Keller's Fedora (Kindle Single)

by Lawrence Block

  “Chekhov, but what was the gun?”

  “My third phone, the burner. Purchased for the sole purpose of calling the client if I had to, and there was never a time when I had to.”

  “But you still had the phone.”

  “Right.”

  “And knew what number to call. What did you tell him? Hurry home and you can watch your wife make the beast with three backs?”

  “That she’d be expecting not one but two gentleman guests, and that what she didn’t know was that they had an agenda. That once they’d tired of having sex with her, their plan was to kill her and rob the house.”

  “And he believed all of this, of course.”

  “If it had been the first of April,” he said, “he might have suspected something. But why wouldn’t he buy the whole package? I helped him see how it was his chance to be a hero. Get there right around four, walk in with a gun, and do what needs to be done. He’d be saving her life, he’d be a romantic figure in her eyes, and—”

  “And they’d live happily ever after. You can almost hear the movie soundtrack, can’t you?”

  “Just about.”

  “Did he know who was calling him?”

  “I said I was somebody who didn’t know him at all, just a well-meaning stranger who wanted to do the right thing.”

  “Well, all of that was true enough.”

  “When he pressed a little, I let on that I was a friend of one of the pair, that I’d done time with him in Joliet.”

  “Oh, were they criminals?”

  “Not that I know of, but I figured the more I made them sound like desperate characters, the less likely he’d be to show up without a gun.”

  She nodded, thinking about it. “And then you ended the call and went to Chicago and—”

  “No, I was already in Chicago. I called him from Chicago.”

  “And that was that. There was nothing more for you to do. It would play out one way or the other, and Dot would keep the money or give it back, and either way you washed your hands of it.”

  “Literally,” he said. “Because I ditched the burner in the men’s room, and on my way out I washed my hands.”

  “And I guess Dot doesn’t have to give the money back.”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “Dot gave me a pretty sketchy summary,” he said, “but we can probably watch it in a month or two.”

  “We can watch it?”

  “On Dateline.”

  “They had their party, and the husband crashed it.”

  “I don’t know what time Roy and Pete showed up, but it wouldn’t have been much after 3:15, as eager as they were. Four o’clock’s what I told Todd, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he was fifteen minutes early or fifteen minutes late. I guess he walked right in, and I guess they were too busy doing things to listen for doors opening and closing.”

  “Doing things.”

  “Well. Hard to know exactly what happened, who said what and who did what, but he must have walked in with a gun in his hand and he couldn’t have waited too long before he started using it.”

  “And Roy had a gun, didn’t he?”

  “In the Spotted Tiger, unless he was just patting himself on the butt. No, I think the report Dot found mentioned an exchange of gunfire, so maybe Roy or Pete had time to get a couple of shots off.”

  “So to speak. Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

  He nodded.

  “If there was a survivor,” she said, “it wouldn’t be so hard to know the sequence of events.”

  “Overmont survived long enough to call 911. Even if he caught a bullet along the way, it couldn’t have been enough to stop him from getting the call through.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Gave his name and address, said he’d just killed two men who were raping his wife. And then there was another gunshot, and nothing after that.”

  “He shot himself.”

  “Or maybe what they heard on the 911 call was him shooting Melania, and then he rang off and decided he didn’t really want to hang around and wait for the cops to get there. By the time they did, he’d stuck a gun in his mouth and cheated some defense attorney out of a good fee.”

  “And the cops walked in on a bedroom full of dead people. Naked dead people, I suppose.”

  “Except for Overmont.”

  She was silent for a moment, then raised her hand to her face to cover a yawn. “I’m tired,” she said, “and you must be exhausted. I know you slept on the train, but it’s not the same, is it?”

  AND A LITTLE later, in their bed, she stretched like a cat. “Oh, I feel much better now,” she said. “I really missed you. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Me too.”

  “When they asked you if you’d ever done—what did they call it, a tag team? And you said you hadn’t.”

  “Right.”

  “Was that true? Or did you ever hook up with two girls?”

  “Never did either.”

  “Neither did I. What sheltered lives we’ve both led. I don’t think I would want to.”

  “No.”

  “And yet it’s appealing on a pure fantasy level. Isn’t that strange? Why should it be exciting to imagine something that you really wouldn’t want to do in a million years? Do you know what I mean?”

  “I do.”

  “In fact, just a few minutes ago, when we were…”

  “Enjoying each other’s company.”

  “Uh-huh. I was imagining having another person in the bed with us.”

  “It doesn’t seem to have inhibited you.”

  “No, it was hot, wasn’t it? Maybe sometime we could, you know, bring the fantasy to bed with us.”

  “Not another person, but the fantasy of another person.”

  “Uh-huh. Talking about it, playing with the idea. That might be fun.”

  “It might.”

  “You know, I sometimes truly don’t know what to make of myself. I’m a dutiful faithful wife and a loving mother, a model of middle-class morality, and I can fantasize about three-way sex while four people are spread out on white tables in the morgue in Bailey’s Bluff, Illinois.”

  “Baker’s Bluff. And I don’t know if the town’s big enough to have its own morgue.”

  “That’s something else we could Google, but probably won’t. Though we’ll most likely find out when it’s on Dateline. Do you really think it’ll be on Dateline?”

  “Unless 48 Hours gets there first.”

  “Won’t it be hard to get an hour out of it? I mean all they’ve got is the 911 call and the crime scene. Though I guess there’ll be interviews with neighbors, his colleagues from work, anybody who knew her. Melania?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Todd and Melania Overmont. Well, those are good Dateline names, aren’t they? Will they tie in the Marlboro Man?”

  “Harold? I’m sure they will. My guess is they’ll figure Roy or Pete killed him in order to get a clear shot at her.”

  “That hammer you bought—”

  “Well, if they found Pete and Roy dead, and one had his head bashed in and the other had a hammer in his hand—”

  “That’s what was going to happen?”

  He nodded. “Until the Late Great Marty Robbins ruined it for me.”

  “I always loved that song. Oh, you know what I bet happened? Todd shot both the men, Roy and Pete, and Roy tried to get his gun off the bedside table, and maybe he got off a shot and maybe he didn’t, but he wound up dead and so did Pete.”

  “Well, I think we know that much is true.”

  “No there’s more. And then Melania wrapped her arms around Roy, or it could have been Pete—”

  “Roy’s more likely.”

  “And she’s all, ‘Oh, how could you do this?’ when Todd was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘My Hero!’ And he finally sees her for what she really is, and he empties the gun into h
er.”

  “And then reloads? Because he’d need one more bullet.”

  “Roy’s gun. He picks up Roy’s gun, calls 911, and then finishes the job. I was wondering how Dateline was going to get an hour out of it, and now I’m beginning to think it’ll be one of their two-hour episodes. The less they know for sure, the more room they’ll have for speculation. Do you suppose they’ll interview the kid from the supermarket?”

  “If they find him.”

  “‘She was a nice lady. It was always a pleasure to give her a hand.’ How long do you think it’ll be before it airs?”

  “No idea.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said. “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you’re not going to chase the story on the internet, so will you watch it on Dateline?”

  He nodded. “That’s different,” he said. “That’s television.”

  “We’ll have a little premiere in front of the TV set. I won’t run out and buy a new outfit for the occasion, but I’ll dress up nice.” She squeezed his hand. “And you can wear your fedora.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  Lawrence Block has been writing award-winning mystery and suspense fiction for half a century. He has written five books about Keller, the Urban Lonely Guy of assassins—Hit Man, Hit List, Hit Parade, Hit and Run, and Hit Me, and a Keller series for cable television is in development. “Keller,” he points out, “is a Guilty Pleasure for a lot of my readers. They like him, even though they don’t think they should.”

  Block’s other series characters include Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons) and Matthew Scudder, brilliantly embodied by Liam Neeson in the new film, A Walk Among The Tombstones. His non-series novella, Resume Speed, is a bestselling Kindle Single, and will soon appear as a deluxe hardcover from Subterranean Press.

  The author is also well known for his books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies For Fun & Profit and Write For Your Life, and for his writings about the mystery genre and its practitioners, The Crime Of Our Lives. In addition to prose works, he has written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights. He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.

  lawrenceblock.com

  NEWSLETTER: Lawrence Block sends out an email newsletter from time to time, with updates, announcements, and special offers. It’s free, and an email to lawbloc@gmail.com with NEWSLETTER—KF in the header will get you on the list.

  Now turn the page for a bonus excerpt from Keller on the Spot, an Edgar Award-winning story exclusively eVailable on Amazon:

  Keller on the Spot

  Keller, drink in hand, agreed with the woman in the pink dress that it was a lovely evening. He threaded his way through a crowd of young marrieds on what he supposed you would call the patio. A waitress passed carrying a tray of drinks in stemmed glasses and he traded in his own for a fresh one. He sipped as he walked along, wondering what he was drinking. Some sort of vodka sour, he decided, and decided as well that he didn’t need to narrow it down any further than that. He figured he’d have this one and one more, but he could have ten more if he wanted, because he wasn’t working tonight. He could relax and cut back and have a good time.

  Well, almost. He couldn’t relax completely, couldn’t cut back altogether. Because, while this might not be work, neither was it entirely recreational. The garden party this evening was a heaven-sent opportunity for reconnaissance, and he would use it to get a close look at his quarry. He had been handed a picture in the old man’s study back in White Plains, and he had brought that picture with him to Dallas, but even the best photo wasn’t the same as a glimpse of the fellow in the flesh, and in his native habitat.

  And a lush habitat it was. Keller hadn’t been inside the house yet, but it was clearly immense, a sprawling multi-level affair of innumerable large rooms. The grounds sprawled as well, covering an acre or two, with enough plants and shrubbery to stock an arboretum. Keller didn’t know anything about flowers, but five minutes in a garden like this one had him thinking he ought to know more about the subject. Maybe they had evening classes at Hunter or NYU, maybe they’d take you on field trips to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Maybe his life would be richer if he knew the names of the flowers, and whether they were annuals or perennials, and whatever else there was to know about them. Their soil requirements, say, and what bug killer to spray on their leaves, or what fertilizer to spread at their roots.

  He walked along a brick path, smiling at this stranger, nodding at that one, and wound up standing alongside the swimming pool. Some twelve or fifteen people sat at poolside tables, talking and drinking, the volume of their conversation rising as they drank. In the enormous pool, a young boy swam back and forth, back and forth.

  Keller felt a curious kinship with the kid. He was standing instead of swimming, but he felt as distant as the kid from everybody else around. There were two parties going on, he decided. There was the hearty social whirl of everybody else, and there was the solitude he felt in the midst of it all, identical to the solitude of the swimming boy.

  Huge pool. The boy was swimming its width, but that dimension was still greater than the length of your typical backyard pool. Keller didn’t know that this was an Olympic pool, he wasn’t quite sure how big that would have to be, but he figured you could just call it enormous and let it go at that.

  Ages ago he’d heard about some college-boy stunt, filling a swimming pool with Jell-O, and he’d wondered how many little boxes of the gelatin dessert it would have required, and how the college boys could have afforded it. It would cost a fortune, he decided, and to fill this pool with Jell-O—but if you could afford the pool in the first place, he supposed the Jell-O would be the least of your worries.

  There were cut flowers on all of the tables, and the blooms looked like ones Keller had seen in the garden. It stood to reason. If you grew all these flowers, you wouldn’t have to order from the florist. You could cut your own.

  What good would it do, he wondered, to know the names of all the shrubs and flowers? Wouldn’t it just leave you wanting to dig in the soil and grow your own? And he didn’t want to get into all that, for God’s sake. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment on First Avenue in the Forties. It was all he needed or wanted, but it was no place for a garden. He hadn’t even tried growing an avocado pit there, and he didn’t intend to. He was the only living thing in the apartment, and that was the way he wanted it. The day that changed was the day he’d call the exterminator.

  So maybe he’d just forget about evening classes at Hunter, and field trips to Brooklyn. If he wanted to get close to nature he could walk in Central Park, and if he didn’t know the names of the flowers he would just hold off on introducing himself to them. And if—

  Where was the kid?

  The boy, the swimmer. Keller’s companion in solitude. Where the hell did he go?

  The pool was empty, its surface still. Keller saw a ripple toward the far end, saw a brace of bubbles break the surface.

  He didn’t react without thinking. That was how he’d always heard that sort of thing described, but that wasn’t what happened, because the thoughts were there, loud and clear. He’s down there. He’s in trouble. He’s drowning. And, echoing in his head in a voice that might have been Dot’s, sour with exasperation: Keller, for Christ’s sake, do something!

  He set his glass on a table, shucked his coat, kicked off his shoes, dropped his pants and stepped out of them. Ages ago he’d earned a Red Cross lifesaving certificate, and the first thing they taught you was to strip before you hit the water. The six or seven seconds you spent peeling off your clothes would be repaid many times over in quickness and mobility.

  But the strip show did not go unnoticed. Everybody at poolside had a comment, one more hilarious than the next. He barely heard them. In no time at all he was down to his underwear, and then he was out of range of their cleverness, hitting the w
ater’s surface in a flat racing dive, churning the water till he reached the spot where he’d seen the bubbles, then diving, eyes wide, barely noticing the burn of the chlorine.

  Searching for the boy. Groping, searching, then finding him, reaching to grab hold of him. And pushing off against the bottom, lungs bursting, racing to reach the surface.

  People were saying things to Keller, thanking him, congratulating him, but it wasn’t really registering. A man clapped him on the back, a woman handed him a glass of brandy. He heard the word “hero” and realized people were saying it all over the place, and applying it to him.

  Hell of a note.

  Keller sipped the brandy. It gave him heartburn, which assured him of its quality; good cognac always gave him heartburn. He turned to look at the boy. He was just a little fellow, twelve or thirteen years old, his hair lightened and his skin lightly bronzed by the summer sun. He was sitting up now, Keller saw, and looking none the worse for his near-death experience.

  “Timothy,” a woman said, “this is the man who saved your life. Do you have something to say to him?”

  “Thanks,” Timothy said, predictably.

  “Is that all you have to say, young man?”

  “It’s enough,” Keller said, and smiled. To the boy he said, “There’s something I’ve always wondered. Did your whole life actually flash before your eyes?”

  Timothy shook his head. “I got this cramp,” he said, “and it was like my whole body turned into one big knot, and there wasn’t anything I could do to untie it. And I didn’t even think about drowning. I was just fighting the cramp, ’cause it hurt, and just about the next thing I knew I was up here coughing and puking up water.” He made a face. “I must have swallowed half the pool. All I have to do is think about it and I can taste vomit and chlorine.”

  “Timothy,” the woman said, and rolled her eyes.

  “Something to be said for plain speech,” an older man said. He had a mane of white hair and a pair of prominent white eyebrows, and his eyes were a vivid blue. He was holding a glass of brandy in one hand and a bottle in the other, and he reached with the bottle to fill Keller’s glass to the brim. “‘Claret for boys, port for men,’” he said, “‘but he who would be a hero must drink brandy.’ That’s Samuel Johnson, although I may have gotten a word wrong.”