16 Hitman

by Parnell Hall

  "You gonna drive off and leave me?"

  "You're really paranoid."

  "You're really pissed"

  "I'm not going to drive off and leave you. I need to know what you know."

  "I don't know anything. That's why I'm in so much fucking trouble."

  I pulled over to the curb. MacAullif got out. He made a show of closing the back door before he opened the front, in case I really did plan to take off. When I didn't, he hopped inside, said, "Let's go"

  "Seatbelt."

  I pulled out from the curb, blended into traffic. A taxi blared its horn, swerved around me.

  "You always drive this badly?"

  "What's the matter, MacAullif? You weren't this angry when you dropped me at the crime scene."

  "Why should I be? At the time, you only got me involved with a homicide. Could have happened to anyone. Then you got me involved in another shooting with some other bozo whose name I traced. It's a wonder I'm still on the force"

  "I didn't shoot at the guy, MacAullif."

  "No, but you led the shooter right to him."

  "Maybe, but I don't think so."

  "That's what I hear."

  "Yeah, well, I don't think that's what happened. I think someone took a shot at Kessler, which was the point all along."

  "Of course it was," MacAullif said. "Because a hitman walked into your office, gave you the names of two people he intended to kill. He killed one, missed the other. And god forbid you should cooperate with the police."

  "I am cooperating with the police."

  "Yeah. You ID'd the corpse. Who'd already been ID'd by the doorman. That was a big help."

  "Oh."

  "What?"

  "About the ID."

  "What about the ID? Who cares about the ID? There's no question about the ID."

  "What if there was?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Well, hypothetically-"

  "I'll kill you. I'll empty my service revolver into your head and stomp on your dead body."

  "You want me to say this without a hypothetical? You want me to put you in the position of having to turn me in?"

  "I'd be glad to."

  "I know"

  "Don't talk. Don't say a word." MacAullif took a deep breath, blew it out again. "Is there something wrong with the ID? There can't be anything wrong the ID. The guy's been ID'd by separate sources. So what could there be wrong with the ID that would make you have to resort to hypotheticals?" He put his hand in my face. "Don't tell me!"

  "Don't worry. I won't."

  "You ID'd the corpse as Victor Marsden?"

  "He is Victor Marsden."

  "You didn't ID him as a hitman?"

  "He is a hitman."

  "Is he the hitman who hired you?"

  "On the advice of counsel, I cannot comment on anyone, living or dead, who may or may not have hired me"

  "Richard make that up?"

  "No, I did. Sounds authentic, doesn't it?"

  "Sure does." MacAullif frowned. "If your client is dead, why wouldn't you say so?"

  "I'm not saying my client's dead."

  "Are you saying he's alive?"

  "I'm not saying shit. I'm not talking about my client."

  "That opens a whole new can of worms."

  "I never understood that expression. Who buys cans of worms?"

  I hung a left on Chambers Street, headed east.

  "If your client's dead, what are you doing in the case?"

  "That's a big if."

  "If your client's dead, you lied to Crowley."

  "I take it that would not be good?"

  "Let's see," MacAullif said. "Your license is revoked and you go to jail."

  "What's the down side?"

  "The down side is I beat you within an inch of your life for doing this to me"

  "To you?"

  "Oh. Sorry to take it personally, but you had me trace two names, and then lied about the result. Leaving me in the somewhat embarrassing position-"

  "Of having to turn nie in," I said. "For throwing out a few hypotheticals."

  "No. For lighting a time bomb that blew up in my face."

  "Hey. I gave you the straight goods. I can't help it if you didn't listen."

  "In what way was that the straight goods?"

  "I gave you the name Martin Kessler. I insisted it meant something. You insisted it didn't. You'd still be insisting if he hadn't got shot at."

  "Hey, douchebag. We all thought Kessler didn't mean anything because you didn't tell us any different. Even though you knew different. So, when you start handing out the raspberries, start with yourself."

  "Handing out the raspberries? Is that your dime novel dialogue, MacAullif?"

  "So, Kessler didn't mean anything. But he did, because someone shot at him. And Marsden did mean something, because someone killed him. I've been going on the assumption the killer was your client. But if Marsden was your client ..."

  "Yeah?"

  "Who killed him?"

  28

  ALICE WAS PREDICTABLY PLEASED. Since everything had blown up in my face, I could count on her to put a good spin on it. "So, you made up with MacAullif. That's nice."

  "I didn't make up with MacAullif."

  "All right. MacAullif made up with you. Is that better?"

  "Alice-"

  "I know you men have this whole macho ritual where you can't admit that you're wrong or have any feelings whatsoever. Fine. Be that way. Let me have them for you. MacAullif made up with you, and it's a very good thing. I'm relieved."

  "I'm sorry, but you're wrong. MacAullif is still pissed as hell."

  "Because you held out on him again?"

  "I didn't hold out on him again"

  "Did you tell him the dead man was your client?"

  "Not exactly."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I gave him a hypothetical."

  "Stanley."

  "I think it was damn decent of me giving him anything at all after he went running to the cops."

  "Yeah, but he apologized for that."

  "He didn't apologize."

  "He got in your car. You don't take that as an apology?"

  "That was an attempt to get information."

  "So, in spite of everything, MacAullif came to you for information. Once again you hit him over the head with a hypothetical."

  "Hey, how'd I get to be the bad guy?"

  "You went to work for a hitman."

  Alice was taking it very well, considering I nearly got shot. Of course, the bullet through Martin Kessler's window had borne out her contention that he was the target. Still, I would think being right was small consolation for losing your husband. Not that that had happened, but you know what I mean. The bullet had come damn close. I would expect a concern for my welfare to outweigh any impulse to gloat.

  Not that Alice was gloating. But she couldn't help reminding me now and then how things had turned out.

  "We need to think this through," Alice said, which is a euphemism for "You need to listen to my analysis of the situation." Since my own was practically nonexistent, that wasn't such a bad idea.

  "Shoot," I said. "Bad choice of words," I amended. "Anyway, go on.

  "What do you mean, go on?" Alice said. "I don't know what happened. I'm waiting for you to tell me"

  "Tell you what?" I countered.

  "All right, let's look at the evidence. Someone tried to shoot the schoolteacher, which makes the schoolteacher look like the mark. If that's true, the hitman deliberately gave you a lead to the schoolteacher because he wanted you to check out the schoolteacher. And protect the schoolteacher."

  "Why didn't he just tell me the schoolteacher was the mark?"

  "Maybe he didn't trust you.'

  "He trusted me enough to tell me he was a hitman."

  "No," Alice corrected. She raised one finger. "He trusted you enough to tell you Martin Kessler was a hitman. You see what I mean? He wasn't trusting you with his own identity, or the identity of
the mark. He was giving you just as much information as he wanted you to have. He gives you Kessler's name for two reasons. One, he wants you to get a lead to him. Two, he knows you'll check him out, and Kessler's record is clean. You check out Martin Kessler, you find a decent guy you'll be willing to work for. You check him out under his own name and you'd turn him down flat."

  "That's a little far-fetched"

  "Would you have worked for the man identified as Victor Marsden?"

  "No," I admitted grudgingly.

  Alice smiled. "So, as far as you know, you're working for a schoolteacher named Martin Kessler who kills people in his spare time."

  "That's absurd."

  "Isn't it? This is where a warning light should go on. Before that can happen, our hitman leads you a merry chase and suddenly you're caught up in playing this game of cops and robbers."

  "And what's the point of that? I thought the hitman's purpose was to get me involved with the schoolteacher."

  "So?"

  "So the surveillance had nothing to do with him"

  "How do you know?"

  I frowned.

  Alice pressed her advantage. "You never saw the schoolteacher in your life. You wouldn't recognize him if he walked up and shook your hand. How do you know all the time you were shad owing the hitman, the hitman wasn't shadowing him?"

  "Oh, come on."

  "No, think about it. How do you know?"

  "Well, for one thing, he picked me up at my office. He wasn't following the schoolteacher. Unless the schoolteacher had a reason to go by my office."

  "Maybe he did"

  "It would be a hell of a coincidence."

  "Would it? It would answer one question."

  "What?"

  "Why did the hitman choose you? I mean, out of all the detectives in New York, you would certainly seem the unlikeliest."

  "Thanks a lot."

  "On the other hand, if the guy he's tailing goes by your building every day when he gets off work, he's tailing the guy, he ducks in the doorway, he sees your office listed in the lobby directory. He wants a private eye for this particular job. Here's one right on the way."

  "It's still a stretch"

  "Why?"

  "The schoolteacher doesn't walk downtown. He takes the subway."

  "He did today. That doesn't mean he does everyday."

  "He teaches at Ninety-second Street. He's not going to walk to Times Square."

  "Is that your only objection?"

  "You said he walks by my office."

  "So?"

  "Usually. As a rule. So the hitman can depend on it."

  "Just because he didn't do it today doesn't mean it isn't usual."

  "Alice, no one walks fifty blocks to get on a train."

  "So? What if he takes a bus down Columbus and buys fish for dinner?

  "Fish?"

  "Some little place around Fiftieth has really good salmon. He takes the bus and buys fish, then walks to the subway and takes the train. Don't you get a free transfer from the bus with your Metrocard?"

  "Yeah, but-"

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "Columbus Avenue is Ninth Avenue. My office is east of Seventh. You don't pass it to get to Times Square"

  "You do if the fish market's on Sixth"

  "What?"

  "He takes the bus down Columbus Avenue, walks across Fortyeighth Street to Sixth Avenue" Alice put up her hand. "I know it's really Avenue of the Americas, but who's going to say all that when they can say Sixth?"

  "Alice"

  "So, he buys fish on Sixth Avenue between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth, and walks across Forty-seventh back to Broadway and down to Times Square. He goes right by your office, so that's where the hitman picks you up."

  "Yeah, but . . "

  "But what?"

  "We weren't following the schoolteacher. We never went near Martin Kessler's apartment."

  "Didn't you say you guys went into a movie theater on Fortysecond Street?"

  "Yeah. So?"

  "So maybe the schoolteacher went to the movies"

  "With a bag of fish?"

  There was no use arguing. Not with Alice. Talk about a futile gesture. "And what is the reason for all this?" I asked. "From the hitman's point of view, I mean?"

  "Exactly what he told you. He doesn't want to kill the guy. With you watching, he won't. You do, and he doesn't. So he leads you back to your office, where ninety-nine out of a hundred private eyes would congratulate themselves on a job well done and go home.

  "You, of course, refuse to take the broad hint, and tag along.You follow your client home. Naturally, he spots you"

  "Naturally."

  "Now, don't get offended. The guy is a pro. He'd spot anybody. It's not just you."

  "If he spots me, why doesn't he do something about it? Why does he just go home?"

  "Ah!" Alice said. "That is where Hitman Number 2 comes in. Hitman Number 1, your hitman, the dead one, picked up a tail. And he knows it. How long he's been aware of it, I don't know, but say it was before he dropped you off. He's dropped you at your office because he doesn't want to deal with you anymore, because he has more pressing matters on his hands.

  "Hitman Number 2.

  "Who is Hitman Number 2? Hitman Number 2 is a mob enforcer sent to find out why Hitman Number 1 has not completed his job. Hitman Number 1 is nice enough to leave you out of it, which is why he ditches you before he deals with Hitman Number 2."

  "But he didn't ditch me."

  "He meant to.You just didn't cooperate. So, Hitman Number 1 ditches you and goes home. On the way, he notices that he's failed to ditch you, but there's nothing he can do about that now. Why? Because he doesn't want to alert Hitman Number 2 to your presence, which he will have to do in order to tell you to stay ditched. See what I mean?"

  "In a way. But how does that explain what happened?"

  "Okay," Alice said. "Hitman Number 1 goes home, and didn't you say he waited at the desk for Hitman Number 2?"

  "That's right."

  "Hitman Number 2 arrives and they go up in the elevator together. Creating in your mind the illusion that Hitman Number 2 is the one who lives there."

  "You're saying he did that deliberately?"

  "Of course he did that deliberately. Look what happens next. After your phone call, I mean." Alice rolled her eyes. "Rollo Tomassi. Hitman Number 1 conies downstairs, confronts you, sends you home, and hops in a cab"

  "To convince me the other guy lived there."

  "Right. Which works beautifully. Or would have worked beautifully if he hadn't gotten killed."

  "So," I said, "Hitman Number 1 offers his buddy a drink, says, `Oh, I'm out of such-and-such,' runs out, ditches me, hops in a cab, takes it around the block to the liquor store, purchases a fifth of whatever, and goes back to his apartment just in time to get shot."

  "He wasn't shot then."

  "No, he was shot the next day. By someone who got by the doorman without being seen. And your theory is Hitman Number 2 killed Hitman Number 1 because Hitman Number 1 didn't kill the schoolteacher?"

  "That's right."

  "So it is my fault."

  Alice had one of those I'nm-going-to-brain-you-with-a-Crock- Pot looks. "Fault? That's probably the stupidest assessment of the situation imaginable. You didn't get anyone killed. At the very worst, you changed the murder victim from a schoolteacher to a hitman. If you actually did anything at all, which I doubt. Regardless, someone was always going to get killed."

  That seemed way too pat an explanation. And, if I'd come up with it, I'm sure Alice could have shredded it in seconds. Hearing Alice produce it, I was buffaloed. My chance of talking my way out of this corner was zero.

  "In any event, you agree with the assessment that the schoolteacher was the target and the hitman was killed for not taking him out?"

  "I think even the police are sold on that explanation."

  "The police believe the hitman was trying to whack the schoolteacher?"

  "T
hat's right."

  "So they put him under police guard?"

  "I don't think he's in protective custody. But he's certainly being watched."

  "Bad news for Hitman Number 2. The contract's still out on this guy. If he can't deliver, he's in the position of Hitman Number 1."

  "He's in very deep shit," I agreed.

  "Basically, he's got to kill this guy, or else?"

  "That's right."

  "So how's he gonna do it?"

  I HAD ONE ADVANTAGE OVER the police. I'd seen Hitman #2 in person. They'd seen a grainy, overhead, black-and-white profile from a surveillance camera, not much better than the doorman's description. Or mine, for that matter. Mine was terrible in terms of physical characteristics. But I knew the face. I could see it in my dreams.

  If I were Crowley, I'd have kept me on the schoolteacher, to see if Hitman #2 came near him. But I'm not Crowley. And Crowley didn't like me, or trust me, or count on my cooperation. He went with plan B, which I discovered the next morning when I went to check out Martin Kessler.

  I had no idea when he left for school. Classes started at eight fifteen, but when teachers had to be there was another matter. And I'd never forgive myself if the guy got killed because I wanted an extra half hour's sleep. But, as Alice pointed out, there were so many things I'd never forgive myself for, I could start a Complexes R Us.

  Anyhow, I got there at the crack of dawn, figuring no selfrespecting English teacher would get up that early. Not to mention any self-respecting hitman. Sure enough, the street outside Kessler's was deserted.

  On the plus side, there was a parking spot right down the block, so I could pull into the curb, cut the engine, and have an uninterrupted view of his front steps. Except every time a large truck rolled by. Which wasn't all that often. Not that I expected to miss him in the split second it took for that to happen. Except for the asshole in the fruit truck who acted like he didn't have room to get down the street. Come on, schmuck. No one's double-parked. That van's sticking out a little bit, but I could drive a 747 through.

  Of course, an uninterrupted view of Kessler's front door wasn't going to do me any good. I didn't have to spot the target. I had to spot the shooter. Where the hell would he be? I had no idea, but I kept turning in the seat, looking in all directions. It wasn't long before I had an incredibly stiff neck. I also realized I was making a wonderful target in the event Hitman #2 spotted me.