Hit List

by Lawrence Block

  “Because it’s impossible,” he said. “Except it’s never completely impossible. I mean, a bomb under a manhole cover on the route to the courthouse, say. Or a strike force of commandos hitting the place where he’s cooped up.”

  “Desperate men,” she said, “led by Lee Marvin, their hard-bitten colonel.”

  “Or a sharpshooter on a roof. But none of those are my style.”

  “You could strap some explosive around your waist and run up and give him a hug,” she said, “but I don’t suppose that’s your style, either. Don’t worry about it. Spend a week, ten days tops. Have they got stamp dealers in Albuquerque? They must.”

  “I’ve done business through the mails with a fellow in Roswell,” he said.

  “Roswell, New Mexico?”

  “Wherever that is.”

  “Well, it’s in New Mexico,” she said. “We know that much, don’t we?”

  “But I don’t know if it’s near Albuquerque, and he may just deal through the mails. But sure, there’ll be stamp dealers there. There’d have to be.”

  “So have fun,” she said. “Buy some stamps.”

  “Or if it turns out there’s a way to do it . . .”

  “So much the better,” she said, “but don’t knock yourself out. They’ll guard Petrosian like Fort Knox until he’s done testifying. Then they’ll stick him in the Witness Protection Program, and years from now somebody’ll spot him. And, if anybody still cares, you’ll get another crack at him.”

  Keller’s motel was about a mile from the Arrowhead Inn on Candelaria where the feds were keeping Michael Petrosian. It might have been interesting to take a room in the Arrowhead himself, handy and risky at the same time, but he didn’t have the option. Petrosian and the men who guarded him were the motel’s only guests. The media referred to the place as an armed compound, and Keller didn’t have any quarrel with the term. He’d driven past it a few times, and had seen it over and over again on television, and that’s what it was, its parking lot filled with government cars, its doors manned by unsmiling men in suits and sunglasses. All it lacked was a watchtower and a few hundred yards of concertina wire.

  Short of digging a tunnel, Keller couldn’t see any way in—or any way out once you got in. And Petrosian never left the place. His keepers brought food in, ordering it by phone and sending a couple of the suit-and-sunglasses boys to fetch it.

  If you knew where they were going to order from, and if you could get to the food order before anybody picked it up, and if you knew which dishes were destined for Petrosian, and if you could slip something appropriate into his food, and if they let him eat it without trying it out on a food taster first, and—

  Forget it.

  They’d keep Petrosian under lock and key until it was time for him to go to the courthouse, and Keller had already heard an overfed U.S. marshal on CNN, boasting about their security precautions. There’d be a whole convoy of armored government vehicles to shepherd him from the motel to the courthouse and back again, and nobody would be able to get anywhere near him. Guy had a double chin and a smug expression, looked nothing like Dennis Weaver as McCloud, and Keller had a strong urge to wipe the smile off his well-fed face. But how?

  He drove past the courthouse a couple of times, and you couldn’t get close to the place, not even in the pre-Petrosian days before they geared their security measures all the way up. You couldn’t loiter in the area unless you had business there—uniformed officers made sure of that—and you couldn’t get into the building without a pass. Keller supposed he could get hold of one. Find a newsman, take a press pass away from him, something like that. But then what? You had to pass through a metal detector in order to enter the building, and even if you could do the deed with your bare hands, how would you get out afterward?

  No point in hanging around the courthouse. No point in loitering in the vicinity of the Arrowhead Inn, either.

  It was easier to watch the whole thing on Court TV. And that’s what he was doing now, sitting in his motel room and muting the commercials, trying to figure out what they were selling. Eventually he’d be intrigued enough to turn the sound back on, and then you’d have him hanging on every word. It hadn’t happened to Keller yet, but he could see how it might.

  He watched the commercial, his finger poised over the Mute button, and only when it ended did he put the sound back on. A commentator was saying something about the arrival at last of the much-anticipated Michael Petrosian, the government’s star witness, and they cut to an outside shot as a cameraman in a helicopter filmed the arrival of the government convoy.

  And, just as he’d figured, there was no way anybody could get anywhere near the son of a bitch. There were no other cars around when the government cars pulled up, and the only spectators on the courthouse steps were a small contingent of photographers and reporters. They looked frustrated, penned as they were behind a rope barrier, unable to get close to their quarry. Even from the helicopter it was hard to spot Petrosian, just another body in a herd of bodies emerging from the cars and moving briskly up the flight of marble steps.

  Lee Marvin and the boys would have their work cut out for them, he thought. Unless . . . well, suppose that was Lee up there in the helicopter? And he brings the chopper in as close as he can, steering one-handed and leaning out of the thing with a machine gun. That might work, but so would a tactical nuclear weapon, and one was about as likely as the other for Keller.

  You had to hand it to the cameraman, though. He’d managed to single out Petrosian, and there the guy was, head lowered, shoulders hunched forward, climbing those steps.

  And then, for some reason, the men circling Petrosian drew away from him. He turned, and raised his balding head so that he was looking right at the camera. He looked terrified, Keller thought. Stricken.

  And Keller watched as the government’s star witness paled, clutched his hand to his chest, and pitched forward on his face.

  “They think you’re a genius,” Dot said. “A miracle worker. And you know what, Keller? I have to say I agree with them.”

  “I watched it on TV,” he said.

  “Keller,” she said, “everybody watched it on TV. More people saw it than saw Ruby shoot Oswald. I must have seen it twenty times myself. I wasn’t watching while it happened, but who needs to in the Age of Instant Replay?”

  “I saw it live.”

  “And a few times since then, I’ll bet. Did I say twenty times? It was probably closer to fifty. And you know something, Keller? I still can’t figure out how you did it.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I understand they’re looking for puncture marks,” she said, “like the Bulgarian that got stabbed with the umbrella, or whatever the hell it was. Then two days later he died. They’re looking for puncture marks and traces of a slow-acting poison.”

  “And when they don’t find them?”

  “That’ll show that it’s a poison without a trace, and one that was delivered without breaking the skin. A puff from an atomizer, say. He breathes it in, and a day or two later he has what looks for all the world like a heart attack.”

  “It looked like one,” he said, “because that’s what it was.”

  “Right, but how did you make it happen?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “It just happened.”

  “Right.”

  “Help me find a way to believe that, Keller.”

  “Ask yourself why I would lie to you.”

  She thought about it. “You wouldn’t,” she said. “Well, he was overweight, he was out of shape, and he was under a lot of stress.”

  “Must have been.”

  “And those stairs looked steep. In the movies when somebody gets shot on the stairs he falls all the way to the bottom, but he just sort of flopped on his face and stayed where he fell. Keller? This is even better than the guy crossing the street, and why can’t I remember his name?”

  “Lee Klinger.”

  “Right. There at least you wer
e on the scene. When Petrosian got it you were watching TV in your motel room.”

  “First there was a commercial,” he said, “and I couldn’t tell what they were advertising. And then Petrosian dropped dead, and the first thing I thought was the guy in the helicopter shot him. But nobody shot him, or stabbed him with an umbrella, or sprayed poisoned perfume in his face.”

  “He just dropped dead.”

  “In front of God and everybody.”

  “Especially everybody.” She took a long drink of iced tea. “We got paid,” she said.

  “That was quick.”

  “Well, you’ve got a real fan club in Albuquerque, Keller. There are some people there who may not know your name, but they’re sure crazy about your work.”

  “So they paid the second half. How about the escalator?”

  “It was marble steps. Oh, sorry, I got lost there. Yes, they paid the escalator. You nailed the bastard before they could even swear him in. They paid the escalator, and they paid a bonus.”

  “A bonus?”

  “A bonus.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “To make themselves feel good, would be my guess. I don’t know what the prisons are like in New Mexico, but I gather they’re grateful not to be going, and they wanted to make a grand gesture. What they said, the bonus was for dramatic effect.”

  “Dramatic effect?”

  “On the courthouse steps, Keller? The man dies surrounded by G-men, and the whole world gets to see him do it over and over again? Believe me, they’ll get their money’s worth out of this one. They’ll be playing that tape every time they swear in a new member. ‘You think you can ever cross us and get away with it? Look what happened to Petrosian.’ “

  He thought about it. “Dot,” he said, “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You just went out every morning for a Mexican breakfast.”

  “Huevos rancheros.”

  “And here I always thought a Mexican breakfast was a cigarette and a glass of water. You ate eggs and watched television. What else? Get to a movie?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Buy any stamps?”

  He shook his head. “Roswell’s like a three- or four-hour drive from Albuquerque. The stamp dealers in town, a couple of them just work through the mails, and the one shop I went to was basically a coin dealer. He sells supplies and albums, a few packets, but he doesn’t really have a stamp stock.”

  “Well, you can buy stamps now, Keller. Lots of them.”

  “I suppose so.”

  She frowned. “Something’s bothering you,” she said.

  “I told you. I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know, and that’ll have to be our little secret. And who’s to say it’s true?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it,” she said, and hummed the Twilight Zone theme. “You go to Illinois and Klinger gets hit by a car. You go to Albuquerque and Petrosian has a handy little heart attack. Coincidence?”

  “But . . .”

  “Maybe your thoughts are powerful, Keller. Maybe all you have to do is get to thinking about a guy and his ticket’s punched.”

  “That’s crazy,” he said.

  “Be that as it may,” said Dot.

  Seventeen

  * * *

  “It’s been a while,” Maggie Griscomb said.

  They were in her loft on Crosby Street. Keller’s clothes were neatly folded on the couch, while Maggie’s lay in a black heap on the floor. Music played on her stereo, something weird and electronic. Keller couldn’t guess what the instruments were, let alone why they were being played like that.

  “I thought you weren’t going to call me anymore,” she said. “And then you did. And here you are.”

  Here he was, in her bed, his perspiration evaporating beneath the overhead fan.

  “I was out of town,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “How?” He turned to face her, worked to keep the alarm from showing on his face or in his voice. “That I was out of town,” he said. “How did you know that?”

  “You told me.”

  “I told you?”

  “Two hours ago,” she said, “or whenever it was that you called. ‘Hi, it’s me, I was out of town.’ “

  “Oh.”

  “Or words to that effect. Does it all come back to you now?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I was confused there for a minute, that’s all.”

  “Addled by lovemaking.”

  “Must be.”

  She rolled over on her side, propped her pointed chin on his chest. “You thought I was checking up on you,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Sure you did. You thought I meant I already knew you were out of town, before you told me.”

  That was what he’d thought, all right. And that was why alarm bells had gone off.

  “But I didn’t,” she said, “or I wouldn’t have thought our superficial relationship was coming to an end. ‘He’ll call when he gets back to town,’ I would have thought.”

  Maybe it was the music, he thought. If they played it in a movie, you’d be waiting for something to happen. Something scary, if it was that kind of picture. Something unexpected, whatever kind of picture it was.

  “Or maybe not,” she said. Her eyes were so close to his that it was impossible to read them, or even to look into them without getting a headache. He wanted to close his own eyes, but could you do that when someone was staring into them like that? Wouldn’t it be impolite?

  “I almost called you, Keller. A few days ago. You never gave me your number.”

  “You never asked for it.”

  “No. But I’ve got Caller ID on my phone, and I’ve got your number. Or I used to.”

  “You lost it?”

  “I looked it up, when I almost called you. And I decided calling you was no way to maintain a superficial relationship. So I burned up your phone number.”

  “Burned it up?”

  “Well, no. Tore it into little tiny scraps and threw them out the window like confetti. Which I guess is what they were, because confetti’s just little scraps of paper, isn’t it?”

  His mind filled with the image of a squad of police technicians, piecing together tiny scraps of paper, deliberately assembling a tiny jigsaw puzzle until his telephone number reappeared.

  “You’re losing interest,” she said. “Admit it—the only reason you called me tonight was you felt like having sex.”

  He opened his mouth, prepared to deny the charge, then stopped and frowned. “That’s all we do,” he said.

  “That’s a point.”

  “So why else would I call?”

  “Right,” she said, drawing away. “Got to hand you that one. Why else would you call?”

  “I mean—“

  “I know what you mean. And I made the rules, didn’t I? I’ll tell you something, superficial relationships are as hard to maintain as the other kind. I’m not going to see you again, am I?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I’m not,” she said decisively, “and I think it’s better that way. You with your downtown bohemian mistress, dressed all in black and playing weird music. Me with my buttoned-down corporate lover, living uptown somewhere. I don’t even know where you live.”

  Good, Keller thought.

  “Of course I could find out if I hadn’t turned your phone number into a ticker-tape parade. Just check out the number in a reverse directory. Oh, hell.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You called me a couple of hours ago. I don’t suppose you used a pay phone, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You called from your place.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Damn right you did. I knew it was you before I picked up. Remember how I answered the phone? ‘Well, hello there,’ like I knew who it was. Or did you figure I answer all my calls that way?”

  “I didn’t think about it,” he said.

  “Ma
ybe I should. It would confuse the telemarketers, wouldn’t it? Anyway, I saw the number on the screen, and I recognized it. I never actually memorized it, but I still recognized it when I saw it.”

  “So?”

  “So nobody called me since then, which means it’s still on my called ID screen. I pick up the phone and there’s your number. Listen, do me a favor? First pay phone you come to, call me. Then wherever you’re calling from, that’ll be the number on my Caller ID screen, and I won’t have to have your home number around, complicating my life.”

  The music, he thought, was by no means the weirdest thing going. His phone number? Complicating her life? “Sure,” he said carefully. “I could do that.”

  “In fact, make the call from the pay phone down on the corner. So you don’t forget.”

  “All right.”

  “And the best thing,” she said, “would be if you put your clothes on now, and went straight out and made that call.”

  “If you say so,” he said, “but can’t it wait, and I’ll do it on my way home?”

  “Make the call now,” she said, “on your way home.”

  “Oh.”

  “Or wherever else you want to go. Because we’re history, Keller. So get your number off my phone, and lose my number, and we’ll both get on with our lives. How does that sound?”

  He wasn’t sure if the question required an answer, but in any event he couldn’t come up with one. He got out of bed and into his clothes and out of her loft, and he called her from a pay phone in a bar at the corner of Broadway and Bleecker.

  She picked up right away, and without preamble she said, “It was great fun, but it was just one of those things.” And hung up.

  Keller, feeling he’d missed something, took a seat at the bar. The crowd was mixed—downtown types, uptown types, out-of-town types. The bartender was a Chinese girl with long straight hair the color of buttercups. She had a nose ring, but almost everybody did these days. Keller wondered how the hell that had caught on.