, and again Friday afternoon. When she brought Nelson back on Friday she asked Keller if he wanted a full report.

“On what?” he wondered.

“On our walk,” she said. “On what he did. You know.”

“Did he bite anyone? Did he come up with a really good recipe for chili?”

“Some owners want you to give them a tree-by-tree report.”

“Hey, call me irresponsible,” Keller said, “but I figure there are things we’re not meant to know.”

After a couple of weeks he gave her a key. “Because there’s no reason for me to stick around just to let you in,” he said. “If I’m not going to be here I’ll leave the money in an envelope on the desk.” A week later he forced himself to leave the apartment half an hour before she was due to arrive. When he printed her name in block capitals on the envelope it looked strange to him, and the next time he saw her he raised the subject. “The notice you posted had your name spelled with an I , ” he said. “Is that how you spell it or was it a misprint?”