by Otto Penzler
But no, he thought, glaring at himself in the mirror. No, you had to go and get involved. You had to be a hero, for God’s sake. Had to strip down to your skivvies and prove you deserved that lifesaving certificate the Red Cross had given you all those years ago.
He wondered what had happened to that certificate.
It was gone, of course, like everything he’d owned in his childhood and youth. Gone like his high school diploma, like his Boy Scout merit badge sash, like his sack of marbles and his stack of baseball cards. He didn’t mind that these things were gone, didn’t waste time wishing he had them any more than he wanted those years back.
The certificate, when all was said and done, was only a piece of paper. What was important was the skill itself, and what was truly remarkable was that he’d retained it. Because of it, Timothy Butler was alive. Which was all well and good for the boy, but a great big headache for Keller.
Later, sitting with a cup of coffee, Keller thought some more about Wallace Penrose Garrity, a man who seemed to have not an enemy in the world.
Suppose Keller had let the kid drown. Suppose he just plain hadn’t noticed the boy’s disappearance beneath the water, just as everyone else had failed to notice it. Garrity would have been despondent. It was his party, his pool, his failure to provide supervision. He’d probably have blamed himself for the boy’s death.
When Keller took him out, it would have been the kindest thing he could have done for him.
He caught the waiter’s eye and signaled for more coffee.
“Mike,” Garrity said, with a hand outstretched. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Had a call from a fellow with a hankering to buy a little five-acre lot of mine on the south edge of town. Thing is, I don’t want to sell it to him.”
“I see.”
“There’s ten acres on the other side of town I’d be perfectly happy to sell to him, but he’ll only want it if he thinks of it himself. So that left me on the phone longer than I would have liked. Now then, what would you say to a glass of brandy?”
“Maybe a small one.”
Garrity led the way to the den, poured drinks for both of them. “You should have come earlier,” he said. “In time for dinner. I hope you know you don’t need an invitation. There’ll always be a place for you at our table.”
“Well,” Keller said.
“I know you can’t talk about it,” Garrity said, “but I hope your project here in town is shaping up nicely.”
“Slow but sure,” Keller said.
“Some things can’t be hurried,” Garrity allowed, and sipped brandy and winced. If Keller hadn’t been looking for it, he might have missed the shadow that crossed his host’s face.
Gently he asked, “Is the pain bad, Wally?”
“How’s that, Mike?”
Keller put his glass on the table. “I spoke to Dr. Jacklin,” he said. “I know what you’re going through.”
“That son of a bitch,” Garrity said, “was supposed to keep his mouth shut.”
“Well, he thought it was all right to talk to me,” Keller said. “He thought I was Dr. Edward Fishman from the Mayo Clinic.”
“Calling for a consultation.”
“Something like that.”
“I did go to Mayo,” Garrity said, “but they didn’t need to call Harold Jacklin to double-check their results. They just confirmed his diagnosis and told me not to buy any long-playing records.” He looked to one side. “They said they couldn’t say for sure how much time I had left, but that the pain would be manageable for a while. And then it wouldn’t.”
“I see.”
“And I’d have all my faculties for a while,” he said. “And then I wouldn’t.”
Keller didn’t say anything.
“Well, hell,” Garrity said. “A man wants to take the bull by the horns, doesn’t he? I decided I’d go out for a walk with a shotgun and have a little hunting accident. Or I’d be cleaning a handgun here at my desk and have it go off. But it turned out I just couldn’t tolerate the idea of killing myself. Don’t know why, can’t explain it, but that seems to be the way I’m made.”
He picked up his glass and looked at the brandy. “Funny how we hang on to life,” he said. “Something else I think Sam Johnson said, that there wasn’t a week of his life he would voluntarily live through again. I’ve had more good times than bad, Mike, and even the bad times haven’t been that god-awful. But I think I know what he was getting at. I wouldn’t want to repeat any of it, but that doesn’t mean there’s a minute of it I’d have been willing to miss. I don’t want to miss whatever’s coming next, and I don’t guess Dr. Johnson did either. That’s what keeps us going, isn’t it? Wanting to find out what’s around the next bend in the river?”
“I guess so.”
“I thought that would make the end easier to face,” he said, “not knowing when it was coming, or how or where. And I recalled that years ago a fellow told me to let him know if I ever needed to have somebody killed. ‘You just let me know,’ he had said, and I laughed, and that was the last said on the subject. A month or so ago I looked up his number and called him, and he gave me another number to call.”
“And you put out a contract.”
“Is that the expression? Then that’s what I did.”
“Suicide by proxy,” Keller said.
“And I guess you’re holding my proxy,” Garrity said, and drank some brandy. “You know, the thought flashed across my mind that first night, talking with you after you pulled my grandson out of the pool. I got this little glimmer, but I told myself I was being ridiculous. A hired killer doesn’t turn up and save somebody’s life.”
“It’s out of character,” Keller agreed.
“Besides, what would you be doing at the party in the first place? Wouldn’t you stay out of sight and wait until you could get me alone?”
“If I’d been thinking straight,” Keller said. “I told myself it wouldn’t hurt to have a look around. And this joker from the hotel bar assured me I had nothing to worry about. ‘Half the town will be at Wally’s tonight,’ he said.”
“Half the town was. You wouldn’t have tried anything that night, would you?”
“God, no.”
“I remember thinking, I hope he’s not here. I hope it’s not tonight. Because I was enjoying the party and I didn’t want to miss anything. But you were there, and a good thing, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Saved the boy from drowning. According to the Chinese, you save somebody’s life, you’re responsible for him for the rest of your life. Because you’ve interfered with the natural order of things. That make sense to you?”
“Not really.”
“Or me either. You can’t beat them for whipping up a meal or laundering a shirt, but they’ve got some queer ideas on other subjects. Of course, they’d probably say the same for some of my notions.”
“Probably.”
Garrity looked at his glass. “You called my doctor,” he said. “Must have been to confirm a suspicion you had. What tipped you off? Is it starting to show in my face, or how I move around?”
Keller shook his head. “I couldn’t find anybody else with a motive,” he said, “or a grudge against you. You were the only one left. And then I saw you wince once or twice and try to hide it. I barely noticed at the time, but then I started to think about it.”
“I thought it would be easier than doing it myself,” Garrity said. “I thought I’d just let a professional take me by surprise. I’d be like an old bull elk on a hillside, never expecting the bullet that takes him out in his prime.”
“It makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. Because the elk didn’t arrange for the hunter to be there. Far as the elk knows, he’s all alone. He’s not wondering every damn day if today’s the day. He’s not bracing himself, trying to sense the crosshairs centering on his shoulder.”
“I never thought of that.”
“Neither did I,” said Garrity. “Or I never would have
called that fellow in the first place. Mike, what the hell are you doing here tonight? Don’t tell me you came over to kill me.”
“I came to tell you I can’t.”
“Because we’ve come to know each other.”
Keller nodded. *
“I grew up on a farm,” Garrity said. “One of those vanishing family farms you hear about, and of course it’s vanished, and I say good riddance. But we raised our own beef and pork, and we kept a milk cow and a flock of laying hens. And we never named the animals we were going to wind up eating. The cow had a name, but not the bull calf she dropped. The breeder sow’s name was Elsie, but we never named her piglets.”
“Makes sense,” Keller said.
“I guess it doesn’t take a Chinaman to see how you can’t kill me once you’ve hauled Timmy out of the drink. Let alone after you’ve sat at my table and smoked my cigars. Reminds me, care for a cigar?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, where do we go from here, Mike? I have to say I’m relieved. I feel like I’ve been bracing myself for a bullet for weeks now. All of a sudden I’ve got a new lease on life. I’d say this calls for a drink, except we’re already having one and you’ve scarcely touched yours.”
“There is one thing,” Keller said.
He left the den while Garrity made his phone call. Timothy was in the living room, puzzling over a chessboard. Keller played a game with him and lost badly. “Can’t win ’em all,” he said, and tipped over his king.
“I was going to checkmate you,” the boy said, “in a few more moves. ”
“I could see it coming,” Keller told him.
He went back to the den. Garrity was selecting a cigar from his humidor. “Sit down,” he said. “I’m fixing to smoke one of these things. If you won’t kill me, maybe it will.”
“You never know.”
“I made the call, Mike, and it’s all taken care of. Be a while before the word filters through the chain of command, but sooner or later they’ll call you and tell you the client changed his mind. He paid in full and called off the job.”
They talked some, then sat awhile in silence. At length Keller said he ought to get going. “I should be at my hotel,” he said, “in case they call.”
“Be a couple of days, won’t it?”
“Probably,” he said, “but you never know. If everyone involved makes a phone call right away, the word could get to me in a couple of hours.”
“Calling you off, telling you to come home. Be glad to get home, I bet.”
“It’s nice here,” he said, “but yes, I’ll be glad to get home.”
“Wherever it is, they say there’s no place like it.” Garrity leaned back, then allowed himself to wince at the pain that came over him. “If it never hurts worse than this,” he said, “then I can stand it. But of course it will get worse. And I’ll decide I can stand that, and then it’ll get worse again.”
There was nothing to say to that.
“I guess I’ll know when it’s time to do something,” Garrity said. “And who knows? Maybe my heart will cut out on me out of the blue. Or I’ll get hit by a bus, or I don’t know what. Struck by lightning?”
“It could happen.”
“Anything can happen,” Garrity agreed. He got to his feet. “Mike,” he said, “I guess we won’t be seeing any more of each other, and I have to say I’m a little bit sorry about that. I’ve truly enjoyed our time together.”
“So have I, Wally. ”
“I wondered, you know, what he’d be like. The man they’d send to do this kind of work. I don’t know what I expected, but you’re not it.”
He stuck out his hand, and Keller gripped it. “Take care,” Garrity said. “Be well, Mike.”
Back at his hotel, Keller took a hot bath and got a good night’s sleep. In the morning he went out for breakfast, and when he got back there was a message at the desk for him: Mr. Soderholm — Please call your office.
He called from a pay phone, even though it didn’t matter, and was careful not to overreact when Dot told him to come home, the mission was aborted.
“You told me I had all the time in the world,” he said. “If I’d known the guy was in such a rush —”
“Keller,” she said, “it’s a good thing you waited. What he did, he changed his mind.” *
“He changed his mind?”
“It used to be a woman’s prerogative,” Dot said, “but now we’ve got equality between the sexes, so that means anyone can do it. It works out fine because we’re getting paid in full. So kick the dust of Texas off your feet and come on home.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, “but I may hang out here for a few more days.”
“Oh?”
“Or even a week,” he said. “It’s a pretty nice town.”
“Don’t tell me you’re itching to move there, Keller. We’ve been through this before.”
“Nothing like that,” he said. “But there’s this girl I met.”
“Oh, Keller.”
‘Well, she’s nice,” he said. “And if I’m off the job there’s no reason not to have a date or two with her, is there?”
“Not as long as you don’t decide to move in.”
“She’s not that nice,” he said, and Dot laughed and told him not to change.
He hung up and drove around and found a movie he’d been meaning to see. The next morning he packed and checked out of his hotel.
He drove across town and got a room on the motel strip, paying cash in advance for four nights and registering as J. D. Smith from Los Angeles.
There was no girl he’d met, no girl he wanted to meet. But it wasn’t time to go home yet.
He had unfinished business, and four days should give him time to do it. Time for Wallace Garrity to get used to the idea of not feeling those imaginary crosshairs on his shoulder blade.
But not so much time that the pain would be too much to bear. And, sometime in those four days, Keller would deliver a gift. If he could, he’d make it look natural — a heart attack, say, or an accident. In any event it would be swift and without warning, and as close as he could make it to painless.
And it would be unexpected. Garrity would never see it coming. Keller frowned, trying to figure out how he would manage it. It would be a lot trickier than the task that had drawn him to town originally, but he’d brought it on himself. Getting involved, fishing the boy out of the pool. He’d interfered in the natural order of things. He was under an obligation.
It was the least he could do.
The Man Next Door
from The Plot Thickens
The man next door had known for weeks that it was time to invite another guest to the secret place, the space he had fashioned out of the utility room in the basement. It had been six months since Tiffany, the last one. She had lasted twenty days, longer than most of the others.
He had tried to put Bree Matthews out of his mind. It didn’t make sense to invite her, he knew that. Every morning as he followed his routine, washing the windows, polishing the furniture, vacuuming the carpets, sweeping and washing the walk from the steps to the sidewalk, he reminded himself that it was dangerous to choose a next-door neighbor. Much too dangerous.
But he couldn’t help it. Bree Matthews was never out of his mind for an instant. Ever since the day she had rung his bell and he had invited her in, he had known. That was when his growing need to have her with him became uncontrollable. She had stood in his foyer, dressed in a loose sweater and jeans, her arms folded, one high-arched foot unconsciously tapping the polished floor as she told him that the leak in her adjoining town house was originating from his roof.
“When I bought this place I never thought I’d have so much trouble,” she had snapped. “The contractor could have redone Buckingham Palace for what I paid him to renovate, but whenever it rains hard, you’d think I lived under Niagara Falls. Anyway, he insists that whoever did your work caused the problem.”
Her anger had thrilled him. She wa£ bea
utiful, in a bold, Celtic way, with midnight blue eyes, fair skin, and blue-black hair. And beneath that she had a slim athlete’s body. He guessed her to be in her late twenties, older than the women he usually favored, but still so very appealing.
He had known that even though it was a warm spring afternoon, there was no excuse for the way perspiration began to pour from him as he stood a few inches from her. He wanted so much to reach out and touch her, to push the door closed, to lock her in.
He had blushed and stammered as he explained that there was absolutely no possibility that the leak was coming from his roof, that he’d done all the repairs himself. He suggested she call another contractor for an opinion.
He had almost explained that he had worked for a builder for fifteen years and knew that the guy she had hired was doing a shoddy job, but he managed to stop himself. He didn’t want to admit that he had any interest in her or her home, didn’t want her to know that he had even noticed, didn’t want to give anything about himself away. ...
A few days later she came up the street as he was outside planting impatiens along the driveway, and stopped to apologize. Following his advice, she had called in a different contractor who confirmed what she had suspected: the first one had done a sloppy job. “He’ll hear from me in court,” she vowed. “I’ve had a summons issued for him.”
Then, emboldened by her friendliness, he did something foolish. As he stood with her, he was facing their semidetached town houses and once again noticed the lopsided Venetian blind on her front window, the one nearest his place. Every time he saw it, it drove him crazy. The vertical blinds on his front windows and those on hers lined up perfectly, which made the sight of that lopsided one bother him as much as hearing a fingernail screech across a blackboard.
So he offered to fix it for her. She turned and looked at the offending blind as if she had never seen it before, then she replied, “Thanks, but why bother? The decorator has window treatments ready to put in as soon as the damage caused by the leaks is repaired. It’ll get fixed then.”
“Then” of course, could be months from now, but still he was glad she had said no. He had definitely decided to invite her to be his next guest, and when she disappeared there would be questions. The police would ring his bell, make inquiries. “Mr. Mensch, did you see Miss Matthews leave with anyone?” they would ask. “Did you notice anyone visiting her lately? How friendly were you with her?”