Hit Man

by Lawrence Block

  “I have a feeling this is a big mistake,” she said, “but I don’t care. I just don’t care. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Keller said.

  Afterward he said, “Now I suppose you’ll think I put the dog up to it. I wish I could take the credit, but I swear it was all his idea. He was like that donkey in the logic problem, unable to decide between the two bales of hay. Where did he go, I wonder?”

  She didn’t say anything, and he looked closely and saw that she was crying. Jesus, had he said something to upset her?

  He said, “Andria? Is something wrong?”

  She sat up and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I’m just scared,” she said.

  “Of what?”

  “Of you.”

  “Of me?”

  “Just tell me you’re not going to hurt me,” she said. “Could you do that?”

  “Why would I hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, why would you say something like that?”

  “Oh, God,” she said. She put a hand to her mouth and chewed on a knuckle. Her fingernails weren’t polished, just her toenails. Interesting. She said, “When I’m in a relationship I have to be completely honest.”

  “Huh?”

  “Not that this is a relationship, I mean we just went to bed together once, but I felt we really related, don’t you think?”

  Keller wondered what she was getting at.

  “So I have to be honest. See, I know what you do.”

  “You know what I do?”

  “On those trips.”

  That was ridiculous. How could she know anything?

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “I’m afraid to say it.” God, maybe she did know.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “You—”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You’re an assassin.”

  Ooops.

  He said, “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t think it,” she said. “I sort of know it. And I don’t know how I know it. I guess I knew it the day I met you. Something about your energy, I guess. It’s kind of intangible, but it’s there.”

  “Oh.”

  “I sense things about people. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “I’ll never hurt you, Andria.”

  “I know you mean that,” she said. “I hope it turns out to be true.”

  He thought for a moment. “If you think that about me,” he said, “or know it, whatever you want to call it, and if you were afraid I might. . . hurt you—”

  “Then why did I come into the bedroom?”

  “Right. Why did you?”

  She looked right into his eyes. “I couldn’t help myself,” she said.

  He felt this sensation in the middle of his chest, as if there had been a steel band around his heart and it had just cracked and fallen away. He reached for her and drew her down.

  On the floor at the side of the bed, Nelson slept like a lamb.

  In the morning they walked Nelson together. Keller bought the paper and picked up a quart of milk. Back at the apartment, he made a pot of coffee while she put breakfast on the table.

  He said, “Look, I’m not good at this, but there are some things I ought to say. The first is that you have nothing to fear from me. My work is one thing and my life is something else. I have no reason to hurt you, and even if I had a reason I wouldn’t do it.”

  “I know that.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was afraid last night. I’m not afraid now.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, the other thing I want to say is that I know you don’t have a place to stay right now, and as far as I’m concerned you can stay here as long as you want. In fact I’d like it if you stayed here. You can even sleep on the couch if you want, assuming that Nelson will allow it. I’m not sure he will, though.”

  She considered her reply, and the phone rang. He made a face and answered it.

  It was Dot. “Young man,” she said, in an old lady’s quavering voice, “I think you had better pay a call on your kindly old Aunt Dorothy.”

  “I just did,” he reminded her. “Just because it was quick and easy doesn’t mean I don’t need a little time off between engagements.”

  “Keller,” she said, in her own voice, “get on the next train, will you? It’s urgent.”

  “Urgent?”

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember saying something about a piece of cake?”

  “So?”

  “So your cake fell,” Dot said. “Get it?”

  There was no one to meet him at the White Plains station so he took a cab to the big Victorian house on Taunton Place. Dot was waiting on the porch. “All right,” she said. “Report.”

  “To you?”

  “And then I report to him. That’s how he wants it.”

  Keller shrugged and reported. Where he’d gone, what he’d done. It took only a few sentences. When he was done he paused for a moment, and then he said, “The woman wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  “Neither was the man.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You killed the wrong people,” she said. “Wait here, Keller, okay? I have to relay this to His Eminence. You want coffee, there’s a fresh pot in the kitchen. Well, a reasonably fresh pot.”

  Keller stayed on the porch. There was an old-fashioned glider and he sat on that, gliding back and forth, but it seemed too frivolous for the circumstances. He switched to a chair but was too restless to stay in it. He was on his feet when Dot returned.

  She said, “You said room 314.”

  “And that’s the room I went to,” he said. “That was the room I called from downstairs, and those were the numbers on the door. Room 314 at the Sheraton.”

  “Wrong room.”

  “I wrote it down,” he said. “He gave me the number and I wrote it down.”

  “You didn’t happen to save the note, did you?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “I keep everything. I have it on my coffee table, along with the boning knife and the vic’s watch and wallet. No, of course I didn’t keep the note.”

  “Of course you didn’t, but it would have been nice if you’d made an exception on this particular occasion. The, uh, designated victim was in room 502.”

  He frowned. “That’s not even close. What did he do, change his room? If I’d been given a name or a photo, you know—”

  “I know. He didn’t change his room.”

  “Dot, I can’t believe I wrote it down wrong.”

  “Neither can I, Keller.”

  “If I got one digit wrong or reversed the order, well, I could almost believe that, but to turn 502 into 314—”

  “You know what 314 is, Keller?” He didn’t. “It’s the area code for St. Louis.”

  “The area code? As in telephone?”

  “As in telephone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She sighed. “He’s had a lot on his mind lately,” she said. “He’s been under a strain. So, just between you and me”—for God’s sake, who was he going to tell?—“he must have looked at the wrong slip of paper and wound up giving you the area code instead of the room number.”

  “I thought he seemed tired. I even said something.”

  “And I told you life tires people out, if I remember correctly. We were both right. Meanwhile, you have to go to Tulsa.”

  “Tulsa?”

  “That’s where the target lives, and it seems he’s canceling the rest of his meetings and going home this afternoon. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or if the business two floors down spooked him. The client didn’t want to hit him in Tulsa, but now there’s no choice.”

  “I just did the job,” Keller said, “and now I have to do it again. When she popped out of the bathroom it turned into two for the price of one, and now it’s three for
the price of one.”

  “Not exactly. He has to save face on this, Keller, so the idea is you stepped on your whatchamacallit and now you’re going to correct your mistake. But when all this is history there will be a little extra in your Christmas stocking.”

  “Christmas?”

  “A figure of speech. There’ll be a bonus, and you won’t have to wait for Christmas for it.”

  “The client’s going to pay a bonus?”

  “I said you’d get a bonus,” she said. “I didn’t say the client would be paying it. Tulsa, and you’ll be met at the airport and somebody will show you around and point the finger. Have you ever been to Tulsa?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ll love it. You’ll want to move there.”

  He didn’t even want to go there. Halfway down the porch stairs he turned, retraced his steps, and said, “The man and woman in 314. Who were they?”

  “Who knows? They weren’t Gunnar Ruthven, I can tell you that much.”

  “That’s who I’m going to see in Tulsa?”

  “Let’s hope so. As far as the pair in 314, I don’t know any names. He was a local businessman, owned a dry-cleaning plant or something like that. I don’t know anything about her. They were married, but not to each other. What I hear, you interrupted a matinee.”

  “That’s what it looked like.”

  “Rang down the curtain,” Dot said. “What a world, huh?”

  “His name was Harry.”

  “See, I told you it wasn’t Gunnar Ruthven. What’s it matter, Keller? You’re not going to send flowers, are you?”

  “I’ll be gone longer this time,” he told Andria. “I have to . . . go someplace and . . . take care of some business.”

  “I’ll take care of Nelson,” she said. “And we’ll both be here when you get back.”

  His plane was leaving from Newark. He packed a bag and called a livery service for a car to the airport.

  He said, “Does it bother you?”

  “What you do? It would bother me if I did it, but I couldn’t do it, so that’s beside the point. But does it bother me that you do it? I don’t think so. I mean, it’s what you do.”

  “But don’t you think it’s wrong?”

  She thought it over. “I don’t think it’s wrong for you,” she said. “I think it’s your karma.”

  “You mean like destiny or something?”

  “Sort of. It’s what you have to do in order to learn the lesson you’re supposed to learn in this lifetime. We’re not just here once, you know. We live many lives.”

  “You believe that, huh?”

  “It’s more a matter of knowledge than belief.”

  “Oh.” Karma, he thought. “What about the people I go and see? It’s just their karma?”

  “Doesn’t that make sense to you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  He had plenty of time to think about karma. He was in Tulsa for five days before he had a chance to close the file on Gunnar Ruthven. A sad-eyed young man named Joel met his flight and gave him a tour of the city that included Ruthven’s suburban home and downtown office building. Ruthven lived in a two-story mock-Tudor house on about half an acre of land and had an office in the Great Southwestern Bank building within a block of the courthouse. Then Joel drove to the All-American Inn, one of a couple of dozen motels clustered together on a strip a mile from the airport. “The reason for the name,” Joel said, “is so you would know the place wasn’t owned by Indians. I don’t mean your Native Americans, I mean Indians from India. They own most of the motels. So this here place, the owners changed the name to the All-American, and they even had a huge signboard announcing the place was owned and operated by hundred-percent Americans.”

  “Did somebody make them take the sign down?”

  Joel shook his head. “After about a year,” he said, “they sold out, and the new owners took the sign down.”

  “They didn’t like the implications?”

  “Not hardly. See, they’re Indians. Place is decent, though, and you don’t have to go through the lobby. In fact you’re already registered and paid in advance for a week. I figured you’d like that. Here’s your room key, and here’s a set of car keys. They belong to that Toyota over there, third from the end. Paper for it’s in the glove box, along with a little twenty-two automatic. If you prefer something heavier, just say so.”

  Keller assured him it would be fine. “Why don’t you get settled,” Joel said, “and get yourself something to eat if you’re hungry. The Sizzler across the street on the left isn’t bad. I’ll pick you up in say two hours and we’ll sneak a peek at the fellow you came out here to see.”

  Joel picked him up on schedule and they rode downtown and parked in a metered lot. They sat in the lobby of Ruthven’s office building. After twenty minutes Joel said, “Getting off the elevator. Glen plaid suit, horn-rimmed glasses, carrying the aluminum briefcase. Looks space age, I guess, but I’d go for genuine leather every time, myself.”

  Keller took a good look. Ruthven was tall and slender, with a sharp nose and a pointed chin. Keller said, “Are you positive that’s him?”

  “Shit, yes, I’m positive. Why?”

  “Just making sure.”

  Joel ran him back to the All-American and gave him a map of Tulsa with different locations marked on it—the All-American Inn, Ruthven’s house, Ruthven’s office, and a southside restaurant Joel said was outstanding. He also gave Keller a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “Anything you want,” he said. “You want a girl, you want to get in a card game, you want to see a cockfight, just call that number and I’ll take care of it. You ever been to a cockfight?”

  “Never.”

  “You want to?”

  Keller thought about it. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Well, if you change your mind, just let me know. Or anything else you want.” Joel hesitated. “I got to say I’ve got a lot of respect for you,” he said, averting his eyes from Keller’s as he said it. “I don’t guess I could do what you do. I haven’t got the sand for it.”

  Keller went to his room and stretched out on the bed. Sand, he thought. What the hell did sand have to do with anything?

  He thought about Ruthven, coming off the elevator, long and lean, and realized why he’d been bothered by the man’s appearance. He wasn’t what Keller had expected. He didn’t look anything like Harry in 314.

  Did Ruthven know he was a target? Driving around in the Toyota, keeping an eye on the man, Keller decided that he did. There was a certain wariness about him. The way to handle that, Keller decided, was to let him get over it. A few days of peace and quiet and Ruthven could revert to his usual way of thinking. He’d decide that Harry and his girlfriend had been killed by a jealous husband, and he’d drop his guard and stick his neck out, and Keller could get the job done and go home.

  The gun seemed all right. The third afternoon he drove out into the country, popped a full clip into the gun, and emptied the clip at a CATTLE CROSSING sign. None of his shots hit the mark, but he didn’t figure that was the gun’s fault. He was fifteen yards away, for God’s sake, and the sign was no more than ten inches across. Keller wasn’t a particularly good shot, but he arranged his life so he didn’t have to be. If you walked up behind a guy and put the gun muzzle to the back of his neck, all you had to do was pull the trigger. You didn’t have to be a marksman. All you needed was—

  What? Karma? Sand?

  He reloaded and made a real effort this time, and two shots actually hit the sign. Remarkable what a man could do when he put his mind to it.

  The hard part was finding a way to pass the time. He went to a movie, walked through a mall, and watched a lot of television. He had Joel’s number but never called it. He didn’t want female companionship, nor did he feel like playing cards or watching a cockfight.

  He kept fighting off the urge to call New York.

  On one of the home shoppin
g channels, one woman said earnestly to another, “Now there’s one thing we both know, and that’s that you just can’t have too many earrings.” Keller couldn’t get the line out of his head. Was it literally true? Suppose you had a thousand pairs, or ten thousand. Suppose you had a million pairs. Wouldn’t that constitute a surplus?

  The woman in 314 hadn’t been wearing earrings, but there had been a pair on the bedside table. How many other pairs had she had at home?

  Finally one morning he got up at daybreak and showered and shaved. He packed his bag and wiped the motel room free of prints. He had done this routinely every time he left the place, so that it would never be necessary for him to return to it, but this morning he sensed that it was time to wind things up. He drove to Ruthven’s house and parked around the corner at the curb. He went through the driveway and yard of a house on the side street, scaled a four-foot Cyclone fence, and jimmied a window in order to get into Ruthven’s garage. The car inside the garage was unlocked, and he got into the back seat and waited patiently.

  Eventually the garage door opened, and when that happened Keller scrunched down so that he couldn’t be seen. Ruthven opened the car door and got behind the wheel.

  Keller sat up slowly. Ruthven was fumbling with the key, having a hard time getting it into the ignition. But was it really Ruthven?

  Jesus, get a grip. Who else could it be?

  Keller stuck the gun in his ear and emptied the clip.

  “These are beautiful,” Andria said. “You didn’t have to bring me anything.”

  “I know that.”

  “But I’m glad you did. I love them.”

  “I didn’t know what to get you,” Keller said, “because I don’t know what you already have. But I figured you can never have too many earrings.”

  “That is absolutely true,” Andria said, “and not many men realize it.”

  Keller tried not to smirk.