16 Hitman

by Parnell Hall

  ~ITDI JL 1V

  PARNELL HALL

  For /im and Fra,nry

  1

  "I'M A HITMAN."

  I sprang from my desk chair, waved my arras. "No, no, no! You didn't say that, I didn't hear that, let's start the conversation again. I'm not an attorney, I'm a private investigator. What you tell me is not a privileged communication. If you confess to a crime, I have to tell the cops."

  "I'm not confessing to a crime."

  "You just told me you're a hitman."

  "That's not a crime. It's a profession."

  "I don't care if it's a breakfast cereal. It's a word I don't want uttered in my office. At least not following the phrase, `I'm a."'

  "Hit man is two words. And `I'm a' isn't a phrase, it's a fragment."

  "What are you, a linguist?"

  "I'm an English teacher"

  "I thought you were a hitman."

  "Yeah, but you didn't want to hear that. I teach public school at Harmon High on West Ninety-second."

  I sat back in my desk chair, sized up my prospective client. Did Martin Kessler look more like a schoolteacher or a contract killer? It was hard to tell. He was wearing a blue blazer with a white shirt, open at the neck. The jacket was loose, could have concealed a shoulder holster or a pocket of pens. His hair was dark, curly, but not greasy-I chided myself for the stereotype. He couldn't have been more than forty, forty-five.

  What had brought him to the Stanley Hastings Detective Agency was hard to imagine. It's a small agency, and I'm it. I have one client, Richard Rosenberg of Rosenberg and Stone, whose TV ads bring in more trip-and-falls than you can shake a private eye at. I am the private eye most often shaken, the old pro, the go-to guy, the longest on the job. Or, as my wife, Alice, puts it, the one without the gumption to get out. (Alice doesn't really put it that way, she's actually very supportive; it's just I can tell that's how she feels. A good therapist could get rich off me, if I could afford a good therapist.)

  It was the wrong time for such ruminations. I had a hitman in my office. Without admitting the fact, I had to find out why.

  "Okay," I said. "You can either leave right now, in which case we have no problem. Or you can tell me what you want, in which case we either have no problem or we have a very big one. Depending on what you say."

  "You mean I can't talk about the people I kill?"

  I put my teeth together, smiled the fakest smile. "I don't seem to be getting through to you. I not only don't want you to mention such things, I don't want you to allude to such things. I don't want you to tell me you're not talking about such things, I want you to simply not do it."

  The guy had twinkling eyes for a hitman. I wondered if he really was. "That would make for an awfully tame conversation."

  "I can live with that."

  "Okay, here's the deal. I've gotten tired of my current occupation, and I'd like to retire."

  "What's stopping you?"

  "You understand I'm not talking about my position at Harmon High "

  "That's for real?"

  "What, you think I could live off the other thing? I assure you I can't."

  "We're not talking about the other thing."

  "I know, I know. We're not talking about anything important. Anything that matters. So, how do you like them Yanks?"

  I squinted at him. "Am I being punked? Is some cop laughing himself sick just now?"

  "Not about this" Martin Kessler took a breath. "Let me try to explain in terms that don't freak you out. I have two jobs. One is as a schoolteacher. One isn't. I would like to keep my teaching job and quit my part-time one. Are you with me so far?"

  I wouldn't exactly phrase it that way, but I get the picture."

  "Here's the problem. My part-time job is not the kind you just up and quit. That is the type of thing that makes an employer unhappy. An unhappy employer is a very bad thing in my parttime job."

  "I understand"

  "Thank god. Only a moron could fail to, and I'd hate to hire a moron"

  "You want to hire me?"

  "Oh, god, you are a moron. No, I came in here looking for lawn furniture"

  "All right. Of course you want to hire me." I frowned. "That's not the way I'd phrase it either. I mean of course that's the reason you're here. Why you'd want to hire me I couldn't begin to imagine.

  "Aren't you a private eye?"

  "In the loosest sense. I chase ambulances for a negligence lawyer. I take pictures of cracks in the sidewalk and help people sue the City of NewYork"

  "Yeah, yeah. I don't really care. Look, here's the deal. I've been given a job. I don't want to do it. But I can't get out of it. It is, and it pains me to say it, an offer I can't refuse. So I can't turn it down. But I got a little time. I don't have to go rushing into it."

  "What do you want from me?"

  "I want help. I want you to help me not do this job.You're not the bad guy. You're the hero, saving the day. Can you live with that?"

  I frowned. Against all odds, Martin Kessler had managed to place the concept of working for a hitman in a context that was damn near acceptable.

  "What would I have to do?"

  "Not much. Follow me around. Watch my back. See if anyone's taking an interest in me."

  "Why would they?"

  Kessler's smile was pained. "You're unusually slow, aren't you? Of course you compound it by insisting I talk around the subject. Let's just say when a particular name fails to appear on the obituary page, certain people will want to know why"

  I shuddered.

  "So? Do you want the job, or don't you?"

  I had one question. After the tenor of our conversation, I felt more than a little embarrassed to ask it.

  "How much does it pay?"

  2

  RICHARD ROSENBERG HAD A HABIT of ridiculing anything I did. In particular, anything I did outside his private practice. This was generally a ploy to keep me in his private practice; still, Richard always seemed to get a kick out of it, almost as if he were sharpening his jaws for court. It didn't matter how sound, sane, or rational a project of mine might be, Richard would manage to poke a hole in it. The full force of his sarcasm and irony could be unleashed at a moment's notice without the slightest provocation.

  In this case he had cause.

  "A hitman.You're working for a hitman"

  "No, I'm working for a schoolteacher."

  "Who works as a hitman"

  "I said hypothetically. "

  "I said hypothetically. Otherwise, you wouldn't have said anything. You're not getting me involved in your cockamamie schemes"

  "What qualifies my scheme as cockamamie?"

  "Your hypothetical hitman. Hell, just the fact you have to talk in hypotheticals at all should tell you this is something you shouldn't do."

  "I have no choice."

  "Why?"

  "I've seen his face. If I refused, he'd have to kill me."

  It's hard to shock Richard, but that did. His mouth fell open. "Are you serious?"

  I wasn't. I was joking. But the moment I said it, it seemed a distinct possibility. Apparently, schizophrenics shouldn't joke about hitmen. A lesson learned too late.

  I didn't want to look terrified in front of Richard. I settled back into the depth of his overstuffed client's chair and tried to act nonchalant. "The problem is, this is basically a good guy."

  "Who kills people?"

  "He has that one personality flaw."

  "Which you intend to overlook."

  "Which I am not prepared to admit."

  "Hypothetically."

  "Oh, no, I'm genuinely not prepared to admit it."

  Richard smiled, cocked his head. "I'm glad to see the color return to your cheeks.You covered well, but the prospect of your new client rubbing you out clearly took you
aback"

  "Wait till I tell him you're standing in the way of my working for him."

  Richard shrugged. "Nice try, but I doubt if he'd go for such convoluted logic. That was what you were implying, right? That he would rub me out to obtain your services. I'm sorry, but that's too stupid to be scary."

  "Yeah, look, I gotta give this guy an answer."

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow morning."

  "He can wait that long?"

  "It's a casual hit. Not pressing. As a pro, he makes his own schedule."

  "So how will they know he's not doing it?"

  "That's what I said. Apparently, there's a reasonable period of time in which there is an expectation of success."

  "I'm sure that's how he phrased it"

  "Actually, the guy's an English teacher."

  "I don't want to know."

  "Right. Anyway, is there any reason why I shouldn't do this job?"

  "Aside from sanity, logic, and a moral sense of right and wrong?"

  "Yeah. Aside from that"

  Richard steepled his fingers. "You have a job. You work for nie. You may not count that as an obligation, but, trust nee, it is. I depend on you"

  "You have other operatives."

  "Operatives? Did you really just say operatives?"

  "You have other investigators."

  "They're not nearly as good."

  "Then I should make more money."

  The suggestion was my usual conversation stopper, but Richard steamed right through it. "You know you have to be in court."

  "What?"

  "You're testifying in the Fairbourne case. Or have you forgotten?"

  "Of course I haven't forgotten" I certainly had. I never testify in court, and when I do, it's no big deal, usually about serving papers on the defendant. "Can't you get a continuance?"

  "Oh, sure. I'll shoot right over to the hospital and tell the quadriplegic with the spinal cord injury who needs money for the experimental surgery that could let him breathe on his own that I'm terribly sorry, I hope he won't mind waiting, but my witness has to help out a hitman"

  "Boy, talk about loading an argument"

  "You loaded it. I just pulled the trigger."

  "That doesn't even make any sense, Richard"

  "Maybe not, but it sounded good. The point is, you lose. No way you can justify this one."

  "Right," I said. "I'll just tell the widow with the two little children that I'm really sorry I couldn't keep her husband alive but I had to be in court helping a negligence lawyer rip off an insurance company.

  Richard smiled. "You'd have made a good lawyer."

  "I'm not ruthless enough."

  "Too bad. So tell the guy you have to be in court"

  "When?"

  Richard consulted his Daily Planner. "Friday."

  "This Friday?"

  "No. Next week."

  "Next week? No problem."

  "Oh? You'll be done by then? What makes you think so?"

  "Well, it stands to reason"

  "It doesn't stand to reason. If the hit were going down, you'd be done by then. No problem, piece of cake, the guy's dead, it's over. But if the guy's not going to do the job, it's open-ended. It'll never be done unless you fail. At which point either the mark will be dead, the shooter will be dead, or you will be dead. Or some combination of the three. Any of which will terminate your employment. Is that a fair assessment of the situation?"

  "Fair to whom?"

  "So tell the guy you got a previous engagement, you're willing to take the job, but you're busy next Friday."

  "He may not like that."

  "I know how he feels. Anyway, this job is apt to result in the death of someone before then. In the event you aren't the one deceased, you would be free to testify."

  "And if it isn't ... ?"

  Richard smiled his patented thin-lipped smile. It was what poker players would call a tell, heralding the arrival of the most calmly delivered, devastatingly scathing sarcasm. "In the unlikely event the matter is not resolved, don't you think that a person who kills people for a living could manage to stay alive for a few hours without relying on a private eye whose, dare I say, expertise is more in the field of photography than self-defense?"

  It occurred to nie, long about then, that I wasn't getting anywhere with Richard Rosenberg.

  I decided to try Sergeant MacAullif.

  After all, how bad could it be?

  3

  "YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

  I hadn't expected MacAullif to be pleased. And he did not disappoint. A burly homicide cop who'd shared in some of my adventures, Sergeant MacAullif was always torn between helping me out and shoving me through a wall. Today he seemed to be leaning toward the latter.

  "Well, what would you like me to have done?"

  "Did the phrase `No, I don't kill people' ever occur to you?"

  "That's a clause."

  "What?"

  "It has a subject and a predicate."

  "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "Nothing. I've just been brushing up on my English grammar lately."

  "Well, bully for you. Would the motherfucking, cocksucking, sequence of words `No, I don't kill people' have any significance to you other than its grammatical classification?"

  "I'm not going to kill anyone."

  "Or associate with those who do."

  "You associate with those who do."

  "I arrest those who do. I don't accept employment from them."

  "Bullshit, MacAullif. What about undercover cops? Don't they get hired by dope-dealing psychokillers all the time?"

  MacAullif exhaled through clenched teeth, emitting a highpitched whistle. Dogs in Coney Island perked their heads up. "Why are you here?"

  "I told you. I have a hypothetical problem. I thought it would interest you."

  "Well, think again. I'm a little busy this morning, what with actual homicides, not hypothetical ones that haven't even happened yet."

  "You're saying I shouldn't have brought you this?"

  "If wishes were horses."

  "Hey, I'm the good guy here, keeping John Q. Public alive."

  "No, you're the bad guy. In my office with something I don't wanna hear. Asking for help I don't wanna give."

  "I didn't ask for help."

  "Then why are you here?"

  "Well, actually . .

  "Oh, shit."

  "You have any mob connections?"

  "I've seen The Godfather."

  "That isn't what I meant."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's a little tricky."

  "You're lucky I don't run you in. That's probably what I should do. Arrest you, put you in the box, and sweat it out of you."

  "Sweat what out of me? I'm willing to tell you the whole thing."

  "I don't want to know the whole thing."

  "You're not making any sense. What do you want?"

  "You could get out of my office.You could pretend you never came. You could go about your business and I could go about mine. "

  "It wouldn't bother you that you ignored this lead?"

  "A hypothetical? Of course not"

  "Okay."

  I got up, headed for the door.

  "Hey! Where you going?"

  "I'm getting out of your office, like you said"

  "Come back here!"

  I went back and sat down.

  MacAullif glowered at me.

  "So," I said. "What do you want to know?"

  "Never mind the hypothetical bullshit. Why are you here? What do you want?"

  "I assume you're not going to assign a cop to help me."

  "That would be a good guess"

  "You have resources I don't have. In terms of checking people out."

  "Soy

  "If I were to give you a name, you'd be able to run it down, see if the guy was connected, and, if so, to whom."

  "To whom? You really are watching your grammar."

  "You'd be able to tell m
e whether this was a person I should be dealing with."

  "I can tell you right now, this is a person you shouldn't be dealing with under any circumstances"

  "You don't know the name I'm going to give you."

  "You mean it isn't him?"

  "I'm not saying it is. I'm not saying it isn't. Just someone I want you to check out. There's no reason why you shouldn't. It might be totally unrelated to what we've been discussing."

  "And what have we been discussing?"

  "Nothing. We've been talking hypothetically."

  MacAullif opened his desk drawer, took out a cigar, and drummed it on the desk, a habit he had when I was pissing him off. He druninied cigars on his desk a lot. "Why do you want me to trace this name?"

  "l)o you want to know?"

  "Of course I do."

  "Guy wants to marry my daughter. I want to see if he's a good risk"

  "You haven't got a daughter."

  "Damn. It sounded so plausible."

  "What's the name?"

  "Martin Kessler."

  "That's the guy we've been talking about?"

  "Obviously not."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I haven't got a daughter"

  "Go on. Get the hell out of my office."

  "You'll trace the name?"

  "I'm not saying that"

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'll like you better when you're gone."

  I got the hell out of his office.

  4

  "WHY DOES HE WANT YOU?"

  Alice put her finger right on it. Which was not surprising. My wife has a knack of zeroing in on the heart of any issue. Or at least she appears to. When Alice is on a roll, I can barely get a word in edgewise. Not that it would do me any good. Alice can argue that black is white or up is down so convincingly that I haven't a prayer of contradicting her. Indeed, she is the master of the Socratic method, leading me though a series of questions that come to the inevitable conclusion. Hers. She is so good at this that the only way I know to deal with her is to attempt to figure out what her position is and then adopt it, leaving her nothing to push against. This is fine in theory, but even in such situations Alice can prove me wrong.

  "He wants me because-"

  "No, he doesn't," Alice declared, and I knew I was in trouble.