Hit List

by Lawrence Block

  “I can imagine.”

  “But you get used to it. At first I thought, all right, I’ll pack it in. Who needs it? I was thinking about retiring that one time, and this time I’ll do it.”

  “Neat trick, now that you’ve spent all your retirement fund on stamps.”

  “Not all of it,” he said. “A good part of it, but not all of it. But even if I had the money back, even if I could afford to retire, am I going to let this son of a bitch chase me out of the business?”

  “I get the sense the answer is no.”

  “We’ll be very careful,” he said. “We’ll take a cue from Roger. No face-to-face with the client or any of his people. If they insist, we’ll pass.”

  “And I’ll ask some questions I don’t normally ask. Like who turned this job down before you offered it to us? Sometimes a contract goes through different brokers, so the man who calls me may not know who had first refusal, but I’ll make it a point to find out what I can. And if I get a whiff of Roger anywhere near it, I’ll find a reason for us to take a pass.”

  “And I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Never a bad idea.”

  “And somewhere down the line,” he said, “we’ll find a way to cut his trail.”

  “ ‘Cut his trail’? What’s that mean?”

  “They say it in westerns,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what it means. We’ll double back, get behind him, something like that.”

  “What I more or less surmised.”

  “Well, we’ll do it,” he said. “He’s a pro, but so what? I’m a pro myself, but that doesn’t mean I never make a mistake. I’ve made plenty of them over the years.”

  “He’ll make one.”

  “Damn right,” he said. “And when he does . . .”

  “Bang bang. Excuse me, better make that pop pop.”

  “No, bang bang is fine,” he said. “When I get this guy, I don’t care if I make a little noise.”

  Fifteen

  * * *

  Keller, chasing the last forkful of omelet with the last bite of toast, watched while the waitress filled his coffee cup. He wasn’t sure he wanted more coffee, but it was easier to leave it behind than to stop the woman from pouring it for him. The restaurant had signs touting their bottomless cup of coffee. Keller, who’d been brought up to finish what was on his plate, had a problem with that. You couldn’t finish your coffee, they didn’t let you finish your coffee, they refilled your cup before you could empty it. He supposed that was good for people with scarcity issues, but it bothered him.

  And what about the tea drinkers? It seemed to him that they got screwed royally. If you finished your tea, they’d give you more hot water to go with the same tea bag. He supposed you could get a second cup of tea out of a tea bag, if you didn’t mind weak and flavorless tea, but a third cup would be a real stretch. Meanwhile, a coffee drinker could polish off gallons of coffee, each cup as strong as the last.

  Then again, who ever said life was fair?

  “I’d have to say it looks good,” Dot had told him. “The man I talked to is dealing directly with the client, and according to him I’m the first person who got called. And we’ve got a name and address, and a photo’s on its way, and there’s nobody going to be waiting for you at the baggage claim at O’Hare. It’s a pretty safe bet our friend Roger doesn’t know zip about this one, and neither does Klinger.”

  “Klinger?”

  “The fellow in Lake Forest you’ll be saying hello and goodbye to. He’s not going to be looking over his shoulder. And you won’t have to spend a lot of time looking over your own shoulder, either.”

  “Maybe an occasional glance.”

  Back at his apartment, Keller’s first glance was at the horoscope Louise Carpenter had drawn for him. The period of great danger, peaking right around the time of his trip to Boston, had passed. Right now he had several relatively safe months ahead of him, at least as far as the stars were concerned. Things might get a bit perilous in the summer, but that was a whole season away.

  Still, there was no point in being a damned fool. Lake Forest, Illinois, was on Lake Michigan north of Chicago, and you got there by flying to O’Hare Airport. Keller flew to Milwaukee instead, rented a car, and got a room at a motel fifteen minutes north of Lake Forest.

  No rush. The client wasn’t in a hurry, and Klinger wasn’t going anywhere, except to the office and back, five days a week. Keller, keeping an eye on him, kept the other eye open for any sign of an alien presence. If Roger was around, Keller wanted to see him first.

  Keller looked at his watch. He had time to finish the coffee in his cup, he decided, but what was the point? She’d only fill it up again, and he’d run out of time before the woman ran out of coffee. He paid the check, left a good tip, and went out to his car, and twenty minutes later he was parked on Rugby Road, a picture-book suburban lane lined with mature shade trees that could have come straight from a Declan Niswander painting. His eyes were focused on a white frame house with dark green shutters standing a hundred yards or so down the road. The motor was idling, and Keller had a street map unfolded and draped over the steering wheel, so that anyone passing by would assume he was trying to figure out where he was.

  But he knew where he was, and he knew he wouldn’t have long to wait. Lee Klinger was a creature of habit, as likely to change his routine as the waitress was to leave a coffee cup unfilled. Five mornings a week he caught the 8:11 train to Chicago, and if the weather was halfway decent he walked to the station, leaving the house at 7:48.

  You could set your watch by the guy.

  Keller, who had set his own watch by the car radio, watched the side door open at the appointed hour. Klinger, wearing a dark brown suit this morning, and carrying his tan briefcase, headed down the driveway and turned left at its end. He walked to the corner, where a traffic light controlled the intersection. He crossed Culpepper Lane with the light, then turned and waited for the light to change so that he could cross Rugby Road. There were no cars coming, so he could have jaywalked safely enough. In fact, Keller thought, he could have proceeded diagonally and crossed both streets at once. But, in the three days he’d been tagging him, Keller had gotten enough of a sense of Lee Klinger to know he’d do no such thing. He’d wait for the light, and he’d cross streets the way you were supposed to cross them.

  Keller wondered who wanted the man dead, and why. He didn’t really want to know the answer, he’d learned over the years that he was better off not knowing, but it was impossible to avoid speculation. Some business rival? Someone who was sleeping with Mrs. Klinger? Somebody with whose wife Klinger himself was sleeping?

  All of this seemed unlikely, given Keller’s impression of the man. But, when you came right down to it, what did Keller actually know about Klinger? Next to nothing, really. He was punctual, he obeyed traffic laws, he wore suits, and somebody wanted him dead. There was very likely a lot more to Klinger than that, but that was all Keller knew, and all he needed to know.

  Keller put the Ford in gear, pulled away from the curb. He would let Klinger cross the street, and then when the light changed he’d drive through the intersection himself, and take another route to the suburban railway station. After that, well, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. Maybe there would be an opportunity on the platform, waiting for the train. Maybe he’d find his chance on the train, or in Chicago. And maybe not. There were some stamp dealers in Chicago, right there in the Loop where you could walk to them, and he had brought along the catalog he used as a checklist. He could make the rounds, buy some stamps. Dot hadn’t said anything about time being of the essence. He could give it another day or two.

  The light changed. Another car, approaching the intersection, slowed. Klinger stepped off the curb, headed across the street. The other car accelerated abruptly, springing forward like a predatory animal. Klinger didn’t even have time to freeze in his tracks, let alone try to get away. The car hit him in mid-stride, sending him and his briefcase flying. Keller had barely re
gistered what was happening before it was over. Klinger never knew what hit him.

  “Okay,” Dot said. “I give up. How’d you do it?”

  “All I did,” he said, “was watch it, and I barely did that. I was following him, but I knew where he was going, so I didn’t have to pay close attention.”

  “That fucking Roger,” Dot said. “He’s changed his approach. Instead of hitting the hitter, he beats you to the punch.”

  “It couldn’t have been Roger. Rogeretta, maybe.”

  “It was a woman?”

  “A little old lady. She was doing something like sixty miles an hour at the moment of impact. Car was an Olds, last year’s model, a big sedan.”

  “Not your father’s Oldsmobile.”

  “She said there was something wrong with the car. She stepped on the brake, but all it did was go faster.”

  “Definitely not your father’s Oldsmobile.”

  “It happens a lot,” Keller said, “with all kinds of cars. The driver steps on the brake and the car speeds up instead of slowing down. The one common denominator is the driver’s always getting along in years.”

  “And I don’t suppose it’s really the brake.”

  “They get confused,” he said, “and they think they’re stepping on the brake pedal, and it’s the accelerator. So they panic and step down harder, to force the brakes to work, and the car goes faster, and, well, you see where it’s going.”

  “Straight into Klinger.”

  “She took her foot off the gas,” he said, “to stop for the light, and her car slowed down, and Klinger started across, and then she stepped on what was supposed to be the brake pedal. And the rest is history.”

  “And so is Klinger,” Dot said. “And you were right there.”

  “I saw it happen,” he said. “I have to tell you, it gave me a turn.”

  “You, Keller?”

  “I saw a man die.”

  She gave him a look. “Keller,” she said, “you see men die all the time, and you’re generally the cause of death.”

  “This was different,” he said. “The unexpectedness of it. And it was so violent.”

  “It’s usually violent, Keller. It’s what you do.”

  “But I didn’t do it,” he said. “I just sat there and watched it. Then the cops came and—“

  “And you were still there?”

  “I figured it might be riskier if I drove away. You know, leaving the scene of an accident. Even if I wasn’t a part of the accident.” He shrugged. “They took a statement and waved me on. I told them I didn’t really see anything, and they had another witness who saw the whole thing, and it’s not as though there was any dispute about what had happened. Except that the little old lady still thinks it was the car’s fault and not hers.”

  “But we know otherwise,” she said. “And so does the client.”

  “The client?”

  “Thinks you’re a genius, Keller. Thinks you arranged the whole thing, figures you found some perfectly ingenious way to get Klinger to step in front of that lady’s car.”

  “But . . .”

  “The customer,” she said, “is always right. Remember? Especially when he pays up, which this one did, like a shot. The job’s done and the client’s happy and we’ve been paid. Do you see a problem, Keller? Because I don’t.”

  He thought about it.

  “Keller? What did you do after Klinger got flattened?”

  “He didn’t get flattened. It hit him and he went flying, and—“

  “Spare me. I know you stuck around and gave a statement like a good citizen, but then what did you do?”

  “I came home,” he said. “But not immediately. As a matter of fact, the first thing I did was go into Milwaukee and see a couple of stamp dealers.”

  “You bought some stamps for your collection.”

  “Well, yes. I was there anyway, and I didn’t figure there was any reason to hurry home.”

  “You were right,” she said. “There wasn’t. And we’ve been paid, and now you can buy some more stamps. Are you all right, Keller? You seem a little bit out of it, and nobody gets jet lag coming home from Milwaukee.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “It just seems strange. That’s all.”

  Sixteen

  * * *

  Three weeks later Keller was eating huevos rancheros at Call Me Carlos, on the edge of Albuquerque’s Old Town. The menu had the same logo as the sign outside, with a grinning Mexican in an oversize sombrero. You knew at a glance that the place was Mexican-owned, Keller thought, because no gringo would have dared use such a broad caricature.

  If there was any doubt, the food resolved it. They served the best huevos rancheros he’d had, with the possible exception of a little café he knew in Roseburg, Oregon.

  He’d said as much to Dot the previous night. “Oh, spare me, Keller,” she’d replied. “Roseburg, Oregon? Keller, you wanted to move there. Remember?”

  It had been a mistake to mention Roseburg, and he’d realized it the minute he said it. Usually it was Dot who mentioned the town, throwing it up at him whenever he said anything nice about any of the places he visited.

  “I didn’t exactly want to move there,” he protested.

  “You looked at houses.”

  “I thought about it,” he said, “the way you think about things, but I didn’t—“

  “The way you think about things, Keller. Not the way I think about things. There’s something else you could be thinking about, instead of houses in Roseburg, Oregon.”

  “I know,” he said. “And anyway, I wasn’t.”

  “Thinking about houses? You said . . .”

  “I was thinking about that café, and all I was thinking was that it was better than where I’ve been having breakfast. Except it probably isn’t, because memory improves things.”

  “It would have to,” Dot said, “or we’d all kill ourselves.”

  “And as far as the other thing I could be thinking about, I think it’s impossible.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “A few more plates of huevos rancheros,” he said, “and I think it’ll be time for me to come home.”

  “Without looking at houses?”

  “They’re mostly adobe,” he said, “and I have to say they look pretty from the outside, but that’s as much as I want to see of them. I’ll stay long enough to make it look good, but then I’m coming home.”

  He finished his eggs, finished his second cup of coffee, and went out to his rented Toyota. The sun was bright, the air cool and dry. If you had to make a pointless trip somewhere, this wasn’t the worst place for it.

  A week earlier he’d taken the train to White Plains and sat across the kitchen table from Dot while she laid it all out for him. Michael Petrosian was in federal custody, guarded around the clock while he waited to testify. Without his testimony, the government didn’t have much of a case. With it, they could put some important people away for a long time.

  “That’s why,” he’d said. “The question is how.”

  “Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s the word that came to mind.”

  “It came to my mind, too. It came to my lips, too, along with the phrase ‘I think we’ll pass on this one.’ “

  “But you changed your mind.”

  “The minute he agreed that you get paid either way.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Half in advance, half on completion.”

  “So? That’s standard.”

  “Patience,” she said. “What’s not standard is you can look it over, decide it’s impossible, and come on home. And the half they paid is yours to keep.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “By letting them talk me into it. It turns out I’m good at this, Keller.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “And I guess you could say they’re pretty desperate. One hand, the job has to be done. Other hand, it can’t be done. Add ’em up, it comes
out desperate.”

  “They probably got even more desperate,” he said, “when they offered the contract and got turned down.”

  She poured herself some more iced tea. “I know they shopped this around. They wouldn’t come right out and say so, but they never would have taken my terms if they hadn’t run into a few brick walls along the way.”

  “It’d be nice to know just who told them no.”

  “Roger, for instance.”

  “For instance,” he agreed.

  “Well,” she said, “I think we have to assume they ran it past him. So we’re taking the usual precautions. Nobody’s meeting you, nobody knows who you are or where you’re coming from. Even if Roger’s out there in Albuquerque, even if he’s sitting in Petrosian’s lap, he’s never going to draw a bead on you. Because all you have to do is fly out there and fly back and you get paid.”

  “Half,” he said.

  “Half if all you do is take a look. The other half if you make it happen. And there’s an escalator.”

  “Instead of a staircase?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Because what’s the difference? He’s going to lose his footing on the escalator?”

  “An escalator clause, Keller. In the contract.”

  “Oh.”

  “Big bonus if you get him before he testifies. Smaller bonus if it’s after he starts but before he finishes.”

  “While he’s on the stand?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s going to take him several days to make all the trouble he can for our guys. Say he’s on the stand one day, and that night he slips on a banana peel and falls down the escalator.”

  “Or finds some other way to break his neck.”

  “Whatever. We get a bonus, but not as big as if he broke it a day earlier.” She shrugged. “That was just something to negotiate, because it’s not going to happen. You’ll go out there and come back, and they can console themselves by thinking how much money they just saved. Not just half the fee, but the bonus, too.”