by Otto Penzler
What did you say to that, Keller wondered. It was nothing? Well, shucks f There had to be some sort of apt phrase, and maybe Samuel Johnson could have found it, but Keller couldn’t. So he said nothing, and tried not to look po-faced.
“I don’t even know your name,” the white-haired man went on. “That’s not remarkable in and of itself. I don’t know half the people here, and I’m content to remain in my ignorance. But I ought to know your name, wouldn’t you agree?”
Keller might have picked a name out of the air, but the one that leaped to mind was Boswell, and he couldn’t say that to a man who quoted Samuel Johnson. So he supplied the name he’d traveled under, the one he’d signed when he^ checked into the hotel, the one on the driver’s license and credit cards in his wallet.
“It’s Michael Soderholm,” he said, “and I can’t even tell you the name of the fellow who brought me here. We met over drinks in the hotel bar, and he said he was going to a party and it would be perfecdy all right if I came along. I felt a litde funny about it, but —”
“Please,” the man said. ‘You can’t possibly propose to apologize for your presence here. It has kept my grandson from a watery if chlorinated grave. And I’ve just told you I don’t know half my guests, but that doesn’t make them any the less welcome.” He took a deep drink of his brandy and topped up both glasses. “Michael Soderholm,” he said. “Swedish?”
“A mixture of everything,” Keller said, improvising. “My greatgrandfather Soderholm came over from Sweden, but my other ancestors came from all over Europe, plus I’m something like a sixteenth American Indian.”
“Oh? Which tribe?”
“Cherokee,” Keller said, thinking of the jazz tune.
“I’m an eighth Comanche,” the man said. “So I’m afraid we’re not tribal blood brothers. The rest’s British Isles, a mix of Scots and Irish and English. Old Texas stock. But you’re not Texan yourself.”
“No.”
“Well, it can’t be helped, as the saying goes. Unless you decide to move here, and who’s to say you won’t? It’s a fine place for a man to live.”
“Daddy thinks that everybody should love Texas the same way he does,” the woman said.
“Everybody should,” her father said. “The only thing wrong with Texans is we’re a long-winded lot. Look at the time it’s taking me to introduce myself! Mr. Soderholm, Mr. Michael Soderholm, my name’s Garrity, Wallace Penrose Garrity, and I’m your grateful host this evening.”
No kidding, thought Keller.
The party, lifesaving and all, took place on Saturday night. The next day Keller sat in his hotel room and watched the Cowboys beat the Vikings with a field goal in the last three minutes of double overtime. The game seesawed back and forth, with interceptions and runbacks, and the announcers kept telling each other what a great game it was.
Keller supposed they were right. It had all the ingredients, and it wasn’t the players’ fault that he was entirely unmoved by their performance. He could watch sports, and often did, but he almost never got caught up in it. He had occasionally wondered if his work might have something to do with it. On one level, when your job involved dealing regularly with life and death, how could you care if some overpaid steroid abuser had a touchdown run called back? And, on another level, you saw unorthodox solutions to a team’s problems on the field. When Emmitt Smith kept crashing through the Minnesota line, Keller wondered why they didn’t deputize someone to shoot the son of a bitch in the back of the neck, right below his star-covered helmet.
Still, it was better than watching golf, say, which had to be better than playing golf. And he couldn’t get out and work, because there was nothing for him to do. Last night’s reconnaissance mission had been both better and worse than he could have hoped, and what was he supposed to do now? Park his rented Ford across the street from the Garrity mansion and clock the comings and goings?
No need for that. He could bide his time, just so he got there in time for Sunday dinner.
“More potatoes, Mr. Soderholm?”
“They are delicious,” Keller said. “But I’m full. Really.”
“And we can’t keep calling you ‘Mr. Soderholm,”’ Garrity said. “I’ve only held off this long for not knowing whether you prefer Mike or Michael.”
“Mike’s fine,” Keller said.
“Then Mike it is. And I’m Wally, Mike, or W.P., though there are those who call me the Walrus.”
Timmy laughed and clapped both hands over his mouth. “Though never to his face,” said the woman who had offered Keller more potatoes. She was Ellen Garrity, Timmy’s aunt and Garrity’s daughter-in-law, and Keller was now instructed to call her Ellie. Her husband, a big-shouldered fellow who seemed to be smiling bravely through the heartbreak of male-pattern baldness, was Garrity’s son, Hank.
Keller remembered Timothy’s mother from the night before, but hadn’t caught her name, or her relationship to Garrity. She was Rhonda Sue Butler, as it turned out, and everybody called her
Rhonda Sue, except for her husband, who called her Ronnie. His name was Doak Butler, and he looked like a college jock who’d been too light for pro ball, though he now seemed to be closing the gap.
Hank and Ellie, Doak and Rhonda Sue. And, at the far end of the table, Vanessa, who was married to Wally but who was clearly not the mother of Hank or Rhonda Sue, or anyone else. Keller supposed you could describe her as Wally’s trophy wife, a sign of his success. She was no older than Wally’s kids, and she looked to be well bred and elegant, and she even had the good grace to hide the boredom Keller was sure she felt.
And that was the lot of them. Wally and Vanessa, Hank and Ellen, Doak and Rhonda Sue. And Timothy, who had been swimming that very afternoon, the aquatic equivalent of getting right back on the horse. He’d had no cramps this time, but he’d had an attentive eye kept on him throughout.
Seven of them, then. And Keller ... also known as Mike.
“So you’re here on business,” Wally said. “And stuck here over the weekend, which is the worst part of a business trip, as far as I’m concerned. More trouble than it’s worth to fly back to Chicago?”
The two of them were in Wally’s den, a fine room paneled in knotty pecan and trimmed in red leather, with Western doodads on the walls — here a branding iron, there a longhorn skull. Keller had accepted a brandy and declined a cigar, but the aroma of Wally’s Havana was giving him second thoughts. Keller didn’t smoke, but from the smell of it the cigar wasn’t smoking. It was more along the lines of a religious experience.
“Seemed that way,” Keller said. He had supplied Chicago as Michael Soderholm’s home base, even though Soderholm’s license placed him in southern California. “By the time I fly there and back —”
“You’ve spent your weekend on airplanes. Well, it’s our good fortune you decided to stay. Now what I’d like to do is find a way to make it your good fortune as well.”
“You’ve already done that,” Keller told him. “I crashed a great party last night and actually got to feel like a hero for a few minutes. And tonight I get a fine dinner with nice people and get to top it off with a glass of outstanding brandy.”
The heartburn told him how outstanding it was.
“What I had in mind,” Wally said smoothly, “was to get you to work for me.”
Who did he want him to kill? Keller almost blurted out the question until he remembered that Garrity didn’t know what he did for a living.
‘You won’t say who you work for?” Garrity went on.
“I can’t.”
“Because the job’s hush-hush for now. Well, I can respect that, and from the hints you’ve dropped I gather you’re here scouting out something in the way of mergers and acquisitions.”
“That’s close.”
“And I’m sure it’s well paid, and you must like the work or I don’t think you’d stay with it. So what do I have to do to get you to switch horses and come work for me? I’ll tell you one thing — Chicago’s a nice pla
ce, but nobody who ever moved from there to Big D went around with a sour face about it. I don’t know you well yet, but I can tell you’re our kind of people and Dallas will be your kind of town. I don’t know what they’re paying you, but I suspect I can top it and offer you a stake in a growing company with all sorts of attractive possibilities.”
Keller listened, nodded judiciously, sipped a little brandy. It was amazing, he thought, the way things came along when you weren’t looking for them. It was straight out of Horatio Alger, for God’s sake — Ragged Dick stops the runaway Horse and saves the daughter of the captain of industry, and the next thing you know he’s president of IBM with rising expectations.
“Maybe I’ll have that cigar after all,” Keller said.
“Now come on, Keller,” Dot said. ‘You know the rules. I can’t give you that information.”
“It’s sort of important,” he said.
“One of the things the client buys,” she said, “is confidentiality. That’s what he wants and it’s what we provide. Even if the agent in place —”
“The agent in place?”
“That’s you,” she said. “You’re the agent, and Dallas is the place. Even if you get caught red-handed, the confidentiality of the client remains uncompromised. And do you know why?”
“Because the agent in place knows how to keep mum.”
“Mum’s the word,” she agreed, “and there’s no question you’re the strong, silent type. But even if your lip loosens, you can’t sink a ship if you don’t know when it’s sailing.”
Keller thought that over. “You lost me,” he said.
“Yeah, it came out a little abstruse, didn’t it? Point is, you can’t tell what you don’t know, Keller, which is why the agent doesn’t get to know the client’s name.”
“Dot,” he said, trying to sound injured, “how long have you known me?”
“Ages, Keller. Many lifetimes.”
“Many lifetimes?”
“We were in Atlantis together. Look, I know nobody’s going to catch you red-handed, and I know you wouldn’t blab if they did. But /can’t tell what /don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“Right. I think the spies call it a double cutout. The client made arrangements with somebody we know, and that person called us. But he didn’t give lis the client’s name, and why should he? Come to think of it, Keller, why do you have to know, anyway?”
He had his answer ready. “It might not be a single,” he said. “Oh?”
“The target’s always got people around him,” he said, “and the best way to do it might be a sort of group plan, if you follow me.” “Two for the price of one.”
“Or three or four,” he said. “But if one of those innocent bystanders turned out to be the client, it might make things a little awkward.”
“Well, I can see where we might have trouble collecting the final payment.”
“If we knew for a fact that the client was fishing for trout in Montana,” he said, “it would be no problem. But if he’s here in Dallas .. .”
“It would help to know his name.” Dot sighed. “Give me an hour or two, huh? Then call me back.”
If Keller knew who the client was, the client could have an accident.
It would have to be an artful accident, too. It would have to look good not only to the police but also to whoever was aware of the client’s intentions. The local go-between, the helpful fellow who had hooked up the client to the old man in White Plains — and, thus, to Keller — could be expected to cast a cold eye on any suspicious death. So it would have to be a damn good accident, but Keller had managed a few of those in his day. It took a little planning, but it wasn’t brain surgery. You just figured out a method and took your best shot.
If, as he rather hoped, the client was some business rival in Houston or Denver or San Diego, he’d have to slip off to that city without anyone noting his absence. Then, having induced a quick attack of accidental death, he’d fly back to Dallas and hang around until someone called him off the case. He’d need a different ID for Houston or Denver or San Diego — it wouldn’t do to overexpose Michael Soderholm — and he’d need to mask his actions from all concerned: Garrity, his homicidal rival and, perhaps most important, Dot and the old man.
All told, it was a great deal more complicated (if easier to stomach) than the alternative.
Which was to carry out the assignment professionally and kill Wallace Penrose Garrity the first good chance he got.
And he really didn’t want to do that. He’d eaten at the man’s table, he’d drunk the man’s brandy, he’d smoked the man’s cigars. He’d been offered not merely a job but a well-paid executive position with a future, and, later that night, light-headed from alcohol and nicotine, he’d had fantasies of taking Wally up on it.
Hell, why not? He could live out his days as Michael Soderholm, doing whatever unspecified tasks Garrity was hiring him to perform. He probably lacked the requisite experience, but how hard could it be to pick up the skills he needed as he went along? Whatever he had to do, it would be easier than flying from town to town killing people. He could learn on the job. He could pull it off.
The fantasy had about as much substance as a dream, and, like a dream, it was gone when he awoke the next morning. No one would put him on the payroll without some sort of background check, and the most cursory scan would knock him out of the box. Michael Soderholm had no more substance than the fake ID in Keller’s wallet.
Even if he somehow finessed a background check, even if the old man in White Plains let him walk out of one life and into another, he knew he couldn’t really make it work. He already had a life. Misshapen though it was, it fit him like a glove.
He went out for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He got back in his car and drove around for a while. Then he found a pay phone and called White Plains.
“Do a single,” Dot said.
“How’s that?”
“No added extras, no free dividends. Just do what they signed on for.”
“Because the client’s here in town,” he said. “Well, I could work around that if I knew his name. I could make sure he was out of it.”
“Forget it,” Dot said. “The client wants a long and happy life for everybody but the designated vie. Maybe the DV’s close associates are near and dear to the client. That’s just a guess, but all that really matters is that nobody else gets hurt. CapisceV
“CapisceV’
“It’s Italian, it means —”
“I know what it means. It just sounded odd from your lips, that’s all. But yes, I understand.” He took a breath. “Whole thing may take a little time,” he said.
“Then here comes the good news,” she said. “Time’s not of the essence. They don’t care how long it takes, just so you get it right.”
“I understand W.P. offered you a job,” Vanessa said. “I know he hopes you’ll take him up on it.”
“I think he was just being generous,” Keller told her. “I was in the right place at the right time, and he’d like to do me a favor. But I don’t think he really expects me to come to work for him.”
“He’d like it if you did,” she said, “or he never would have made the offer. He’d have just given you money, or a car, or something like that. And as far as what he expects, well, W.P. generally expects to get whatever he wants. Because that’s the way things usually work out.”
And had she been saving up her pennies to get things to work out a little differently? You had to wonder. Was she truly under Garrity’s spell, in awe of his power, as she seemed to be? Or was she in it only for the money, and was there a sharp edge of irony under her worshipful remarks?
Hard to say. Hard to tell about any of them. Was Hank the loyal son he appeared to be, content to live in the old man’s shadow and take what got tossed his way? Or was he secretly resentful and ambitious?
What about the son-in-law, Doak? On the surface, he looked to be delighted with the aftermath of his college football career �
�� his work for his father-in-law consisted largely of playing golf with business associates and drinking with them afterward. But did he seethe inside, sure he was fit for greater things?
How about Hank’s wife, Ellie? She struck Keller as an unlikely Lady Macbeth. Keller could fabricate scenarios in which she or Rhonda Sue had a reason for wanting Wally dead, but they were the sort of thing you dreamed up watching reruns of Dallas and trying to guess who shot J.R. Maybe one of their marriages was in trouble. Maybe Garrity had put the moves on his daughter-in-law, or maybe a little too much brandy had led him into his daughter’s bedroom now and then. Maybe Doak or Hank was playing footsie with Vanessa. Maybe. . . .
Pointless to speculate, he decided. You could go around and around like that, but it didn’t get you anywhere. Even if he managed to dope out which of them was the client, then what? Having saved young Timothy, and thus feeling obligated to spare his doting grandfather, what was he going to do? Kill the boy’s father? Or mother or aunt or uncle?
Of course he could just go home. He could explain the situation to the old man. Nobody loved it when you took yourself off a contract for personal reasons, but it wasn’t something they could talk you out of, either. If you made a habit of that sort of thing, well, that was different, but that wasn’t the case with Keller. He was a solid pro. Quirky perhaps, even whimsical, but a pro all the way. Tell him what to do and he does it.
So, if he had a personal reason to bow out, you honored it. You let him come home and sit on the porch and drink iced tea with Dot.
And you picked up the phone and sent somebody else to Dallas.
Because, either way, the job was going to be done. If a hit man had a change of heart, it would be followed in short order by a change of hit man. If Keller didn’t pull the trigger, somebody else would. *
His mistake, Keller thought savagely, was that he had jumped into the goddamn pool in the first place. All he’d have had to do was look the other way and let the little bastard drown. A few days later he could have taken Garrity out, possibly making it look like suicide, a natural consequence of despondency over the boy’s tragic accident.