He found a chair where he could watch both entrances and the bank of elevators, but barely got settled into it before he sensed that someone was taking an interest in him. He looked around and caught the desk clerk looking his way.
A few hours from now, he thought, a man like himself, presentably dressed and groomed, could sit for an hour with a newspaper without attracting any attention. But at this hour, with the sky still dark and the city as close as it got to sleep, he was conspicuous.
He walked over to the desk, took out his wallet, flipped it open as if to show a badge. “Fellow who just came in here,” he said. “Had a hat on.”
“You know,” the clerk said, “I had a feeling about him.”
“Where’d he go?”
“To his room,” the clerk said. “Well, to somebody’s room. He went right up on the elevator. Didn’t stop at the desk for his key.”
“You happen to know the room?”
“Never saw him before. I wasn’t on when he checked in. If he checked in.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice. “What’d he do, anyway?”
He killed a friend of mine, Keller thought. “I’ll just have a seat,” he said. “I don’t know how long he’ll be, but I wouldn’t want him to slip past me. You don’t have newspapers for sale, do you? So I don’t look too obvious sitting there.”
The papers hadn’t come yet, but the clerk managed to find yesterday’s Times. Keller didn’t offer to pay for it, figuring a cop wouldn’t. He sat down with the paper and tried to look interested in it.
At first there was no activity at all, but then as dawn approached, the elevator would open every few minutes, and someone would emerge from it and head for the desk to check out. Some looked tired, others looked wide awake, but none looked like the man who had paid Maggie a visit. He kept an eye on the hotel entrance, too, and now and then walked out onto the street for a quick look around. One time he saw a fellow in a cap and windbreaker, caught a quick glimpse of him entering a deli across the street.
Roger, he thought, and tried to position himself so he could watch the front door of the deli and still keep an eye on the hotel lobby. His eyes darted from side to side, it was like watching a tennis match, and then the man in the cap and windbreaker came out of the deli with a plastic bag in each hand, and a frontal view made it clear it wasn’t the man he’d seen on Crosby Street. This guy was shorter and heavier, with a big gut on him, and Keller had a hunch the shopping bags each held a six-pack.
He returned to the lobby, settled in with the paper. And, just a few minutes later, he almost missed the guy in the hat.
That’s because the sonofabitch wasn’t wearing a hat this time. Four men got off the elevator, all bareheaded, all wearing suits and ties, all carrying briefcases. One walked to the desk, while the other three headed for the street. Keller looked down at his newspaper, then looked up suddenly. He hadn’t recognized the man, but he recognized the walk, the way the guy moved. He went out after him, and there he was, getting into the first cab at the taxi stand. No hat, and he was wearing the mustache again, and his hair was blond and shaggy.
He was leaning into the cab, and Keller got so close he could have reached out and touched him. He had the momentary urge to do just that, to spin him around, grab hold of his necktie and throttle him with it. The impulse startled Keller, and of course he didn’t act on it, nor did it keep him from hearing what the man told the driver.
Keller watched the cab pull away, then got into the one next in line. He got in back, made himself comfortable. “Newark Airport,” he said. “Continental Airlines.”
Newark was a hub city for Continental, and the airline had a whole terminal for itself and its code-share partners. Keller sort of liked the idea of partner airlines, hanging out together like the costars of a buddy movie, sharing a secret code. What he liked less was the number of gates Continental had. He didn’t see his man in the ticketing area, and had to assume he already had his ticket and had proceeded directly to the gate.
But which gate? There were dozens of them, and it wasn’t as if he could page the guy. He had to go from gate to gate until he spotted him.
The woman in front of him at Security kept setting off the metals detector, and the delay, only a matter of seconds, drove him nuts. It had been a mistake, he told himself, to give the cabdriver the destination and let it go at that. He never should have let the man out of his sight. Of course itwas easier this way, and they might very well have lost the other taxi in the tunnel traffic, but now he was scurrying from gate to gate, scanning the passengers, trying to move as quickly as he could without making himself conspicuous, and where the hell was the sonofabitch, anyway?
And he almost missed him again. Because he wasn’t a blond anymore, he had short dark hair, and the mustache was gone. And he’d taken off his tie, which meant Keller could forget about choking him with it, and instead of the suit jacket he was wearing a windbreaker.
A windbreaker! But this one was black, not tan like Roger’s. He wasn’t Roger, for God’s sake. Still, he managed to look different every time Keller saw him, and was it even him this time? Could he be sure?
He was in a flight lounge waiting for a flight to Jacksonville. He still had the briefcase, and Keller wondered what it held. So far the man had dispensed with a hat, a long coat, a blond wig, a muffler, a suit jacket, and a necktie. They couldn’t all be in the briefcase, which meant he must have abandoned various articles along the way. That seemed to Keller like an awfully complicated aftermath to a fairly straightforward assignment. He’d been hired to kill a woman in a loft on Crosby Street, and had been instructed to make it look like an accident. He’d spent a long time looking over the scene, sitting in a window across the street and working his way through a carton of cigarettes, and—
That’s what he had in the briefcase. Cigarettes. Packs of them, Keller figured, and he couldn’t smoke a single one of them, not in the airport and not on the plane. And his flight didn’t leave for an hour and a half. Poor bastard would be chewing his nails by the time he got to Jacksonville.
Was that where he lived? Jacksonville? Dot hadn’t known anything about the guy, booking him through a broker, and with this fellow it stood to reason that the broker didn’tknow where he lived, either. Wherever it was, Keller would be willing to bet it wasn’t Jacksonville. Everything he’d done so far suggested the guy would change planes three times before he went to ground.
Maybe, Keller thought, just maybe the guy was on to something. Maybe he himself had been altogether too casual about his work. He generally just flew in, did the job, and flew straight home. He’d been a little more circumspect lately, but that was because he had Roger to worry about. But this clown didn’t know about Roger, and certainly didn’t have a clue that he’d been the bait designed to lure Roger into the open. It stood to reason, then, that he took precautions of this sort all the time, and Keller had to say he was impressed.
The killer might not know about Roger, but Keller did. And, because they’d both been in the corner coffee shop at the same time, he’d managed a good look at Roger’s face.
He looked around now, trying to spot it.
He was also keeping an eye open for a cloth cap and a tan windbreaker, but he didn’t really expect to see that outfit again. That had been Roger’s street attire, designed to render him inconspicuous in a shadowed doorway. For an airport, he’d choose a tie and jacket.
Of course, the hitter had chosen a windbreaker for his airport appearance. So, for all Keller knew, Roger might show up in a clown costume, or a suit of armor. He wasn’t in the Jacksonville flight lounge, Keller made sure of that, and he wasn’t lurking nearby, either.
Had the hitter lost him? It had been well past midnight when the boyfriend du jour left Maggie’s loft and the hitter came over to take his place. Climbed all those stairs, probably took them two at a time, eager now, champing at the bit. The way he smoked, you’d think he’d be winded by the time he got to her floor, but not this son of a bitch, n
ot with the adrenaline pumping through his system. Then he knocked, and Maggie opened the door. Maybe she checked, and couldn’t see anything because his hand was over the peephole. She asks who it is, can’t make out his intentionally muffled reply. And it occurs to her that she shouldn’t open the door, it just crosses her mind for an instant, but no, it has to be the boyfriend returning, coming back for something else he’d forgotten, something besides the wallet, or coming back because he couldn’t get enough of her and wants to take her in his arms one more time, and then, once she’s unlocked the door, it explodes inward and a stranger bursts in, one gloved hand over her mouth, the other reaching for her throat—
Whoa!
Keller got hold of himself. The question, he reminded himself, wasn’t how the killer had gotten into her loft, or how she’d reacted, or any of that. He’d been pondering whether Roger had been on the scene at the time, or whether he’d been cooped up somewhere, getting some sleep.
He decided there was no way to tell, short of running into the bastard. All he could do, really, was stay where he was until they called the Jacksonville flight for boarding. Once the man who’d killed Maggie got on that flight, he was out of harm’s way. Keller could only conclude that Roger had dropped the ball somewhere along the way, which was beginning to look more and more likely. If he’d been sleeping while the hit went down, well, he wouldn’t know about it.
So what would he do? He’d show up on Crosby Street, Keller decided, finding another doorway to lurk in while he waited for something to happen. In fact, if Keller went back right now, or as soon as the Jacksonville flight was in the air, he stood a fair chance of finding Roger on the scene, and this time he’d know the guy was Roger. He wouldn’t have to wait for him to make a move. Instead, Keller could make the move. “Say, do you happen to have the time?” “Sure, it’s . . . arrrggghhhh!” Just take him out right there on the street and be done with it.
But sooner or later there would be cops called to the Crosby Street loft, and then you could forget about finding Roger anywhere in the neighborhood. He’d realize he’d missed his chance and he’d get the hell out of there. So the thing to do was go back right now and hope to surprise him there before the cops showed up.
He’d wait, though, until the Jacksonville flight left. Just because he couldn’t spot Roger didn’t mean the man hadn’t found his way to the airport. Suppose he were Roger. Would he hang around the departure gate while the minutes crawled by? Not a chance. He’d show up at the last minute, ticket in hand, and board the flight just before it pulled away from the gate.
So what Keller would do was stay right where he was, keeping an eye out for last-minute travelers, and if Roger turned up . . .
Then what? If Roger turned up he’d have a ticket and a boarding pass, and he’d get on the plane, and what the hell was Keller going to do about it?
Or suppose Roger was being ultra-cute, which was entirely possible. Suppose Roger had spotted the hitter early on, and had tagged him back to the Woodleigh. How hard would it have been for a resourceful guy like Roger to get into the guy’s hotel room? Say he found a ticket there, knew where his quarry was headed and what flight he’d be on.
Wouldn’t he be tempted to catch another flight, an earlier flight, so he’d be waiting at Jacksonville Airport when the man arrived?
As far as Keller could make out, there was only one way to play this.
Twenty-nine
* * *
The flight was sold out in coach, but they had a couple of seats left in first class. They boarded the first-class passengers ahead of everybody else, along with the passengers requiring special assistance and the small children traveling alone. You didn’t have to board ahead of the others, you could bide your time, but Keller didn’t see the advantage. Keller was in the third row. If Roger was there, if he boarded now or at the last minute, he’d have to pass Keller to get to his seat.
Unless he was flying the plane, or artfully disguised as a stewardess.
The passengers filed onto the plane, and Keller checked them out as they came into view. His eyes widened when the man in the black windbreaker appeared, and then he reminded himself that he shouldn’t be surprised to find Maggie’s killer on board. He’d already known the guy was going to be on the flight, and that was why Keller himself was on it.
Keller was somewhat surprised to find out the man was also flying first class, and close enough so that Keller could almost reach out and touch him. Keller was in 3-B, on the aisle, and Maggie’s killer was in 2-E, one row up and on the other side of the aisle.
Suppose they’d been seated side by side. Suppose the guy turned out to be chatty.
That seemed unlikely, but you never knew. But Keller’s seat mate was a woman, middle-aged, and she was already engrossed in the book she’d brought along, and it looked thick enough to see her through a couple of flights around the world. She seemed happy to ignore Keller, and Keller felt free to ignore her in return.
The plane left the gate on schedule. There was one empty seat left in first class, but Roger didn’t show up at the last minute to claim it. Keller leaned back in his wide, comfortable seat, stretched out his legs, and relaxed.
It wasn’t the first time Keller had ever flown first class. He generally avoided it, because the price was ridiculous, and, really, what was the point? You had a wider seat and more legroom and a better meal, and the drinks were free. Big deal. Everybody got there at the same time.
And didn’t it make you more conspicuous? The flight attendants gave you more attention, so wouldn’t they be more likely to remember you?
Keller kept glancing across the aisle, taking the measure of the man in 2-E. Did the son of a bitch fly first class all the time? Keller supposed he could afford it, there was enough money in a job to cover a lot of overhead. He couldn’t remember what they’d arranged to pay this master of disguise to kill Maggie, wasn’t even sure Dot had mentioned a figure, but it stood to reason that it was comparable to what Keller got, and that was enough to pay for a lot of airline tickets.
Son of a bitch liked to spend money, didn’t he? Bought hats and scarves and jackets and just left them behind. Wasn’t it risky, strewing the landscape with your castoff clothing? Well, maybe not, Keller decided. If you bought new items and discarded them when you were done with them, there’d be no laundry marks, nothing that led back to you. Besides, you wouldn’t be leaving anything at the crime scene. If someone found your hat or your jacket, nobodywould rush it to a forensic laboratory. It would just get tossed in the trash, or wind up in a thrift shop.
Where this bird would never see it again. Because he wasn’t the type to walk into a thrift shop, was he?
The man was no stamp collector.
Keller grinned at the thought, figuring it put him right up there with Sherlock Holmes. The man flew first class, the man bought and discarded great quantities of clothing, the man spent money like he didn’t know what to do with it. Therefore he wasn’t a stamp collector, because a stamp collector always knew what to do with money. He bought stamps with it. Keller, faced with the choice of tourist and first-class air travel, couldn’t help doing the math and translating the difference into potential philatelic purchases. The difference on this flight, for instance, would pay for a couple of mint high values from the set Canada issued in 1898 for Victoria’s jubilee. Keller, given the choice, would have taken the less comfortable seat and the stamps. The murderer across the aisle wouldn’t have any better use for those stamps than to paste them on a letter.
Keller looked at him again, saw he was wearing a black silk sleep mask. Had his head back, his hands in his lap. He’d killed an innocent girl, and he was sleeping like a lamb.
One thing Keller realized—he was glad the bastard wasn’t a stamp collector.
When they served the meal, the man across the aisle had a good appetite. The murder he’d committed on Crosby Street didn’t seem to have put him off his feed. Keller, fiercely hungry himself, couldn’t fault the guy
on that score. For that matter, had he ever had trouble eating after a job?
Not that he could remember.
And the meal they served you was certainly better than what the peasants were making do with in the back of the plane. They even gave you real glasses and china and silverware instead of that plastic crap you got in coach. Well, not silverware, he thought, although people called it that. Stainless, he read on the back of the fork.
Stainless. Were there bloodstains in Maggie’s loft on Crosby Street? Had he shed her blood? It was supposed to look like an accident, but there were all kinds of accidents, and some of them broke the skin.
What difference did it make? Why was he even thinking about it?
He looked across the aisle. The killer had polished off his food and was sipping his wine. They gave you a half-bottle of wine in first class, red or white, and Maggie’s killer had gone for red. He’d had a drink before the meal, too, a scotch on the rocks. Well, why not? His work was done, he was heading for home, and he didn’t have any reason to think he needed to have his wits about him. He didn’t know about Roger.
Keller, who wasn’t crazy about wine in the first place, had turned it down, and for a drink before the meal he’d settled on orange juice. He knew this didn’t make him morally superior to the other man, but that’s how he felt, sitting there, eyeing the fellow, watching him smack his lips over the blood-red wine.
In Jacksonville, Keller managed to be the first one off the plane. He led the way, scanning the gate area for a sign of Roger. He was looking for a tan windbreaker and a cloth cap, but he was also looking for the face he’d seen in the coffee shop.
No sign of the man.
There was a video monitor with a list of upcoming departures, and he pretended to study it while the hitter got off the plane, then tagged him all the way to a Delta gate, where a flight to Atlanta was scheduled to depart in a little less than an hour.
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