Keller's Designated Hitter

by Lawrence Block

  Keller went back to the budget motel. When his knock again went unanswered, he found a pay phone and called the desk. A woman told him that Mr. Carpenter had checked out.

  And gone where? He couldn’t have caught a flight to Baltimore, not at this hour. Maybe he was driving. Keller had seen his car, and it looked too old and beat-up to be a rental. Maybe he owned it, and he’d drive all night, from Cleveland to Baltimore.

  Keller flew to Baltimore and was in his seat at Camden Yards for the first pitch. Floyd Turnbull wasn’t in the lineup, they’d benched him and had Graham Anliot slotted as DH. Anliot got two singles and a walk in his first three trips to the plate, and Keller didn’t stick around to see how he ended the evening. He left with the Tarpons coming to bat in the top of the seventh, and leading by four runs.

  The clerk at Ace Hardware rang Keller’s purchases—a roll of picture-hanging wire, a packet of screw eyes, a packet of assorted picture hooks—and came to a logical conclusion. With a smile, he said, “Gonna hang a pitcher?”

  “A DH,” Keller said.

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry,” he said, recovering. “I was thinking of something else. Yeah, right. Hang a picture.”

  In his motel room, Keller wished he’d bought a pair of wire-cutting pliers. In their absence, he measured out a three-foot length of the picture-hanging wire and bent it back on itself until the several strands frayed and broke. He fashioned a loop at each end, then put the unused portion of the wire back in its box, to be discarded down the next handy storm drain. He’d already rid himself of the screw eyes and the picture hooks.

  He didn’t know where Slansky was staying, hadn’t seen him at the game the previous evening. But he knew the sort of motel the man favored, and figured he’d pick one near the ballpark. Would he use the same name when he signed in? Keller couldn’t think of a reason why not, and evidently neither could Slansky; when he called the Sweet Dreams Motel on Key Highway, a pleasant young woman with a Gujarati accent told him that yes, they did have a guest named John Carpenter, and would he like her to ring the room?

  “Don’t bother,” he said. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  And it was. When Slansky—Keller couldn’t help it, he thought of the man as Slansky, even though it was a name he’d made up for the guy himself—when Slansky got in his car, there was Keller, sitting in the back seat.

  The man stiffened just long enough for Keller to tell that his presence was known. Then, smoothly, he moved to fit the key in the ignition. Let him drive away? No, because Keller’s own car was parked here at the Sweet Dreams, and he’d only have to walk all the way back.

  And the longer Slansky was around, the more chances he had to reach for a gun or crash the car.

  “Hold it right there, Slansky,” he said.

  “You got the wrong guy,” the man said, his voice a mix of relief and desperation. “Whoever Slansky is, I ain’t him.”

  “No time to explain,” Keller said, because there wasn’t, and why bother? Simpler to use the picture-hook wire as he’d used it so often in the past, simpler and easier. And if Slansky went out thinking he was being killed by mistake, well, maybe that would be a comfort to him.

  Or maybe not. Keller, his hands through the loops in the wire, yanking hard, couldn’t see that it made much difference.

  “Awww, hell,” said the fat guy a row behind Keller, as the Oriole centerfielder came down from his leap with nothing in his glove but his own hand. On the mound, the Baltimore pitcher shook his head the way pitchers do at such a moment, and Floyd Turnbull rounded first base and settled into his home run trot.

  “I thought we caught a break when the new kid got hurt,” the fat guy said, “on account of he was hotter’n a pistol, not that he won’t cool down some when the rest of the league figures out how to pitch to him. He’ll be out what, a couple of weeks?”

  “That’s what I hear,” Keller said. “He broke a toe.”

  “Got his foot stepped on? Is that how it happened?”

  “That’s what they’re saying,” Keller said. “He was in a crowded elevator, and nobody knows exactly what happened, whether somebody stepped on his foot or he’d injured it earlier and only noticed it when he put a foot wrong. They figure he’ll be good as new inside of a month.”

  “Well, he’s not hurting us now,” the man said, “but Turnbull’s picking up the slack. He really got ahold of that one.”

  “Number 398,” Keller said.

  “That a fact? Two shy of four hundred, and he’s getting close to the mark for base hits, isn’t he?”

  “Four more and he’ll have three thousand.”

  “Well, the best of luck to the guy,” the man said, “but does he have to get ’em here?”

  “I figure he’ll hit the mark at home in Memphis.”

  “Fine with me. Which one? Hits? Homers?”

  “Maybe both,” Keller said.

  “You didn’t bring me one,” the man said.

  It was the same fellow he’d sat next to the first time he saw the Tarpons play, and that somehow convinced Keller he was going to see history made. At his first at-bat in the second inning, Floyd Turnbull had hit a grounder that had eyes, somehow picking out a path between the first and second basemen. It had taken a while, the Tarpons were four games into their home stand, playing the first of three with the Yankees, and Turnbull, who’d been a disappointment against Tampa Bay, was nevertheless closing in on the elusive numbers. He had 399 home runs, and that scratch single in the second inning was hit #2999.

  “I got the last hot dog,” Keller said, “and I’d offer to share it with you, but I never share.”

  “I don’t blame you,” the fellow said. “It’s a selfish world.”

  Turnbull walked in the bottom of the fourth and struck out on three pitches two innings later, but Keller didn’t care. It was a perfect night to watch a ballgame, and he enjoyed the banter with his companion as much as the drama on the field. The game was a close one, seesawing back and forth, and the Tarpons were two runs down when Turnbull came up in the bottom of the ninth with runners on first and third.

  On the first pitch, the man on first broke for second. The throw was high and he slid in under the tag.

  “Shit,” Keller’s friend said. “Puts the tying run in scoring position, so you got to do it, but it takes the bat out of Turnbull’s hands, because now they have to put him on, set up the double play.”

  And, if the Yankees walked Turnbull, the Tarpon manager would lift him for a pinch runner.

  “I was hoping we’d see history made,” the man said, “but it looks like we’ll have to wait a night or two . . . Well, what do you know? Torre’s letting Rivera pitch to him.”

  But the Yankee closer only had to throw one pitch. The instant Turnbull swung, you knew the ball was gone. So did Bernie Williams, who just turned and watched the ball sail past him into the upper deck, and Turnbull, who watched from the batter’s box, then jumped into the air, pumping both fists in triumph, before setting out on his circuit of the bases. The whole stadium knew, and the stands erupted with cheers.

  Four hundred homers, three thousand hits—and the game was over, and the Tarps had won.

  “Storybook finish,” Keller’s friend said, and Keller couldn’t have put it better.

  “Try that tea,” Dot said. “See if it’s all right.”

  Keller took a sip of iced tea and sat back in the slat-backed rocking chair. “It’s fine,” he said.

  “I was beginning to wonder,” she said, “if I was ever going to see you again. The last time I heard from you there was another hitter on the case, or at least that’s what you thought. I started thinking maybe you were the one he was after, and maybe he took you out.”

  “It was the other way around,” Keller said.”

  “Oh?”

  “I didn’t want him getting in the way,” he explained, “and I figured the woman who hired him was a loose cannon. So she slipped and fell and broke her neck in a strip mall park
ing lot in Cleveland, and the guy she hired—”

  “Got his head caught in a vise?”

  “That was before I met him. He got all tangled up in some picture wire in Baltimore.”

  “And Floyd Turnbull died of natural causes,” Dot said. “Had the biggest night of his life, and it turned out to be the last night of his life.”

  “Ironic,” Keller said.

  “That’s the word Peter Jennings used. Celebrated, drank too much, went to bed, and choked to death on his own vomit. They had a medical expert on who explained how that happens more often than you’d think. You pass out, and you get nauseated and vomit without recovering consciousness, and if you’re sleeping on your back, you aspirate the stuff and choke on it.”

  “And never know what hit you.”

  “Of course not,” Dot said, “or you’d do something about it. But I never believe in natural causes, Keller, when you’re in the picture. Except to the extent that you’re a natural cause of death all by yourself.”

  “Well,” he said.

  “How’d you do it?”

  “I just helped nature a little,” he said. “I didn’t have to get him drunk, he did that by himself. I followed him home, and he was all over the road. I was afraid he was going to have an accident.”

  “So?”

  “Well, suppose he just gets banged around a little? And winds up in the hospital? Anyway, he made it home all right. I gave him time to go to sleep, and he didn’t make it all the way to bed, just passed out on the couch.” He shrugged. “I held a rag over his mouth, and I induced vomiting, and—”

  “How? You made him drink warm soapy water?”

  “Put a knee in his stomach. It worked, and the vomit didn’t have anywhere to go, because his mouth was covered. Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

  “Not as sure as I was a minute ago, but don’t worry about it. He breathed it in and choked on it, end of story. And then?”

  “And then I got out of there. What do you mean, ‘and then?’”

  “That was a few days ago.”

  “Oh,” he said “Well, I went to see a few stamp dealers. Memphis is a good city for stamps. And I wanted to see the rest of the series with the Yankees. The Tarpons all wore black arm bands for Turnbull, but it didn’t do them any good. The Yankees won the last two games.”

  “Hurray for our side,” she said. “You want to tell me about it, Keller?”

  “Tell you about it? I just told you about it.”

  “You were gone over a month,” she said, “doing what you could have done in two days, and I thought you might want to explain it to me.”

  “The other hitter,” he began, but she was shaking her head.

  “Don’t give me ‘the other hitter’. You could have closed the sale before the other hitter ever turned up.”

  “You’re right,” he admitted. “Dot, it was the numbers.”

  “The numbers?”

  “Four hundred home runs,” he said. “Three thousand hits. I wanted him to do it.”

  “Cooperstown,” she said.

  “I don’t even know if the numbers’ll get him into the Hall of Fame,” he said, “and I don’t really care about that part of it. I wanted him to get in the record books, four hundred homers and three thousand hits, and I wanted to be able to say I’d been there to see him do it.”

  “And to put him away.”

  “Well,” he said, “I don’t have to think about that part of it.”

  She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she asked him if he wanted more iced tea, and he said he was fine, and she asked him if he’d bought some nice stamps for his collection.

  “I got quite a few from Turkey,” he said. “That was a weak spot in my collection, and now it’s a good deal stronger.”

  “I guess that’s important.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It gets harder and harder to say what’s important and what isn’t. Dot, I spent a month watching baseball. There are worse ways to spend your time.”

  “I’m sure there are, Keller,” she said. “And sooner or later I’m sure you’ll find them.”

  T H E • E N D

  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

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  Now turn the page for a bonus excerpt from Keller the Dogkiller, an off-the-leash Keller story exclusively eVailable on Amazon:

  E X C E R P T

  Keller the Dogkiller

  * * *

  Keller, trying not to feel foolish, hoisted his flight bag and stepped to the curb. Two cabs darted his way, and he got into the winner, even as the runner-up filled the air with curses. “JFK,” he said, and settled back in his seat.

  “Which airline?”

  He had to think about it. “American.”

  “International or domestic?”

  “Domestic.”

  “What time’s your flight?”

  Usually they just took you there. Today, when he didn’t have a plane to catch, he got a full-scale inquiry.

  “Not to worry,” he told the driver. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

  Which was just as well, because it took longer than usual to get through the tunnel, and the traffic on the Long Island Expressway was heavier than usual for that hour. He’d picked this time—early afternoon—because the traffic tended to be light, but today for some reason it wasn’t. Fortunately, he reminded himself, it didn’t matter. Time, for a change, was not of the essence.

  “Where you headed?” the driver asked, while Keller’s mind was wandering.

  “Panama,” he said, without thinking.

  “Then you want International, don’t you?”

  Why on earth had he said Panama? He’d been wondering if he should buy a straw hat, that was why. “Panama City,” he corrected himself. “That’s in Florida, you change planes in Miami.”

  “You got to fly all the way down to Miami and then back up again to Panama City? Ought to be a better way to do it.”

  Thousands of cab drivers in New York, and for once he had to draw one who could speak English. “Air miles,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument, and they left it at that.

  At the designated terminal, Keller paid and tipped the guy, then carried his flight bag past the curbside check-in. He followed the signs down to Baggage Claim, and walked around until he found a woman holding a hand-lettered sign that read “Niebauer.”

  She hadn’t noticed him, so he took a moment to notice her, and to determine that no one else was paying any attention to either of them. She was around forty, a trimly-built woman wearing a skirt and blouse and glasses. Her brown hair was medium length, attractive if not stylish, her sh
arp nose contrasted with her generous mouth, and on balance he’d have to say she had a kind face. This, he knew, was no guarantee of anything. You didn’t have to be kind to have a kind face.

  He approached her from the side, and got within a few feet of her before she sensed his presence, turned, and stepped back, looking a little startled. “I’m Mr. Niebauer,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, of course. I . . . you surprised me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I had noticed you, but I didn’t think . . .” She swallowed, started over. “I guess you don’t look the way I expected you to look.”

  “Well, I’m older than I was a few hours ago.”

  “No, I don’t mean . . . I don’t know what I mean. I’m sorry. How was your flight?”

  “Routine.”

  “I guess we have to collect your luggage.”

  “I just have this,” he said, holding up the flight bag. “So we can go to your car.”

  “We can’t,” she said. She managed a smile. “I don’t have one, and couldn’t drive it if I did. I’m a city girl, Mr. Niebauer. I never learned to drive. We’ll have to take a cab.”

  There was a moment, of course, when Keller was sure he’d get the same cab, and he could see himself trying to field the driver’s questions without alarming the woman. Instead they got into a cab driven by a jittery little man who talked on his cell phone in a language Keller couldn’t recognize while his radio was tuned to a talk program in what may or may not have been the same unrecognizable language.

  Keller, once again trying not to feel foolish, settled in for the drive back to Manhattan.

  Two days earlier, on the wraparound porch of the big old house in White Plains, Keller hadn’t felt foolish. What he’d felt was confused.

  “It’s in New York,” he said, starting with the job’s least objectionable aspect. “I live in New York. I don’t work there.”