Oh, hell. He’d left his coins on the bar, along with a couple of singles, but he picked up a couple of quarters and found his way over to the jukebox. There it was, B-17, Marty Robbins, “El Paso.” He paid fifty cents to play it, which struck him as silly, considering that YouTube would happily let him hear it for free in the privacy of his own home.
And then he went back to his bar stool and waited while other people’s selections got played ahead of his. Loretta Lynn and Bobby Bare and Crystal Gayle, and a few he didn’t recognize, and he was beginning to understand how every once in a while you read about somebody in a place like this who took out a gun and started blasting away at the juke box. He’d always figured it was because they couldn’t stand the song that was playing, but maybe they couldn’t stand the song that wasn’t playing.
Ah, finally! Down in the West Texas town of El Paso…
Without thinking, he’d picked up his beer and taken an unintended sip of it.
Not that a sip of beer would hurt him any. Still, it was bothersome that he’d done it after deciding not to. And he couldn’t afford to think about it, not now, because his song was playing, and he had to listen closely to find out what rhymed with El Paso.
Nothing, as it turned out.
The name of the song was El Paso, and it turned up in the lyrics a couple of times, and always at the end of a line. So you couldn’t think of the song without thinking of the town, but that didn’t mean that there was anything in there to rhyme with it. It came at the end of the first line in a stanza, and the rhymes were the words at the ends of lines two and four. So what rhymed with El Paso?
“Not a goddamned thing,” he said.
“Pardner,” a voice said at his elbow, “I have to say you got that right.”
AND, OF COURSE, the man standing just to his right, the man who’d agreed with him without knowing what it was he was agreeing with, was big and tall and broad in the shoulders. And, no surprise, he was wearing boots. And, duh, a cowboy hat.
Keller, who hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud, now had the opportunity to wish he hadn’t. While he was at it, he wished he’d saved fifty cents and ten or twelve minutes and left the Spotted Tiger while he had the chance.
“Um,” he said. “I don’t think we know each other.”
“Hell, I know you,” Cowboy Hat said. He turned to the shorter fellow on his right, who unsurprisingly turned out to be Tom Cruise. “Hey, Pete,” he said. “Remember this fellow?”
“Can’t say I do,” said Tom Cruise, whose name was evidently Pete.
“I can believe it, drunk as you was.” He shook his head, turned to Keller. “Last week,” he said. “We was right here, and you was right there. Except we was all three of us in the Wet Spot, not here in the Tiger. But you, you didn’t say a word, just drank your beer like a gentleman, and one minute you was there and the next minute you was gone.”
“Well,” Keller said.
“Is it coming back to you now, Pete?”
“Nope.”
“See, that’s the difference between you and me. I’m a man never forgets a face.”
“Can’t say the same,” Pete admitted. “Now I got a memory for vehicles. Show me a car, I’ll say, ‘Damn, I seen that car before.’ Unless I didn’t, in which case I won’t.”
“You and your cars,” Cowboy Hat said. “How about hats, little buddy? You got any kind of a memory for hats?”
“I remember yours,” Pete said. “I ought to, I see that ugly thing enough times.”
“Last time you saw this here gentleman, that you can’t remember ever seeing before, he was wearing one of the nicest looking hats you’ll ever hope to see.” He laid a hand on Keller’s shoulder. “What happened to that hat, pardner?”
“Uh,” Keller said.
“Nice gray felt hat, had a little turned-down brim, little crease right here—” he ran an illustrative forefinger along the top of Keller’s head “—and dimples here—” he used his thumb and forefinger to give a light pinch to Keller’s forehead. “There’s a name for that kind of hat, but I disremember what it is.”
“A fedora,” Keller murmured.
“Say again? Couldn’t quite hear you, what with all the noise in this place.”
“A fedora.”
“Yep, that’s it. Had it right on the tip of my tongue. A fedora.” He heaved a sigh, stuck out his hand. “Roy Savage,” he said.
“Jim,” Keller said, and shook Roy’s hand.
“And this here’s Pete, though it’s a waste of time introducing you, on account of he won’t remember.”
Another solemn handshake, with Pete assuring his new friend Jim that he’d sure remember him. “And your car, too,” he added.
Wonderful, just wonderful.
THE LAST THING Keller ever wanted to do was get acquainted with the subject of an assignment. All he liked to have, really, was enough information so he could make a positive identification of the intended target. That often entailed knowing his name, but it was even better if he didn’t. It might not have made it more difficult to swing a hammer into the temple of the Marlboro Man if he’d known his name was Harold, but neither would it have made it easier.
It was Cowboy Hat—no, dammit, make that Roy—who supplied the name. Harold Garber, he said, after they’d all moved from the bar to a table, where Roy said they’d be able to hear better. Keller didn’t want to hear better, he didn’t want to hear anything at all, but he couldn’t figure out a way to leave that wouldn’t be even more memorable than if he were to stay.
Hell.
“Old Harold,” he said. “Man couldn’t ask for a better friend.”
“And look what you done,” Pete said.
“What?”
“Before Harold was even in the ground,” he said, “you was hitting on the widow.”
“Widow? Harold wasn’t married.”
“No, but she was,” Pete said. “Jim, you remember when we was in here that night? You was wearing your hat. And I remember that hat, matter of fact. Remember it perfectly well.”
Well, that was a comfort.
“I don’t remember all that much myself,” Keller volunteered.
“Harold couldn’t stop talking about this babe he spent the afternoon with,” Pete said. “And then the next thing we heard was Harold was dead. Killed right there in the parking lot at the Wet Spot, found dead in his truck with his head bashed in.”
Keller said that was terrible.
“With his own hammer,” Roy said, “which they called a crime of opportunity. You all of a sudden decide to kill a man, you look around for something, and there’s his hammer. Wham, and it’s done.”
“And Roy here was so shocked,” Pete said, “that the first chance he gets he’s over at the house on Robin’s Nest Road comforting the widow.”
“You are so wrong.”
“Oh yeah?”
“First of all, it’s Robin’s Nest Drive, not Road.”
“You look up Same Fucking Difference in the dictionary, what do you suppose you’re gonna see?”
“And on top of that, she wasn’t anybody’s widow, on account of her husband’s still alive. And that’s why I went there, you moron.”
“Because you’re a hound is why.”
“I was being considerate,” he said, and turned to Keller for support. “You’d do the same thing, right?”
“Uh—”
“Okay, bringing you up to speed. Harold had this girlfriend, rich lady, husband, old story. Saw her and didn’t exactly keep it to hisself.”
“‘Smell my finger,’” Pete said.
“Liked to boast a bit,” Roy said, “but who’s he hurting? None of us knows the woman.”
“One of us does now.”
“Pete, shut up, okay? Point is Harold died sudden.”
“On account of somebody killed him.”
“Followed him out the door and back to his van,” Roy said. “That’s what happened, most likely. There’s Harold, boasting the way he’
d do, and there’s a roomful of men can’t help overhearing him—”
“On account of he’d raise his voice to make damn sure they heard him.”
“Well, that was Harold, all right. And I’m a little fuzzy on the details, I had a few beers myself, but we all of us decided to get out of there and come to the Tiger instead.”
“Too many tattoos,” Pete said.
“Anyway, Pete here took off.”
“Drove from there to here,” Pete said. “Nothing to it.”
“And I figured to let Harold go next, and I’d bring up the rear, but what happened was he was waiting for me to go, so it was like the two Frenchies. What’s their damn names, Pete?”
“Frenchies?”
“You know. ‘After you, my friend.’ ‘No, after you!’ Couple of Froggies, and what are their damn names?”
“Only Frenchman I know is that guy Giuseppe, and he’s Italian.”
“You’re a big help, Pete.”
Alphonse and Gaston, Keller thought, but kept it to himself.
“Pierre,” Roy said, “and Lucky Pierre. That’s not it, but it’ll do. So I headed for the Tiger, and Pete was already here when I pulled in.”
“Took you long enough,” Pete said.
“And we waited for Harold, and when we got tired of waiting we went in and had a couple of beers. And it wasn’t until the next day that we heard what happened to Harold.”
“He got hammered,” Pete offered.
“We all got hammered,” Roy said, “but with Harold it wasn’t just an expression. Guy followed him out, had to be a case of Harold got it on with somebody’s wife or girlfriend—”
“Or daughter.”
“Yeah, coulda been a daughter. Cops are working their way through the Wet Spot’s regulars, checking out everybody that mighta had it in for Harold.”
Keller half-listened while the two of them worked their way through a lengthy list of potential suspects. Earlier, he’d remembered a job years ago that had sent him across the country to a town in Oregon, where someone had spotted a man who’d vanished into the Witness Protection Program. Keller liked the place, liked the life the man was leading there, and found himself contemplating retirement. It was just a fantasy, but in the course of it he’d made the horrible mistake of getting to know the fellow.
When, inevitably, he’d come to his senses, his mission was consequently far more difficult. Still, you did what you had to do. But, having done it, you took pains to avoid such complications in the future.
As Roy went on and on, now explaining how he’d known it was his duty to tell this woman on Robin’s Nest Drive what had happened to Harold, because otherwise she might never know, or she’d read it in the paper, or worst of all the police would turn up on her doorstep and give her the shock of her life, and—
On and on and on, with Pete chiming in now and then, and with Roy admitting that, well, he had to admit he’d wanted to confirm some of the things Harold had told him about the lady, because Harold had a tendency to exaggerate, but in this instance Harold had it right, all right, and—
All of this, he realized, was very different from what he’d gone through in Roseburg, Oregon. There he’d liked the man, and he’d had to set that aside and do his job. But here in Baker’s Bluff, the more time he spent with Roy and his friend Pete, the fewer his reservations about earning his fee. Every sentence spoken, every clap of that big hand on his shoulder, made Keller a little more eager to swing that brand-new Stanley hammer not merely with professionalism but with pleasure.
And now, of course, it was out of the question.
“BACK IN A minute,” he said. “I want to hear the rest of this.”
He got to his feet. Roy was in the middle of a sentence, but Roy was pretty much always in the middle of a sentence, and a call of nature was something a beer drinker could certainly understand. Keller went to the restroom, answered nature’s call, and left the room.
Back in a minute. I want to hear the rest of this.
Well, how was that for a pair of barefaced lies, one right after the other? He certainly didn’t want to hear anymore, nor would he be back, not in a minute and not in an hour. He walked out of the men’s room and down the hall and out the door, took a quick backward glance to make sure no one was paying attention, and crossed the lot to his car.
He got behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition, and looked over at the passenger seat, where the hammer was waiting. He shouldn’t have bought the hammer, he thought. For that matter, he shouldn’t have bought that second ticket to Chicago. He should have stayed home.
He got out the Pablo phone, made a call.
“I can’t do anything,” he said. “I bought a hammer, it’s on the car seat next to me, perfectly good hammer, never been used—and all I can do is toss it.”
“If you toss it far enough,” Dot said, “you could wind up with an Olympic medal.”
“I think that’s a different kind of hammer.”
“You’re probably right. What happened?”
He told her.
“I get it,” she said. “You got to know them, and you bonded a little, and the idea of taking them out—”
“—is more appealing than ever,” he said, “because not even Krazy Glue could bond me to these two idiots. But I’ve been seen with them, and in a public place, and—”
“And if anything happens to either of them, somebody’s going to remember their friend with the hammer.”
“And come looking,” he said.
“I’ll tell the client,” she said. “And I’ll send the money back.”
“He paid?”
“In full for the original job, which he won’t get back because we fulfilled the contract. But he sent half the payment for your friend in the cowboy hat, and—”
“Not my friend.”
“It’s just an expression, Pablo. He sent half by FedEx, and I’ll send it back to him. God, how I hate to return money.”
“I know.”
“Once I actually have it in hand, you know, it’s not their money anymore. So why should they get it back?”
Wait a minute…
“Dot—”
“Oh, I know why. I’m talking about how my mind works. But, you know, that’s just my mind, and I’ve learned not to pay too much attention to it. I’ll send the money back.”
“Not just yet,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I just thought of something.”
He retrieved his key, opened the door. He paused for another glance at the passenger seat, wishing the fedora were sitting there. But no, all that was there was the hammer, and he had no use for it now.
BACK IN THE Spotted Tiger, he stopped at the bar for three bottles of beer and carried them back to the table. “Well now,” Roy said appreciatively. “Thanks, pardner. Pete, we’re drinking to the man with the hat.”
Keller took a hearty sip of beer, acknowledging the toast. It struck him as curious, given that he was the only bareheaded man at the table, but it seemed to confirm what the salesman at Peller & Smythe had said about the classic quality of the fedora. It continued to impress people even when you were no longer wearing it.
“Something I was thinking,” he said. “Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but didn’t you ask your friend, the one who got killed—”
“Harold,” Pete supplied.
“Right, Harold. Didn’t you ask him if the lady had a sister?”
“Well, you know,” Roy said. “Sort of joking with him. Seems to me he said she was an only child.”
“But wasn’t there something about how he thought she’d be up for a threesome?”
Roy got a look on his face.
Pete: “Hey, look who swallowed the canary!”
Roy: “No such thing.”
Pete: “Where’d that canary-eating grin come from? There’s something you ain’t telling.”
Roy: “Well—”
Well, Roy explained, he was going to mention it. Because he’d act
ually brought up the subject to Melania, and the last thing she wanted was anything that involved another woman. Anything that went down in her life, she wanted to be the only girl in the room.
“But a second guy,” he said, “might be different. And I was gonna say something, but, well, two guys is one thing and three guys is another, and—”
Keller held up a hand, palm forward. “You know what they say,” he said. “Four is a crowd. And I’m leaving town first thing in the morning, won’t be back for close to three weeks.”
Pete wanted to know where he was going, and that required some swift improvisation. Keller invented a trip to San Francisco, and Roy said he’d always wanted to go there, and Pete said he’d heard it was cold in the summer, so why would anyone want to go there?
Keller picked up his beer bottle and drank deep. He wasn’t working, there wouldn’t be any work for him, so why not enjoy the beer? And drinking it was something to do while he waited for the conversation to get back on track.
“So I can’t,” he said, when he got the chance. “But the two of you—”
Pete: “Yeah. Like how about tomorrow?”
Roy: “Well, I can’t just drop in, say ‘Here’s my friend,’ he wants to join the party.”
Keller: “Maybe if you called her…”
Pete: “Yeah! Call her!”
Roy: “And when her husband answers?”
Pete: “So you hang up. But if she’s the one who answers…”
Roy squinted, thinking about it. He said, “Two on one. Something else they call it, but what is it?”
“Threesomes,” Pete said, helpfully. “Threesome, three-way.”
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