Hit List

by Lawrence Block

“How?”

  “By pressing the right keys, I guess. The thing is, it’s just like a real aquarium, because if you forget to feed the fish, they’ll die.”

  “They die?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How can they die, Keller? They’re not real fish in the first place, are they?”

  “They’re virtual fish.”

  “Meaning what? They’re images on a screen, right? Like a television program.”

  “Sort of.”

  “So they swim around on your screen. And if you don’t feed ’em, then what? They turn belly up?”

  “Evidently.”

  “Have you got one of these, Keller?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I don’t have a computer.”

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  “I don’t want a computer,” he said, “and if I had one I wouldn’t want a virtual aquarium.”

  “How come you know so much about them?”

  “I hardly know anything about them,” he said. “I read an article, that’s all.”

  “Not in one of your stamp magazines.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “If it’s not stamps, what could it be? A woman? Keller, are you seeing that girl again?”

  “What girl?”

  “I guess that’s a no, isn’t it? The black girl, the one who wouldn’t eat dinner. I could come up with her name if I put my mind to it.”

  “Maggie.”

  “Now I don’t have to put my mind to it.”

  “She’s not black. She wears black.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Anyway, I’m not seeing her. Or anybody else.”

  “Probably just as well,” Dot said. “You know what? I give up. I was trying to guess why you can’t leave New York, and I got stuck in a conversation about stamp collecting, and it turned into a conversation about fish, and I don’t want to find out what that’s going to turn into. So let me ask you what I probably should have asked you over the phone. Why can’t you leave New York?”

  He told her.

  Her eyes widened. “Jury duty? You, Keller? You have to be on a jury?”

  “I have to report,” he said. “Whether I actually get on a jury is something else again.”

  “Many are called but few are chosen. But how on earth did you get called in the first place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, the jury system isn’t supposed to make use of people like you, is it?”

  “People like me?”

  “People who do what you do.”

  “Not if they get caught,” he said. “I don’t think you can serve on a jury if you’ve been convicted of a felony. But I’ve never even been charged with a felony, or with anything else. I’ve never been arrested, Dot.”

  “And a good thing.”

  “A very good thing,” he said. “As far as anybody knows, as far as any official records would indicate, I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

  “Citizen Keller.”

  “And I am,” he said. “I don’t shoplift, I don’t use or sell drugs, I don’t hold up liquor stores, I don’t mug people. I don’t stiff cabdrivers or vault subway turnstiles.”

  “How about jaywalking?”

  “That’s not even a misdemeanor. It’s a violation, and anyway I’ve never been cited for it. I have a profession that, well, we know what it is. But nobody else knows about it, so it’s not going to keep me off a jury.”

  “You don’t vote, do you, Citizen Keller? Because I thought they drew jurors from the voter registration lists.”

  “That used to be all they used,” he said, “and that’s probably why I never got called before now. But now they use other lists, too, from Motor Vehicles and the phone company and I don’t know what else.”

  “You don’t own a car. And your phone’s unlisted.”

  “But I’ve got a driver’s license. And they’d use the phone company’s billing records, not the phone book. Look, what’s the difference how they found me? I got a notice, and I have to report first thing Monday morning.”

  “Today’s Friday.”

  “Right.”

  “Can’t you get a postponement?”

  “I could have,” he said, “if I’d asked for one when I got the notice. But I figured I might as well get it out of the way, and things have been slow lately, and I missed my chance.”

  “Won’t they let you off?”

  “On what grounds? They used to let people off all the time. If you were a lawyer, or if you were in business for yourself. Now you just about have to tell them you’re pregnant, and I’m not even sure if that works.”

  “They’d never believe you, Keller.”

  “Nobody gets out of it these days,” he said. “The mayor was on a jury a couple of months ago. Remember?”

  “I read something about it.”

  “He probably could have gotten excused. He’s the mayor, for God’s sake, he can do anything he wants to. But I guess he decided it was good for his image. Imagine if you’re on trial and you look over in the jury box and there’s the mayor.”

  “I’d plead guilty on the spot.”

  “Might as well,” he said. “I wish I could take this job. I could use the work. You know what’s funny? I figured, well, I’ll show up for jury duty because it’ll give me something to do. And now I’ve got something to do, and I can’t do it.”

  “It’s a good one, Keller.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  It was in Baltimore, so you could fly there in less than an hour or get there by train in under three. The train was more comfortable, and, when you factored in the cab rides to and from the airports, it was about as fast. And you didn’t have to show ID when you got on a train, and you could pay cash without drawing a raised eyebrow, let alone a crowd of security types. All things considered, Keller figured trains had a definite edge.

  There was a section of Baltimore called Fells Point, a sort of funky ethnic neighborhood that was starting to draw tourists and people with something to sell them. And—

  “You’re nodding,” Dot said. “You know the neighborhood? When did you ever go to Baltimore?”

  “Once or twice years ago,” he said, “but just in and out. But I know about Fells Point from TV. There’s this cop show set in Baltimore.”

  “Didn’t it get canceled?”

  “It’s in reruns,” he said. “Five nights a week on Court TV.”

  “You watch a lot of Court TV, Keller? As a sort of preparation for jury duty? Never mind.”

  There were, she explained, the usual conflicts that develop in a neighborhood in transition, with one faction desperate to pin landmark status on every gas station and hot dog stand, and the other every bit as eager to tear down everything and build condos and theme restaurants. There was a woman named Irene Macnamara who was a particularly vocal force for or against development, and someone on the other side had reached the conclusion that shutting her up constituted an all-important first step.

  While there had been a lot of loud outbursts at planning commission hearings, a lot of harsh words at press conferences, so far the controversy had not turned violent. So there was no reason for Macnamara to be on her guard.

  Keller thought about it. He said, “You’re sure they haven’t called anybody else?”

  “We’re their first choice.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That Macnamara better not buy any long-playing records, because we were on the case.”

  “You phrased it that way?”

  “Of course not, Keller. I just put that in to brighten your day.”

  “Today’s Friday.”

  “Well, I’ll try to come up with something for Saturday as well. There’s that page in Reader’s Digest, ‘Toward More Picturesque Speech.’ Maybe it’ll give me ideas.”

  “What I mean, today’s Friday. I could go down there tonight and I’d have tomorrow and Sunday.”

  “Catch a train home Sunday
night and you’re ready to do your civic duty bright and early Monday morning.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “No LP’s for Macnamara, and no green bananas either. I don’t know, Keller. I like it but I don’t like it, if you follow me.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “So I’ll say two words. St. Louis.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now that was a quick one. Out and back the same day. Unfortunately . . .”

  “Does this client know he can’t change his mind?”

  “As a matter of fact, he does. I made sure of it. But that’s not the only thing that’s wrong with hurrying. If you go to Baltimore knowing you’ve got less than forty-eight hours to get the job done . . .”

  Keller got the point. It wasn’t great when you could hear the clock ticking.

  “I wouldn’t want to cut corners,” he said, “but say I go down there tonight and spend the weekend looking things over. If I get the opportunity to close the sale, I take it. If not I’m on the train back Sunday night.”

  “And then I tell the client to go roll his hoop?”

  “No, what you tell the client is I’m on the case and the job is as good as done. Jury duty isn’t a lifetime commitment. How long can it take?”

  “That’s what the lady in L.A. said, when they picked her for the O. J. jury.”

  “I’ll go back to Baltimore next weekend,” he said, “and the weekend after that, if I have to, and by then I’ll be done doing my civic duty. Did the client put a time limit on it?”

  “No. He wouldn’t want her to die of old age, but there’s no clause in the contract saying time is of the essence.”

  “So at the most we’re looking at two, three weeks, and if there’s any question you tell them I’m in Baltimore, trying to make sure I do the job right.”

  “And you could always catch a break along the way.”

  “A break?”

  “The famous Keller luck. Macnamara could stroke out or get run over by a cable car.”

  “In Baltimore?”

  “Whatever. Oh, and this doesn’t have to be natural causes, by the way, and in fact it’s better if it’s not. She’s supposed to be an object lesson.”

  “An example to others.”

  “Something like that.”

  He nodded. “I won’t hurry this one,” he said, “but I hope I get it done this weekend.”

  “I thought you liked to take your time.”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Not always.”

  The bar, called Counterpoint, was on Fleet Street, and pretty much in the heart of Fells Point. Keller got a very strange feeling walking into it. On the one hand he felt oddly at home, as if he’d spent a lot of happy hours within its walls. At the same time, he sensed that it was not a safe place for him to be.

  It certainly looked safe enough. The crowd ran to twenty or thirty people, more men than women. They were mostly white, mostly in their thirties or forties. Dress was casual, mood relaxed. Keller had been in bars where you knew right away that half the customers had criminal records, that people were doing coke in the rest rooms, that before the night was over someone was going to break a bottle over someone else’s head. And this simply wasn’t that kind of place, or that sort of crowd. No crooks, no cops. Just ordinary folks.

  And then he got it. Cops. He kept feeling as though the place ought to be full of cops, cops drinking away the tension of the job, other cops behind the bar, drawing beers, mixing drinks. It was that damned program, he realized. The cops on the program had opened a bar together, it was supposed to provide comic relief or something, and he felt as though he’d just walked into it.

  Was this the very place? It wouldn’t be staffed with cops in real life, obviously, but it could be where the TV crew filmed those scenes. Except it wasn’t, the layout was different. It was just a bar, and an unequivocally comfortable one, now that he’d finally figured out what had seemed wrong about it.

  He settled in on his stool and sipped his beer.

  It would be nice to take his time. The neighborhood was the sort he would have liked even if he hadn’t already grown fond of it on television. But he hoped he’d be done with this job in a hurry, and not just for the reason he’d given Dot.

  Irene Macnamara might be a preservationist or a developer, Dot hadn’t known which, and he didn’t know either, not for a fact. But he figured the odds were something like ten to one that she wanted to keep Fells Point the way it was, while their client wanted to throw up hotels and outlet malls and bring in the chain stores. Because that’s where the profit was, in developing an area, not in fighting a holding action to keep it unchanged.

  This didn’t necessarily mean she was a nice person. Keller knew it didn’t always work that way. She could be a holy terror in her private life, nagging her husband and slapping her children and poisoning the pigeons in the park. But as far as the future of Fells Point was concerned, Keller was on her side. He liked it the way it was.

  Of course, that assumed she was a preservationist, and he didn’t really know that for sure. And that was the whole thing, because he really didn’t want to know one way or the other. Because he had the feeling that, the more he got to know about Irene Macnamara, the less inclined he’d be to do the job.

  It would be easier all around if she was off the board before he had to return to New York.

  Which was a shame, because he had to admit he liked it here. It wasn’t the bar from the TV series, and it wasn’t a place he’d ever seen before, but he still felt curiously comfortable. He didn’t have a favorite bar in New York, he didn’t really spend a great deal of time in bars, but he somehow sensed that this place, Counterpoint, would suit him as no New York bar ever had. And wouldn’t it be nice to have a place you came to every day, a place where everybody knew your name, and—

  No, he thought. That was another television series, and it wasn’t real, either.

  Twenty

  * * *

  He was back in New York late Sunday night, and at eight-fifteen the next morning he was at the State Supreme Court building on Centre Street, showing his summons to a guard who told him where to go. You had to pass through a metals detector, too. They had them in the schools now, and in an increasing number of public buildings. Pretty soon, he thought, you’d have to pass through a metals detector to go to the supermarket.

  Probably necessary, though. All these kids bringing guns to class, and all these terrorists. What it did, though, was screw things up for the average law-abiding citizen. Years ago there’d been a rash of airplane hijackings. Before that you just walked onto a plane, the same as a train or a bus, but then because of the hijackers they routed you through a metals detector, and ever since it had been impossible for an ordinary citizen like Keller to bring a gun on a plane.

  Well, maybe that wasn’t the best example . . .

  He hadn’t brought a gun to court, but what he did bring was a book. He hadn’t mentioned his impending jury duty to that many people—he wasn’t friendly with that many people—but he’d said something to the girl who served him breakfast at the coffee shop, and to the doorman at the building next door to his, and to the guy who sold him his newspaper. They all said the same thing, and he had to wonder about the guy at the newsstand. He was a Pakistani, he’d been in the country less than two years, and he already knew you had to bring something to read when you pulled jury duty? Well, Keller told himself, the guy was in the business. He sold reading material, and maybe he had people coming in from time to time, saying they were on jury duty and needed something to read. He’d get the drift that way, wouldn’t he?

  Keller’s novel was a thriller. The bad guy was a terrorist, but no metals detector had a chance against him, because he wasn’t carrying a gun. Instead he was equipped with a sufficient supply of a new supervirus to start a plague that would wipe out the city of New York, and possibly the whole country, and not inconceivably the world. The disease was a particularly nasty one, too, and 1
00 percent fatal, and it didn’t just kill you, either. You bled from every orifice, even your pores, and you convulsed and your bones ached and your tongue swelled up and your teeth fell out and your hands and feet turned purple and you went blind. Then you died, and not a moment too soon.

  The heroine, a special operative from the Centers for Disease Control, was beautiful, of course, but she was also resourceful and decisive and tough-minded. She kept doing stupid things, though, and you wanted to take her by the shoulders and give her a good shaking.

  Keller thought the hero was too good to be true. His wife had been a research scientist with the CDC, and she’d died from a similar disease, one she’d caught from an infected hamster at the research lab. The hero was grieving manfully, and bringing up their kids, all while investigating cases for some secret arm of the Treasury Department. He helped the old lady next door with yardwork, and he coached his kids with their homework, and every woman he met yearned to sleep with him or mother him, or both. Everyone was crazy about him, everyone except the heroine.

  And Keller, but that was pretty much par for the course. White knights had never appealed much to Keller.

  All morning long they called names, and people went to various rooms to see if they’d be selected for juries. Keller’s name wasn’t called, and by lunchtime he was well into his book. On the way out of the building, a woman fell into step beside him. “That book must be good,” she said. “You seemed really engrossed.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “A maniac’s going to start a plague that’ll wipe out New York unless this girl finds a way to stop him.”

  “Woman,” she said.

  Oh boy, he thought. “Well, she’s only six years old,” he said, “so I figured it would be acceptable to call her a girl.”

  “She’s only six?”

  “Going on seven.”

  “And the fate of the world is in her hands?”

  “It’s quite a responsibility at any age,” Keller said. “But it’s good preparation. Fifteen years from now she might have to sit on a jury and decide the fate of a fellow human being.”

  “Awesome.”